Notes from Pedagogies of Crossing


Sacred energies require embodied beings and all things to come into sentience.
There is no absolute transcendence, and if there were, there would be no intervention in and no relationship with the material, the quotidian, the very bodies thru which divinity breathes life. (293)

Cosmological systems house memory and such memory was necessary to distill the psychic traumas produced under grotesque conditions of slavery.
Recalcitrance masked an unacknowledged yearning for Spirit. (294)
To know self thru Spirit, to become open to the movement of Spirit in order to wrestle with the movement of history....

Feminisms as secularized category

Epistemic frameworks - part of analytic challenge in considering spiritual dimensions of work

Sacred as tradition - as extreme alterity, not yet modern - subsumed to European cosmos...pejoratively

To know the body is to know it is a medium of the divine, living purpose exceeding the imperatives of plantation (capitalism, modernity) 297

Body praxis requires us to remember ther source and practice. Body as site of memory.

Body as encasement of Soul, medium of spirit, repository of a consciousness that derives from a source residing elsewhere. Another ceremonial ritual making.

Spiritual expertise of a community to decode Sacred Knowledge

Sacred becomes a way of embodying the remembering of self - that is not habitually individuated nor unwittingly secularized

Decolonization and Indigenization as a Path to the Sacred: Reflections

August 5-7, Sonoma State University
Center for Babaylan Studies

How do I re-tell the stories of this weekend? The words have been elusive. They sit on the tip of my tongue, they tug on my sleeve. Pssst, you must say something, the little voice says. Our photos (scroll to the bottom of Events page; there are 3 albums to enjoy) hint at the stories that want to be told. Here I am struggling to render a narrative of our time together at this retreat/symposium.

Day 1: Decolonization: The Power of Naming our Grief
We began this day with ritual honoring our ancestors. Virgil and Lane asked permission from the ancestral spirits to hold our gathering; we invoked their blessings and guidance with offering of anglem, rice, saluyot, betel nut,  and egg. Afterwards each one of us brought our two objects to the altar -- one signifying our connection to our ancestors and another signifying our power object. We brought photos of our grandparents and loved ones, rocks, crystals, and other objects that meant something special to each one of us. A bulol watched over the our objects and flowers decked the altar. The sun shining through the window cast a glow of peace and the palpable spirits of ancestors who were present with us.

We joined our small groups for the first round of talking circles in the morning. BA HA LA NA - the groups shared the same set of questions about our individual process of decolonization: what does it mean to you? when did you first become aware of the need to decolonize? what feelings surfaced through the process? In the afternoon, our small groups talked about the shadow of history: what are the narratives that have shaped us as historical subjects? how did these narratives affect indigenous peoples? how did it affect our homeland? our communities? our families?


Later in the afternoon all the groups came together to bring back their reflections to the big group. The power of naming our grief is palpable. It feels heavy and uncomfortable. This baggage needs to be unloaded. Forgiven. Let go. We had to honor this grief that is now communally shared and acknowledged. For a while it sat on the pit of our stomachs and filled us with sorrow. Tears welled up in our eyes. We held each other in silence. As we closed this day, I passed around sachets of lavender harvested from my garden -- the sweet earth comforting us, reminding us of the good work we did for the day.

In the evening we had Dreamtime session. In this circle of light, we shared dreams about our ancestors, the lessons from those dreams, the guidance from those dreams. It felt good to hear one another. Laughter has returned. There was lightness of being all around. We were fireflies in the dark night, each one with a burning flame.

Day 2: The Wisdom of our Ancestors
The Chairman of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts in the Philippines, Professor Felipe de Leon, Jr., was our key resource person this weekend. On this second morning, after a past-faced lecture on Filipino indigenous values, indigenous arts, indigenous languages, we felt full and deeply contented. This is how beautiful we are! We are Kapwa! Ka-Sinag! We are the rays of the sun, each drawing from the Core, each interconnected with one another. Prof. de Leon said that his lectures that morning were the content of a semester long class at UP -- how lucky can we get? We enjoyed his humor and his levity. But most of all, he enlarged our knowledge container of our unique cultural assets.

