Caitlin Hoover

Professor Campbell

February 2nd, 2016

Reflections on “The Healing Wisdom of Africa”

INTRODUCTION

        The Healing Wisdom of Africa by Malidoma Patrice Somé is a study of the purpose ritual serves in the lives of African people. However, Somé does not just discuss ritual in the context of indigenous peoples of Africa, his book extends beyond that to explain and analyze the connection between all African people and nature and how this lack of connection in the West is actually doing harm to the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of Western people. This same sense of connection which resonates throughout Africa is called primitive and unnecessary by Western hierarchal standards, however it can be argued that the lack of this connection in Western culture is what is truly primitive. This reflection will first dissect the main themes throughout Somé’s book, then analyze them in the context of how Western concepts of knowledge are incomplete because they focus purely on the individual self without regard to the spiritual, emotional, and community aspects of living.

MAIN THEMES

Healing in the Indigenous World

        Throughout part one of Somé’s book, he explains the importance of healing, ritual and community in the lives of indigenous people. Somé states that healing is brought about through the use of ritual, a long standing tradition which has been lost in the West. He argues that ritual is only one aspect to the spiritual healing of an individual, he states that even with ritual, one must have the support and connection with their community to truly heal. One example he gives of this is initiation, “What is lacking in this rich life experience is a community that observes an individual’s growth and certifies that one has passed through initiatory process. This would be the next kind of certification that gives a person a title in order to pursue a career, but the mere act of seeing and responding, which enables a person, in powerful periods of growth, to behold voices within confirmed by voices from the community without. The issue for Westerners is not so much the absence of initiation as it is the absence of community to recognize initiatory passages.”^[1]

        What Somé is saying is that even when Westerner’s seek healing through the passage of ritual, they cannot truly grow and heal without a community which recognizes and supports their spiritual journey. In Africa, this connection and acceptance of spiritual and emotional growth is not only tolerated, it is encouraged as a part of life. He explains that the physical cannot exist without the spiritual and mental, and that often physical illnesses can be linked to trauma of the spiritual and mental state. In the West there is this concept of purely physical necessity without recognition of the needs of spirit. Somé says, “A physical body alone cannot have any sort of direction in this life, so it is important to recognize that the body is an extension of the spirit, and the spirit is an extension of the body, and that the two are inseparable, with a communication that goes both ways.”^[2] 

Relationships of Healing: The Community 

        In part two of his book, Somé dissects the functionality and structure of community for indigenous people. He explains the village community, the role of parents, mentors, youth and elders. When conflict arises in a village community, “[…] it is resolved by ritual in the presence of everyone else and only after it has been examined through divination to ensure that it is just a conflict and not something deeper affecting more people, like a plague.”^[3] In this sense, the community works together to heal and everyone in a community has their role to play. “[…] being in a community leads to a healthy sense of belonging, greater generosity, better distribution of resources, and a greater awareness of the needs of the self and the other. In community, the needs of the one are the needs of the many. In community, one does not worry excessively about one’s intimate relationships because you are not left to confront your problems alone.”^[4]

        Mentors play a key role in the lives of youth in the community, it is always assumed the appropriate mentor will step forward to help a young person become the best they can be. “Mentoring is aimed at increasing security, clarity, and maturity in the young person.”^[5] At the same time, elders are revered in indigenous African communities. In the West, old age is typically feared and viewed as a sense of frailty. However, “for most traditional African cultures, an elder is one whom the village acknowledges as having reached not only a state of old age but also a state of maturity and wisdom.”^[6] Elders and mentors are looked to for advice and guidance, whereas in the West mentors are not commonly sought out and the elderly are written off as “senile”.

Understanding Ritual

        In part three of his book, Somé defines ritual as, “ Every time a gathering of people, under the protection of Spirit, triggers a body of emotional energy aimed at bringing them very tightly together, a ritual of one type or another is in effect.”^[7] He makes a point that rituals are not compulsive reoccurring behaviors like ceremonies, instead “in ritual the soul and the human spirit get permission to express themselves.”^[8] He then explains the embodiment of the five elements and nature in ritual. Things which are defined as primitive beliefs in the Western world, yet Somé argues are key to emotional and spiritual recovery. He says, “Nature invites us to change consciously and to welcome change. It is transformation, mutation, adjustment, flexibility, cyclicality, life, death, and magic.”^[9] What nature has to teach us, as individuals and as communities, is that change is necessary to evolving as people. Through the rest of the section, Somé explains the different methods of invoking ritual and how it is related to the five elements.

