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Shamanic Healing Quest
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| Sundancer Lone Eagle "walks the Lakota Way." Photo Credit: Natalie Avakian |
With eyes closed, I knelt before African healer Mandaza Kandemwa. He was holding my hands. Deena Metzger, an author and healer, crouched to my right, reaching across me to place her hands upon my left femur.
Deena's assistant, Danelia Wild, sat to my left. She was also touching me, as was Mark, the love of my life. They addressed my pain, trying to heal me. Instead of the usual aching, I could feel a pulsing of energy surge through my leg. For more than nine months, I've had pain in my shin and a deep bone hurt due to a femur fracture which hasn't properly mended.
I was grateful for their time and their touch.
A year and a half ago, I stepped into a crosswalk opposite the Bodhi Tree and was hit by a Ford Explorer going 35 mph. I was hurled upon the hood before I bounced off and struck the pavement. By the time the driver realized he'd hit a human being, he'd dragged me 49 feet into the adjacent crossing. I'd made skid marks with my denim jeans, but somehow, the vehicle hadn't rolled over me. I had survived.
I was rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where they placed a metal shaft inside my broken thighbone. I also suffered four broken ribs, a fractured vertebra and tailbone, a torn rotary cuff and a heavily-bruised spirit.
My healing journey has been a long one, full of switchbacks and surprises. For some reason, I still have a non-unionized break. It's taken me a long time to arrive at a place of self-compassion. Now I know that the process is even more important than the destination.
While Cedars did a brilliant job of patching me up during my week at the hospital, I quickly learned that without medical insurance, they had no incentive to tend to my lingering pain. I already owed them $67,000. As a Canadian, I wasn't accustomed to the notion that health is only for those with money.
I've gone to see three orthopedists since then. They've all wanted to cut into me. One suggested I remove the screw in my hip and place it higher up in my buttock, with the hopes that it would force the bone down (I felt like a piece of Ikea furniture). The original surgeon claimed that the rod within the bone was moving and suggested placing a bigger rod. The third said I needed a bone graft and urged me to stop doing yoga for fear I would bend the (titanium) rod.
There was no heart or tenderness in their approach, and each visit left me feeling sad and hopeless. I rejected all of their options and realized that Western medicine did not, does not hold all the answers for me. I've used my accident, which was really no accident at all, as an opportunity to meet different types of healers within my community: acupuncturists, energy workers, massage therapists, chiropractors, channelers — in the hopes that I could experience healing energy.
When I was asked to write about the fourth annual Gathering of the Shamans, I marveled at the opportunity. The event, which is organized by the nonprofit organization Journey to the H.E.A.R.T (Healing Earth and All Who Reside There), brings together shamans from around the world to share their practices and join together in healing, explained founder Kim Langbecker.
For months, I looked forward to having an experience with these wise healers. I purposefully had no expectations, but in my heart, I quietly held great hope.
The four-day retreat, jam-packed with healing ceremonies, yoga sessions, drumming, dream circles and a sweat lodge, unfolded in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear in mid-September. The air was crisp, and every so often a gentle breeze carried the sweet scent of pine. There were finches and fat blue jays, and a number of birds swooped down and ate out of visitors' hands.
To my surprise, it was an intimate crowd of only about 80 people from different age groups and ethnic backgrounds. I had assumed there would be hordes lining up for the chance to meet these shamans who are, in a sense, an endangered species.
The main event of each day was Daré, which means "council" in the Shona language of Zimbabwe. The first time, for instance, we gathered outside by candlelight as the sun set behind the mountains, and formed a circle; this shape, we were told, holds strength and intelligence.
We called in the spirits by chanting and drumming and feeling from our hearts. This creates a field of knowing and remembering, said Deena, a 60-something Jewish woman who resembles a Native American elder with her wild gray hair and weathered face. Deena and her husband, Michael Ortiz Hill, also an author and a registered nurse, brought Daré to North America in 1997 after visiting Mandaza Kandemwa, a Bantu healer of the Shona and Ndebele peoples, in Zimbabwe.
"Daré is for the sake of healing, but we don't presume to say we know what healing is, how it occurs or even how, always, to recognize it," Deena said. "Sometimes one is the healer and sometimes one is desperate for healing. Sometimes the two activities are one in the moment. Healing is, thus, an interchange, the dynamic of giving and receiving."
But this was not just a nice weekend to feed our souls, stressed Deena.
"We live in times of fear and aggression, and this is about getting as close as you can to the wisdom so you can go back into the world to restore it," she said.
Some of the other guests: Sundancer Lone Eagle, who receives visions from Grandfather Spirit and "walks the Lakota Way," his wife Morning Dove, and Chief Crazy Bull, a Lakota Medicine man and Sundancer. Journey to the Heart had also invited Polarnaya Sova, a Siberian shaman in America for the first time, and Yuan Miao. Reared in the ancient ways of Tibetan Buddhism, Miao has created a unique form of Tibetan Yoga.