In the afternoon, we continued with workshops. I had told Prof. de Leon that the reason I included a workshop on indigenous rhythms and music is to awaken the fragments of memories in our cultural DNA. Surely, I told him, we can dance again and remember that the connections our ancestors had to music and rhythm also connected them to the Land which sustains them. Titania assembled her kulintangs and agungs, and we cajoled Lizae into a malong dance and we prevailed on Roque to do a warrior healing dance, the sagayan. Prof. de Leon taught us how to tap into our indigenous rhythms (ack! it's not that easy!) with our bamboo instruments from the Cordilleras. We learned to sing a version of Salidummay and a Manobo chant to the rice spirit (Ay Iding!)

Professor de Leon also expressed appreciation for the retreat's theme especially our session on Naming our Grief. At one point he said that this work should be done in the Philippines as well or at least it could be more embedded in our cultural and educational institutions.

In the evening, we played Tao, Bagyo, Bangko - similar to musical chairs. Our bodies needed to move and play; we needed to shriek, shout, laugh, run! It was refreshing! And we broke out into our small groups again with the intention of integrating our reflections from Day 1 and 2 and coming up with a five minute creative expression presentation. What a treat to see each group's talent shine and meld together to choreograph a dance, to interpret a story through movement and sounds. A bridge. A boat rowing on Pasig inspired by the Mutya of the river carrying our gifts to our communities. The breath of life animating our spirit.

Day 3: Our Kapwa, Our Service
When our grief is healed;  when we have emptied ourselves of colonial projections; when we internalize the Beauty of our indigenous cultures and the world view that sustains it -- we are ready to serve our Kapwa. On this day, Perla opened the morning with her spirit-filled prayer that touched our deepest selves. And as she walked us through the many forms of her service to her Kapwa via her artistic contributions: glass fusion art, mandala, the babaylan archetypes - we felt that this body of work is the result of decades of reflection about our Loob and Kapwa.

Our Kapwa panel - Lane, Venus, Mila, Virgil -- also talked about their service. Lane has studied Filipino tattoes and their spiritual symbolism and we are the beneficiaries of the wealth of stories that he shares with us through his book and public talks. Venus chose to talk about her healing journeys -- with her father back to the homeland, a trip to Spain that broke her heart open to forgive the colonizer, and how forgiveness rounds out the circle of Kapwa for her. Mila talked about her work with across generations, of how elders can teach the youth and when given the right context for decolonization, such mutual encounters are deeply transformative. Virgil talked about his healing practice and the growing visibility of this work, via his book, Way of the Ancient Healer, in our communities and beyond. Letty, as facilitator, contributed to the panel by talking about her engagement with non-Filipino communities like the Institute of Matriarchal Studies where she was able to present on the Babaylan.

In the afternoon, we created our community mandala on the sprawling grounds of the university. We retrieved our power objects from the ancestral altar and placed them on the center of the mandala. Lane also placed the bamboo (we have now come to call them bamboo oracles) pendants he hand-carved and burnt on the center. We presented Prof. de Leon with  his own Babaylan mandala poster, and a special bamboo pendant. He cried. And there were more tears as Lane presented each participant with his or her special pendant's symbol and story. We felt that we each received a gift that was only meant for us. Amazing!

And then it was time to say goodbye...

Some of us in the core group went to the ocean the next day to offer the atang/altar offerings to the ocean at Salmon Creek. In the main meeting room, we also had a secondary altar where participants were able to write down their petitions and place them inside a beautiful box; we brought these petitions to the ocean as well. We dug a hole and made a makeshift Sinag altar and burnt the papers, letting the prayers be carried by the wind.
**
If you have read this far, thank you! Now you know why our faces in our photos are glowing.

Decolonization and Indigenization as a Path to the Sacred.

Yes, it is.

on returning the sacred to the world...

The core struggle of America will continue to revolve around issues of inclusion and exclusion. That struggle will provide the heat needed to change and grow and can generate the grieving necessary to heal. Conflicts don't end until the grief engendered has been fully felt. Meaningful conflict opens the doors of grief where the wounds of the soul wait to be washed. Oppositions heat the psyche and move obstacles, but sorrow must follow and wash the soul clean again.


