23 Mar The Flight of the Songbirds – a Songlines Journey South Africa
South Africa
I am forever changed in my feeling of who I am on this Earth in relation to all of life through meeting IMG_1060the wild animals, that I had only known from zoos, myths and picture books in their own habitats – the African bushveld. Even though these meetings have been largely reduced to the spaces of national parcs and private game reserves, the experiences of seeing large herds of elephants, waterbuffalo, antilopes, giraffes, baboons and many others roam in their own territory and being able to hang out with them took me to a very different sense of being in my body.
This journey really started a couple of years ago, when I heard the call from the wild on the inside and then elephants turning up in many different ways catching my attention: see my blog ‘Animal communications’ here:
The messages I received were profound and created a new momentum.
As I deepened my communications with the elephants , other animals started showing up in my meditations including lions – golden lions and white lions which led me to follow the trails and find out more about the white lions of Timbavati.
I heartily recommend Linda Tuckers book: ‘The Mystery of the White Lions’ ,which really is an incredibly important work for our time! When in march 2014 I was told that my magical home of 10 years needed to be sold and the next day Heather received an invitation to fly and follow her dreams, the question stood in the space: what next? A huge opening of potential and change.
The morning after we received a message from a friend in South Africa who we met the year before inviting us to South Africa as she woke from a dream in which the land of South Africa and the animals asked for us to come here. She extended the invitation to us to be our host.
This created its own momentum of YES, which resulted in the Journey of ‘The Songlines flight of the Songbirds’ around the Southern Hemisphere for a number of months beginning in late 2014.
3 continents extended invitations: South Africa, Australia and Brazil.
We ended up with Brazil as our starting point , continuing to South Africa and lastly Australia
What follows are summaries of our travel blog: from South Africa:
Our first week in Johannesburg was coloured by safety concerns our host was drilling us with – always locking gates, doors, windows … giving us the feeling that even though apartheid was officially no more, it’s blueprint of separation was well alive. We experienced distrust from all sides towards the ‘other’ although we made great friends on all sides. Separations exists not only between people but fences everywhere keep animals out or in – all ‘wild life’ now is contained in private game reserves or national parks – meaning that the ‘tamed world’ has made the ‘wild’ of Southern Africa into game-parks and or large expansive landscapes with very little wildlife.
Reading the words of the great African medicine man High Sangoma Credo Mutwa who is one of the few carriers of IMG_2444the deeper knowledge of the African Tradition the Umlando we can get a small sense of what has been lost, In Mutwa’s words:
What many people don’t realize is that huge wild herds existed because the native people of Africa regarded them as a blessing from the gods – as something unbelievably sacred and vital for the continued existence of human beings. .. No one ever interfered with these great migrations because they really believed that wildlife was the soul, the very life blood of Mother Earth.’ (from mystery of the white lions by Linda Tucker p78) Witnessing some of the large and small herds in the bushveld I could feel the truth of this statement. Where these herds were present, we all could sense the aliveness in ourselves, in the frequency of the land and the body and well being of the Earth. It reminded me of the experience the elephants had given me a year ago in preparation for this trip:
We felt that where the animals are not present on the land,we needed much more consciousness to create the frequency of aliveness. We used our instruments and sounds to assist us – expressing appreciation for All that is without judgment.
The spectacle of a dung beetle rolling the elephant dung as beautiful balls of manure compost is as magnificent as the hyppos bathing, waterbuffalo grazing, Giraffe pruning the trees from above, hyenas hunting and the kudu watching nearly unseen through the bush. Meeting many of the animals in the bushveld of the Kruger and Addo national park and spending much time just being in their natural environment I felt that each animal species showed us a frequency of our own original nature and their place in the wholeness of the fabric of life.
One of the gifts we received was the visit to an elephant sanctuary, where the rescued elephants were allowing us to touch them, ride them and be close to them. What an incredible priviledge!
Did you know that an African elephant’s ear is the shape of Africa (while an Asian elephant’s ear is the shape of Asia? I immediately was shown that the elephant carries the awareness of the total continent and the shape of the ears reflect this. Sitting on the back of this magnificent being I became part of the rhythm of nature and the Earth. In the beginning of our time in South Africa we made a pilgrimage to the Eastern Cape to see a Sangoma John Lockley to assist us with local plants to drink and wash to enter more deeply and easily into the land of Africa. One of the practices he gave me that I cherished deeply was that of sitting wrapped in a blanket on the land for even a few minutes or half an hour, to listen to my own heartbeat. From there I started feeling the land and expanding my perception – hearing and sensing the wildlife around me and the Earth below me.
