We Lit A Fire With The Love You Left behind

” Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” Carl Sagan

“The northern cape of south Africa is one of the least travelled areas of the region. Most people never get to see the art because it is too remote or mostly not known about. Those that do see it find it hard to interpret. What is so exciting is that the San rock art provides an extraordinary doorway into the original mind. This original mind was an ecstatic existence, a way of life filled with meaning and what the San called !Num – the energy required to enter expanded states of awareness and deep healing. A journey through these sacred galleries reminds us of who we are and has the potential for massive transformation and healing. Unlocking the meaning of the art and feeling it on an emotional level is to know our deep human reciprocity with nature and the divine.” Craig Foster

What a perfect tribute to the Dagara earth year to walk with the spirits of our original people of south Africa. Our recent journey in Aug/Sept 2015 was a reminder of the importance of staying close to the earth. Walking upon her and sleeping close to her brought us into a deeper relationship with the spirits, animals, elements and natural world. This was threaded with radical ritual, and an enourmous gallery of ancient san engravings on dark rocks “provided a doorway into the original mind”. The scenery was so vast in parts, it indeed at times swallowed us up. Using every element available to assist us and each person connected through what the San called Ropes to God, (threads of love between us) as a community we traversed close to spirit and tracked their steps, linking our own to theirs. A true oneness and heart centred connection to those who walked before, and to whom we shared our journey with, animals, humans, plants and elements all provided a place for us to enter into profound states of transformation belonging, healing and homecoming.

“the soul has come to life not simply to consume, but to give its inner gifts. Each soul secretly desires to be part of something greater, something “larger than life,” Michael Meade.

These journeys, walking the land, engaging with its beings, always causes me to reflect more on the longing and deeper seeking of oness and consciousness. I see that we know on some deep level that this is not all there is and yet it is. The reality is we stay in the so called comfort, so as to not disrupt our life- what we know, what is safe. Contradictions and contrasts are our teachers. When we enter into the mystery and the unknown, take risks, move out of the illusion of what is comfortable, eat differently, sleep under the stars, dance sing and play, and set our eyes on or in magical vistas we are experiencing something larger than life. Some call it God.

Community Creating rock art — Community creating rock art

So the true abundance that is rightly ours is available not for consumption but for nurturing, loving and nourishing. What we receive in return is sacred reciprocity, healing and transformation and a knowing of who we are. How incredible to receive that gift? It requires though, and active participation, an understanding that when we put someone, relationships, or something, greed and objects between us and what I am calling God, ( our true nature and other worlds) are we infact creating a deep energetic rift, and when that whole needs filling, we are indeed moving away from wholeness, our true nature, magic and our supernatural beings, we become powerless. Connection to this original family and land becomes the place of true home that many seek throughout their lives. When that place is empty we suffer an indescribable loss, an unsourced pain and often turn to individual and collective, consumerism literally, and in some cases violence and addiction.
“With the “trunk” of support that Mbali and Craig established, we were able to take root in what is possibly the oldest cradle of humanity, drawing nourishment from our interactions with the land and the wisdom of her peoples. That nourishment flowed throughout our beings and set buds of change, which are flowering in the fullness of time.” L.M Aug 2015 journeyer.

Stepping up and out, transports us into magical worlds where we see beyond the veils and cross portals to a world of supernatural proportions. Return to Origin the organization is about to be launched. Watch this space. Join a journey, and step into a magical world.

As we come to the end of this earth year, in the Dagara tradition, what do you wish to commit to the earth that no longer serves your immense BIRTH to this world and to be buried and left to disintegrate, so that you can Re -birth the ancient and become who you truly you came here to be.

“Walking in the tracks of Bushmen life with Mbali and Craig was an experience of a life time. Their knowledge illuminated the journey bringing into focus the importance of ritual, ancestors and the spirit of wilderness in all our lives. Each day was an adventure finely tuned in every detail. Like one we moved, acted and enjoyed but there was also a profound individual awakening and honouring of who we/I really was. A deep piercing experience where I was held and given permission and support to take my experiences further. Very inspiring and humbling to see how life changing rituals of integrity towards self and others opens the heart, creates compassion and encourages me to dance with life – this was the music..” A.N Aug 2015 Journeyer

May all worlds bless and protect you always. Mbali

Unconditional Love of the Mothers

Welcome to this New Year 2015 an Earth year in the Dagara Tradition.

