Doctortayria's Blog

I had a dream last night about ghosts and truly wish I could remember the specifics of it. As I awakened, though, it was crystal clear to me that any energy system that was there, incarnated, and now it isn’t leaves an energetic pattern, that which we call a ghost. If there was a friendship and now there isn’t, the ghost of that friendship still exists. If you were in love and now you’re not, the ghost of that love has energetic properties and dimension, and affects you. If there was a person and that person crosses over, the ghost of the individual remains. Ghosts are autonomous systems, patterns of energy, that continue to have “matter” and matter to us no less than they did when they were detectable to our physical senses. The truth about ghosts was vivid to me upon awakening.

I remember once standing on the ground where new buildings had just been completed, having known the territory well before the construction. Standing there I began to see clearly the ghosts of what had been there before, the physics of it all was still patterned right in front of me, my eyes saw it clearly (though the seeing must have been with what they call the Third Eye). The former buildings and trees, even the life and values that had been lived there, all were still there, exactly as before, but in another dimension. The ghost was clear in my vision just then, interwoven with the new structures and basically unaffected by them. I remember realizing while still standing there that the ghost of all former civilizations on earth still live right where we are living, moving and having our being. It’s all here with us.

Just about a month ago I had a dream in which I was suddenly developing skills for communicating with the dead; they were coming upon me of their own accord without my conscious intention to create them. I remember in that dream the “whoosh” of connection, that it scared me somewhat only because it was so powerful. I was learning how to tolerate the intensity.

Dreams are teachers. From these dreams and visions I am instructed in a way that mind and theory could never so well impart, that nothing created ever really dies, it just moves to other dimensions still in tact. There is no such thing as “dead and gone.” Nothing is ever dead, or gone. Awareness of this could change everything.

How do we interact with ghosts? An intelligent answer to this question is being begged by my dream. Ancestors and ancient worlds, as well as the forms of yesterday, still live with us. Better to recognize that than not.

Considerations regarding a possible move closer into town, out of my remote mountain location  – a notion that has rather shocked and shaken me since my return from Africa – have me reflecting on the two minds we as humans seem to house. Appreciating the distinction between these two minds has been central to my work and writing for the last many years.

Indigenous mind is the term I prefer to use in describing the aspect of mind that knows without being taught, that senses far beyond the power of reasoning, that exists within the field of intelligence that pervades everything that is. It comprehends the language of universe, stars, rocks, rivers, trees and animals as well as that of humans. It is our unifying capability and original endowment.

Cultivated mind is the aspect that humans develop in order to live within what Rilke calls “our interpreted world.” It matures through logic and reasoning, analyzing, comparing, evaluating.

Carl Jung wrote an essay entitled “Two Kinds of Thinking” in which he describes what he calls “directed thinking”, that which is linear, adapted and functional as opposed to dream thinking which is mythological and symbolic. Heidegger called it “technological thinking.” Jung was concerned with our overuse of directed thinking, as it is producing a readjustment of the human mind away from what the ancients knew; it is immature and could lead to our demise. The one kind of thinking is difficult and exhausting, the other effortless and spontaneous.

Thomas Berry, one of my greatest teachers, worried that we are closing down the major life systems of the planet because of this imbalance in human development. He called our human situation a pathology and felt that if we do not get back to our prerational, instinctive resources, our genetic imperatives as he called them, we may be headed toward ecological destruction that could eliminate our chances of survival as a species. Buckminster Fuller died with these same concerns.

I moved to live in the mountains after some years of immersion in these concerns. In the middle of it all life delivered circumstances that instigated a nervous breakdown in which for the most part I lost powers for directed thinking during a period of time. As frightening as this was, it delivered a kind of illumination that might not have arrived in any other way. Jesus said that we must lose our life to find it. Similarly, I realized, we must lose our mind to find it. As much as I lost one mind, I was also recovering the other. And so I came to live in wilderness to further advance the recovery.

I have heard indigenous people describe the conflict between these minds, saying that the cultivated or domesticated mind eradicates the other. One cannot have them together. I choose to believe that our evolution will find a way to accommodate both, but that this will require a strong commitment to the process; a willingness to allow for the stronghold of our recently acquired mind to loosen and possibly disintegrate to make way for the new possibility.

Now as I consider moving toward town where that other mind dominates, worry rises in me. Could what recovery I have been able to achieve evaporate in the heat of that other mind, like a mist is dissolved by the sun? I have to trust not. This may be the next step in the call.

My first trip to Africa in 1997 was a profound experience. I remember the hunger I felt as I set out to go, wanting to sink into the heart of that continent and hear deeply her rhythm. I couldn’t wait to get out of Nairobi and feel the beat of the land and the people who live close to the land.  Among other aspects of the journey, we did get to go into a village and stay there for 5 days.  I have a much longer writing elsewhere that describes this experience, but key to it is the fact that I became aware I was experiencing a fully prepared rite of passage which had been designed perfectly, in detail, by unseen forces. This became clear to me by some dramatic indicators.

