by Alfred Moselakgomo

A student sangoma who wears a traditional cloth to work as part of his training has been forced to choose between his calling and his job by his employers. Now Letjatji Mothoa of Kameelrivier near Vaalbank, Mpumalanga, has approached the equality court alleging unfair treatment.

Mothoa told Sowetan that his bosses told him he would have to take off his traditional sangoma trainee garb or face the axe. He is a driver for Capacity, which is contracted to Tshwane municipality to collect rubbish in the city.

“Everybody at work knows that I am a student sangoma and doesn’t have a problem with me wearing motjeka (traditional cloth).

“I was surprised when our site manager, Connie Smith, called me to the office and told me that municipal officials were not comfortable with me coming to work wearing it,” he said. Mothoa said he tried in vain to convince his employers that he was abiding by the requirements of his calling to wear the cloth.

“They told me that I should either take it off or stay at home despite assuring them that my wearing this cloth would not in any way affect my efficiency at work,” Mothoa said. He has been working at the firm since 2007 but was forced to go for training as a sangoma in October last year after a series of “spiritual upheavals”.

Attempts to get comment from Smith drew a blank. Johannes Maepa, an administrator at the Pretoria equality court, confirmed yesterday that they had received a complaint from Mothoa.

source: Sowetan newspaper

by Namhla Tshisela

Calling as a sangoma made her ditch career in accounting

Meet Amanda Gcabashe, a finance wunderkind who is now one of South Africa’s rare breed of high tech sangomas. She asserts that taking this ancient African wisdom into cyberspace will shatter stereotypes about this revered but misunderstood call from the ancestors. Gcabashe launched the website last year after nearly 10 years of practising as a sangoma and an inyanga.

“You can buy a book if you want to find out, for instance, about astrology, but you will not find anything about traditional healers,” Gcabashe says. “There are many of us throughout the continent but we are relegated to the corners of obscurity.”

She says traditional healing has always been shrouded in secrecy and as a result has acquired a stigma. She hopes her website will “create interest about learning more about the healing art of Africa”.

Gcabashe says: “Whenever there are news stories about izinyanga or izangoma they are always negative.”

Her site offers introductory lessons to those who are not familiar with the practice. A glossary of terms is included and some of the myths that persist about izangoma and izinyanga are explored. She says people expect traditional healers to be “old men or women who live in little huts in rural areas”.

Some struggle to contain their incredulity when they meet the 34- year-old. She consults from her home at a country estate in a suburb on Gauteng’s West Rand while her home in Northriding is being renovated. The only thing that gives her away as a sangoma is the black, red and white ibhayi she wraps around her body, partly covering her denim skirt and a yellow Stoned Cherrie T-shirt. Her straight hair is tied in a ponytail.

“The website was not a way of advertising myself,” she says. “Clients hear about me through word of mouth.”

She believes consulting a sangoma is “a personal thing” and she maintains a strict code of confidentiality with her clients. Gcabashe grew up in a Christian home and felt more inclined to live a life in the ministry because “I used to pray for people”. But a series of dreams and her first visit to a sangoma convinced her otherwise.

“I must confess I accepted the calling out of fear. People would tell me that if I ignored the call I would get sick or die. I had no intention of dying at 24. I still wanted to own a bank,” she jests. She started the process of ukuthwasa in 1999 while serving articles with a chartered accounting firm, becoming the first in her family to heed her vocation.

“My mother ran away from her calling all her life,” Gcabashe says. “My grandmother was married to an Anglican priest and could not practise as a sangoma because it was considered taboo”. She says there is a common misconception that traditional healers do not believe in God.

“African traditional religions do not frown on prayer. It is not my place to convince dogmatic people about the credibility of our practices. Why do we have to limit God to Anglicans or Christians?” She does not regret heeding her calling and forsaking a life in the corporate sector.

“I can’t say whether my life has changed for the better or for worse. I have gained and experienced things I wouldn’t have had as an accountant. It is not about my career or bank account anymore. It’s about how I can help others,” Gcabashe says.

She does not throw bones. She counsels and dispenses medicines (imithi) she prepares. She wants to open an indigenous health clinic in Soweto that will offer an affordable and multi- dimensional approach to health care.

“Health is not just about aches and pains. It has an emotional and psychological aspect. Sometimes people just want to be heard and counselled, and we offer that,” she says. She believes a time will come when traditional and Western medicines will be used together to treat various ailments.

“No one has bothered to study our medicines. The reality is that Western doctors and traditional healers faced the same problems of death and disease.” About attitudes to healing, she says medicines are useless if patients do not change their behaviour. Referring to HIV-Aids she says: “I don’t claim to cure Aids. I may dispense medicine to lower the viral load. I also don’t encourage patients to stop taking ARVs because I believe in a multipronged approach. My medicine does not affect the efficacy of the treatment, but their vitality.”

