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Responding to the Call of the Ancestors

April 2011

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"One's purpose, which among indigenous people is found through remembering, is linked to both the physical world and to the Spirit World. We look to the Spirit World for the ultimate helper who assists the individual in fulfilling his or her purpose. This spirit is seen as something like a guardian angel would be seen in the West, and we call this spirit the Siura. We look to the physical world, the community of people, for help in remembering our purpose. Purpose is something that the individual has framed and articulated prior

to coming into a community. This purpose is known to the village even before the individual's birth.

If the ritual and sacred method of divining purpose are not available, an individual's purpose can still be identified by noting what the individual is naturally drawn to. Certain things, like art or construction or design or storytelling, will trigger some excitement in the person. This feeling is the key to identifying one's purpose. Therefore it is not necessary for people in the modern world to go to some kind of wise man or authority to have their purpose assigned to them. The leadership that they need lies within their own relationship to the world of Spirit and the ancestors. Your purpose is linked to, and monitored by, the spirits in the unseen world. The unseen world, the world of ancestral spirits, has authorized your purpose, giving you the right to possess the physical body and consciousness needed to exist in this material world.

Your Siura is behind you, trying to work with you as closely as possible to keep you on the path of your purpose, speaking to you through your inspiration, your dreams, and your instincts. An offering to your Siura now and then at an ancestor altar or any altar is appropriate, a token of appreciation for the diligence and leadership they have shown toward your purpose.

Purpose begins with the individual, and the sum total of all the individuals' purposes creates the community's purpose. The community thus takes upon itself the responsibility of nurturing and protecting the individual, because the individual, knowing her or his purpose, will then invest energy in sustaining the community. There is a certain reciprocity at work here, because the community recognizes that its own vitality is based in the support and protection of each of its individuals, especially in the constant support and reminding of each individual of his or her purpose. The individual, knowing this, in turn delivers to the community the gifts that the community has successfully awakened in him or her.

The presence of a community to awaken our gifts in us is necessary because the process of being born tends to erase our memory of why we came here. And the blindness that we have toward our purpose is progressive. Early in life you are still at that place where you feel that you might do something. Children's vitality and enthusiasm are reminiscent of the forces that motivated them to come here. Of course, the coldness of this world and the rather clear hostility that most of us encounter trying to survive discourage us from the kind of purpose that we were originally so enthused about. Even within the indigenous context, there is a need for ritual to make sure that the damage done to you by society, to the point where your enthusiasm is tampered with, is repaired, so that you can embrace your purpose fully. Being born into this world is a trying experience. Whatever enthusiasm you bring with you here can be toned down and radically edited simply as a result of being here. The time of physiological transformation when you are growing up is particularly trying, and in this process a toll is taken on your sense of purpose, including forgetting. All of these changes at the time of puberty have a deep influence on the dynamics of relationship both with the unseen world and the world that can be seen.

In an indigenous community, each person is precious. No one is born on this earth without a reason, a special purpose. Failure to or inability to perform one's function in the village places a person in a constant state of crisis. So crises from either of these two sources --the embodiment of a new spirit wanting to emerge, and the impossibility of doing what one came into the village to do -- must be addressed by the community.

There is no greater harm done to a person than the harm of a life activity that competes against, or contradicts, their purpose. The modern world does not seem to provide an ideal place for people to pursue their life project, for the very survival of the Western economic system demands a state of constant striving and sacrifice from the people who work within it. It may seem that you are threatening your economic survival if you abandon the prevailing economic system to pursue something as seemingly intangible as a personal life purpose. Yet pursuing one's life purpose is the foundation on which the health of both the individual and the community rests."

The Healing Wisdom of Africa

pgs. 32-35, 100, 245

Facing Destiny

~Malidoma wrestles with overwhelming feelings when first hit with the reality of his life's purpose~

"The image of myself as an eternal wanderer came into my mind in all of its monstrous absurdity. I was deeply frightened because of all the uncertainties that accompanied this vision. It made me feel weak. Here I was, just becoming a person, learning to be sure about certain things in my life, and now I was plunged back into confusion! I did not know how to effectively object to a recommendation by the council [of elders], and I knew better than to even try. So the part of myself that knew I had to obey overcame the part of me that revolted.

I could not even think of my future in any detail. My life had suddenly become bleak, like a dark bottomless hole into which I had inadvertently wandered.

Seeing my distress, my father said, 'I know how you feel. And I would not want to be in your place. But your own grandfather told you when you were very young that you would have to go and live in the white world, and I think your fate is pursuing you. Since you came back from the initiation camp, I have consulted diviner after diviner. This has been at the center of every finding about you. You survived initiation in order to help us survive. We can't survive if you stay here.'