They say if you want to know if a rite of passage took, see what happens in your life right after. Within two months of the return from that trip, life as I knew it shifted irrevocably deep underground, like tectonic plates moving to create a whole new geography. My 11-year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and my husband began a journey that led to the dissolution of our marriage and family life. I consistently said to myself after that, “It was Africa, something about Africa that precipitated all of this,” feeling as though her big hand had reached in underground and shook everything, shook it strong and hard. My doctoral dissertation entitled “Reawakening Indigenous Sensibilities in the Western Psyche” was born out of this. It began a very particular kind of journey for me.

Now I am back from Africa again, this having been my third trip. Again I sense her strong hand shaking hard at the roots of my being. I feel my bones shaking, my nerves and cells unsheathed. What will it be this time? I’m home not even a month yet, and already the unexpected is appearing. I may move from this mountain.  Something is pushing me, pulling me, expelling me, wanting me, just don’t know yet.

I must trust. Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”  I want to stop, rest, but must keep moving, find the balance. Trust.

Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, outside Nairobi in Kenya was the site of my recent visit to Africa. I am going to let these photos tell the story better than my words could tell you about the living conditions and level of poverty there.

Neighborhood in Kibera

Local hotel

Children hanging out

The streets of Kibera

Drainage/sewage ditch smack in the middle of the school ground where we worked. These run all through Kibera, everywhere.

This little dude was so proud of his juice box on wheels pull toy

other varieties of pull toys

local pub

These images only begin to tell the story. The sights, sounds, smells, the sense of life and commerce happening so remotely far from anything we are familiar with can only be experienced first hand.

My reason for showing these pictures is not to expose the poverty so much as to help express my astonishment as I became aware that, like home, at the school we worked in every teenager had a cell phone in his pocket. They were checking them all of the time, just like at home. If one of their number hadn’t come to the session we were starting they would ring him up. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

The reality for these kids is that they don’t even eat every day. Sometimes it’ may be that they eat once a day, if they are lucky more than once, but some days not at all. They don’t have electricity except in a few places brought in on scary looking little wires, so how they charge the phones is a mystery. Certainly, I was told, they don’t have monthly plans. They somehow procure a phone and then put minutes on it as they scrounge up shillings.

When I pondered this with one of my colleagues, saying to him, “They don’t even eat every day and they have a phone?” he mused that somehow being in touch with one another is more important than food. This helped me begin to understand.

Next we go to the Maasai Mara. Here the Maasai, a pastoral, nomadic people, live on vast plains alongside the wild animals. Here are some shots of them, their village, their lifestyle.

Maasai village

Maasai villagers

Common sight on the Mara, Maasai wandering across the open plains

I could upload a few more pictures, but I hope you get the idea, and I am guessing that you probably know what I am going to say. These guys have cell phones! One of our members saw a Massai warrior sitting on a rock as we drove through the plains TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE.

A native American elder that I once worked with remarked while using a Bic to light the sacred fire that we had all worked for days to prepare, “If my ancestors had had a Bic they would have used one.”

And this seems to be the case with cell phones. I don’t know what to say to comment further or interpret, I’m just telling the story. “Connection is everything” is all I can think.

Readjustment to life on our continent has held some challenges for me. When I gather myself back up, there are more stories of Africa to tell. For now let me make this tribute to the unfathomable wonder of the animals we were privileged to witness on the Masai Mara. I love this quote that was written on a poster at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage:

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complex than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
–Henry Benton

Here are but a few of the animals we saw wandering about in their own habitat, there were many more. I tried to describe to my daughters what it is like seeing thousands of animals living in their own world. It occurred to me to explain that if one had never seen the sky before, no one could ever describe the sky well enough to transmit the experience of it. You could show photographs, write essays or poetry, but not until you stand under the open sky would you get it. It’s the same with this experience. National Geographic does a great job, so do many other photographers, essayists, book writers and poets. But not until you are there can it be known.

I awakened with a strong dream this morning. The ten of us who traveled to Africa on this trip were standing together next to a wall being guided by a shaman or medicine man. Lined up against the wall, squatting, were versions of ourselves that are pre-historic – they looked like the drawings we see of humans in pre-history. There was a Tayria, a Carter, a David, a Tony, an Emily, a Zoe, a Jenny, a Liz, a Heather, an Alexa – very specific, a living piece of our own unique self. Each of us were shown how to stand in front of our other self and then squat down into it, merging with it, which we did. Then we stood up, and the part was integrated, ready to walk in us. The medicine man gave us each beads to wear that would help the integration to set, like waiting for glue to dry.