Log on to her website www.mphutungwane.co.za and enter makhosi, her mystic world of traditional African healing.

source: Sowetan newspaper

The acclaimed Sibikwa Arts Centre, now celebrating its twentieth year, is proud to present its annual student dance presentation, GRAFTING, for one performance only at the Dance Factory in Newtown on Sunday 5 October at 14h30.

GRAFTING is presented by the Sibikwa Youth Dance company with the learners and interns of the Sibikwa Arts Centre, who each year work towards a public performance where they can showcase their talents. The 52 learners and the 10 interns hail from Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Free State and North West.

In line with Sibikwa’s mission, four young, professional choreographers have been engaged to work with the participants of the accredited Learnership in the Performing Arts. This affords the young students the opportunity of working with up-and-coming young, professional choreographers.

The choreographers with whom the students will work for the 2008 Dance presentation are the award winning choreographer and teacher Portia Mashigo, Melusi Mkhwanjani, a contemporary dancer and teacher and Lucky Ntlhane Ratlhagane who worked with the learners and Bafekile Sedibe who worked with the interns.

The twentieth year of Sibikwa’s existence herald’s a new initiative, The Sibikwa Youth Dance Company. This company aims to build a repertoire of South African dance, to train skilled young dancers, to develop the community through dance, to facilitate Educational development through dance and to create jobs within the dance industry within the ambit of the Sibikwa Arts Centre. The dancers will be trained in South African traditional dance, South African urban dance (Pantsula, gumboot, contemporary African), hip hop and ballet. They hope to create a meeting point that will reflect South Africa in the 21st century, interpret the current reality and celebrate South Africa’s cultural diversity. Dancers will be drawn from the Saturday Arts Academy.

Four of the Company members will be young professionals embarking on their dance careers and currently this includes: Lungile Maboe who started dancing professionally at Sibikwa Arts Centre in 2004 where she was trained in afro fusion by Lucky Ratlagane. During that year she toured to Norway where she conducted workshops on issues of crime and violence in South Africa. In 2005 she was recommended to be part of a performing Arts Learnership in Sibikwa’s Ezithuthukayo Dance and Drama group. She performed in Ke-mang , directed by Yana Sakelaris and Clara Vaughan, did outreach work in Primary and High Schools and later that year she obtained Best dancer of the Year award. In 2006 she did the Sibikwa internship where she focused on facilitation, Poetry, Storytelling, drama and dance. In 2007 she joined City Year as a service leader at schools for grade 4 to 7. A facilitator, co-ordinator, and a best leader of the year nominee she is now Sibikwa’s Saturday Arts Centre Afro Fusion dance teacher.

Lehlohonolo Dube, from Kwa-Thema in Springs,started performing with the Proud Actors, then joined Zwakala Dramatic Oracle in 2005. He joined Sibikwa Arts Centre in 2006. He completed his Learnership in Performing Arts NQF level 4 . In 2007 he completed an Internship at Sibikwa Arts Centre in facilitation and Performance. He performed in several productions: In the Beginning, an adaptation of the Credo Mutwa Story, Maru, the Butoh-based In the Wake of the Body and Sibikwa’s Uhambo-The Journey,directed by Smal Ndaba.

Taemane Mothobi grew up in Odendaalsrus, Kutlonong in Free State. In 1999 he started acting at Phehello High School. In 2005 he attended Sibikwa’s Saturday Arts Academy. Like Lehlohonolo Dube he went onto he complete his Learnership in Performing Arts NQF Level 4 in 2008 and his Internship in 2007. He also performed in Sibikwa’s Uhambo-The Journey, In the Beginning, an adaptation of the Credo Mutwa Story, Maru and the Butoh-based In the Wake of the Body

Lucky Modiselle joined Sibikwa’s Saturday Arts Academy in 2004. In 2005 he joined the Learnership programme and acquired NQF Level 4 in performing arts. In 2006 he worked with Velvet Rope as a freelance dancer and assistant Production manager till April 2008, after which he joined the Vuyani Dance Theatre.

The performance of GRAFTING has been made possible with the assistance of Rand Merchant Bank (RMB).

Tickets for the one performance of GRAFTING are available at the door and are R30. Schools wishing to attend this performance are urged to contact the Sibikwa office at 011 422 4359 or e-mail sibikwa@iafrica.com.

The Sibikwa Arts Centre is a community based organization which uses the arts for community development. The Sibikwa Community Theatre Project was formed by a group of parents in the East Rand township of Daveyton in 1988. Concerned by the low level of education, their children’s poor attendance at school, the lack of focus in their children’s lives, the increasing violence and the lack of amenities in the township, Sibikwa came into being.