'But how am I going to survive so that you can survive?'

'Just go away. The ancestors will tell you what to do. They will provide.'

We sat quietly, facing each other in the dark. For a long time we said nothing, needing to let everything soak in. I was tired--tired in my soul, tired with the kind of exhaustion that cannot be named. But I knew what my father meant. I knew what the council meant. I will never have a home."

Of Water and
the Spirit

pg. 307

Rev. Michael Beckwith's

Interview
with Malidoma Patrice Som�

mps photo lg

Listen to the amazing dialogue between these two power- house teachers, as Malidoma expounds on one's gift and purpose in our world.

Click Here

Purpose, Gift, & the Mineral Element

"...mineral rituals evoke...the life purpose linked to each human being.

...in many indigenous cultures, it is understood that everyone comes into this world for a reason. In order to enter into this world, one must have an approved project to carry out. The problem is that the clarity with which we embark on our journey to earth begins to fade upon arrival. Our ability to accomplish requires a village in which there are other people who know what our purpose is and are able to design a system that presents us with continual reminders of it throughout our lives.

Everyone is gifted. This means that everyone has something to give. A person who does not feel gifted is lost in a pit of oblivion and confusion. Sometimes we are the last people to recognize our own gifts. When they are shown to us by a group of people, they carry a different and larger meaning, and we feel acknowledged and recognized, which increases our sense of belonging. The task of a community is to use its knowledge of each person's gifts to help the person make a connection between his or her gifts and the images of strength that regularly occur in that person's psyche. In this way each person can then act from the knowledge of her or his unique purpose. In other words, we are born with a profession, and to be most proficient as we go through life, all we need to do is remember our profession.

A person's purpose is energetically inscribed in their bones and its actual translation into work should agree with the message engraved in these bones. The question is, what happens when what you do does not align with who you are? It means that you are betraying the very vitality that defines you and are thus inviting great pain into your life. You are likely to experience low self-worth, a lack of enthusiasm about what you are doing, and, above all, of a nagging sense of inner emptiness. In short, you will experience an identity crisis.

So many people in the modern world, caught between their commitment to survival and their intuitive allegiance to a genuine life purpose, find themselves forced to sacrifice their purpose to make a living. It is for these people that mineral rituals must be done. Their very livelihood undermines their reason for being."

The Healing Wisdom
of Africa
pgs. 243-244

A Mineral Ritual For Remembering
Purpose

"A basic ritual for remembering begins with the premise that we are alienated from our purpose and that society, in turn, is alienated from its purpose. First a shrine for the ritual must be made of stones and bones. These stones and bones should come from many sources and be as diverse as possible. This diversity is representative of the diversity of purposes. Just as modern cemeteries are crowded with stones, each one representing the memory of a dead person, the gathered stones of the mineral ritual represent the memory lying within the individuals gathered at the shrine. The bones represent the stones of the body. The arrangement of the stones and bones depends on the ingenuity of the people in charge of the shrine...there should be an easily identified point of entrance, representing a gateway into the sacred space of the shrine. Overall the ritual space will look as though it has a nucleus that contains all these objects and a plasma, which is the space around the objects where people are going to assemble. This center place is the place of memory. In contrast, the outer space is the place where supportive forces are built and forwarded to the center. The building of this energy happens in rhythm and chant.

The ritual itself must focus on individuals, whose task is to remember moments in their lives when they felt strong, connected, powerful, and useful, moments when the world around them seemed like a true home, familiar and welcoming. Everyone has moments like this; even if they are faint or short-lived, they constitute a window through which we briefly see the possibility of our realignment with our purpose. With the group gathered together, each person holds a stone in his or her hand and listens for images, thoughts and impressions to surface. The energy of stone is allowed to awaken memories within. After a period of time, which is determined by how fluent people are in listening to the messages of mineral, a sharing will follow. The listening process involves the locking of one's mind and spirit onto the stone and a letting go of any control or distraction. If this step can be achieved, graphic images will stream in. This indicates that an interaction is in progress. Each person describes to the group the images that most frequently came to consciousness during the listening period. The images are symbolic of the purpose to which each person is linked. This presentation of images allows the rest of the group to reflect upon these images and to understand the person's unique qualities and gifts.

At the end of the ritual, the group will pray for the discovered memories to be kept alive, illuminating our path in the dark routes of our journey. People are urged to retain in their awareness what they have remembered. This sharing ritual is usually lengthy, but it provides the initial material to allow people to begin thinking about their areas, places and times of strength."