Although the traditions and rituals of the healers varied, there was a thread that ran through each: reverence and respect for the One Spirit that permeates all life.
Besides the nightly Daré, we also held daily dream circles. In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, where Mandaza is from, you begin your day by gathering to share dreams. Council and dreams are channels between the world of the living and the world of the invisibles, explained Deena.
Interestingly, all the healers at the gathering placed value on dreams. By studying our individual night visions, we can identify patterns in the collective consciousness.
"Dreams come in code. They are not always logical, but they understand how spirit speaks. We should allow our dreams to undo our Western-thinking minds," said Deena.
During one of the circles, we started with a dream about devastation and ended with one about creation, going full circle. The main image in the first dream was that of an elephant's shattered skull. Another vision included a larger elephant with a tusk missing, uprooting branches for a smaller one. The older elephant transformed into a Mastodon.
Symbolically, these stoic creatures are said to teach us about family. They are so closely bonded that they have been seen grieving over the death of a herd mate. By supporting and loving each other, our own ability to flourish in the physical world is enhanced. This became one of the central themes: the desire to honor our elders and nurture our young. We concluded that something in the world needs to change. We have to save ourselves.
We all gathered around Mandaza, poolside. The Nganga, (indigenous healer) attended the gathering last year, and several of the organizers said I should not miss his session.
In the late '60s, Mandaza was recruited against his will into the British South African Police as a consultant and ultimately a school administrator. During his tenure, he was afflicted with severe "water spirit disease," understood to be the call of the ancestors to practice as a traditional healer. People with water spirits, it was explained, often suffer from excruciating empathy.
Eventually, Mandaza dreamed he was to be initiated by an Ndebele Nganga, which seemed outrageous considering the Ndebele have historically been enemies of his tribe, the Shona. Shortly afterward, however, his job transferred him to an Ndebele-speaking part of the country where a stranger (a healer) ultimately took him through the rites of initiation. This catapulted him into the role of peacemaker.
Mandaza works with the Enjusu (water spirits) and specializes in initiation and physical healing, helping to remove the obstacles that stand between the initiate and spirit ancestors.
Through Mandaza, we were told, the spirits would deliver a special message to each and every one of us. We would then be guided into the pool, which was filled with about three feet of water, and submerge ourselves three times. (Full immersion baptism was practiced in Africa for 2,500 years. In the 1770s, with the influx of slaves, the custom was Christianized.)
As my turn approached, I was filled with fear and excitement. What would he tell me? Could he possibly take away my pain? I was already emotional because of the energy around me. Tears are often contagious.
I sat barefoot before the regal Mandaza, who has coal black skin and soothing water energy. I sensed a Walrus.
Sometimes, I can see animal spirits in people. I saw the Sea Lion in him. Later, while doing research, I found out that symbolically, these mammals, who live both on land and in water, possess a powerful psychic touch; the ability to uncover unseen treasures in the things around them.
"You dream of the water," he said to me in a British-tinged accent.
I nodded.
"Yes. Thank you," he said. (Mandaza often says this when he touches upon a truth.)
I do daydream of water, of the ocean in particular because it has had a healing effect on my leg and my spirit. I had recently returned from the beaches of Otranto, located at the southern most-point of Italy where the Adriatic meets the Ionian Sea. Those were the waters that were currently on my mind.
"I don't have a drop of water in my natal chart and so I long for it," I whispered.
"Yes, you are a water spirit, my dear. It is clear to me."
In its absence is its presence, they say. Einstein, for instance, had no air in his chart, and yet he became a master of formulas and mental equations.
"When you go into the water, offer yourself to the spirits, tell them, 'Here I am.' "
As he said this, he took a pine tree branch, dipped it into a pail of water and flicked it over my head. The droplets dripped down, and I shivered. He then pinched some snuff from a pear-shaped wooden container and placed it in my palm. To share snuff shows great respect and is said to enhance the brooding presence of the ancestors.
"You are going to have visionary dreams. You will be what they refer to in the Bible as a prophet."
His words amazed me, but I was skeptical. And what about my leg?
I inhaled the snuff and felt a jolting zing inside my brain.
"I have a bone that is not mending properly. It's been more than a year and I still have a lot of pain. Is there anything I can do?"
"Wait."
He looked me deep in the eyes and let out one of his heart-filled laughs.
Only one word and yet it was so poignant. I knew that in this life, I was meant to learn patience. I hated waiting.
Walrus-like, Mandaza uncovered a hidden treasure in me.
