Moya
Wa Sechaba Yethu (The Spirit of Our Nation) |
 |
Spirit is often regarded by the Western world as something
intangible and therefore unsubstantial. As something
invisible and therefore not real. But what I love about
Africa is that here we know that it is the other way
round. The wisdom of my continent reminds me that Spirit
lives in everything. In Xhosa the word for Spirit is
umoya, which also means wind, or air. Spirit is the
very breath of life, the animating force, our First
Cause. Spirit is understood to reside in everything
and to individuate itself in the process of embodiment.
Therefore every tree and every stone is understood to
have a spirit, a newborn infant has a spirit, every
relationship has its own spirit, and every nation too.
What African wisdom knows well too, is that Spirit
has its own rhymes and reasons. We need intercessors,
ritual and humility when relating to Spirit for Her
laws and ways are not those that we mortals know or
are comfortable with. When Spirit goes then life - and
often all that we find we hold dear, all that truly
matters - goes too. Those of us who have stood beside
the body of a deceased loved one have felt this. And
as mortals it is sometimes frightening that we have
no control over the comings and goings of Spirit, over
the life or death of a partnership, a person or a people.
We can only care as best as we can for that which is
temporarily entrusted to us. Just as this next generation
must seek to learn to listen to, to interpret and to
work in collaboration with the Spirit of our nation
which seeks to evolve through us.
But how do we do this?
It is certainly not an easy task, for Spirit - as Africa
reminds us - revels in paradox and in process. In the
West, Spirit is often conceived of as something pure
and holy, something above and beyond us, which is to
be aspired to. But, as the author Thomas Moore reminds
us in Care of the Soul, God has at least two aspects.
One belongs to the high and lofty world of undefiled
ideas and ideals - this he calls Spirit. The other is
to be found in that which is earthbound and temporal,
that which loves to be tied to time past and people
and place. Too often, in speaking of Spirit we ignore
this aspect, which Moore distinguishes as Soul. Perhaps,
I think, because it is scary. We don’t want to
get too dirty; we don’t want to get too attached.
We want to stay up where the air is clear. But, in order
to be able to reach out and up, a tree also needs to
extend roots that dig down deep, into the dank and into
the dark.
Africa never lets us forget about that which is painful
and jagged and complicated though. In fact, at some
point, She demands of us all that we hold both light
and dark. Ben Okri speaks poetically to this paradoxical
and unrelenting nature of Africa in his induction of
the first Caine Prize for African Writing. “It
is easy,” he cautions, “to dismiss Africa,
its people, its problems, its literature. It is easy
to patronise Africa . . . to profess to like Africa
. . . to have liberal views about Africa. . . But it
is difficult first of all to see Africa. To look at
it in its variety, its complexity, its simplicity .
. . to hear its laughter, to behold its cruelties, to
witness its spirituality . . . Africa is difficult to
see because it is gun-shaped and heart shaped. It takes
heart to see her . . . Actually it takes a truly richly
grounded developed human being to see her without prejudice,
superiority, or an agenda . . . Africa is a challenge
to the humanity of the world, and to the sleeping wisdom
and love of the human race. A lovely big awkward paradoxical
philosophy, challenging, heart challenging, race challenging,
eyeball challenging enigma.”
We then, who are to carry forward the soul of this
country at the southernmost tip of Africa, must become
truly richly grounded developed human beings or we will
not have the capacity to serve as leaders. We are called
upon as young people in this time, on this continent,
to grow down as much as we grow up, to keep our hearts
open and our spirits fluid. It is, of course, a great
responsibility, one that makes me think of the Mary
Astin quote that, “We are not born all at once,
but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later .
. . . Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical
birth; we ourselves suffer longer the pains of our spiritual
growth.” We have to grow our spirits down into
this world and particularly into the soil of this our
land, and midwife souls that are rich and vibrant and
intimately ingewikkeld enough to hold our nation steadfast
in the times of seemingly inevitable confusion and anxiety
that lie ahead.
How do we do this though?
I believe that seeing precedes doing, so we first need
to examine the filters through which we view the world.
Most of us are only familiar with two ways of being
and we juggle them as they suit us. Often, we act as
dependents, as children without much responsibility
to whom the world seems to ‘happen’. At
other times we seek, brashly adolescent like, to carve
out our own destiny, acting as if we are totally independent
and that we ‘happen’ unto the world. As
different as they may seem though, both of these behavioural
patterns are based upon the singular premise that ‘I
am separate from my world’ and therefore ‘I
either control it or it controls me’.
But in Africa there exists the knowledge that umntu
ngumntu ngabantu – a person is a person through
other people. What happens out there is not separate
from in here. Our individual destinies are thrown into
relief by, and only given meaning through, the background
and context that a community provides. This is, it must
be appreciated, an entirely different way of seeing,
for it does not presume that ‘my universe and
I are separate’ but rather that ‘we are
in partnership’. This subtle but fundamental shift
in perception is the way of interdependence, and of
real spiritual adulthood. It implies vulnerability and
an open endedness as well as tenacity and commitment
on our parts.
