Patience from Zimbabwe wrote this morning saying that we will visit a place in Zimbabwe that means the Mhondoro spirits are calling us there. Patience always has such a deep and interesting take on the quality of the music and experience of the music connecting us more deeply to our spirit. I will write more about this experience after the trip. I feel better about holding this precious experience with anticipation and respect which means to me not talking about it..not dispersing little pieces like little ants carrying away a crumb at a time until all is gone (as someone described in Hellinger family constellation work). Do not talk about your experience for a while..let it work on you.
This thought reminds me of an interview in Sun magazine with Malidoma Patrice Some. Malidoma speaks about not talking about one’s gift. He says westerners have a penchant for learning something and immediately taking it out into the world (sometimes for profit). He recommends holding it and letting it show itself as it will (my words entirely..he is so eloquent, please read the Healing Wisdom of Africa).
The call of ancient Africa is compelling and quite distinct in its rumbling. My son, Trev, suggested that at this point in life, it would be good to do those things that one can’t help but do. I do believe that Malidoma would agree saying that each person holds an indigenous self that hears something calling from the deepest of human experience.
While collecting my prescriptions for Doxycylcline (for African Tick Fever), Cipro (Diarrhea), and Zithromax (Cholera), the doctor spontaneously said, “I want to go with you.” He is a musician. The pharmacist mentioned his trip to Africa and how rich, people who have nothing in Western standards, can be. His trip in 1994 was life changing. He was there at the time of the Rwanda tradgedy. My father, who is just recovering from a broken hip, said, “Who would ever want to go to Africa.” “I do, Dad, I do.”
My dad wants to hear twinkle twinkle little star on the mbira. We are going to surprise him one day by bursting forth with a rendition. I am very connected to my father in a conscious way. My mother hears the mbira and understands. This connection is one that my mother understands even when we don’t understand each other.
While I am on a philosophical bend, I remember Tute Chigamba saying during a lesson in Portland that he was going to play a song for his wife who was home in Zimbabwe. He said it was a song that was particularly for her. I asked about playing for someone across time and space and he said, of course, but it has to be a song they know or love, I can’t remember the specifics but I understand completely the concept regarding time/space. He said that when we playing the song at home that we learned from him (chipembere and mbavarira), he would come to our house like a ghost. And he does.
Mbira as an oral tradition is a theme in my life of passing on the songs..not only the notes but the sense and energy of the song as it can now be held in the person learning it. I will write more about my sense of oral tradition as another topic.
This trip that calls me is part of the oral tradition that has its own roots and own callings, its own patterns, and authentic connection to what heals us, what connects us, what sits with us in our imagined aloneness.
I love this tradition, this music.
I better keep packing… it is hot now in Zimbabwe, I need my summer clothes and Purell wipes to wipe the mangoes before eating.
