What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 7

Ritual is more powerful than prayer alone and can become a "container" or a "vessel" for amplifying our requests - both for receiving, as well as for giving gratitude for what has been received. Ritual also has an effect on our subconscious and will be more indelibly imprinted in our limbic system than prayer. 

Rituals in any form can be containers for a healing outcome.

Sound and incense repel tricksters and dark forces (both within and without.) They cannot withstand the high vibration of sacred sound and or incense. Smudging can be considered a spiritual shower.

Chanting when using incense will release the spirit of the plant and strengthen the effect. 

Immersion in water infused with sacred plants is a message, a password or informed consent to the spirit world asking for help. We need to ask to receive because of the cosmic law of free will and be very specific in our requests. 

Community creates Coherence providing everyone involved has a  positive intent. Even a few participants can be a bigger container for propagating the intention of the ritual to the Field. Sometimes "it take a village."

Knowledge of Plants

The Growing Beings are of the Water Element

If we want to learn from the plants we have to "listen" to them - listen with all the senses including smell, touch, and if safe, also taste. We need to ask them how they can be of assistance. 

Being of the breath of God, all creation is responsive to love, gratitude and petition.

Each as it is acknowledged becomes receptive to giving and receiving. That is how we experience the other.

Sacred plants are there to help us but they also have to be honored and respected. Only what is needed should be taken for the task at hand and one should show gratitude in some way when harvesting - for instance - a little water to enliven them, since they enliven us. 

Certain plants hold more power than others especially if they have aroma and when dried create incense. There are certain universals that we can learn from indigenous peoples concerning those plants of power.

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

In using plants for immersion, incense and sound can be added for the making our requests. We also enhance the placebo effect with ceremony while invoking help from the Field, our guides and the Great Spirit. Any ritual is a powerful message or password to the Field requesting help and giving them permission to help because of our own free will.

Its crucial to understand that we cannot help someone unless they are completely sure they want to be helped. We must have permission or we cannot interfere and even if we do, without their consent, the light forces in the Field will not comply. Doing a ritual for the "greater good” is fine if we do not have permission. This differs from casting a spell to achieve a result even if we think it would be beneficial for the person concerned. 

Remember the wisdom of wild things, the holiness of elements, and the healing power of water.

All healing comes through the Field, through our guides and the Infinite One to help, heal, inspire, transform and protect. This energy is essentially universal love that emanates from the Creator. Some living beings are chosen more powerfully to channel this energy be it a person or even a pet but we all have some ability to do so. 

There are several essential, basic intentions that we can send out to the Field for help when calling our guides for ...

Healing 

Protection

Cleansing 

Asking for a dream

And anything else ...

One does not have to have an extensive knowledge of plants to be effective. One can use any plant for our intentions but preferably a high vibration one such as white sage, cedar or juniper which we can burn or place in a ritual bath. Plants are of the water element and water can be used to empower the water for bathing with imaginative intention. Water has resonance, memory and consciousness and when a sacred plant is placed in water the vibration changes favorably (Masaru Emoto, confirmed by German scientists.) 80% of our cells contain water and we can fuse our own "water" with that of the sacred bath.

Water tricking from the top of the hill is but a drop of the deep spring within.

The Still Beings of Nature are of the Earth Element.

We can use rocks, crystals, semi-precious stones and precious metals with their positive vibrations as lockets or as talismans for protection and for grounding. We empower them by placing a sacred plant/s inside a locket or immersing them in a sacred plant infusion. Gold and silver have high vibrations and have always been used in the past as such, apart from their material allure.

The Wild Beings are of the Air Element

When we light incense or vocalize sound in drumming, rattling, blowing a wind instrument, chanting, a mantra or singing we are protecting and cleansing ourselves through the Air element. We can also use the Wild Beings to help us by using a feather for smudging. The Wild Beings are of the more refined element of Air than we Fire Beings because they are doing exactly what the Creator wants from them. We can ask for their help, for instance by employing a bone for a specific intention as sangomas do in their divination kits.

The Talking Beings are of the Fire Element.

Unfortunately we usually use the fire in the bellies of our lower chakras of ego to destroy rather than to transform and inspire. 

Fire, however, can also create a comforting hot spiritual bath or a cleansing steaming as well as being essential for lighting incense. 

Using fire or even a candle as a tool for meditation can be up-lifting.

We can use sacred objects made by the Talking Beings in any form to help us as well. Designing an altar for your guides is a container for making requests and giving gratitude.

To connect with the Talking Beings we have to "feel" with them.

In other words raise the fire energy of our third "power" chakra below the diagram into the heart chakra above. San Bushmen healers say that if one wants to be a powerful healer one must love them, no matter what we think of them.

Treatment and Rituals

Red is a protective, cleansing, clearing color in sangoma medicine as well as universally. Wearing red clothing or a wrist band fortified by a sacred plant infusion can protect. One can use plants that are red in color for ritual purification from intrusive spirits (bad blood) or red wine in a bath for the same reason.  It is important to meditate in the bath. Breathe in the white light of positive intention and breathe out the thick black smoke of whatever it is you need to get rid of. When the bath is complete be sure to rinse the thick black smoke down the plug hole, walk out of the bathroom and do not look back. Looking back may indicate to the Field that you are unsure. 

Purification in the Old Testament was also done with water, fortified with the ashes from a red heifer, the red dye of a particular worm and cedar. Amulets, bracelets and crystals that are red are protective but need to be cleansed and reenergized for this purpose. 

Kiaat the Blood Tree, used in Southern Africa for getting rid of intrusive spirits (Bad Blood) and for Protection.

There are many ways to correct spiritual maladies using prayer, ritual, sacred plants, incense, exorcism (Femba in Zulu tradition,) and with love, laughter, sound and song.

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

 

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

Just as sangomas and Bushmen healers believe in the power of ancestors and guides to help them so too does Kabbalah although the manner in which they do so differs. Kabbalists describe a Veil of Illusion that must be bridged in order to receive messages from their teachers on the other side. This is usually done in dreams. 

Sangomas and Bushman shamans are experts in crossing the veil in and outside of the dream time. 

We are not just influences but also recipients of influences from distant places and distant times

 

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

Incense repels and clears dark forces within and without. 

Animal sacrifice was used in biblical times for forgiveness as it is used by sangomas for releasing intrusive spirits and appeasing the dead. Sacred plants 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 also used for protection. 

Witches and Sorcerers and their Dark Forces do not obey the Cosmic Law of Free Will. They operate maliciously with or without permission. They also use containers especially through the Law of Contagion (when things are in contact with one another they can affect the other.) Witches and sorcerers invoke their dark help using hair, a nail clipping, clothing or an effigy of the victim to enhance the power of their curses.