WALK WITH A WHITE SURGEON SANGOMA (SHAMAN) #2
Anon.
When you tell your story to yourself or to a trusted, supportive witness you may be surprised by the wisdom that comes out of it. Clearly your story will differ from anyone else's but nevertheless it is unique. The ancestors say that unless we actualize what has happened to us in a positive way we have it, but have not embraced it, we have not owned it. We have to bring it home to ourselves to help us grow. We need to go where the catalyst is and that can sometimes be painful. Turn the crap into manure - grist for the mill.
The lessons of my "story" which I will partly share in the subsequent blogs, I hope will you induce you to record your own story and look at the lessons gleaned along the way. The good should empower you, and the bad induce you to be more of who you are and can be.
"I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games... I have failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." Magic Jordan
We have to acknowledge unskillfulness before we can correct it. The Talmud says that one who cannot see themselves cannot be redeemed.
It is important to get as many skills as possible, as many tools in your spiritual tool box to help in the transformational process.
The ancestors stress;
The value of information is in its use for transformation.
After the San experience I began to connect with curanderos in Peru and to recognize that like the San Bushmen, they had intuitive abilities that I wished I had. The only concern was that it seemed that in order to "see" one had to take an entheogen, a sacred mind altering plant which was only used in ceremony for diagnosis and healing. I had two experiences with ayahuasca - the vision vine of the jungle - which were most informative but I did not want to rely on an entheogen to open up my "Third Eye." I reasoned that using an entheogen was like going to the top of a spiritual mountain top in a helicopter, when I felt I would rather walk up slowly up to honor the process.
Around this time I was going back to South Africa and taking groups on Inward Bound Journeys. I began to experience the magic of bone divination practiced by the Southern African sangomas. Going back to the watering hole of my origins felt right and I appreciated that using entheogens were not seminal to this tradition.
Their readings were profoundly accurate but what astonished me was the following.
"Your ancestors are calling you to do our work, divination, dreams, plant medicines."
I would have liked nothing more but doubted my psychic abilities. I was flattered but chose to ignore their instructions (these readings were all from different sangomas, in different parts of the country, none of whom knew each other and they all said the same thing.)
Eventually out of frustration my ancestors came through a sangoma I was consulting near the Kruger National park. She became "possessed" and channeled the following;
"Your ancestors have been telling you what to do but you have ignored their instruction ! Until such time as you listen your very bad headaches will not go away !"
I was getting migraines on a regular basis and nothing I took helped. Fortunately they happened at night and were gone by morning and I could go to work.
The spirit that the sangoma channelled was stern and unconditional and I knew I would have to do something about their insistency. I also for the first time realized that I had the "calling sickness."
"The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf. "
Shakti Gawain
"Out there beyond ideas or wrong-doing and right-doing there is a Field. I will meet you there." Rumi
Synchronicity and the "Field" of Potential
It was at this time that synchronicity began to show its face. When I went back to Johannesburg a friend gave me a book by Susan Schuster Campbell, titled - Called to Heal. Susan was an American CEO who had been stationed in Southern Africa. She had had a life changing experience with a sangoma. This induced her to visit prominent healers and write this book. I managed to locate her and asked her. "Of all the sangomas you interviewed which ones would you recommend for initiation." Without hesitation she recommended two. The first, Nomsa Dlamini lived in Soweto Johannesburg - a township devoid of any nature. I decide to go to Swaziland where P.H. Mntshali - a Zulu sangoma lived.
Power Animals or "Signs" along the way
Your guides, can - with their energy - guide animals or send other signs and signals to help inform and reinforce what you are doing,
or even warn, against doing what you intend to do. One has to be openly receptive to the unusual, the subtle and sometimes the common behaving in a strange way, in order to discern and heed the message.
These signs helped tell me that I was now on the right track. As I drove through the Swaziland border gate I spotted a martial eagle (an unusual siting and in the wrong place) close by sitting on a pole looking at me in a strange way. After driving down the dirt road to P.H. Mntshalis' homestead a large monitor lizard (the size of a small crocodile) slithered across the road right in front of me. Synchronicity often appears as a power animal at the right time and in the right place to give a message of support. The eagle - a bird of seeing, the lizard - a dream animal.
When I arrived I immediately took to P.H. He also lived in a rural area with enough nature around to satisfy my Bushman consciousness. What I especially liked was that he said he represented the ancient healing wisdom of the Zulu unpolluted by the missionaries or the west. He also warned ...