The Healing Wisdom
of Africa
pgs. 248-250

Remembering

Our Purpose:

An Interview with Malidoma Som�,

by Sarah van Gelder

Reprinted from Exploring Our Interconnectedness (IC#34) Winter 1993, Page 30, Copyright � 1993, 1996
by Context Institute

Sarah: From what I've heard of your life as a child, you've had some very negative experiences at the hands of Europeans.

Malidoma: Oh, absolutely...

Sarah: And yet you don't seem to hold any bitterness now.

Malidoma: Well, it would be an exaggeration to say that I don't hold any bitterness, but the process that my own culture allowed me to go through released a lot of disastrous anger.

Sarah: What was it that helped you get over that anger and bitterness?

Malidoma: The principal [gift] my culture provided me was a much greater sense of my own identity, an identity that was not defined, but rather remembered. It provided me a much greater trust in myself, a greater hope for a future, and a very grounded walk in my day-to-day life that does not have to wait for outside affirmation.

My name, Malidoma, means to seek friendship with strangers. My elders told me, as long as I do what I am destined to do -- that is, to be a kind of linking agent between cultures -- I don't have to worry about where to find the words or where to find the meaning to convey to an audience.

Sarah: How do you go about being that linking agent?

Malidoma: It's essentially connected with what the elders of the indigenous world dream of: to see cultures from all over come to a point of mutual understanding and respect so that the wounds created by their experiences with each other can come to a healing place.

What I'm doing is actually on behalf of those elders. It is inspired by their spirituality, how they see themselves as humans in nature, how they view their own social system.

It entails a lot of things: speaking about community medicine, building communities -- starting with the individual's identity and community identity. Much of my teaching is a simple validation of people's feelings, visions, and experiences that they cannot find a context for because the context in which those experiences and visions are happening is systematically post-modern. For people in the West to see somebody who is from a still-existing indigenous place, who can validate and explain the realities they've been experiencing at that very personal level, makes all the difference.

Sarah: Can you tell me something about the way children are brought up in your culture?

Malidoma: First of all, children are looked upon as mature people who are in a state of physical adjustment.

Normally, six or 12 weeks into pregnancy there is a ritual that is lead by a group of advisors who get together with the pregnant woman. The purpose of the ritual is to inquire about the identity of the soul who is waiting to be born. Those attending ask the baby: "Who are you? What are you coming here for? What can we do for you, as people who have already arrived?"

Normally, the mother takes on a very shrill, thin voice, known as the spirit voice, to respond to these questions. Based on the answers they get, they design a name for the baby.

At birth, the newborn's first cry is taken very seriously. It is not considered a cry; it's looked at as a signal that the new soul has finally arrived and is crying out to see if there are other souls. And for that reason, those attending the birth bring in other children who are supposed to scream back at the crying newborn.

It's very common to find a mother at night who hasn't seen her 8-month-old baby for the past day. She doesn't know where he is; she just knows he's somewhere in one of the many houses and she knows he's safe. And, more often than not, there's another child who stays with that mother while her own child is gone somewhere. This is a very common practice in the villages; it gives the child a very broad sense of belonging.

So children grow up very, very aware of what a village is about; everybody chips in to help raise the child. It's very rare that a child feels isolated or develops psychological problems; everyone is very aware of where he or she belongs.

Sarah: You mentioned earlier the initiation process. Why is this so important?

Malidoma: Growth itself makes one forget about who one is. So initiation is something that is designed to help one remember one's origin and the very purpose of one's occurrence on this side of reality -- that is to say, why one was born. This is why initiation is especially magical.

So a person who is not initiated is considered a child, no matter how old that person is, because that person will not be able to recall his or her purpose. Without initiation, the bridge between youth and adulthood can never be crossed, and a person's heart is open to anything -- to being shot down by any kind of energy going around. In the village, to not be initiated is to be a non-person.

Sarah: Can you say more about the sense of interconnectedness that exists in your village?

Malidoma: When you live as one family for a long time, you come to feel that there is a kind of connection between individuals that is not just physical or parental or relational, but is a connection at the level of soul.

When I go home, things get pointed out to me about myself that I thought were totally hidden. But the elders, through their divinational process, can point to things that I did that require me to go through a cleansing ritual. And this tells me that when people are linked together at that level, geography is no longer an issue.

What's good about this is that the individual never feels isolated from the rest of the community. And nobody is higher than anybody else, so there is no class.

There is something very interesting about a classless society; it's one that allows itself to be lead by the spirit. There is a greater tendency to assist those who are older and slower, and it prevents people from feeling cut off or left out or off track.

One of the things that I have been able to communicate to my elders that has [led] to a great deal of disgust on their part, is the fact that there are homeless people in this country. To them it is impossible that somebody could be homeless. They're surprised and appalled because they don't understand what happens when the meaning of community is not carried out.

