Impact of Initiation
The Initiate: Impact of Initiation
I am a mother of two children, both now adults, and I have grown up within the UK for over fifty years. I love to travel, and I have for a long time been researching my history, trying to reconnect to a continent where my Ancestry began and was disconnected by the colonization of Africa, which I shall from here on refer to as Meritah (our beloved land). My story is long, convoluted, tortuous, broken with moments of respite (joy).
My adult years have been a journey of finding where I belong, who I am and my place in the world. I have explored many religious practices, new age spirituality and philosophy. They all helped me to become aware of other perspectives of the world and the life I was living. As I meditated on the information they had shared with me I still found there was something missing, an intangible connection, which left me with a hole inside that they could not fill. I was dissatisfied with misogyny, inherent racism and the pure incoherence in their philosophies. The nearest I attained to feeling complete was within Taoism, but it too left a vacant place within.
When I immersed myself in cultural activism, I found I was endlessly giving at the expense of my family and my health. This process did not support or aid my development, as those spearheading the movements had major deficits that did not sit well with me. On reflection, we all had major problems within ourselves, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, as a collective. We were doomed to fail because we were operating in a system that was created to keep us distracted and enslaved. No matter how good our visions or intentions were, we had nothing in place to deal with our inner demons, and those of the community we were working serve and uplift.
After that experience, I gave up and resolved that whatever was missing was not to be found in this lifetime and resigned myself to a routine and soul destroying existence. I began to take care of myself, putting me in the picture, for the first time. I joined various interest groups of like minded people. One day I received an email, from one of the groups I belonged to, that stated a Dogon priest would be delivering a lecture in Birmingham! This surprised me as most events of major interest to me occurred in London, Manchester or in one of the shires, not the Second city of the UK. My interest was immediately roused: a part of my research had led me to read about the Dogons in Mali. I thought I was well informed about the Dogons and would have enough information to have an intelligent discussion. So I attended the lecture, with my daughter and eventually my son also attended.
I remember that evening clearly, for those who have visited the UK in Autumn, it gets dark early, and it is wet and cold. The room we were in was cold and we struggled to stay warm. The night’s programme was introduced by whom I now know to be Hatanee Nekhitem, he in turn introduced his teacher and Zeshmi (Director) of the Earth Center, Hatanee Nehez. I was truly disappointed (nothing personal)! It was just that, they were Americans not Dogons!! So was this another African American recreation of what they believed was the knowledge of the Dogons?! It appeared as if they read my mind; they explained that the Dogon priest was delayed abroad and would be in the UK soon. So I suspended my skepticism and listened to what they had to say. What struck me was their humor, knowledge and humility, something refreshingly different. The lecture left me discombobulated: it was not what I had expected; it was a call to do something for me steeped in a spiritual tradition that had been unbroken for over 100,000 years. They reintroduced my Ancestors to me and informed me about their importance in my life and mine in theirs. This opened my mind to the duality of existence, which is not just about the visible world.
I attended all the subsequent lectures and met with the Dogon priest Naba Iritah Shenmira (who was to become my teacher and healer). My children and I eventually joined the first generation of Birmingham Initiates, the 2nd generation in UK and Europe.
We decided to take all three classes: Medu - learning humanity’s original language, also practicing to read and write it (this is known as the hieroglyphs); Ka’at Ibi - original form of meditation (assessing the heart and mind); Sounnt- traditional healing which is so far removed from the stereotype of hollywood’s witchdoctors in their films
The knowledge and information presented made sense there was a history to what they taught us. It was not steeped in guess work but had been developed over countless generations interrogating their world for answers to their questions. Now here I was being asked to do the same, to use my brain in a different way, to see the illogical assumptions, beliefs and decisions made by the colonialists, that have been dressed up as facts, and I who have been born into this system accepted these notions as fact (just as everyone else did) and not question them. For example, we have the notion of midnight and then one hour later we have the first hour of the morning - how does that function really, when the first daylight is the first hour of the morning.
How I was now being taught was not designed to convince me of something illogical but to expand my knowledge and understanding of what is, and what is possible. I was invited to think in ways that were new and logical. This way of learning and revising what I knew also had a strong impact on my children, giving them clarity and understanding of some of the self destructive habits they had developed and thought were acceptable. I am being educated for the first time; learning to be an observer and a critical thinker, a preserver of life. I am also understanding what it is to be a woman, mother and disciple. All this is designed to raise my qualities to those of a human being who will be defined by what I will not do!
I have the tools to critique from a perspective of investigation that has a lineage and history far back in time and is still robust today. It connects me to the teachings my Ancestors would have received, allowing me to connect with my history and my people.
As I learned the technical aspects of spirituality, I realized how far from spirituality I really was. It is not about sitting in the lotus position awaiting enlightenment. It is a very technical process, and I am an active participant in that process for example; learning how to purify myself, this has led to me to feel calmer and more focussed and I do this every day, this routine has created an order and structure to my life.
I must admit that when I first started this Journey, I had an illusion of everything being rosy. This illusion was eventually shattered as I found that egos and agendas created obstacles that I had to work through without using anger. We had all entered into this reality bringing our baggage from the colonial system and now how I responded was important for my spiritual growth.
Understanding how being emotional, personally and publicly, impacted negatively on me spiritually was a major step in ensuring that I worked to eliminate it from myself. I didn’t have to work through this alone, or with someone who had no spiritual code or experience. I acknowledged that humility was an area I had to work on and continue to do so.
Financially we as a family made a commitment; we valued what we were learning and it was not free,
I struggled with the thought of not being able to support my children with the fees for their tuition but we found a way to finance it.
Challenges are accepted as part of an initiate’s spiritual path as these assist our spiritual evolution. I have had a mountain of those in my life, and now I have the tools to aid me in working through them or avoiding them as I learn about the rhythms and cycles of life and our place as humans within it. All this to help me understand what it is to be human and raise my qualities to become closer to the Divine World. The priorities I gave to certain activities such as success in the world of therapy and being well known have diminished. The consequence of this is that I am no longer chasing a distraction. I now spend less time in environments that do not serve my best interests; my goals have changed as I now understand humanity’s real goal (to be a clear channel for the dialogue of energies to take place), and I am working to fit into that.
The experience of having others interested in me and in my family’s spiritual growth and development has made me feel stronger and connected spiritually on a much deeper level than I have ever experienced, I belong, and it is not bound by a geographical border.
As I age I have developed health issues and within Earth Centre my health issues are taken seriously,and not dismissed as something that was peculiar to “Afro-Caribbean people”. I had developed hypertension (high blood pressure) and the doctors were insisting that I should be on medication, medication that I would have to take for the rest of my life. They even resorted to scare tactics, informing me of the high mortality rates for those who refused medication for this condition. When I enquired about what actually caused the condition, I was told it was something that Afro Caribbeans had, basically - a cop out clause, to do nothing more than fill me with drugs and not look for the cause.
I saw my healer who examined me and prescribed me traditional African herbs; he told me that I had other underlying health issues that were causing hypertension. I was to return to see him and keep him informed of my condition. My health has improved significantly, and my energy has returned to the levels it was when I was in my 30’s.
My family now has a structure and a clear spiritual road map that we are responsible for, individually and collectively, this structure has brought harmony into our household. Tensions and arguments are now rare. We are learning and growing as a family; our spiritual journey is strengthening our bonds.
I am learning how to be a mother from a spiritual perspective, and it gives me great satisfaction to know that when I pass over, my children will know what their responsibilities are and the next generation will close the broken circle.
My focus is now to return to Meritah and reclaim my Ancestral Kemetic Heritage.
