THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL & THE GAIA CONCEPT

The stars and planets having a divine consciousness greater even than that of humans and only slightly less than that of angels, as do stones, water, earth and air.

If you want to learn the language of rocks and trees you must first slow to their pace which is different from animals and wild flowers. Although they are soundless they are not silent, so listen long and deeply in order to hear what hearing ears do not.

Fauna, flora, stones, planets, stars, sun and moon, waters and the earth are replete with God’s creative intent. And so do we have the attributes  of all the plants, minerals and animals and the power of the winds and their directions.

The rock may not let you image it simply as a chunk of granite or quartz but as a form of a beautiful sprite in a crystalline gown or the tree may show itself as the legendary green man.
Also be sure to introduce yourselves since they respond to respectful and sweet manners just as with the ancestors.

The Ancestors

This drawing made by a Kua San Bushman in the Kalahari in 1987 tells the story of creation. The Earth Mother was pregnant with all the Four Beings of the planet including the stars, the moon and the fire. After Her belly ruptured causing the creation it sealed over again, becoming the earth's crust. The San men and women were the first people, hunter gatherers, living in the archetype of the Garden of Eden with all that nature could provide to keep them happy, healthy and alive. They lived in harmony with Gaia, as did other indigenous peoples, taking only what they needed with gratitude and respect to the Creator. The San knew that "Gaia" was conscious too. 

The Quechua believe the same of Pacha Mama as did the Native Americans and other indigenous peoples.

"All things share the same breath; the beast, the tree the human ... the air shares it's spirit with all the life it supports."

"Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground they spit upon themselves."

"Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a stand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." Chief Seattle

The Native Americans have been saying for some time that the red skies are coming. They are here now with a vengeance. Pacha Mama may be wreaking the havoc we are experiencing because of the way we have treated Her. Pacha Mama and Gaia are feminine. Chief Seattle puts the blame on the male gender which is appropriate but now we all are culpable. 

Mayan scholars stated that Mayan calendar did not forecast doom in 2012 and that the idea that the earth was to end in 2012 misrepresented Mayan history and culture. Astronomers rejected the various proposed desperate scenarios as pseudoscience. New age thinking, however, suggested  that the world was to end one era and enter another with earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and all sorts of devastating destruction in the process. Scientists mocked this prediction but if one thinks of the prediction as the summation of a gradual cataclysmic process because of our lack of sustainability, the idea was not far wrong.

The Kogi tribe in Colombia believe they were placed on our Earth Mother to protect her and have warned us before of her imminent destruction. They say it is reversible, even while maintaining our lifestyle but that we must take action immediately. James Lovelock believes that the right technology will save us.  

The Bible tell us there is hope.

"The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the leopard with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together and a little child will lead them." Isaiah

"For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field and wild animals will be at peace with you." Job

“Earth is best understood as a single, self-regulating, Superorganism. The planet is self-regulating through the interaction between living things and the inorganic environment on earth. Gaia’s goal is to maintain a balance in the ecosystem that allows Her to stay alive.” J. Lovelock and Magulis

Margulis was a microbiologist and although she did not believe Gaia was a conscious being she was well aware of the fact that eventually pandemics would be a consequence of climate change and cause further disruption of the planet's balance. Scientists have been predicting for some time that it was not a question of if - but only when - we would suffer these consequences. Just as Gaia is warning us that she may reject us from the planet, Covid which arose from our human mismanagement is now enabling our immune system to reject us from ourselves through endothelial inflammation and an immuno-thrombotic process. 

The healing and transformational benefits of Gaia, the elements and of the Four Beings of Nature apart from their material benefits make it imperative that we sustain the natural world in an optimal state of being – if feasible as close as possible to its own original nature. The Gaia hypothesis implies that Nature needs to exist for Her own sake. We, however, desperately need Her for our health and our own sakes’ as well. Lovelock said the current pandemic could even be seen as beneficial, in a cruel Darwinian kind of way.

"The far bigger threat to humanity in the early 21st century is global warming ... Climate change is more dangerous to life on Earth than almost any conceivable disease and if we don't do something about it, we will find ourselves removed from the planet."

“We cannot have well beings on a sick planet no matter how advanced our technology.” T. Berry

“The first rule of intelligent tinkering with world systems is to save all the parts.” Aldo Leopold

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have  yet not learned how to ask.” Nancy Newhall

Unfortunately, because of the earth changes we are losing more and more "parts" every day. Gaia is sick and some are saying the apocalyptic changes are Her revenge. Karma. The law of cause and effect - works at all levels and there are consequences for everything that we do - maybe also a kind of collective, global, planetary karma. 