Conflict ends on the ground of grief where the losses are counted and the wounds of the soul washed. The greatest conflicts occur where the felt sense of the sacred has been lost. One reason that wars don't seem to end and treaties never last is because peace is a sacred agreement. Unless something sacred enters in, agreements revert to conflicts rather easily. Some sacrifice is required to make things whole and holy again. The modern world is awash with unresolved conflicts and unconscious sacrifices that don't return the sacred to the world.


(Michael Meade, The Water of Life, 360)

a healing story

Her healing happened when she went to a sweat lodge and coming out of it (it was evening), saw a trail of light outside and decided to take off all her clothes and follow the trail of light. The others didn't know what was going on with her and stood to watch where she was going. But they, too saw the trail of light and saw that it led to a pond. When she got to the pond, naked, she jumped in and those who were standing to watch saw the whole pond light up in this bright glow of light. Coming out of it, she realized then that she was healed, stopped all her medication and has been well since then. Oh, before she saw the light, she saw a medicine man dancing behind her--this, no one else saw. Gloria now works to help homeless people build shelter from scraps (she ran a construction project in the past). 

REVIEW OF VIRGIL MAYOR APOSTOL’S "WAY OF THE ANCIENT HEALER"

 Virgil Mayor Apostol, Way of the Ancient Healer

NORTH ATLANTIC BOOKS, 2010

Reviewed by Leny Mendoza Strobel

January 28, 2011

In a note I sent to Virgil shortly after receiving my copy of his book, I wrote: In a way, my books have been a way station for the arrival of the knowledge that you bring in this book.  I said this because I’ve been writing about the need for those of us in the diaspora to have access to Filipino indigenous knowledge and practices as part of our decolonization process. For what is the point of deconstructing our colonized identities if, in the end, we didn’t have an indigenous narrative of our own? In all of my writing about decolonization and indigenization, I have described my own journey, including my desire to know more specifically about my own ancestral roots as a Kapampangan.

While I have the body memory, I didn’t have the ancestral stories to go along with it. Way of the Ancient Healer gave me those stories. Even if they are Virgil’s personal stories, he claims he speaks out of a collective voice as well…and that includes mine.

In reading Virgil’s Way of the Ancient Healer, I felt as if I finally had the empirical evidence or concrete data in the form of his own personal stories and those of others who reveal the encyclopedic knowledge of healing arts of our Filipino ancestors. He also links this knowledge to the traditions and practices of near and far neighbors in Southeast Asia and beyond. Even further, he also weaves these traditions within the realm of the cosmic and mythic. His narrative spans both ancient and contemporary times to show that the past is still alive in the present; in his Epilogue he envisions that our ancient ways of healing will survive into the future as well.

I used to read the Journal of Noetic Sciences  and Parabola and there was always a part of me that felt incredulous about the attempts of western scientists to prove that certain psychic or spiritual phenomena can be proven scientifically in laboratory settings or with measuring instruments. Even then I was already skeptical of the need to validate everything through the scientific method. I muttered to myself often: why do we need science to prove that prayer works? Why do we need science to prove that meditation works?  

And then I was introduced to the term “indigenous science” through the work of Apela Colorado[1] and Jurgen Kremer[2] and Jeremy Narby[3] – all of whom are writing to posit that there needs to be better dialogue between indigenous knowledge holders (shamans) and scientists.  In particular, I appreciate Narby’s contention that what hinders this dialogue is not language but the arrogance of western science.

Well, we must be making some progress towards that dialogue if I take as one indicator the publication of the Way of the Ancient Healer by North Atlantic Books. Blurbed by famous names in the healing arts - Deepak Chopra, Bradford Keeney, Hank Wesselman, and Jean Houston – this book places our Filipino Sacred Teachings and Philippine Ancestral Traditions on the map.  (Whether we admit it or not, the colonized mind tends to be impressed by the authority of the printed word more than the authority of the oral tradition).