This is also a shift in perception that Thomas Moore
would welcome for as he writes, “It’s my
conviction that slight shifts in imagination have more
impact on living than major efforts at change.”
It is only with imagination and a sensitivity to the
web of interdepen-dance that we can explore evocative
questions such as the one Fred Kofman poses when he
asks, “Who is the ‘I’ that wants when
I say ‘I want’?” You may even come
to realise that, in the words of Charlotte Roberts,
“. . . as much as you ‘want’ your
vision, you are also its instrument – the steward
and servant of a larger purpose, as if the web itself
were pulsing with a purpose, and you are the expression
of that purpose.”
What then, if we dared to imagine ourselves co-creators
with God? . . . .
In the midst of the concentration camps of World War
II Viktor Frankl and his fellow prisoners found that
their very survival depended upon a similar such shift.
Nothing less than a, “ . . fundamental change
in our attitude towards life. We had to learn ourselves,
and furthermore we had to teach the despairing men,
that it did not really matter what we expected from
life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed
to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead
think of ourselves as those who were being questioned
by life – daily and hourly.”
As South Africa’s next generation we are blessed
in that we have many elders who role model such servant
leadership for us. I found for example, one the most
touching aspects of tatomkhulu Mandela’s The Long
Walk to Freedom to be contained within a letter he describes
writing to his former wife. “I wrote two letters
to Winnie about a particularly beautiful tomato plant,
how I coaxed it from a tender seedling to a robust plant
that produced deep red fruit. But, then, either through
some mistake or lack of care, the plant began to wither
and decline, and nothing I did would bring it back to
health. When it finally died, I removed the roots from
the soil, washed them and buried them in a corner of
the garden. I narrated this small story at great length.
I do not know what she read into that letter but when
I wrote it I had a mixture of feelings: I did not want
our relationship to go the way of that plant, and yet
I felt that I had been unable to nourish many of the
important relationships in my life. Sometimes there
is nothing one can do to save something that must die.”
Here is a man who knows how important it is to tend
with infinite care, that which we love, to act in service
as the caretaker of a plant, of a relationship, of a
nation.
So, how do we do this?
How do we even begin to follow in the footprints of
such elders? It is, quite honestly, a daunting task.
And so, for what remains of this piece, I would like
to explore some of the more practical aspects of how
we can live and work in partnership with Spirit. And
I would like to share with you some of the simple ways
in which I, as a young South African, have come to (and
continue to) know and ground my spirituality.
For example, whilst the Western tradition exhorts us
to ‘know thyself’ I have found it more useful
just to begin noticing what it is that I love. Many
of my peers who travel overseas only find this out in
retrospect. Sometimes I don’t know for myself
until I am reminded. Such as when I recently attended
a performance of The Spirit of the Nation, which synthesised
the singing of Sibongile Khumalo, with the violin of
her son Tshepo, with the antics of the young Zip Zap
Circus and the fluidity of the members of the Jazzart
Dance Theatre! I laughed, I cried, I found myself dancing
in the aisle (at one point the little boy in front of
me did not know whether to watch me or the stage until
his mother reprimanded him for staring). No wonder the
word enthusiasm means ‘to be filled with God ’.
That night I blessed the artists who provided me with
the opportunity to know and connect again with that
which I love. “We think,” author Marianne
Williamson chides us, “that we need to understand
something or someone before we can love them. No, we
need to love first in order to truly understand.”
That night - as the audience - we all implicitly understood
and tangibly touched the richly woven Spirit that gives
life to our nation.
I have also found it beneficial to take time to listen
to Spirit without expectation and to consciously make
space for the new, the surprising and the mysterious
in my life. The friends I cherish most dearly are those
who walk this path of not-knowingness with me. For example,
a twenty-three year old friend of mine phoned me recently,
distressed. “What have you done to me?”
he pleaded, more to himself than to me. “Before
I knew and absorbed your way of seeing the world I was
very happy being what now seems to me normal and boring.
I was quite content with my TV dinners and my small
ambitions. Now I dream dreams that I know are not mine
alone, I pass people in the street and the soul in their
eyes tells me stories, when I get sick I listen to the
spirit of my dis-ease so that it can find rest. I am
not comfortable with this new responsibility. I don’t
know if I want it.”
There was, of course, nothing I could say to my friend.
He knew and I knew that he did not really want to turn
back. He has invited Spirit into his life, he has made
way for the mysterious, and his life is richer and more
meaningful for it. I don’t have to tell him that
when he smiles now he smiles all the way into his eyes,
that his presence casts a seriti that strangers notice
and are drawn to take shelter under. That he is well
on his way to being a truly richly grounded developed
human being. He knows this, and would not want it any
other way. I could only encourage him to keep dreaming,
to keep caring, to keep praying as best as he is able.