We had the honour to create a ceremony of sound and vibration that invited the gathering of the consciousness of all Beings through their heart flames in one golden ball – honouring also all those who are unseen, unknown, displaced, forgotten.
Credo Mutwa
the High Shaman also speaks about the star origins of all creatures including humans and of the great importance of the gold of Africa and its relationship to lions and lion consciousness as those of the protectors of the land/earth.(See ‘mystery of the white lions; L. Tucker) Before we set out on this journey we felt the theme of gold being a vital part of our explorations.
Africa’s history was shaped by the presence and later the mining of gold . We were shown in inner vision that gold originally represented a state of consciousness.
A state of consciousness of seeing and caring for the whole, like a true leader would care for all in his /her care – looking after the ‘We space’ rather than the Me. That’s why it was associated with royalty but it seems that by the time that physical gold was used and mined it was to assist this already fading consciousness . Isn’t it ironic that gold in its inverted disconnected state has become the opposite – the very symbol of ‘personal property’ / ‘mine’ of the ‘Me’ consciousness.
In our attunement I saw that energetically the gold needed to be returned to the Earth, to Africa in order for the Earth/ the land herself to be in balance and for the collective consciousness to be able to raise into the We space that acts from the heart for the Good of All.
I had also seen that the white lions of Timbavati were here to assist. Being and playing the frequencies of gold and of gold consciousness was part of our journey. When we first saw and met the white lions at the white lion protection trust where they roam as wild in a large protected area – protection necessary to stop them being hunted by poachers and trophy hunters – I was not prepared for the huge heart opening experience that the energy field of these magnificent beings create.
Sitting with them even as they sleep is a deeply moving experience and as the days went by we found some of the lions actively interacting with us, exchanging cat blinks and heart energy.
We witnessed the lioness chasing a jackal, the male lions patrolling the land – after a powerful sound-weaving during a thunderstorm we went out to find the older lion brothers frolicking in the field, climbing up treetrunks, playing, The most moving moment was when we were about to leave the reserve, two lion brothers positioned themselves close to the road so we could not miss them forming a gateway between them.
Being in the presence of the white lions we sensed the frequencies of gold consciousness alert and relaxed and hugely generous and wise at the same time – very fine vibrations that asks for total presence Being and sleeping in that environment of the bushveld where animals roam in the wild and where lions roar, baboons shout and wonderous exotic birds sing lullabyes and morning chorus, something very deep awakened in us – roots long forgotten and gone to sleep, an alertness and awareness that encompasses the land – feeling the pulse and breath of the earth – being a part of her…
One night in Mapungubwe national park I awoke in the middle of the night, went outside on the deck in the soft rain and dropped into a stillness of being where I felt a bushman was close by in spirit.
He showed me how through my consciousness I could change a drop of polluted water into clear water and then absorb it through the skin. Mapungubwe combines the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa into an incredibly expansive and unifying field, which expanded our awareness and our sense of time. Stillness and presence became time fullness. We feel moved to facilitate others to have these experiences of sensing our roots and Source connection on the Earth within the wholeness of Creation.
In the last week of our journey we were taken to the southern most tip of Africa Alghulas, where east and west meet in the indian ocean from the east and the atlantic ocean from the west… Our instruments assisted us to weave with the energies of polarity and contrast putting out a prayer of coherence and joyful dance of recognition
On the last day we visited the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point where only 2 weeks ago fires had after the firebeen raging. In contrast to the beautiful varied green and lush flowering ‘fynbos’ shrub flora on one side, the burnt side had become a black and white and eerily bare – and unprotected by vegetation the wind was whipping thin layers of soil and sand, so we found ourselveos on bare rocks and sand in a virtual sandstorm in an eerie black and white landscape with its own intense beauty.
Stood amongst the black silhouettes of the burnt shrubs we played our instruments, sounding for the phoenix rising from the ashes. We held the invitation in our hearts that all of the new lives coming through the earth would come to assist us in our waking to greater consciousness.
Our hearts were filled with gratitude and awe as we saw tiny shoots of green and a couple of singular red flowers emerging from the burnt ground. We give thanks for this rich experience of many colours. We are called back and carry the wish to introduce others to sense of origin and place in the wholeness of where we come from as a species.
See also our Songlines Journey in Brazil and in Australia the 2018 Songlines journey with Gold and
in about the 2019 Songlines Journey – a grail journey of the heart and more about the white lions