Visit Sibikwa’s website for further information.

source: Artslink

by Dr. John Stokes

Exopolitics representations offer a new theory on the origins of this universe, and humankind in this universe. This new theory suggests that this universe neither originated from a spontaneous “Big Bang”, nor from a benevolent “God” creator, as is imputed by various organized religions. Have you ever wondered, who we are as a human species? What is our true origins? What really accounts for a planet like Earth, so abundant with life, being apparently surrounded by planets with no signs of intelligent life?

Alex Collier

This new theory originates from a composite of Alex Collier’s representation from his alleged contact with Ethical Extraterrestrials, that have sought to warn humanity, about Manipulative Extraterrestrials and their human operatives.

Exopolitics, is a discipline which suggests that humankind can further critically appreciate certain “mysteries”, by appreciating how Extraterrestrials may be affecting human reality. Exopolitics practitioners like Dr. Michael Salla, suggests that the affirmation of human sovereignty on Earth, depends on the disclosure of both Ethical and Manipulative Extraterrestrial contacts with Earth.

This Exopolitics-inspired theory, suggests that humans originated from an “organic universe” that exists in a parallel time-space continuum to this universe. The alleged characteristic of this parallel universe is that is abundant with intelligent life including human colonies that are over 100 Billion in total population.

However, Alex Collier alleges that a clique of Nazi scientists in a parallel 1931, created a “rip” in the time-space continuum, that provided an entry point for Manipulative Extraterrestrials. These Manipulative Extraterrestrials, then instigated an intergalactic war, against humanity, with the support of their Nazi allies. Once these time-travelling aliens entered that parallel organic universe, where humans allegedly originated from, and after Earth was captured, regressive aliens then according to this exposited alternative theory, went back in time to change the whole of Earth’s time continuum.

African Elder Credo Mutwa, who indicates that he had been abducted by regressive aliens that had been identified by the Dr. John Lash’s research on the Gnostics, details the presence of these alien “shape-shifters”, that are aliens that can mimic human form.

Credo Mutwa indicates that he has corroborated the existence of such shape-shifters by hundreds of African tribes. Shape-shifters according to Mutwa, have been documented by these African tribes as seeking to infiltrate human institutions to perpetrate socio-pathetic activities associated with oppression and exploitation. These alleged alien-directed dehumanizing activities include genocide, and war in general, that can become prevalent in the world today.

The imputed result was that Manipulative Extraterrestrials used their sophisticated technology to capture Earth, in an artificially generated “hollographic universe”. LINK .

In an “organic universe” sentient life, as well as plant and animal life in general, apparently grows like weeds. In the alleged creation of a “holographic universe” Earth has been captured in an artificially generated universe. In order words, Earth has been caught in some kind of “cosmic spider web”.

The Ethical Extraterrestrials, that have been able to penetrate this apparent “cosmic spider web” suggest that Manipulative Extraterrestrials have captured Earth and to “harvest” the life forms on Earth for genetic and other exploitation purposes.

By isolating Earth, it has been further imputed not only by Alex Collier’s representations, but also by the ancient Gnostics, that Manipulative Extraterrestrials sought to isolate humanity in a apparent “barren” universe, to make humans more susceptible to religious doctrine. “Creationist” doctrine was accordingly inspired by Manipulative Extraterrestrials that sought to convince humanity that “a God” was responsible for the “miracle of life” on this planet.

The “Big Bang” theory apparently became another misleading scenario created for the “non-believers”, that still sought some explanation for the origins of this universe. But the ancient Gnostics attempted to clarify that this alleged “God the Creator” was actually a contrived convention orchestrated by the same group of regressive aliens that Alex Collier alleges, brought humanity away from an organic universe, and into an enslavement context in an artificial “holographic universe”.

Gnostics and representations by Alex Collier, suggest that Manipulative Extraterrestrials, in creating a hollographic universe, seek to “play God”, and operate through elite institutions that are in league with hostile alien interests.

source: The Canadian National Newspaper

Terence McKenna (16 November 1946 – 3 April 2000) was a writer, philosopher, and ethnobotanist. He is noted for his many speculations on the use of psychedelic, plant-based hallucinogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, the development of human consciousness, and novelty theory.

This is an important concept to understand because one perspective would be that Africa’s poverty or problems is simply a operating system we have chosen to run on mass. And if we can begin to change the operating system or rather upgrade to a newer version that supports a wider array of the modern challenges we are facing like globalisation and the erosion of freedom as we move from country-specific laws to international law.

If you like this video clip I also highly, highly recommend the Living Dialogues podcast interviews with Joseph Chilton Pearce about Culture.