But something is changing…

I heard Danny Kalanduyan, the kulintang master, tell the story that when be brought his Filipino American students to Mindanao to learn about kulintang arts, the locals were wondering why Americans are interested in their arts. I hear the same story repeated in various ways: when Filipinos in the Philippines receive the balikbayans who are interested in indigenous cultures and practices, it creates a synergy and it awakens their own consciousness to the importance and relevance of these practices.  In the Philippines, I remember Fr. Alejo’s story of how the indigenous folks on Mt Apo told him: why do you still want to study us, Father, when we don’t have culture anymore? (in reference to their having agreed to allow a geothermal development on their sacred mountain).[4]

Indeed, the timing of Virgil Apostol’s book is perfect.  I sense that we are ready to look back at our ancient ways of knowing and healing because when we do, it returns us to a place of belonging. It makes us feel whole. It makes us joyful to remember, re-member and make whole the fragments of stories that we have silently carried in our cultural genes.

I look at the photographs in this book and the various ways of naming among our ethnolinguistic groups and I am overcome by a soothing feeling, a very comforting feeling. More recently, my grief and sadness over the stories that were not passed on to me by my own ancestors have been assuaged: You may not know our names or our stories, but you know us. Your work honors us. And we know you. What prepared me to hear the voice of my ancestors includes the time I spent with Virgil’s book. 

Let me put it another way: The spoken word is potent. In oral cultures, as in the ancient times of our ancestors, the stories were handed down in all their potency and power. David Abram[5] writes that reading can be an animist experience once we learn how to reconnect with the sensuousness of the world and the word.

The structure of Way of the Ancient Healer lends itself to the potential of reclaiming the power of the oral tradition, of the story, of the spoken word in its literate form. In this way of bridging, of finding the middle path (as Virgil calls his approach to this work), it invites the skeptical, the cynic, the doubter – for whatever reasons – to come hither and listen.  Is your religious belief or scientific belief or your modern consciousness getting in the way of this invitation to imbibe in the wealth of your ancestral Filipino roots? Not to worry. Virgil’s approach in this book is gentle, humorous, compassionate, and non-judgmental. After all, that’s the only way the ancestors would have it.

-30-

---

[1] http://www.wisn.org/research.html

[2] http://www.sonic.net/~jkremer/Ethnoautobiography.PDF

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Serpent

[4] See Fr. Albert Alejo’s book, Creating Energies on Mt. Apo, Ateneo University Press

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nhqzxHVQm4

White Theology intersects with indigenous spirituality

This is a re-post from the old blog (kathang-pinay) dated January 29, 2005.:


What is white theology and how does it intersect with indigenous spirituality?

Jim Perkinson's answer: 

• The simplest answer I suppose is to say white theology is a response to black theology. Like that effort of making black experience of race explicit in relationship to Christian theology, white theology tries to do the same with whiteness.
• It means making clear how racialization and racism came into being in the first place as a European theological evaluation of colonized peoples as “not saveable” and of their cultural and religious practices as dangerous at best and demonic at worst.
• That theological evaluation quickly took up skin color as its shorthand for assessing who is who in the colonial theaters of contact.
• White theology then makes apparent how racial perception and racist exploitation of colonized others were originally theological in motivation and continue to function as mode of “salvation” for white people.
• Modern Christianity is not a neutral force in the modern world but since 1492 has functioned as a modality of spiritual supremacy that birthed white supremacy.
• White supremacy is the bastard child of Christian supremacy over indigenous religions. White theology seeks to trace that history and genealogy and then make clear how white supremacy continues to operate as the hidden norm inside most of our global structures today, whether economic, political, social, cultural, or spiritual.
• Recovery of indigenous practices as peer spiritualities of Christianity (or even as perhaps superior in their sensitivity to local culture and ecology) is necessary to “outing” and dismantling white supremacy.

Romancing the Indigenous?