If we fail Enoch may be proved correct. Its up to us and our free will. We need to choose very soon.

“And the high mountains will be shaken and the high hills laid low and will melt like wax in a flame.”

“And the earth will sink ... and there will be judgment upon all.” The book of Enoch

Technology can come to the rescue and save us from the earth changes but we must also save us from ourselves. Climate change and Covid are telling us that our current life style is unsustainable. Let us hope that we listen and prove history wrong. Our ingenuity can prevail but it must be before it is too late.

 

We cannot preserve the primal mind but we need to develop a more  primal sustainable consciousness about how to live on our planet.

“We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” Chesterton

 

THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL # 8

“The sages who have died are present in this world to a greater extent than when they were alive.” The Zohar

 

Spirit guides are not subject to time and space.
They are always around but not always to be known, always within call but not always to be heard, always present but not always to be sensed, always holding us, but not always to be felt. The Ancestors

Just as sangomas and Bushmen healers believe in the power of ancestors and guides to help them so do other ancient wisdoms, both indigenous and non-indigenous. 

Sangomas and Bushman shamans are experts in obtaining non-local information from the other side of the veil between the worlds in dreams, trance possession, out of body travel and divination. 

The manner in which they do so differs. 

The San Bushmen in their out of body spirit trance dance actually fall motionless on the ground while their spirit travels across the veil to glean information. When the dancer returns to his/her body they transmit the wisdom to the clan to help them survive, heal and hunt.

The Bantu peoples and their sangomas in Southern Africa are distinctly different in appearance from their Bushmen neighbors. Voluntary trance possession by a spirit where the ego steps aside and a spirit takes over the body is distinctly part of sangoma tradition. It is not sanctioned by some because of the cosmic law of free will. This frowns upon giving up one’s identity to a spirit force no matter how vital the information or trustworthy the spirit. 

Trance-channeling, common in the West, where the spirit is remote from the body differs radically from trance possession.

“When a word is spoken in the name of its speaker his/her lips move in the grave. And the lips of him who utters the word move like those of the master who is dead. A sage cannot speak words of teaching unless s/he first links his soul to the soul of his dead teacher or to that of his teacher’s teacher.” Talmud

  

The Israelites were originally nature bound like indigenous peoples. They honored the directions and sacred plants such as myrtle, hyssop, cedar, palm and willow. Seasons and festivals, were determined by a Lunar Calendar. Earth and stones were imbued with spirit or animated by the breath of the Divine. Each plant was said to have an angel or a spirit watching over it.

The 12 tribes had totem animals. They used sound, incense and ritual bathing to cleanse and heal. Sangomas went further by placing sacred plants in their healing baths as passwords to the spirit world for specific healing intentions.

 

“God says, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities . . .” Ezekiel

 

Incense repels and clears dark forces within and without. Plant medicines were used for an array of issues.  Smudging and blowing medicinal smoke through a ram horn (shofar) could purify. Red string, stones and amulets were used for protection.

There are many similarities between the shamanic characteristics of the Israelites and Southern African indigenous traditions.

 Bones appear to have immense spiritual power. Elephants have been seen doing rituals with the bones of their departed ones. They visit elephant grave sites and have been filmed using their bones in a type of funeral procession where they walk in a line and hand a bone back along the line with their trunks (Cynthia Moss.) 

Animals and humans were said to be endowed with their own unique "essence" (Etzem in Kabbalah) resident in their bones. In the divination set of the sangoma, each animal is endowed with its own unique personality. For instance, the anteater is the animal that digs the grave, and this bone talks of death or spirits on the other side. When the bones are "thrown,"energetically by the presiding spirit in a form of telekinesis, the anteater bone, knows exactly where to fall, in what orientation to lie and what to tell. 

Ancient Hebrew shamans believed in the powers inherent in different animals – for instance, the eagle was an animal of compassion, the vulture was endowed with insight, and the raven was known to be the trickster. In sangoma medicine vulture medicine is used to facilitate one’s ability to “see” and divine.  

Animal sacrifice was practiced in Temple days by the Hebrews as the ultimate atonement for sins against God. For sangomas, animal sacrifice is the ultimate restitution that is made to an ancestor to reconcile guilt, shame and remorse, for releasing intrusive spirits and appeasing the dead. The cry of the sacrificial animal is believed to get the immediate attention of the spirit world. Sangoma initiation is predicated on this fact, requiring sacrifices to be made, usually of a goat or a chicken. It is done in a sacred manner and the meat is eaten and a portion left for the ancestors.

 Many of these principles can also be found among other indigenous peoples on different continents. They are universal truths, but our modern way of life has discarded this wisdom as primitive, superstitious thinking. 