I meet other young people who are engaging Spirit all
the time. At a conference I facilitated for the ‘Brightest
Young Minds ’ a resounding cry that I heard was,
“We would be happy to earn less money if we could
do work that we felt was meaningful. What is ours to
do? How can we contribute?” Indeed, even the grown
ups, the South African ‘Business Leaders,’
who came to deliver speeches unto them invoked the words
soul or spirit on three separate occasions that I noticed.
What then to advise these old souls with young minds?
I seek to engage imagination. I try to encourage my
peers to see themselves in the biggest framework possible.
As pioneers who are role modelling a new way of being
– in service to our country and our world. But
most of all, I just try to listen to the Spirit that
is trying to take shape through them, to be a witness
and in so doing, to hold open that wedge of what is,
a terrifyingly grand possibility.
Often I offer Goethe’s sage counsel which is
as relevant to my generation as it was more than two
centuries ago, “Until one is committed there is
hesitancy, a chance to draw back . . . Whatever you
can do or dream you can, begin it now. Boldness has
a genius, power and magic to it. For, in my own life,
I have always found that when I take the first step
Spirit comes running to meet me. That Providence moves
too and raises in my favour, “ . . . all manner
of unforeseen incidents and material assistance.”
This has definitely been the experience that my friends
and I have enjoyed since boldly launching Imagine Cape
Town, a voluntary project that seeks to engage our diverse
citizens in heartfelt dialogue. We all feel the magic
that surrounds our initiative, a grace that is not entirely
of our own making. And in the process of rolling out
‘Imagine Cape Town’ by means of one-to-one
‘Appreciative Inquiry’ interviews we continue
to discover deeply the power that lies latent in questions.
Questions that really prompt us to think anew, such
as:
• What is the core factor that gives life to Cape
Town, without which this city would not be the same?
• What do you value about Cape Town?
• Close your eyes and imagine you wake up in Cape
Town 10 years from now. Everything is as you dreamt
it would be. What do you see?
• What is the world calling for from Cape Town?
When I participate in such dialogue with another I
am often reminded of the Sufi saying, “You think
because you understand one and one you understand two.
No, you must understand and.” For, somewhere in
the process of an appreciative interview, there occurs,
without fail, a very discernable, very numinous shift
and one has the privilege of witnessing ‘the lights’
come on in one’s partner’s eyes. You actually
see another beginning to entertain again the notion,
the hope that maybe, just maybe, their dreams, for themselves,
their city and their country, could be real-ised. Do
you remember that feeling? Do you remember the hope
that you let yourself harbour on May the 10th 1994?
And again on the 24th of June 1995? Can you recollect,
literally gather to-get-Her again, this feeling and
this sense of hope?
In my home, there is a room, where I keep only pictures
of my ancestors, those who are my roots into this world.
In this room, there is a table, upon which I place reminders
of the things I love most dearly. On this table, there
is a box, in which I store the longings, which I am
slowly allowing myself to re-collect. The dreams, which
speak of and for the fragments of my spirit. To re-member
them is to tentatively weave my spirit into a wholly,
holy whole. It is the way in which I make breathing
space for Spirit, the manner in which I draw Her in
close and, in so doing, partner in the healing of us
both.
“Dear Love,” I have even been daring enough
to write Her. “Is it possible that these very
things which make up my spirit - my dreams, my loves,
my joys and my deep seated longings too – the
very things that make up the essence of me, are actually
not mine alone? That they, are Yours, too? That the
very things that make me me, therefore make me, You,
too? That You and I are so interdependent that we are
actually indivisible? Is it possible that I could mean
so much to You?”
My friends and peers, it is my prayer that we may,
in time, come to be dream catchers for each other. And
in so doing, come to re-cognise our true Self, to know
again the Spirit which resides in each of us. May our
country be a home, in which Spirit feels She can roam
free; and in which She can find rest. May our relationships
be rooms, within which the presence of Spirit is palpable.
May we come to trust each other as containers for, and
caretakers of, the dreams which we, as yet, barely allow
ourselves to believe.
I wonder, I really need to know, are these perhaps,
your deepest dreams too? For I hope, as a dreamer to
know, that I’m not the only one. If this is indeed
true for you, too, then I shall be beside myself, quite
literally be-side-my-Self. And yet, if it is so, then
I would ask of you, please do not jump up and shout
out, “Yes!” Just come stand quietly by my
side, take my hand and let us dance togetHer.
Perhaps, we will then,
gradually,
live along some distant day,
into the answers,
into the human beings,
and so,
into the nation of our dreams.
And so it is.
Siyabulela uThixo .
Click here for:
Nelson Mandela –
1994 Inaugural Speech
NKosi Sikeleli Afrika – National
Anthem of South Africa
A Message from the Hopi Nation
A Message from Orian Mountain
Dancer
FOR TOUR PRICES, QUERIES AND RESERVATIONS CONTACT US
AT
tours@in-spirit.co.za
^ TOP OF PAGE
|