There are many intellectuals today who feel that any respectful reference to indigenous beliefs smacks of romanticism, and a kind of backward-looking nostalgia. Oddly, these same persons often have no problem "looking backward" toward ancient Rome or ancient Greece for philosophical insight and guidance in the present day. What upsets these self-styled "defenders of civilization" is the implication that civilization might have something to learn from cultures that operate according to an entirely different set of assumptions, cultures that stand outside of historical time and the thrust of progress. Many persons steeped in Western science tend to assume that native notions are superstitious or simply negative, unaware that indigenous thought stems from a radically different view of what language is, and what thinking is for.

There is simply no way to comprehend indigenous notions without stepping aside from commercial assumptions that are broadly taken for granted today (including the basic equation of land with property -- with a commodity that can be bought, sold, or owned). Indigenous insights cannot be understood without slowing down, without taking time to notice the upward press of the ground and the earthen silence that surrounds all our worlds. Often at home in such silence, oral peoples tend toward reticence, reluctant to broadcast their experience very loudly. Hence, while indigenous traditions are vigorously unfolding today, the philosophical intensity and practical wisdom of native peoples all too often remains invisible and unheard amid the bustle and blare of contemporary commerce, conveniently ignored by those who most have need of such intelligence.

David Abram, Becoming Animal, 267

Local community service

happy with the surge in interest from local community folks on how to re-envision, re-spirit, re-energize our Kapwa in this county. today, about a dozen folks gathered at Noemi's to brainstorm on how this might happen. before diving into the topic, we went through the creativity exercises that i borrowed from dear Mila. Mila calls these "raising babaylan consciousness" activities but i didn't use this term as i didn't want to confuse those who are not yet familiar with the term. the purpose of the activity was to introduce ourselves to each other while also identifying the qualities or values that made us proud to be Filipino. some of their answers: Masipag, mabait, maka-Diyos, malikhain, mapagmahal, masaya, matulungin, malakas, matiyaga, maganda ang kalooban, may paninindigan, at iba pa. they also said: we are family oriented; we value education; we are practical; we are resourceful, we are respectful.  from these answers, we asked ourselves: how then do we share these values in our community-at-large? how do we enlarge this circle? 
it was only from this point on that we were able to start brainstorming on how to address the issues in our community.
*the need for educational workshops and cultural programming
*how to invest in the youth
*how to bridge the different groups in the area
*how to improve the infrastructure and services of the community center
*how to inspire? basis of inspiration?
i liked the energy of the small group. i can tell that there is potential here.