Sarah: What do you think the West can learn from the kind of community you've been describing?

Malidoma: In the West, what I've noticed is that what is called a community is more a conglomeration of individuals who are so self-centered and isolated that there is a kind of suspicion of the other simply because there isn't enough knowledge of the other to remove that suspicion. So trust becomes the challenge to actual community.

It is a very tricky thing, because I think that capitalism encourages this kind of isolation as a good environment for consumerism. And there is a relationship between a consumer society and these individuals who are defined by isolation from one another, and private space and private ownership.

The community I am talking about is one in which respect for the person is based upon that person's irreplaceable position in the world. To live with the knowledge that an approved project was the reason for one's birth commands respect for the sacred. In the absence of initiation as a remembering and transforming experience, the modern world has created career counseling.

In the village, the houses are built with entrances that are doorless. That is the first sign that the people have a very, very different sense of one another.

When I go home and I want to take a nap, there are some questions as to what is wrong with me. And if I want to spend a little time by myself, everyone wonders if something is the matter with me. In the village, everything is at the same time private and public.

I don't think that there is any need to create in the West the kind of community that there is in the indigenous world. But there is certainly a need to come closer together and to learn about each other sufficiently so as to bridge the gap that separates us.

Sarah: What you're talking about goes to the very heart of Western culture. Privacy and freedom are held very dear to many people.

Malidoma: The sense of privacy people have in the West is a very lonely privacy; it is a very frightening privacy. The freedom that goes along with it is of pretty much the same nature; it is a freedom that is weighty, that is a burden.

Within the context of real community, privacy and freedom are not lost. Community provides a greater sense of freedom -- a freedom based on a deep understanding of each individual's purpose. When people lose their soul's essence, they have to borrow the vision of some ideologist crippled with separatist visions of freedom.

Sarah: What do you think it would take to convince Westerners that it's in their interest to give up some of that privacy and isolation?

Malidoma: Progress as it has been unfolding is excruciatingly painful to the individual; the individual can no longer afford to live by values such as the systematic accumulation of material goods as the yardstick by which to measure happiness.

The spiritual thirst that is latent in everybody can never come to a place of fulfillment unless people begin to think of each other as potential brothers and sisters. Otherwise, they can never reach on the inside the same level of wealth that they've reached outside.

In this case, the dying indigenous cultures all over the world have something to offer; not something that will help them survive, but something at least that will survive them, because modernism has stabbed mortally every indigenous culture.

Sarah: When you look to the future, what do you think are humanity's prospects?

Malidoma: It's not good. Compulsive denial, arrogant paternalism, and hollow pretense have become viral infections endangering the future. The direction of the world, at least seen from an indigenous point of view, is like something that is in a direct collision course with catastrophe, and the more an indigenous person understands this culture, the more he becomes baffled by the direction it's heading.

But in the middle of that are people who are waking up slowly, people whom I like to call the new shamans, the new healers, the new energy, the repair people.

So at a spiritual level, we're witnessing something extremely fascinating. People are becoming more aware of the values of nature, are becoming more respectful, more sensitive to the purity of the origin. These people are those whom I call the modern indigenous persons. And these are the people who are gradually forming what I've called the new tribal order -- that is to say a brand new unity, a brand new circle of people who are living by the very values that modernity had to do away with in order to affirm itself.

As more people join, it's going to build up into an energy field, a force field strong enough to act as an antibiotic, a force field capable of sustaining a much brighter, healthier situation in the future.

I think that this last decade of the Twentieth Century is very pivotal in that sense. And I'm really fortunate, probably, to be in the midst of it.

Ask Malidoma!

Q: It appears that Americans can't find their purpose in life. Can you speak to this?

A: The purpose in life is not something you find, it's more like something that finds you; or at least to honor purpose I would say that you and purpose meet halfway.

     The culture that I come from already assumes that you cannot be born in this world without a purpose. So every baby that is born, you start to look at them and say, "What is it that he or she is coming here for?" This is why it is important to put people through initiation in order that the encounter with the purpose does not happen via some kind of authority that says, "Look, you are here to do this and this....," but through initiation, the young person meets face-to-face with the very reason why he or she came here.

   Many, many Americans come to me and ask for an African initiation, but I tell them no, that they should look into their own lives and the place to look is your suffering. I've come to realize that there is some close affinity between what I may call the organized, indigenous initiation, and the almost random, unpredictable chain of suffering and pain that befalls just about everybody, whether it is here or elsewhere. What I learned from it is that the similarity between the two is in the pain and the suffering---it does indeed serve a purpose.

