Nature is like a canvas, a painting of countless options and possibilities. You don't really worship spirit, because you are also spirit, and spirits don't worship one another. What makes you different from spirit overall is that you are locked into temporality. You have a body, like a piece of cloth that is decayable. While you stay in it, it's hard for you to have the same abilities that spirit has without a body. It is also easy to make mistakes about what is real, and how to go about things effectively.
Malidoma Patrice SomeThe spiritual thirst that is latent in everybody can never come to a place of fulfillment unless people begin to think of each other as potential brothers and sisters.
Malidoma Patrice SomeHealing comes when the individual remembers his or her identityโthe purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdomโand reconnects with that world of Spirit.
Malidoma Patrice SomePeace is Letting Go--Returning to the Silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet.
Malidoma Patrice SomeNakedness is very common in the tribe. It is not a shameful thing; it is an expression of one's relationship with the spirit of nature. To be naked is to be open-hearted. Normally kids stay naked until puberty and even beyond. It was only with the introduction of cheap cloth from the West, through Goodwill and other Christian organisations, that nakedness began to be associated with shame.
Malidoma Patrice SomeNature is like a canvas, a painting of countless options and possibilities. You don't really worship spirit, because you are also spirit, and spirits don't worship one another. What makes you different from spirit overall is that you are locked into temporality. You have a body, like a piece of cloth that is decayable. While you stay in it, it's hard for you to have the same abilities that spirit has without a body. It is also easy to make mistakes about what is real, and how to go about things effectively.
Malidoma Patrice SomeSpiritual methods are essential in Africa if you are going to survive politically. My cousin is the chief security officer for the president of Burkina Faso. He knows the key medicine man who works day and night to keep the president in power. These medicine men don't have offices downtown; they live in huts in remote areas, but that is where the real political power resides. A medicine man has no clue about the actual workings of domestic or international politics. All he knows is that a person has a seat of importance somewhere, and his job is to keep that person on that seat.
Malidoma Patrice Some