***
my next project: becoming animal...

Malidoma Some on Indigenous Technologies

Holding Our Power : (Part II) An Interview with Malidoma Patrice Somé Excerpt from SUN Magazine, August 1994 by D. Patrick Miller Miller:  It seems to me that the modern world is interested in virtual reality, computer linkups, and high-speed electronic communication because it's trying to do a kind of soul traveling. Malidoma:  That's right!  It wants to jump to "warp sped" and get there fast.  I'm watching what's going on with virtual reality and CD-ROM; the hidden spirituality of science is an attempt to return you to your ancestors.  It's a return to the primal way of living, where you are connected with the cosmos.  For now, it's represented by the telephone, the television -- tele means "contact from a distance."  The truth is, there's not much difference between you watching television and my grandfather sitting in his room watching a bunch of antelope eating in the field many miles away. Miller:  Is virtual reality the only way the West can get back to this power? Malidoma:  No, it's one of countless ways.  Right now, it's the fashionable way because you can meter it and bill for it.  This contrasts radically with the indigenous world.  People there don't measure how much time they spend connecting with the spirit world.  I don't think the West will be ready to connect with spirit until someone can find a way to bill for it. Miller:  Why is the West obsessed with billing?  Is it simply a survival issue? Malidoma:  Not really.  It has to do with accumulating power.  Some people think that if they get rich and powerful enough, they will jump right over to the other side of reality and be able to connect and be able to connect with the real power of the ancestors.  But this is just an illusion, an endless cycle of accumulation that doesn't get you any nearer the other side. Miller:  In Western religious traditions we have long been convinced that the other side -- heaven, or paradise -- is very, very far away.  Thus, we think it must take a lot of money or power, or even suffering to get there. Malidoma:  But it's not far away, really.  It's right here.  That's like thinking your shadow is very far away.  Actually you can never get away from it.      When you believe that the other side is distant, you have to think about  transportation -- a means to get there.  You need interstate highways, airlines, shuttles in orbit.  You think about speed all the time to figure out the fastest way to get there. Miller:  What are some ways to reestablish a more direct contact with the other side? Malidoma:  It's not complicated.  You can go for a walk in nature and listen.  Someone asked me how to hear what nature was saying, and I told him, "Just go out there, put your hand into a creek, and pull out a stone and listen.  You'll hear something."      The important thing is not to panic when you do start hearing something and don't know whether or not it's for real.  Give yourself the benefit of the doubt.  That is what most people fail to do.  They have a magical experience, and then they surround it with resistance, with questioning.  They will come to me and say, "I think I heard something, but I would like to know for sure."  I say, "What do you mean, for sure?"      Let me tell you, that stone is for sure. Miller:  When I sit beneath a tree and get some kind of feeling or message, the problem is that it's not verbal.  I am always struggling to use words to figure out what it means. Malidoma:  You are trying to bring it into this world. Miller:  But I can't be sure of what the tree is saying if I can't put it into words. Malidoma:  When the message resists being put into words, it is very important to respect that.  There are many realities that die the moment they are wrapped in words.  Verbalization is a massacre of these realities, and that upsets the other realm.  That realm is asking you to recognize it by respecting its wordlessness.  Sooner or later, you'll realize that your experience by the tree constitutes an entirely different type of communication.  With practice you'll be able to enter that realm as comfortably as the worded world you are used to. Miller:  When I look at the big addictions of our culture -- drugs, violence, money, sex -- they all appear to be thwarted forms of yearning.  It's as if addicts are trying to get to the other side through these substances and experiences. Malidoma:  If only they could stop and look at the tree.  It's right there.  They could reclaim their right to get to the other side, instead of killing themselves slowly.      The addict misses community.  He or she misses home, the village energy that makes one feel whole.  That's why people can't quit these things on their own; it's utterly impossible.  The overeater, the smoker, the alcoholic -- they are all using different means to communicate the same message:  "If you don't bring back my village, I might as well die."  People with addictions take in more and more of the same substance, imagining they can become their own village.  But it won't work.  They remain lonely individuals.      We need to shift our point of view on this.  The addict is not having a personal problem; he or she is communicating a problem we all have. Miller:  That makes sense when I think of our rise in violence and crime, and our approach to criminal justice.  We try to lock away all the people we regard as violent, as if their violence were strictly their own problem and responsibility, rather than our responsibility as a whole community. Malidoma:  The driving force behind violence is twofold:  there is an absence of adequate community, and also an unanswered need for initiation.  Violence is a force that is trying to open up what I call an individual's "black box" -- all the information that was stored within a soul on its journey to earth.  Unless we recover that information, it's very difficult to know what our purpose is on this planet.  The individual will do anything and everything to open that black box.  Without a proper initiation, this drive can become a very wild energy with the power to kill other people as well as the person caught up in it.      We want to put it away because it's scary.  But our fear should be a reminder that we're in the proximity of something magical, something very powerful.  Violence is an expression of the proximity of magic.      A dysfunctional society instinctively suppresses magic.  That society locks up people who are violently trying to understand their own hidden purpose.  And it tends to treat illness in the same way:  "Just put it away.  Put it out of our sight."  The belief is that hiding the symptom will cure the illness. Miller:  Does this explain why the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to violent crime? Malidoma:  The energy of violence is not subject to death.  You can kill a container of that energy, but the energy goes on and finds another.  And there are so many containers available in a dysfunctional society!  We lay the blame on the container without studying what is contained. Miller:  So how can our society understand its violence in a useful way? Malidoma:  First, understand that it is a message about illness of the social body.  Then try to trace it to its source and go about making peace with that source. Miller:  Some would say the source is racial and class discrimination, unfair distribution of resources and employment opportunities, and so forth. Malidoma:  In a sense that's true because there is an industry of inequality that some people profit from, and they don't want to give up their profits.  It's the historical struggle between rich and poor.  But the underlying ailment is spiritual -- the disconnection from the ancestors and the spirit world.  Inequalities inevitably arise in a society that is alienated from the cosmos, from the grand scheme of things. Miller:  So you're suggesting that we're too busy fighting each other to realize that the access to what we ultimately want is all around us.  We fight over little bits of power on this side of reality, when the power of the other side is immense. Malidoma:  It's so huge we can't even fathom it.  But we cannot own it or control it; we can only serve it.  To do that one must constantly ask:  How humble am I when I approach power?  We must be careful not to overinflate our egos, because the West is a showoff culture.      To hold on to power, you must guard against self-inflation or ego-tripping.  Constantly envision yourself as servant, not proprietor, of the powers around us all.  Honor their mystery.  And let them use you.