To my disappointment I couldn't attend the Inipi ritual, commonly referred to as a "sweat lodge." Many Native American tribes do not allow females to participate during their moon cycle. According to Chief Crazy Bull, women are very powerful during this time — in fact, he told me, I was so powerful that I could take all his powers away.
Native American mythology states that White Buffalo Calf Woman brought Inipi (a Sioux word that means "to purify") to the Lakota people. It is one of the most fundamental ceremonies among the Native Americans of the Northern Plains. The term "sweat lodge," Crazy Bull explained, is a slang term, which shows profound disregard for its true meaning. In the Inipi, which is representative of the womb of Mother earth, you must go within, into the darkness, to find the answers you are seeking. Also, when you enter, you must crawl. This is not only symbolic of a child in the mother's womb, but also an act of humility by which we acknowledge our nothingness before the Great Spirit and the World of the Spirit we are about to enter. All pride and ego must be checked outside.
There's a mischievousness to Crazy Bull. A scar zig-zags across his face where he was struck by lightning as a child. He is now a thunder dreamer.
Despite having to miss the Inipi, Chief Crazy Bull still had a message for me. In private, I asked him what he thought the common theme of the weekend had been.
"Mitakuye Oyasin," he replied.
This is a primary teaching in the Lakota way; it literally means "All my relations," or we are all related.
"We must realize the importance of family. We must create a fist of power because we all bleed the same color. What we do to another, we do to ourselves."
His words reminded me of elephants.
I asked him about pain and healing. His reply: "I have absolute belief in perfect harmony. We are always in pain for something." Pain is constant, but it encourages us to seek spiritual experience, he added.
I also asked whether he could offer any personal advice regarding my healing journey. What he told me was profound. I had to share the message with the circle.
At our last council meeting together, the shamans invited us to communicate to the group the question we would be mulling over after our departure.
One woman, with short-cropped hair and a round face, said: "I want to bring this elevated sense of energy back to the community. How do I do this? I am someone who works behind the scenes. I take care of people's homes and I want to leave something behind; something more than just a clean mirror."
Her words were poignant.
When my spirit informed me that it was my turn, I reached for the stick and trembled as I spoke.
"I am here this weekend as a journalist, but also as someone who has pain. I was interviewing Crazy Bull earlier and asked him, 'If I came to you to ease my pain, what would you tell me?'"
"He said, 'Well, first I would ask you to give me four reasons why you want to heal. Why should you heal?' His words stumped me. Why did I want to heal? And are my reasons too selfish? This is the question I will ponder when I leave here."
Before I left, Deena invited me to her hilltop home in Topanga Canyon where she and Michael would be holding an African-style Daré the following week in honor of Mandaza. The couple regularly host their own monthly rendition of Daré on the first Sunday after each new moon.
"And bring your four reasons," she added.
A couple of days before Daré, I had a dream: I was looking up through trees at a triangle of blue sky. There was a huge white bird. By the looks of his wings, I concluded that it was an eagle. In my dream, I felt a sense of awe. Wow. I've never heard of a white eagle before.
And then I woke up.
As Deena touched my leg, I whispered my reasons to her in no particular order:
I don't want to feel physical pain anymore. It gnaws at my spirit. I want to put all my words, all the things I claim I believe into action to help others realize we are a crucial part of the equation in healing ourselves; I want to knit the fracture that resides in me physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally so I can feel whole.
She didn't say whether my answers were any good.
"Have you had any dreams?" Mandaza asked. I told him about the bird.
"I have some other ones if you want to hear them?"
"No, this is the one I want," he responded firmly.
I had dreamt of Chapungu: the White Eagle; the Peacemaker; one of the spirits Mandaza works with. I had actually dreamt of something with a name.
"Like me, you are a wounded healer," he said.
Mandaza carries a pain for the world. A pain so deep and ancient that it has manifested into the physical. He has a mysterious ache on the right side of his torso. It is a wound that does not heal, a wound that constantly reminds.
I began to cry. Mandaza reminded me of Chiron in Greek mythology. I didn't want to remain in pain like him, I decided. I've grieved for so long that I became the very thing I was grieving. And yet I never wanted to forget what I had gone through.
Strangely, as I wept, I also thought about a 20-year-old Portuguese girl I had briefly met in Italy. Since my accident, I have attracted several people with metal in their flesh — my very own titanium club.
She had fallen several feet and crushed her ankle. My pain seemed to soothe her. She no longer felt alone. As I sat before Mandaza, I realized that if I could embrace my pain, listen to it and share it with others, then perhaps I could soothe souls. Just one would be enough. And then, all this pain would have been worth it.
It's a circle; you have to believe that you can heal. And as you heal, you can heal others. And by healing others, you continue to heal. We should learn from the elephants. Because we are all related. Mitakuye Oyasin.
Maryam Henein is a freelance journalist who is working on her first novel.
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