Yvonne and I arrived in two large vans with a trailer attached to each one for food and luggage on October 27th. We started our trip with a traditional South AFrican Brai, which is an outdoor grilled dinner. Our 12 travelers had been arriving for the 3 days previous and it was wonderful to see their excited faces and have them meet each other for the first time. We never actually had a formal introduction to each other and on this first night you would not have been able to tell that they never knew each other before. It was like a gathering of old friends and we had not even officially started the trip.
This was the first year our dear brother from our spirit family was able to join us. Cedric John Hood has a spiritual life as long as anyone’s and is also trained as a Peruvian Shaman and South African Sangoma. He has a connection with the earth that it stronger than any I have ever witnessed. On this first night, he sat in the background, taking in all the energies of the group knowing we were all staring a journey that would be life changing and we didn’t even know it yet.
We asked the group to be at the vans loaded and breakfast eaten by 8am. Our first clue that this group was different was when we arrived at the trailers at 7:30am to unlock them, most everyone was there with their bags in hand. By 8am, we were pulling out of the driveway. This timeliness became routine throughout our trip. We headed to Cape Vidal, South AFrica, where we greeted the Amakosi (Great Spirit) of the Ocean and thanked the water and earth for welcoming our whole group along with our Ancestors. We had an evening ceremony opening all the directions to our group and creating a sacred space for us all to grow, thrive and to be uplifted on our entire journey together. We huddled together, lighting candles on the beach as the wind carried our intentions for ourselves up to the heavens to be created.
Each moment after creating a sacred intention for our trip was filled with mystery, magic, and delight as plants, animals, spirits and divine messages filled our daily life. Each day someone would say…..this is only day 3 and already is bigger than we could imagine. This is only days 5 of our trip, how can it possibly get better than this? Each day unfolded in ways that were beyond what we could have imagined in our own minds, we were humbled by the gifts God continued to lay at the feet of our group.
Yvonne had discovered these amazing tented camps in the Game Reserve we went to. We saw every animal, large and small to the tiniest of creatures. We learned from Makosi Cedric Hood that even the smallest of God’s creatures can carry the biggest messages if we will simply listen. You should have seen our two full vans of people yelling at cars to stop to prevent the death of a Dung Beetle. We had many hours of laughter for days after that particular event.
One night, a woman from our group asked Makosi Cedric about how she could over come her fears of bugs. Makosi Cedric talked for awhile and then had her sit next to the fire. All the others were gone and all the lights were out. She sat as one Hyena came in close to the fire. He had her open heart to the hyena and make a heart to heart connection with it. Her fear wanted to close down her heart but she consiously kept it open. Then another Hyena came up….now you must understand, this was within 3 feet of her and Hyenas are very large animals with very large teeth….Makosi Cedric had her open her heart to this other hyena and describe how each one felt different than the other and what she noticed about each animal. At no point did the hyena feel threatened by any of this and they are very skiddish animals. Later, when the hyenas were gone I asked her what her experience was and asked her …. did she feel frightened? She said she was surprised that as close as they were and as large as they were…she never felt fear, only an intensity of energy. It was a huge lesson about how fear can cause our hearts to slam shut and in a state of pure love all things are possible.
We then made our way to Ecabazini Cultural Homestead, where we stayed in Zulu huts for 3 nights. Ate food cooked on a hot fire and our warm nights glowing by fireflys and candlelight. We found crystals coming right out of the ground. One woman in our group brought wire to hang the crystals and make necklaces. Our group learned the proper way to enter a stone circle, we had a group meditation and sat in quiet places on the land and journeled. We learned to drum, dance and some of our group participated in spreading cow dung on hut floors!
We then visited Makosi Cindi in Ladysmith. She has been a Sangoma (traditional healer and shaman) for 40 years and has trained personally over 200 others to become Sangomas. She spoke no English, so we had an interpreter. Yvonne and I had met her the week before our group came to ask her if our group could visit. She could tell that our group intention was pure and welcomed our visit. So the day we arrived at her home and Makasini (sacred space, where she sees clients for consultations) there were about 5 other Sangomas there. She allowed time to ask her questions about being a Sangoma and when the energy became thick and heavy, she got up, pulled out the drum and before we knew it we were all drumming and dancing our burdens away. We were fed lunch, and danced more as about 10 more Sangomas arrived hearing news of Americans visiting their township. She had our whole group parade through her neighborhood, as if giving a sermon, thanking the ancestors for honoring all of them by bringing us and our ancestors to visit them in their township. She said it was a great honor for her and the people of her community. We left that evening over filled with awe! and we still had another week of our trip left.
The two weeks of our trip was spent being tourist in our outerworld. The last week of our journey was spent touring our inner world. Up in the Drakensberg Mountains, we each set our greater personal intentions of what we wanted for ourselves and what we wanted personally to take home. How did we want to be from this day forward and what did we desire to leave behind. We had ceremonies, prayers, meditations, herbal medicines, cleansings, more prayers, earth, fire, air and water ceremonies. Each one deepened our knowing of ourselves better then the moment before. Being gentle, compassionate, and caring for ourselves and for each other.
In between our personal journey into our deep healing we went on a hike to a sacrd forest filled with earth spirits and elementals. We then took another hike to a sacred cave that had ancient Sans paintings. Both places were definitely in another dimension and few humans had ever been to either place. Unspoiled land, helped awaken our own memories of what life used to be like and can be like again.
We were touched deeply by our experiences but mostly by the group that traveled with us. All we had to say was….lets go deeper and each one of them said, we’re in, lets go! and they held nothing back. Yes, we will do this again and yes, it will be different however it will be equally magical and we can not wait to let the magic begin again! Makose!