God’s cosmic law is free will, and African understandings are well aware of this. It is implicit in the divinatory process and in dream interpretation. The bones and the dreams tell you “what to see, not what to be!” What you do with the information is up to you.

There is an “Old Testament-like” nature in much of what the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa believe and this existed long before the missionaries arrived and who focused mainly on the New Testament. 

These mystical cultures as well as the Druids and Celts were well aware of the power of tricksters and dark forces that could sabotage one’s life path, attempts at spiritual transformation or healing.

 

There is nothing you can think or intend that is not accessible to dark forces and that they will not attempt to corrupt. 

The Ancestors 

 

The dark side, sorcery and witchcraft were recognized by Kabbalah as part of the Omnipresent primordial light and darkness

“I create the light and the dark – choose light!”

Lucifer and the Nephilim (the fallen angels) are at the heart of this darkness. 

The influence of tricksters is well known amongst most indigenous peoples. They are also represented in the divination set of the sangoma.

There is a tribe in Southern Africa called the Balemba or the Lemba  that are unique in that they have always claimed that they were black Jews. Recently, genetic studies have proved them correct. In fact many were genetically found to be members of the priestly sect of the Israelites

Their traditions are similar to other neighboring tribes. Women are considered ritually impure during menstruation, as are medicine men or women who attend a corpse. Anyone who eats road kill or an animal that has died of natural causes is also impure. Bantu sangomas purify themselves before doing any divination or healing after attending a funeral. 

It is hard to know fact from legend, but the Lemba believe that they are descendants of Solomon. Possibly after Nebuchadnezzar sacked the temple, around 700 B.C., they may have migrated south instead of being forced into exile in Babylon. Alternatively, when the Israelites were released from exile in Babylon and allowed to return home, some may have migrated south instead. There are many theories as to their origins. They seem to have first journeyed to Yemen, to a place called Senna, where they lived for some time. They then crossed the Indian Ocean and trekked down the eastern side of Africa. Some migrated across the Limpopo River into what is now called Venda, while the rest remained in Zimbabwe. Still others earlier on might have gone west to Ethiopia to become the Falashas. There are also black Jews in Uganda.

The Lemba were also warriors with expertise in making metal weapons. The Great God, Mwari, gave them a sacred drum or Ngoma Lugundu, the drum that thunders. Before engaging in battle with tribes that opposed their safe passage, they would sound the drum, which apparently made them invincible. The drum was carried on poles, much like the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant, and was never to touch the ground. They were also duty-bound to keep to their traditions.

However, when they arrived at the Limpopo River, they intermarried and became lax with their laws. The sacred drum fell on the ground and was lost, and after that misfortune overtook them. 

The Lemba now are a paradoxical population of tens of thousands of self-proclaimed Jews who live mostly in Malawi, Zimbabwe and in Venda. Many today also follow Christianity or Islam but still proudly lay claim to their Jewish heritage. There are about 70,000 Lemba in Southern Africa. 

Many of the principles of Bantu spirituality are shared by the Lemba. The Lemba had no Torah and other Southern African tribes had no Bible, Koran, Vedas or sacred texts to learn from. Theirs was an oral tradition. 

The Bantu peoples, and the Bushmen of Southern Africa, have sophisticated psycho-spiritual abilities. We in the West, with all our education and technology seem to be lacking in these dimensions. 

An explanation for the advanced spiritual skills of Africa’s indigenous peoples may lie in the fact that they had been living in close proximity to nature and the earth - the Garden of Eden archetype. They learned  spiritual and healing secrets from their contact with nature, and being able to stay close to their primal intelligence and natural rhythms. Sadly, this pure indigenous knowledge, that has until recently only been taught by word of mouth, is now slowly being polluted by adoption of our modern way of life. 

"This is the original medicine and it will never change." 

P.H. Mntshali (my sangoma mentor.)

Within nature lies the secret tongue of the Great Spirit, or what Kabbalah would call the Sod – the secret. The Bushmen and the Bantu sangomas have studied and mastered the essence of this language from nature.

Ask of the wild animals and they shall teach you and the birds of the sky shall tell it to you or speak to the earth for she shall guide you and the fishes of the sea will declare it to you” Job

 

THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL # 7

After our short break ...

OTHER SPIRITUAL CAUSES OF "DIS"'-EASE, SICKNESS OR ILLNESS 

4.   Energetic or ritual pollution is a negative energetic imprint due to certain situations, places, articles, and especially to unskillful exposures to blood or death. 