Books on indigenous research methods

thanks to Letty for this link.
and by the way, dear one, i dreamt last night that we were dancing.
dancing!!

Interview with Malidoma Some

When I read Of Water and Spirit by Malidoma Some more than a decade ago, something in me was awakened -- a familiarity, a kinship -- and i've been on that road ever since. I wanted to reclaim my indigenous self. Thanks to Malidoma for this interview reprint.

Holding Our Power :
(Part I)

An Interview with
Malidoma Patrice Somé

Excerpt from SUN Magazine, August 1994
by D. Patrick Miller

Miller:  In your first book, Ritual:  Power, Healing, and Community, you tell the story of taking one of your elders to the city of Ouagadougou.  When the elder saw a tall building for the first time, he pointed to it and said, "Whoever did that has serious problems."  What did he mean?

Malidoma:  In the tall building, the old man saw power being dangerously displayed.  To him that meant the power on display was going to die; that's why he said that the builder had problems.  Every time you show something mighty in public that way, it means your power is in it's death throes, that you are having problems keeping the power alive within yourself.  Power comes out this way only when you are on the losing side in some kind of struggle.

Miller:  That's a complete reversal of the Western view in which we see our tall buildings as proof of progress.

Malidoma:  The first time I went to Paris -- my God, I was so impressed!  There were tall buildings everywhere.  I didn't understand my own fascination -- and my intimidation -- until I took that elder to Ouagadougou.  Instead of reacting as I had in Paris, he looked and saw, not the building, but the person behind the building; he saw a person who needed help.

     The indigenous world is not interested in the show of power.  It is interested in respecting the source of the power.  This respect is kept alive by camouflage; the power is protected by hiding it.  An elder who has the power to create a light hole -- a gateway you can jump through into another galaxy -- is not interested in using that power to impress people.  He would not use that power to show off.

     This has baffled people to whom I've tried to explain natural power.  They've asked, "If the indigenous world is that powerful, why does it let itself be destroyed by the West?"  They've got a point.  Knowing what I do about the West, if I were at the elders' level of power I would be tempted to use that power to handcuff the West -- put the West in jail for a while so the natural world could heal itself from all this so-called progress.  But now I've begun to understand that when you are in touch with this kind of power, you do not react against things.  You don't try to stop destruction head-on.

Miller:  Is that because using the power to handcuff the West would require showing the power, and therefore dishonoring it?

Malidoma:  Yes, you could not deploy the power without showing some of it, and as soon as it is brought out into the open, the power is unusable.  You cannot do what you expected to with it.

Miller:  In our culture we are always answering force with force.  We can't see our way out of this cycle of violence, in wars around the globe or conflicts within our own country.  How can we learn to hold our power inside ourselves, rather than feel the need to show it at every opportunity?

Malidoma:  That's a very big challenge when, culturally, your first instinct is to take your power outward, where you immediately diminish it by display.  The answer is to become a servant of your power.  Your inner power must be danced with until it yields its own way of being shared with other people.

Miller:  What do you mean by "danced with"?

Malidoma:  I mean entering into a respectful dialogue with power.  Let's say you realize that you can travel out of your body.  You shouldn't immediately go and tell other people about it or start a workshop in soul travel.  That is disrespectful to the unique experience you have having.  Your first reaction shouldn't be to begin a marketing process.

