Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community

Rating:
Summary: Healing and Community - the power of loyalty and bonding
Review: I cannot stop reading Malidoma Patrice Some's accounts of his life and the lives of the Dagara people of Burkina Faso. The strong linkages between community, spirit, rituals, and individual growth are compelling and very engrossing. I first read "The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community," with awe and a realization of the connections that my own people lost when my ancestors were transported from this part of the world by slave traders.

However, Malidoma, through works like this one, opens our eyes to the possibilities that all is not lost to us, and that even in this modern westernized culture, there are ways in which we can begin to make some of those connections again, through the way we relate to community and our loved ones.

I found the chapter titled "a ritual sampler:The funeral and language of grief especially interesting and thought provoking.

I can hardly wait to read more of your books Malidoma. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Soul expanding
Review: I first read Of Water and Spirit,5 years ago, and was moved and totally absorbed by Malidoma's account of his most amazing life journey. And I just recently read his third book, The Healing Wisdom Of Africa, and now this, his second book.

There are similarities you will find in this book and The Healing Wisdom Of Africa. But this book, has many more personal accounts of his experiences with Ritual,and with his Grandfather, a powerful influence in his life. He gives a very in depth description of the Death ritual, which caused me to reflect upon the funerals I have gone to, and the vast difference. I found myself wanting to attend a Death ritual,with the Dagara, if only to participate in the togetherness of such a moving and human ceremony.

He shares with us the depth and detail of a culture that has so much to share and to teach everyone. I for one, feel blessed to have been exposed to such wisdom and beauty through Malidomas writings.

Rating:
Summary: Profoundity of experience coupled with very skillful writing
Review: This man has considerably more skill both as a thinker and as a writer than the average philosopher, or anthropologist, or even 'New Age prophet'. He really lays everything bare, like it or not, about the advantages of living in a subsistence community (as against our modern society). And further, he explains how the rituals work which those folks use to maintain links with the spirits of their ancestors, as well as with the earth and with each other.

Malidoma's brief but cogent exposition on the reasons behind how animal sacrifice works would flay apart the average modern-day monotheist's supposedly reasoned rants against such practices.

His chapter-length analysis of the Dagara's typical 3-day funeral ceremony is probably the most cogent dissection and analysis of a societal function that I have ever read, and coming from a true insider makes it that much more accurate as well as poignant, and believable. There's not a wisp of mere speculative cogitation coming from this man.

This book opened/cleansed my eyes and my soul about African culture at least as much as Gary Snyder's 'Earth House Hold: Technical Queries to Fellow Dharma Revolutionaries' did as regards Asia, way back in 1969. I tend to think that those who approach this discussion with an open mind and heart will find themselves changed in very profound ways, not necessarily painlessly, but possibly, very thoroughly, and for the better.

I met Mr. Some and his wife, and worked with them for a couple of hours around 12 years ago at a Michigan Medicine Wheel Gathering hosted by Sun Bear and his Bear Tribe. He is all that he seems, and then some. His laughter and sense of humor have almost a madcap quality that seems to reach far into the Otherworld, maybe even stemming from there. Yet he still feels to be very localized/grounded in the world of flesh and bone, as if the two (this world and the 'next') are not all that remote from each other. He's fun to be around, in addition to being bathed with a glow of dynamic, benign power.