This September, Inner Peace Healing turned 15, and the diviner in me came out of the closet. (Well, out of my healing room.)
From the time I knew I had to open a healing practice, before I could acknowledge that I was a healer, I felt an invisible hand guiding me as to which courses I should take. I signed up, mostly having no idea what I was going to learn, but I always found that it was exactly what I needed in my healer toolbox or for my own healing.
It was during my master reiki attunement with Miriam Platt that an ancestor first showed up. In a supposedly empty lounge chair in the circle sat my deceased paternal grandmother. Her presence was so strong that I had to introduce her to the group. Granny Vera loved Japan, so I put her presence down to Reiki’s origin in Japan. I now know it was so much more than that.
It was with the nudging of my ancestors that, at long last, also this September, I held my Divination Party four years after being initiated as a Diviner. It’s customary in the Dagara tradition*, once initiated as a Stick Diviner, to have a coming-out party a year or two later. The party is a celebration to root and ground one’s medicine and to share that a gate of healing has been opened in the area. If the amount of food consumed is an indication, it was a good celebration.
Over the past 16 years, one of my biggest challenges has been integrating all of my parts and not compartmentalising myself. It started with integrating the corporate analytical part and the good daughter/sister/wife part with the newly discovered healer part of me. Then came the more mystical parts, each of which peeled back another layer requiring acceptance and integration..
I think that it was partly from growing up in apartheid South Africa, where the communication with ancestors was misconstrued as possibly practicing black magic, and speaking to someone other than God was not okay (which used to confuse me as a child as Catholics prayed to so many saints). It was during the first year after leaving the corporate world, while training as a Field Guide, that I began to understand the deep connection with Nature and the honouring of their ancestors by the indigenous people of South Africa . I realised how blinkered my views on ancestors had been, and so started my journey to work with them. Now I cannot imagine life without knowing that my ancestors are there to support and guide me. So yes, it’s taken me a while to truly own my gifts as a healer, seer and diviner and then to celebrate them. And it’s on going.
If you are curious about connecting with ancestors or want to deepen your connection with them, join us on Saturday, 1 November. Inspired by the Divination Party, my teacher, Mbali Marais, and I are offering a morning on connecting with your ancestors with teachings and ritual, followed by a light lunch.
Thank you to clients who came in the early days – when there was one small shelf of crystals – for the Osho Rebalancing Bodywork, Reiki, and Transformational Kinesiology and have kept coming back, trusting me as my offerings have grown and evolved over the years.
with love
Robyn
*The Dagara tradition comes from West Africa. It was introduced by the work of Malidome Somé, author of the book “The Healing Wisdom of Africa”.