     Instead, maintain a certain secrecy around your new ability and have a learning dialogue with it for a while.  If you discuss your power too soon with people who do not understand it, they may get just some fragment of it that enters them like a bullet; then their whole life may start to come apart.  There will be a kind of hole in them.  They will feel incomplete unless they think they can get this power, and that power, and that new experience over there.

Miller:  In the sixties many people used drugs in an attempt to have a certain kind of experience or to "see God."  But there was an acquisitiveness to it.  There was little sense of coming to comprehend and accept one's unique role in the human community, and understanding that you have identified as the purpose of ritual and transcendental experience.  Now young people take part in "raves" in which they sing and dance all night.  Here, too, there seems to be no particular purpose except acquiring the experience or "having fun."

Malidoma:  When you are brought up in consumerism, even your spiritual experience is seen in those terms.  When Westerners see that someone else has had a spiritual experience, it is like they are seeing a commercial.  They think, "Hey, I've got to get this.  Otherwise I'm incomplete."  Kids have raves because they have heard raves are fun, and they want to have fun too.

     Actually there is some similarity between having fun and genuine spiritual experience.  In ritual the fun isn't physical but psychical.  It's the soul having fun, as opposed to the body.  The two intersect, but that intersection is very hazy for many of us.  I see people as possibly having a spiritual experience at raves, but without their conscious selves' knowing what is going on.  This is why the elders' presence is so important to genuine ritual.  They bring conscious spiritual know-how to such an experience.

     The idea that anything spiritual must be solemn and serious is a big problem in the West.  Your religions are full of genuflection, kneeling, and bowing to hierarchical powers.  It takes the fun out of it!  Western religion seems allergic to fun.  So it's very hard to wake people here up to a liberated spirituality -- a spirituality that allows the soul some relaxation and good feeling.

     In the village people like to stay in ritual space, singing and dancing all night, because it's fun.  The spirit within us is like a child.  When the child has its proper toys, it can play.

Miller:  What are the proper toys for the spirit?

Malidoma:  The proper toys are the natural world, the community, a sense of connectedness, a sense of purpose, and a craving to be with invisible friends.

     You have to play in a natural place, away from the downtown and the freeway.  Your toys have to be the stones and rocks, and the creek running with pure water, and the trees.  You have to be in a space that hasn't been rearranged by civilization.  And you have to stay long enough to get over being homesick for the town.  Then you start seeing beauty in the trees, and the creek starts to lookvery interesting.

     When you narrow your attention down to nature itself, you can break into a totally different world with as many compelling things as there seemed to be in the city.  What starts to happen is what I call "the indigenous person being reborn."  Once you start to see the countless possibilities of nature, you enter the toy store of the spirit.  That's when you can start to have fun.  But the spirit will not have fun in the tall building, where sterility rules and a cold, blunt, steel-like energy surrounds you.

     There is a part of us that always feels incomplete because it wants to reclaim its connection with nature.  When nature is remote from us, we don't remember how we used to be, and we don't remember how to let the spirit have fun.

Miller:  Do your elders believe there is some kind of destiny being fulfilled in the West's path -- that there might be something the whole human race is learning through our unwise show of power?

Malidoma: I haven't heard any elders speak of such a cosmic design.  What they see is the upsetting of a natural relationship.  Modern humanity has broken away from its ancestors, has cut the connection.  In our circular cosmology, you cannot go backward to reconnect; you have to go forward in a great circle before you can reconnect with your ancestors again.

     Imagine two satellites in orbit, traveling together in the same direction.  One of them starts to move faster and breaks away.  The one behind will not speed up, and the one moving ahead cannot back up.  So the one ahead must increase thrust and go completely around before it can rejoin the other one.  Once you have broken with the ancestors, you must circle forward to rejoin them.  And while you are traveling around, you will encounter many disasters because you will be on your own.

     The West is seeking its past by going into the future.  The indigenous cultures don't need to race into the future because they haven't lost contact with their ancestors.