Rituals of Healing

        In part four of his book, Somé discusses the different types of rituals of healing in relation to their elements; fire, water, earth, mineral, and nature. He shares his personal experiences in healing with the elements and describes the different elemental alignments for healing. Somé states that fire connects us with our ancestors, the other world, and the energy around us, “fire is the rising force that makes us do, see, feel, love, and hate.”^[10] Water rituals are key to calming the energy of fire within us and helping individuals in crisis, “this suggests that we all need water, and need rituals of water, to stay balanced, oriented, and reconciled.”^[11] Somé states earth is where we belong and “earth rituals greatly emphasize the sense of belonging, self-worth, and community, including all forms of relationships.”^[12] The author links mineral rituals of healing with recovering lost memories and nature rituals of healing with “revealing, healing, and reinstating our innermost nature.”^[13]

Healing in the Western World

        In the final section of his book, Somé draws attention to the challenges of healing in the West and the lack of community dynamics for ritual. He explains how Westerners cannot simply perform an initiation ritual and be better in tune with the spirit world because there is a lack of community in Western society to perform this ritual and also to accompany them along their journey of self-discovery. “Initiation and the suffering that accompanies it end when an individual’s experiences are acknowledged by others.”^[14] Due to this loss of community, Westerners must seek out another way to become retuned to Spirit.

ANALYSIS

        Now that the main themes of the book have been summarized, it is important to analyze them in the concept of Western knowledge. Throughout history in the West, indigenous cultures, especially those in Africa, are often labelled as “primitive” or “uneducated”. Indigenous cultural practices, such as ritual and connection to nature, are frequently considered foreign and strange concepts. However, Somé argues Western people are actually doing harm to themselves, or “uneducated”, by not nurturing this connection to nature. He argues Western people are pushing aside the spiritual, emotional, and mental connections they need to thrive in this reality and are focusing purely on the physical realm. He says, “Indigenous people tend to approach emotion, and sometimes even pain, as a sacred thing because they think it means that something in the person is moving out in order to let something else come in.”^[15]

        In the West, emotion and pain are considered trivial and often dulled through temporary distractions. Western children are raised without the concept of initiation, community and ritual; instead they are raised to push aside emotion and pain and make “logical decisions” to move forward in their lives, career, and success. Somé argues this Western concept of removing oneself from nature, emotion, and pain and focusing purely on individual physical needs is actually damaging the psyche of Westerners and preventing them from reaching their greatest potential as human beings. He argues we cannot evolve and grow without seeking guidance in nature and Spirit.

        Diving deeper into this concept, domination over nature is central to Western thinking. Domination over other races, women, and societies has been at the core of Western ideas of development for centuries. This has led to mechanical and genocidal thinking in the West evolving from Aristotle. From John Locke, the Western concept of individual liberty through land and property ownership, a concept foreign to indigenous cultures, was born.^[16] This concept not only considered humans as disconnected from nature, it categorized nature as an object to be owned, dominated and divided. Somé points out that this division is actually illogical and detrimental to human spiritual and emotional capacity.  Further to Western concepts of knowledge, Adam Smith’s^[17] philosophy pinpoints “self-interest and competition” as the core drivers or society. Yet, as Somé so eloquently explains, without community interest and support driving society, how can individuals truly learn and grow?

        This evolution of mechanical and genocidal thinking which encourages the idea of the individual and domination over others in the West, is completely foreign to indigenous African communities. The emotional and spiritual isolation of these beliefs must be brought to light and individuals in the West must seek ritual, community and healing to rid themselves of this degrading of humanity. “The fiery temperament of the world and particularly the West has resulted in a great deal of spilling of blood, both symbolic and literal. Indigenous people see the death that results from war or accident as sacrifices to fire, just as the animal killed in the hunt was offered to the fire as a sacrifice. But the engine of fire in the West appears, to indigenous people, to be the technological machine, which consumes nature around the world.”^[18]

CONCLUSION

        This paper has examined the main themes present throughout The Healing Wisdom of Africa and analyzed them through the concept of Western hierarchal thinking. Somé argues that the individualistic thinking in the West which puts self-interest before all else is detrimental to Western society. He proves this point by examining the role community, ritual and healing plays in the lives of indigenous people. Without making room for healing through ritual and creating ties with community, the West is truly living a life absent of all facets of human nature, it is enveloped purely in the physical realm.

WORKS CITED

Moseley, Alexander. "John Locke: Political Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

Somé, Malidoma Patrice. The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community. New York: Tarcher Penguin, 1998. Print.

Weinstein, Jack Russell. "Adam Smith." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.