Notes on Africa Kontumbli Initiation

Below is an excerpt from my journal to share my Africa Kontumbli initiation without losing the integrity, potency, and magic of this rite of passage. For those who have requested this story for sometime, thank you for your patience.

I would like to begin by thanking each of you for supporting me during the Kontumbli initiation in Africa. It was a rigorous twelve-day journey filled with many hours of waiting. For me, not only was it a Kontumbli Merging Initiation, it was also an opportunity to practice patience, tolerance, sensitivity, flow, surrender, alertness, clarity, strength, looking, and listening. Equally important was the capacity to stay present in moments of difficulty, tension, and chaos without acting out. This level of Presence is an initiation in itself. I was not always in the center of my awareness. It took tremendous effort to reel in my reactivity, to use it as an inquiry instead of acting it out. And sometimes I acted out. It’s impossible to be in the village without falling apart in some way. It is not an easy life.

There were many levels of engagement as the Kontumbli initiation took place. Throughout my time in Africa this year, my attention was on not only the initiation itself, which took approximately twelve hours daily, but also on daily village life, the preparation and the final ritual of Papa Elie’s burial, the meals and acting as liaison between the Americans and the village women, and supporting the event in the village. Daily integration of the Kontumbli initiation happened at night, in the dream time, and early in the morning. Meditations helped me to stay grounded to all the rhythms of an intense several weeks even though I was not grounded all the time. Being present inside myself moment to moment by sensing my arms and legs also helped me in being grounded. And, in practicing this discipline, I could feel myself simply following a certain rhythm, a dance unfolding from one moment to another. Time simply changes. My mind did not orchestrate the day the way I would back home. There seemed to be another entity, another force, that managed what would happen each day. There were days that I loved this rhythm, and there were days that I contracted when things did not take place as I expected. I simply watched how I navigated between these two opposites. I learned how my entire Being is soft and relaxed when I simply followed the events of the day and how I was suffering emotionally and physically when I did not get what I wanted. I was particularly attuned to the relaxation and the contraction happening in my body as my mind did its expansion and contraction. In the contraction, my awareness was also limited missing many things happening around me. When I was simply following the day, my awareness was expanded and experienced more fully what was happening around me. The thread of my expansion and contraction brought the recognition of how I make my life difficult, how I can get in the way of the flow. Of course, there are many threads of experiences that lead to this recognition. I definitely got a good dose of it in Africa. Today, in practicing what I recognized in Africa, my capacity to surrender to these two opposites has changed.

I cannot share the details of the Kontumbli initiation. However, I can share some of my inner work. Although I could feel the presence of Kontumbli and could sometimes see them during the initiation, there were moments of doubt during the process. The ability to trust the process came in moments when I could see the Kontumbli sitting on top of its shrine or sitting on the shoulder of the shaman. I also trusted the process when for the first time the Kontumbli grabbed the top of my throat and my throat began to move without my doing it. When I returned home the doubt began to get louder again. On my third day of doubting, I had a dream that night.

I’m walking in the Redwood Forest with Kontumbli next to me. I stand just above his ankle. He looks like the “Hulk” but much greener. I am not afraid. I feel so much love for him and I could feel the love emanating from him as well. I noticed his steps were matching mine. Walking side by side with him, I am happy. We laugh together. After a while my mood changes to sadness. I know I have to leave the forest. I want to take him with me but feel I cannot take him where I am to go next. He feels my difficulty. I noticed he is leaving it all to me. He is not giving me any kind of reason to sway my decision. He seems to be leaving the entire decision to me. I am amazed at how we are both able to feel and know each other without speaking about it. I can feel him fully including his thoughts and vice versa. Our lips are not moving when communicating. I decide to leave him in the forest. I was afraid to take him to my family. I was afraid of their judgments, comments, and disapproval. I was afraid they would not believe that he is real, that there is more than this dimension we live in.

I’m sitting on a bench with my brother sharing what’s been going on in our lives lately. The bench sits in front of the forest I just came out of. I noticed a big difference between the energy inside the forest and outside the forest. I feel tied up in knots inside because I left Kontumbli while trying to have a nice conversation with my brother. All of a sudden, Kontumbli shoots out of the forest behind my brother about 50 feet away. He looks at me with intent eyes, but he’s not angry. He speaks firmly, saying, “All the rituals are complete in Africa”. He disappears. My breath catches and immediately I begin sobbing. I turn and tell my brother about the Kontumbli initiation after all. I wake up sobbing.

Three days later, my brother calls to make an appointment for a Kontumbli reading. He tells me that Mom shared about Kontumbli to him three nights ago, the same night I had this dream.

In closing, I would like to thank the generosity of the Birifor clan and Bakhye family for opening the gateway to Kontumbli Medicine. I am also in deep gratitude for the guidance of Malidoma Some, a brother, friend, and teacher. Lastly, I am in deep respect and gratitude for the support of my husband, Ted, who merged with Kontumbli in 2002. His merging initiation paved the way for this journey, assisted in verifying many uncomfortable situations during the initiation, and provided protection for me and my fellow initiates.