     I would like to believe that a major illness has to have a purpose; it has to have a function; otherwise, it wouldn't just come like that. My sense is that in the absence of what I may call organized initiatory pathways, somehow the individual spirit is strong enough to invoke its own initiation!

_________________________________________________________

Many inquiries come to Malidoma through cyberspace concerning a deeper desire to connect with and experience personal, more in-depth knowledge and information of Dagara traditions & cosmology, and their real application for daily modern living. Ask Malidoma! was created as a way to fill that need.

He is eager to respond to questions on Dagara spiritual traditions & cosmology, the elements, nature, divination, ritual & community, inter-dimensional beings & worlds, kontombili, the role & benefit of ritual sacrifice, ritual application for daily living, initiation, shrines, ancestors, etc.

Send your question to [email protected]. Malidoma will choose and respond to at least one question per newsletter. He is most likely to respond to the question with the widest appeal to the community, or the question that is most-frequently asked.

An Intimate Talk with Malidoma Som�:

"In this Time of Deep Planetary Change, How Do We as Urban Dwellers Gather in Ritual Space to Connect to Nature's Wisdom?"

Friday, May 13th, 7-8:30 pm

"It is possible that we have been brought together at this time because we have

profound truths to teach each other. Toward that end, I offer the wisdom of the
African ancestors so that Westerners might find the deep healing they seek. From
an indigenous perspective, the individual psyche can be healed only by addressing
one's relationships with the visible worlds of nature and community and one's
relationships with the invisible forces of the ancestors and Spirit allies."

~ Malidoma Som� ~

West African Shaman, diviner, teacher, and author, Malidoma Som�

is coming to One Spirit for an intimate one hour talk in which he will
share his insights on how we as urban dwellers can begin to find
ways to gather in ritual space at this time of challenge in the world
to listen in to the deep wisdom held in nature, and the earth itself
that will inspire; hope, faith, healing and transformation within
ourselves, in our children, and in our children's children.

This is a unique opportunity to witness Malidoma Som�'s wisdom
and hear some of his fascinating life experiences. Malidoma's one
hour talk will be followed by a question and answer period.

This event is a collaboration between the One Spirit Learning
Alliance and C R E A T I N G S P A C E ; Rev. Susanna Kearney, Founder. www.creatingspaceforwomen.com

For more information and registration, click here

Closing the Gap:

Community, Ancestors and the

Healing Power of Ritual

with Malidoma Som� at

Zen Mountain Monastery, NY

June 8-12

Our modern culture has almost entirely lost contact with the

power of ritual. Although we mark our lives with special ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals, these occasions seldom allow for the raw power, spontaneous response and communal transformation that emerge in ritual. This loss has profound ramifications for each of us; the health of our body,

mind, and spirit suffers, and so does our relationship to everything we do. This five-day intensive with West African shaman and tribal leader Dr. Malidoma Som� offers a unique opportunity to connect with the healing power of ritual as it reveals and celebrates our connection with our dead ancestors.

Given the paucity of ritual in the West, there are many souls who are waiting to be assisted in their journey to the spirit world. The Ancestralization Ritual, based on Dagara tradition, is designed to help them make that transition. We will spend Wednesday evening through Sunday morning planning and participating in rituals specifically choreographed to assist the spirits of the dead to make their journey back to the spirit world. The rituals will also assist the living in letting go-in a powerful way-of attachments that might keep spirits bound to this earth plane. The Dagara believe that the deceased can become powerful allies once they are fully

at home in the ancestral realm.

This unique retreat will unfold within the Monastery's training matrix-grounded in the silence and stillness of zazen-and it will also include elements that take us beyond the boundaries of the schedule. Participants should be prepared to follow the challenging mixture of rigorous Zen training and spontaneous, open-ended ritual as led by Malidoma. On Friday evening, we will gather for an all-night session in Han-Shan meadow, opening ourselves to the wildness of the mountain and the air, water, fire and earth that create and sustain us. Guided by Malidoma, we will enter the mysterious realm of the spontaneous and unforeseeable--a realm where the essence of our humanity has permission to express itself, and where profound surrender and healing can transpire. In addition to participating in ritual, there will also be ample time for discussion and questions. Join us at this fruitful and unusual juncture of two diverse, yet ancient, traditions.

About the Instructor:

Dr. Malidome Patrice Som� is from the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso. He is an initiated elder, gifted diviner and medicine man of his tribe. He holds three masters degrees and two doctorates from the Sorbonne and Brandeis University. He is the author of Of Water and the Spirit: Magic and Initiation
in The Life of an African Shaman; The Healing Wisdom of Africa; and Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community.