Wow. Soul-retrieval. A piece of our most primordial self recovered. What will this blessing and healing bring?

My thought is to pass this on as an image for your own ritual. I believe it is meant to be shared and that anyone can do it if they feel moved to do so. Create the space, call in your guides, make an intention, visualize this action and do it physically, invest some beads with the power of your prayerful intention and wear them for a few days.

Modernization has served too often to cut us off from our roots, causing us to forget who we really are and how we are meant to live on this planet. Such a ritual might help the root juices begin to flow again, and bring more wholeness to our being.

Elephant with broken leg on Masai Mara

I am two days home from the journey to Kenya, and not even close to recovered from the jet lag. I feel my life here pressing back in on me, in a good way, but still feel so many stories from the journey deserve to be told. I turned my Page-a-Day Zen Calendar today and read the quote: “The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser. If I don’t tell the stories of this journey to Africa then who will tell them? I want to commit to write more of them before I move on to here and now, while the stories remain vivid.

Today I want to tell about an old-ish elephant that we saw on the Masai Mara. After our time in Nairobi and Kibera, we made a journey over very rough terrain, 7 hours of driving which included having to drive through a river and getting stuck for a time in it, to reach the Masai Mara. This, like the Serengeti in Tanzania, is thousands of miles of untouched land where herds of wildlife can be seen in their natural environments. Experienced drivers will take you out into the plains to find and observe the animals.

Earlier in the day we had had a sacred moment in time after Carter and John, our driver, spotted elephants so far in the distance I didn’t understand how they knew them from trees or bushes. We went their direction and indeed found ourselves in the midst of a large family of elephants, one baby so tiny it was just the size of a large dog. It is priceless to see the elephants in their natural habitat, eating the grass, spraying mud on their backs, caring for their young. The little ones move so close to Mama or Papa that their bodies are touching the whole time. They are all obviously very affectionate with one another, and work as a team. One elephant came right up to our van, just a couple of feet away, seemingly to size us up. We all held our breath. Considering one another for a very long few minutes, we must have met with approval as she moved away and rejoined the group. Had she sensed that we meant harm, I think our little van could have been turned over and crushed in an instant.

Later in the day, Carter and John again spotted an elephant in the far distance. It was noticeable, even from the far view, that this was an enormous creature, like a small mountain. When we drove up to observe him we were in awe. Soon, however, it became obvious that something was wrong. The front left leg of this elephant was very swollen, and he could not walk. As we watched we could see him try to take steps, but he was completely unable. His leg was broken. How would it be possible to put all of that weight on a broken leg? It wasn’t. He was stuck there. There were no other elephants around. Our driver knew animals, and could read that this one was maybe 50 years old, middle aged. Elephants live to be 70 or more, so this one still had some years to go if not for this injury. Our hearts were broken as we watched him. He could not make his way to get grass to eat or find water, literally unable to take a step. When we left, we seemed to understand that this elephant would die there, just where he was, alone. It was, and is, almost too much to bear.

I have not been able to get this lovely creature out of my mind. When I went to bed that night all I could see, out of a vast day of witnessing prides of lions, and herds of amazing wildlife, was him. I seem to think on him several times an hour. I have sent love from my heart to his and wondered – does he receive it? How does this work? I seem to feel, whether just because I need to I can’t tell, that he receives something from the love I send and it comforts him.

I wish I could drive back to see him, and find out how he is. But only in my mind, and in my heart, can I go. So I do.

I am in a hotel in New York after 30 hours of continuous travel from Nairobi. The trip back to the mountain will be completed tomorrow. Before I lay my exhausted body down to sleep, I want to share the text of a letter I received just a couple of hours before leaving Kenya. Carter delivered it to me after receiving a packet of things from Agnes Musau, director of Drugfighters where Esther is at school. It is a handwritten letter from Esther to me. On the envelope, in her precious child’s handwriting, are these words:

To Tayria
My love

The letter, in child’s lettering, so cute:
Hey,
Dear my friend and Mom Tayria,
I am very very happy that we are friends and that you always think about me. I thank God that he brought you in my life. I always pray for you and your family, that God will continue to bless and help you.
I will miss you when you return back home. Greet all your friends who says that they love me, and tell them I love them too. I love you like my mother and you love me like my mother.
Greet all your children and tell them I love them very, very much. I believe one day God will make us to see each other. Thank you for your gifts. When I see the gifts you gave me I remember you always.
Read Psalms 41:1-3.
Yours in great love,
Esther Nyokabi

Underneath is a pink heart she drew and colored, with the words “Tayria and Esther” inside.
The gifts she refers to are a small bracelet that I gave her with the word “dream” engraved on a silver medal and the scarf I had been wearing that day which both of us had used to mop up our tears.

This helped me to know that my visit to Africa to see Esther hit the mark. She felt it. She knows. Again, my dearest thanks.