Life and Death and Life

Almost 20 years ago I found a book in a library, “Of Water and the Spirit” by Malidoma Some. At the time I was seeking a more simple life and fell in love with his stories of life in the village and the initiatory process that he went through. I also was heartbroken by the stories of colonization and boarding school abuse that he went through. But what really grabbed my soul was his descriptions of community rituals part of daily life where there was drumming and dancing and fire and fully embodied felt sense encounter with spirit.  My soul was a big yes!  This was really living!

At the time I thought it was just an interesting read describing a way of life that used to be but is no more. Little did I know in the year 2022 I would be a part of such an experience.  Not as a passive witness, a visitor, or an attendee, but as one of the support people for his memorial with my primary responsibility being providing drumming for the ritual.  Not in Africa, but in the United States, set up right next to the fire as people made their offerings.  And the reason for the occasion was his death.

It definitely was not a straight-line path to get to that moment last week. I had no intention of learning to play djembe 20 years ago. Also along the road was grad school to become a therapist, becoming a father, launching a new career, many many ceremonies and vision quests with indigenous peoples of this continent. And finding a local community that learns traditional rhythms and dances of West African drum and dance culture.  I did it for the fun and community and joy of making music with others, little did I know it would also be setting me up for this service.   

A couple of years after grad school a friend randomly gave me another one of Malidoma’s books “The Healing Wisdom of Africa” which she had read in school at Naropa. I enjoyed this book as well, but in hindsight, I realize part of me was rejecting it mostly out of the grief and sadness that it evoked in the background, as at the time I believed that I would never get to experience the rituals in a community that he describes. It was easier to reject than to face the grief of not getting what my soul needed.  Then a few years ago something knocked at the door to my psyche and I remembered my desire to study with Malidoma and have these experiences I longed for many years ago.

A quick Google search showed me that he was indeed still teaching mostly out of Asheville, North Carolina and I wrote to inquire about classes. It was expensive, plus the cost of flights, but something in my soul knew that I needed to not let money be an obstacle and I needed to be there. Many times over the years I boarded a plane either to Charlotte with a rental car or directly to Asheville and got a ride 40 minutes into the country to a home where Elder Teresa had carefully cultivated the land and shrines connected to the shrines in Malidoma’s village in Africa. It wasn’t easy traveling during the pandemic lots of fears and hardships. It also wasn’t easy once again being a white man learning indigenous practices people of color and all the pain of racism and colonization that’s contained in all of our ancestries. But it was where I was supposed to be.

As I learned drop by drop over the years, continuing to show up, bringing people together from diverse backgrounds, and offering community rituals is exactly what Malidoma was up to.  His own way of helping to heal the wounds he personally had along with many of us from colonization and racism.  Fighting the battle head-on has led to more conflict.  Bringing people together for ritual healing and connecting at the level of hearts and souls was exactly the way to heal these deep ancestral wounds.

In all of those circles and all of those rituals, so much wisdom and magic was shared. Not just from Elder Malidoma, but from everyone. If there was one consistent message received from him it was that everybody has valuable medicine to share, and the world needs everyone’s unique medicine. Not copying what the leader or others have done. But to have your own direct experience and relationship with the elements of nature and your own ancestry, and learn how to understand and work with these beings. And be humble enough to know it’s not you doing anything and grandiose enough to not limit the possibility of what could take place. And in between those two places letting the magic come through all on its own.

And yet it wasn’t till after coming for the memorial that I realized the true magic wasn’t in the messages or words or rituals or synchronicities or major life changes that happened as a result of these experiences. Those were great too, but the real magic was realizing how 20 years ago my soul set me on a path that I didn’t even know that I was on. That I had heard a call but I didn’t even know I was responding to. Here I was getting to experience the very ceremony that I longed to have in my life, with diverse people of all ages and genders and races with big tears of grief and big joy and laughter and the presence of the fire and the drum and the dance. Many different people, many different roles, and not only was I experiencing it I was a part of the container that held it.

As Malidoma would say don’t limit yourself to what is possible. I thought that I would be fortunate to get to experience a community ritual like that one day.  Only to realize that I was not just going to get to attend a ceremony like that one day and then I was helping do it for others.  All without the aim or intention of my conscious ego.

Even though he may be no longer living in a body the journey is not over.  Elder Malidoma’s death has brought even more energy and life to those who were touched by his gifts.   And his message has awoken the unique and special medicine that every single one of us carries.  

Sharing and reflecting on this story makes me want to inquire for myself and to you what is the path that your soul has put you on? That path that you didn’t even know you were on? The path that maybe you’ve been sad and frustrated that it hasn’t happened yet?  Or that maybe you’ve tasted but been frustrated it hasn’t met your vision and expectations of what it was supposed to be? That path is still there just keep walking.  As they say, that which you seek is also seeking you.  May we all be open to meeting it when we encounter it.  It’s those moments of encounter with our soul in which new life bursts forth.

“We go forward we die, we go backwards we die…we might as well go forward.” ~Elder Malidoma Patrice Some.