The Healing Wisdom of Africa

Description: "His journey is a shimmering 'missing piece' in the story of the earth," Alice Walker proclaimed of Malidoma Some's Of Water and the Spirit. In that book Som* took readers on a tour of two worlds as he related the story of his youth in an African village and of his Western and traditional African educations.Now, in The Healing Wisdom of Africa, Some writes of the generations-old traditions and knowledge of his people, the Dagara, a group known throughout West Africa for their healing abilities and spiritual practice. Explaining how the Dagara accumulate firsthand knowledge of deep spiritualist and healing powers, Some also shows how the most important aspects of their village life revolve around ritual, community, and ceremony.Some teaches ceremony and rituals that enable Western readers to begin the healing and initiation process, discovering genius within themselves and finding life's true purpose. In the larger scheme of creating community, the author details the power of gathering and of engaging in.
Traditional rituals of fire, water, earth, and nature.Through The Healing Wisdom of Africa, readers come to understand that the life of indigenous and traditional people is a paradigm for an intimate relationship with the natural world that both surrounds us and is within us. -- from publisher

Table of Contents: Introduction : Living in Two Worlds
Part One. Healing in the Indigenous World : Healing, Ritual and Community
The Healing Power of Nature
Indigenous Technologies
Part Two. Relationships of Healing : The Community : The Value of a Healthy Community
Mentors and the Life of Youth
Elders and the Community
Part Three. Understanding Ritual : The Elements of Ritual
Dagara Cosmology and Ritual
Preparing for Ritual
Part Four. Rituals of Healing : Fire Rituals
Water Rituals
Earth Rituals
Mineral Rituals
Nature Rituals
Part Five. Healing in the Western World : Initiation : A Response to Challenges of the West
Maintaining Community Through Ritual

FY2014 /