Nearly 4 years ago in February, I was in Burkina Faso with Malidoma Some, West African Shaman and educator, undergoing a series of rituals and divinations for my ongoing work as a Diviner, medicine woman and voice for the ancestors. It was my first visit to meet the Dagara people who had gifted me this medicine, and whose culture is deeply rooted to the Earth, Nature and the ancestors.

“Welcome home, he said, this should have happened a long time ago, you are the mother of this village. A few days later I was taken to the compound of his uncle where I underwent a series of rituals, with the women,the start of the initiation into the mother. One involved being rubbed in deep red earth that we had collected that day from the gold mines. Afterwards I was sent to bed to sleep in the dirt so to speak. The elder woman who led that ritual, the mother, of that compound, passed away almost a year to the day of that ritual. 5 years before that I underwent my own Earth Burial. Much has happened since that February! I did indeed return home to South Africa where I now reside after a series of journeys in South Africa, spread over 6 years, that took me in search of my ancestors. I found a home in the coastal region of the Western Cape, land of my own Khoi Khoi ancestors and even further back 100,000 years, to the people of Origin.

220px-Feuerbach_Gaea — Gaia, in Greek Mythology Earth Goddess said to give birth to the Earth

Spiritual homelessness and a quest for belonging has been the divine medicine of many us as an elixir, healing balm and transformational agent.

Born out of a longing to find the home inside of ourselves, to fill empty spaces created by a modern world that teaches we are not enough, and our success is based on physical appearances and what we need to consume. Many have left home to find home. It often shows up as addiction, violence, over consumption and depression.

It’s been the seeker and the finder, the spiritual trickster in the bottle of alcohol, the teacher and the student, the shaman and the trainee. It can send us on journeys and paths of ancient wisdom, deep darkness, rocky and unstable terrain and sparkling illumination.

What this homelessness can do if we are open to it as our guide, is teach us about the importance of honoring our physical being, where re-birthing in a modern world determined to bury us, until we break open enough to understand that we are not all there is. The greatest of mothers to me, have been the ocean, the natural world, and South Africa. Returning home, and then in the tracking of my ancestors, I have been deposited in my place of Origin. That was an unexpected treasure gifted to me, I am in a state of grace. Waiting and listening.

When identity and belonging become the light at the end of the tunnel after years of spiritual homelessness, only then can we truly feel comfortable in our home body, in our heart and it doesn’t matter where we are, because returning home will bring us unconditional sustenance required for growth and expansion and our ability to thrive in our communities.

I offer earth burials when guided to through divination, an opportunity to be held by the Mother in unconditional love. We take cover under the earth for as along as is necessary, leaving behind and shedding all that we no longer need. It is an initiatory death and rebirth mostly done in community, assisting us in experiencing deep connection and restoring balance with the elements. Abundance comes with sacred reciprocity and acknowledgment and honoring of all worlds. The healing between all species all elements and all beings restores the natural order of things. Our rituals, prayers, ceremonies, provide ways to actualize an alchemy for healing. Scarcity lives in our fears of not enoughness, lack of self worth. Our relationship to money, abundance and self worth are related.

I and others who have been buried in the earth or immersed in water have expressed a deep sense of peace, a connectedness and a feeling of oneness, never felt before, or at least forgotten. Death and rebirth in the earth offers an opportunity to realign with the original connection to the Mother. Water I also know even after a short immersion or deep cleansing has the same effect.

How do we sustain that feeling of peace within ourselves and all beings? What if our only currency was respect, honoring and love for humans, our natural world, and all species. What if we nurtured and nourished ourselves and each other by bringing our gifts to our communities, true earth work, where our communities would thrive if everyone worked together, seeing the greatness in each other. What if we traded racism, judgment, jealousy, greed and resentment for love and forgiveness, how then would the generosity of our spirit be transformed. Maybe we could live in unity as we once did.

It is an ongoing work of dedication and committment for me. Returning to origin, assists us in touching a wildness once known and an ancient wisdom forgotten, a deep sense of knowing who we are. In remembering that, maybe we can leave a legacy for those struggling with being lost in modernity. It also offers us an opportunity to protect what we love as any mother instinctively would , our sacred waters our interspecies beings our living systems.

Please check out our Return to Origin Journeys. Offering us an opportunity to immerse in the original Eden and work with the land in a unique way, as well as discover the rich deep cultural heritage of this remarkable country full of miracles, with extraordinary wisdom keepers, guides and animal communicators. It is an opportunity of a lifetime not to be missed this Earth year.