One can find reference to pollution or ritual impurity in Leviticus. In biblical times, anyone who had been in contact with a dead body, or who had eaten an animal that had not been killed in a "kosher" manner, was not allowed back into the community until he or she had been purified. Kosher killing and preparation of meat requires the humane exsanguination of only certain animals and then extracting the remaining blood with the help of sea salt.

Religious Jewish women are not allowed to be in contact with their husbands during menstruation. 

Native Americans have similar beliefs around menstruation and a woman is not allowed to participate in a sweat lodge during this time.

Sangomas also recognize a state of ritual impurity resulting from sex during menses, contact with a corpse, and eating a dead animal found in the bush or road kill. Blood which carries the life force is seen to have power. Sangoma believe this effect can be too "strong" for a man if sex occurs on a woman's moon cycle.

Ritual impurity can also occur after a journey, and in possessing certain objects that may have been used for negative purposes. One should be careful of buying antiques or decorating with certain objects  that may have been used in dark ceremonies.

In sangoma belief and in the Bible, land or places can be polluted or cursed. Sometimes fire is the only thing that can purify demonic evil and malevolence. 

"You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place." Deuteronomy

Demonic worship is often practiced with such zealotry, determination and passion that its power has a lasting force for captivating and destroying. 

It is best that one not try to remove the rotten and decaying apples from the pile, but rather move the good apples far away. In some instances, if the stench and rot still present danger, then it may be appropriate for a cleansing, sterilizing and purifying to take place, but only by knowledgeable specialists in such matters. The Ancestors

Places with water are difficult to purify, water having consciousness, holds on to the profane vibrations.

 “God’s purpose in so treating man is to lead him to himself and away from the pit.” Job.

 

It seems that Southern African primal wisdom was also well aware of the subtle energies that can lead humans to the “pit.”

5.   Witchcraft or sorcery and the commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” was an edict against the evil "wind" or dark spirits, the evil eye, the evil tongue and the evil inclination. Witchcraft and sorcery are recognized as arising from someone with a heart of envy. Envy leads to covetousness which can have malignant consequences to a victim subjected to witchcraft as well as severe karmic consequences to the perpetrator.

6.    Soul loss or soul sickness. Described as follows by the Ancestors.

The soul yearns to do the creator’s will and clings to the body when all is well. Soul dysfunctions, which are many, and a body caught up in cravings and attached to sentient pleasures distances the soul.
The soul withdraws causing “sickness.”
The body’s attachment to unskillful sentient pleasures needs to be broken so the soul (or essence) can return to the body.

“Because of the sound of my sighing has my essence cleaved onto my flesh^…”

… Is speaking of the soul’s essence lodging comfortably in the body. 

The right sound is crucial in breaking down or chasing away resistances. Sound shatters and crumbles barriers to the mind and heart. Sound speaks to one’s vibrations. One of the best ways to cleanse and clear oneself of the cloyingness of dark forces is to dispel or change the effect of their energy with sound.

Tibetan gongs, crystals bowls, didgeridoos, horns, rattles etc.

With song you can open the gates of heaven.” The Talmud

“We pray by singing and dancing.”  San Bushmen and Bantu peoples 

Causes of soul sickness or loss include; addiction, to drugs alcohol, sex, gambling; severe trauma, illness or abuse; grief from loss of a job, a loved one or one's health; severe anger, hatred, malice, envy, fear, burn out, isolation and a lack of meaning in one's existence

Like sound, incense repels and clears dark forces within and without.  Smudging and blowing medicinal smoke can purify. 

" The incense offering is a most potent antidote against dark forces." The Zohar

The Ancestors advise against the Buddhist practice of Tonglin unless one's vibration is sufficiently advanced to be able to handle the negative energy one is breathing in. Safer to breath in white healing light and transmit it to those who need it.

Regarding “Tonglin;” the Buddhist practice of inhaling negativity, pain, suffering, dark thoughts and evil -- breathing it in with the objective of transforming it into light and then breathing it out as positive, happy, healed and healing… Consider that only enlightened beings may have enough light and compassion in them to take on evil and transform it.
Some may argue that they may not be enlightened but that their spirit guides help with the work and protect the container. That being so, still great care should be taken…
Repairing the world is a different mission from taking on and transforming other people's evil and in the process maybe damaging oneself.

Red is a protective, cleansing color not only among Kabbalists but also in sangoma medicine and universally. Plants used for ritual purification because of sex during menses are frequently red in color. Purification in the Old Testament was done with water, fortified with the ashes from a red heifer, the red dye of a particular worm and cedar. 

There are many ways to correct these disorders with prayer, ritual, sacred plants, exorcism (Femba in Zulu tradition,) incense and with love, laughter, sound and song. Red string, stones and amulets can be used for protection.