I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones. This last year has been an incredible year for many of us. The Covid illness has taught us a great deal about our own inner natures and has called us to to dig deeper into ourselves to harness our bodies natural healing response. I am here in South Africa with my community. I attended a few incredible sangoma ceremonies where we danced through the night and carried on dancing in our dreams with the ancient ones. Unfortunately I contracted Covid after one of the ceremonies and got incredibly sick. It taught me a great deal about illness as initiation and this is something I will be speaking about live tomorrow at the Iam annual Symposium.
Our local community has been affected by the recent Omnicron variant. Many people struggled with illness. I found this helped unite us in feeling compassion for one another. I helped where I could and exhausted my Ubuntu Funds. If you feel called to donate to my Ubuntu Fund right now it would be appreciated. Funds will help my sangoma community weather the storm of Covid.
We recently lost a giant in the African Shamanic world. Malidoma Somé entered the world of ancestors on the 9th December. He was a dear colleague and someone I have enormous respect and love for. He supported me in my early years and wrote the foreward to my book ‘Leopard Warrior’. I will be dedicating my upcoming monthly webinar on ‘Befriending the Water Elementals’ to the memory of Malidoma and his tireless dedication to opening the eyes of Westerners to the magic of Africa. It is fitting that one of his classic texts is ‘Of Water & the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman. This is an incredible book explaining how he was called to become a shaman and includes the journey of water spirits and how they help initiate us. It is here that our work coincides because no initiation ceremony is complete amongst sangomas without praying at the water and asking the water spirits for blessings and safe passage. On this note all I can say is ‘YES’ , ✨magic is alive in this world. My recent ceremony in the Eastern Cape in South Africa was attended by many sangomas. Afterwards many of us dreamt of water spirits and shared our experiences.
My webinar this Thursday 30th will focus on ‘Befriending the Water Elementals’. How can ordinary folks like you and me develop a magical relationship with water spirits? This is a conversation I recently had with Craig Foster, a friend of mine and producer of the recent Blockbuster on Netflix called My Octopus Teacher, a beautiful film for anyone who loves nature. I spoke to Craig about the water spirits and the intersection between science, matter and spirit. As our spiritual selves open to the magical kingdoms the animal spirits move closer to us and we have an opportunity to help this world. This is a common theme in my teachings.
Webinar time. Thursday 30th Time: 6pm South Africa (Cape Town); 4pm UK (London); 10am EST (New York); 9am Mountain Time (Boulder); 8am PST (Los Angeles). If you can’t make this time, don’t worry, I will send a recording out afterwards.
These monthly webinars are part of a monthly subscription of $30, you can cancel anytime.
May the music of your people open your heart and dreams ✨.
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Warmest wishes,
John.