AND keep an eye out for the birthing of Return to Origin, the vision for every child in South Africa.

http://www.ourdivinemedicine.com

mbali@ourdivinemedicine.com

May all worlds bless and protect you always.

Mbali

The Last Key of the Bunch, Opens the Treasure

A couple of days ago I was standing in the graveyard in a small town in Ugie, Eastern Cape where there were endless graves of distant relatives all called Marais, my father’s name. ( Not something I make a habit of by the way) I had been told by a seer to find my grandfather’s grave for a specific reason. Many graves were unamed or the names had disintegrated along with the headstones. I didn’t find my grandfather’s grave.

Walking somewhat out of its habitat in the short dry grass inbetween the graves, a bright red and black locust appeared. I stared at it, watching it for sometime, listening for its message, its medicine. It moved slowly. My first thought was famine, scarcity but in epic biblical proportions, no panic arose just curiosity and some excitement. Just the day before I had received informaton regarding the next steps of the Odyssey and it was pretty epic, and I had been sitting with that news opening to it’s blessing and its challenges, knowing in my bones, I had to move forward and there was no turning back at this stage. This news definately felt like the last key of the bunch of this particular part of this amazing journey and I know that its treasure is waiting although a few obstacles had to be overcome, and I also knew that treasure holds with it a sense of mystery, romance, reward, and never usually that easily found.

Digging, uncovering unfolding, as this seeking for ancestors has been, a road map of unexplored terrain, that has brought me new families worlds apart yet living a couple of hundred kilometers of each other, where some of the most beautiful Jewels of Africa can be found, unspolit pristine, wild coast, rich culture and traditions that are still followed and a thriving clan when all gathered together. I have been welcomed home by them with traditional ceremonies and introduced to hundreds of new family, given a new name ( I now have 4 names) is also Xhosa, Ntombekhaya ( Daughter of the Home) Coming Home has been my medicine in all work that I have done. And now I am about to embark on this next stage.

That day I looked up locust, meaning, medicne and symbology: “Grasshoppers/Locusts medicine includes jumping across space and time, astral travel, new leaps forward/leaps of faith/jumping without knowing where you will land, leaping over obstacles.

If grasshopper/locust has leapt into your life, maybe you need to recognise where you come from, to go back to your roots and to honour your ancestors. ( seriously!)
Grasshopper is the Chinese symbol of good luck and abundance. You been given the ability to take chances – to act on a whim and jump right in. Things may not progress step by step as they do for other people progress – but rather extremely fast. When taking that leap simply trust your own instincts on when to make the leaps. Listening to your inner voice and responding to it will lead you to positive outcomes. Don’t be afraid to make that leap, remembering all the while that Grasshopper’s only ever jump forwards and never backwards! By now I was laughing hard and a little stunned although these days, little takes me off balance except people who still continue to act without integrity. So here I go…………

Locust is linked to astral travel, being able to leap to another reality where the real enigmas of life are. If the grasshopper-locust leaps into your life, then you are being asked to take a leap of faith, to do something without fear – this will generally be something that you have avoided doing and is often linked to a change in direction on a grander scale – You will have the wisdom needed to get passed obstacles in an efficient manner.

Grasshoppers are usually peaceful, however in times of overcrowding or food shortages, they turn into the much feared locusts who in the blink of an eye can strip a farm or forest. Remember: the fruits of the earth are for all to enjoy and there is plenty for all if used in a sacred way.”

I have been traveling since December so I do feel this part of the journey has come to a sweet end, I am full, exhausted, replenished, nourished, and above all I carry with me a deep sense of heaing, and strength knowing I walk with yet more people of ancient traditions, and that’s just my father’s side. Male ancestors are responsible for assisting us in finding and coming home, women ancestors, life’s work. At 62, I am ready for life’s work.

Simply what I learned, and of course so much more, TRUST, pay attention to your signs, symbols and messages, it brings medicine. Our ancestors know what we need and it their duty to assist us in going forward to bring our gifts to the world. Deep listening and hearing especially in Nature and to all our animals, and insects.

Deep gratitude to those I have met along the way, the teachers, the ones who have offered me food and shelter and love. Now a time of integration. As I finished writing, I looked at the clock 11.11 all is in alignment.

See you on the otherside………

May all worlds bless and protect you always.

Mbali/Ntombekhaya (Marais)

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