re-arranging the furniture of the soul: newsletter archive
Sent out at 3:03pm PST on 4/30/2022, New Moon Eclipse in Taurus / transcription below:
What you'll find below: excerpts from the book RITUAL – Power, Healing, and Community by the late Malidoma Patrice Somé (1956-2021). He was born into the Dagara tribe of Burkin Faso in West Africa. “Malidoma” means “be friend with the stranger.” He was an initiated, gifted diviner and medicine man. We are lucky to have his work on the medicine and spiritual technologies that continue to call us home…
Elder Malidoma on “time”
“Among the Dagara, the absence of ”time" generates a mode of life whose focus is on the state of one's spirit. This is not comparable to what machine-dominated culture is all about. While in America, the newcomer thinks at first that people move hurriedly in order to enjoy the thrill of speed. But a more traditional look at motion, at speed, quickly reveals that speed is not necessarily so much a movement toward something as it is a movement away from something.
The elder who noticed that moderns don't have to run toward something that isn't moving was pointing to the idea that to move is also to keep oneself distracted. The indigenous mind cannot conceive of it otherwise. And so the elder sees those in constant motion (going places, doing things, making noise) as moving away from something that they do not want to look at or moving away from something that others do not want them to look at. When you slow down, you begin to discover that there is a silent awareness of what it is that you do not want to look at: the anger of nature within each of us, the anger of the gods, the anger of the ancestors or the spirit world." p. 16
"Thus the two worlds of the traditional and the industrial are diametrically opposed. The indigenous world, in trying to emulate Nature, espouses a walk with life, a slow, quiet day-to-day kind of existence. The modern world, on the other hand, steams through life like a locomotive, controlled by a certain sense of careless waste and destruction. Such life eats at the psyche and moves its victims faster and faster along, as they are progressively emptied out of their spiritual and psychic fuel. It is here, consequently, where one's spirit is in crisis…
Any person in modern culture who is aware of this destruction from the machine world upon the spiritual world of the individual realizes that there is a starvation of the soul. And realizing that, he or she starts to wonder what to do about it…"
Elder Malidoma on pain + ritual
"Human senses are devices of communication. Sight is a language, as are pain, touch, smell and taste. The most powerful among them is the feeling of pain. For the Dagara elder, pain is the result of a resistance to something new – something toward which an old dispensation is at odds. We are made of layers of situations or experiences. Each one of them likes to use a specific part of ourselves in which to lodge. It's like a territory. A new experience that does not have a space to sit within us will have to kick an old one out. The old one that does not want to leave will resist the new one, and the result is registered by us as pain. This is why the elders call it Tuo. It means invasion, hunting, meeting with a violent edge. It also means boundary. Body complaint is understood as the soul's language relayed to us. A person in pain is being spoken to by that part of himself that only knows how to communicate in this way.
Thus, when an initiated member of the community registers communication through pain, it is a signal that the soul is in need of some communion with its spiritual counterpart. In other words, the soul is moving old furniture out and bringing in new furniture. Whether that eventually works out well is another question. We do not always allow ourselves to work through pain. More often than not, we think pain is a signal that we must stop, rather than find its source. Our souls do not like stagnation. Our souls aspire towards growth, that is, toward remembering all that we have forgotten due to our trip to this place, the earth. In this context, a body in pain is a soul in longing. To shut down the pain is to override the call of the soul. When this happens it is a repressive measure taken against oneself, which has somber consequences.
Is it possible to say that pain is good, primarily because it is a call to growth? The Dagara elders would say yes. They believe that a person who has suffered is a person who has heard pain (won Tuo). The person hears the pain as a creative action, connecting that person with his or her highest self, which prescribes an alternative to spiritual death. So pain at least teaches us something. It is commotion, e-motion and a call for rebirth. It teaches us that one must return to a mode of living that began with life itself. And it draws from nature and the cosmos life-essence that seeks to align itself with the existing powers."
“Such living is what ancient tribes have adopted for thousands of years. And its success can be seen in the fact that in it there is room for the entire person to exist. This means that the world of progress with its all-consuming tendencies is an essentialist that feeds on anything that lives, turning the human into an indentured servant fed with things material, yet starved for everything else. In this context, ritual is this return to the ancient with a plea for help directed to the world of the spirit.”
I am learning myself, how to be with the pain when it arises. To notice it, listen to it, explore its contours and edges, instead of immediately seeking to change its sensation into something that feels “good”. “I make peace with my pain and suffering” was my mantra for mindfulness practice today. The use of the word make, empowered me to see this being-with-pain process as a sort of creative activity.
Do you have rituals that support you through moments of growth / flux / rebirth? Are there trusted people (human or more-than) who you resource yourself with? Write me back if you feel called to.
May we learn to honour the communications of our soul, our senses, spirit. hands on heart through this new moon + eclipse. x
Slowly, quietly…
k