"The trouble with Westerners is that they have lost the way, they pay no attention to their ancestors. Some do not even know who they are. They are like papers blowing in the wind. They may have everything the want or need but are unguided and unprotected spiritually from the other side."
After throwing the bones that confirmed he should initiate me he said; "Your job will be to take this knowledge to the West where very few know about it."
The ancestors, some time later when I was back in California said the same thing;
"You are to take from there (South Africa) to bring to here." (Not the other way around.)
P.H. in his traditional attire with his initiate
Learning divination
Dancing to the sound of the drum which brings forth the ancestors
My most epic power animal experience was on route to meet the "Prophet" and his "brother" sangoma who were going to take me to the river, to the Water Spirit - the Unzunzu. I knew I had to do this before becoming complete. While driving to the destination I encountered a series of nine hammerkops in quick succession, The "Hammerkop" (Afrikaans for Hammerhead) is a mystical bird in African lore. There was one on a tree branch, another in the road, a third on a pole, one flying ahead of the car etc. I felt these were good omens of what was to come.
P.H. later told me there would be nine guides who would be working with me in the future.
In order to see and experience you must first believe. Although I did not understand what the water spirit was, I fully believed in its existence and what it might do for me in my initiation. After going to the water everything changed with the dancing and the trancing and I completed my time with P.H. with much gratitude.
A Hammerkop
After P.H. I spent time in the far north of South Africa (just south of the Limpopo river) looking for a healing center that I had seen in a dream during my time with him. In the dream two Bushmen came out to greet me. I was in a valley and on the one side was a two tiered mountain with a distinct ridge between the two levels. The lower level was bush covered, the upper, rocky but numinous and luminous. The rocks were shimmering and vibrating. The dream was so compelling I knew I had to find, vision and build this magical place into an indigenous healing center.
During my initiation I had learned divination, had begun to understand the power of dreams scripted by guides and also realize that they could "copy and paste" information into my intuitive psyche in awake time. However, I had learned very little about sacred plants and how to use them. I felt like a medical student who had just graduated but now needed to embark not only on an internship but also a residency to gain more depth especially with sacred plants. After a prolonged hunt for the place of my dream, I found it and made the vision materialize.
My postgraduate training was to happen at my dream place which I called Tshisimane - The Source (in Venda.)
Far upper right - the mountain landscape of my dream
I already had my diagnostic bones to divine psycho-spiritual diseases but at Tshisimane I found my "medicine bag." Below is a list of the sicknesses unknown to Western medicine and psychiatry that I learned existed and that I could diagnose with the bones. I could now also treat them effectively with sacred plants.
The first cause below is rather one of Omission rather than commission as P.H. had warned - being unprotected by the spirit world. The question mark speaks to the fact that only the Creator understands the meaning of illness and why some get it and others do not. Someone once said;
"Anyone who is not confused here really does not understand what is going on."
Little did I realize that I was also going to have to learn a lot about countering witchcraft and sorcery. The minute I arrived at Tshisimane
illegal land claims were levied on the property. The claimants in addition to using a biased legal system effectively also employed three expert witches to work against us and to ensure their claim would be successful.
Andries below was now my new mentor and assisted me with this. He lived only an hour's drive away - P.H. in Swaziland was a six hours away too far to be practical.
Andries my new mentor at Tshisimane
For those interested, this movie was done by South African T.V. just before I relinquished Tshisimane to the illegal claims. It is about 45 minutes and may be of interest to those intrigued by indigenous African wisdom as well as the story. It may help you to tell yours.
Click on the link to play Wounded Healer
P.S.
For those interested in an upcoming Zoom class in two sessions on
FINDING HAPPINESS IN DARK TIMES
To register go to # 4 or 5
IMPORTANT LINKS:
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2. Registration Help Page: https://www.sbcc.edu/
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4. THIS ONE FOR THIS & FUTURE CLASSES
Fee-Based Class Schedule: https://www.sbcc.
5. THIS ONE SHOULD TAKE YOU DIRECTLY TO THE UPCOMING CLASS
https://sbcc.augusoft.net/
-- School of Extended Learning (SEL)
1. Help Page: https://www.sbcc.edu/
2. Registration Help Page: https://www.sbcc.edu/
3. Noncredit Class Schedule: https://banner.sbcc.
4. THIS ONE FOR THIS & FUTURE CLASSES
Fee-Based Class Schedule: https://www.sbcc.
5. THIS ONE SHOULD TAKE YOU DIRECTLY TO THE UPCOMING CLASS
https://sbcc.augusoft.net/
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