War & Peace by John Lockley

There is chaos in the hearts of man. And our chaos spreads like a virus into the natural world resulting in species extinction and unimaginable environmental destruction. It’s hard to conceive of war on the level of World War One & Two with millions of deaths and untold destruction.  As we witness the recent war in Gaza and Ukraine, we are all called to ponder the question of ‘Why’? And is it necessary to resort to violence in order to be seen and heard? How can we fulfil our role as custodians of this planet and rightful guardians of the plant and animal worlds? It is clear that we need to face our own darkness and explore our inner shadows meticulously and be aware of what we might project onto people we perceive as other or different. In South Africa we have had many lessons around this from the last few hundred years since the start of colonisation, then apartheid and now democratic South Africa.

For those of us who study nature and have learnt to befriend the changing seasons we know that chaos is part of change and transformation. A thunderstorm brings lightning and rain. The rain nourishes the land and makes new life possible. In order to bring peace to our world we need to befriend our inner weather, and ride the storms of shadow energies involving turbulent emotions like anger and resentment. What do we do when these energies seek to overwhelm us? Attack another, ourselves or transmute them into something more productive? Anger is a powerful emotion that can help us transform the living fabric of society. But to do it effectively requires discernment and respect. First, we need to respect ourselves and not give in to our inner critic and when we find ourselves in conflict with others, we need to also hold a space in our hearts for respecting them. In martial arts from the far east like Karate in Japan, opponents begin and end their match with bowing to each other.

I recall a story of Nelson Mandela years ago who was televised in his meeting with the heads of the Palestinian and Israeli youth leagues. They asked him how he managed to create peace in South Africa. He was very matter of fact and recounted his talks with FW De Klerk in the early years. He said they would start each day shaking one another’s hands and having a cup of coffee together. During the course of the day, they would argue with one another and sometimes it would get quite heated. The Youth league presidents asked him if he ever felt like giving up. He said, “no”, because he and Mr FW De Klerk were aware that millions of South Africans were counting on them to find a peaceful solution. It wasn’t personal.  No matter how difficult their day was they would always say good bye in an amicable and courteous manner.

In order to understand Mandela’s diplomacy and humanitarianism we need to explore an important aspect of his journey. Many people might not be aware of Nelson Mandela’s personal journey around his struggle with anger and hatred over white rule and lengthy incarceration. He recounts his story in his autobiography ‘A long walk to freedom’. He said that one night before he went to sleep a voice said to him “Nelson your anger can kill you”. And when he woke the next morning he remembered this voice and the next thing he heard was “…you need to befriend the enemy”.  These thoughts were going through his mind when the white jailer unlocked his jail cell. All he said to him was, “what made you decide to become a jailer and join the correctional services?” The guard was a young white man and told Mandela he didn’t have a choice because his father died when he was only 15 years old and he had to get a job to help support his mother and four younger siblings. This shocked Mandela because he thought all white people were privileged. He realised in their discussion that he grew up with more privilege because when his father died when he was seven years old, he was brought up in the royal household of the Prince of the Xhosa nation. This enabled him to go to university and become a lawyer. He only knew apartheid when he was twenty-one years old. He asked the young jailer where he grew up. The man replied that his family have a farm in the Eastern Cape. Mandela was surprised and told him that he too was from the Eastern Cape. He then asked him in IsiXhosa if he understood the Xhosa language, and the young jailer replied “ewe, ndiyasaze isiXhosa!” Yes, I know Xhosa. And they finished their conversation in Mandela’s home language, isiXhosa. When Mandela became president of South Africa his young jailer friend was sitting next to him as they had become close friends over many years.

Traditional Zen garden

I took part in a traditional Zen Buddhist retreat in the early 1990’s in a temple in South Korea. The Berlin Wall had just fallen a few years previously resulting in the end of the cold war. There were many ex-soldiers on my retreat from East Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and myself from South Africa. We all meditated like soldiers with discipline and a hunger to find peace within amidst the trauma of our collective experiences. During the 100 days retreat we became like brothers as we sought to befriend our inner demons and the cold of a Korean winter. I had never seen so much snow before. Sometimes our Zen Master would usher us outside at ten o’clock at night to sweep the temple grounds before the old people visited the temple in the early hours. One particularly cold night as the Siberian winds ushered in fresh snow the Grand Master, Seung Sahn was giving a dharma talk. He finished his talk with asking us if we had any questions. Everyone was silent, and then a young Californian woman said, “what do we do when the devil comes knocking?” Seung Sahn replied in his jovial way, “Ahhh, the devil! Well, ask the devil if he would like a cup of tea.” In life we our constantly fighting and blaming the devil for all of mankind’s problems. His answer was a quintessential zen reply. Respect all of life, including the devil. It doesn’t mean we need to side with the devil, but rather take a pause, reflect, bow and listen. This brings to mind a traditional Zen Garden with stones and sand in harmony. Listening within brings about spaciousness.  As we meditate on the stones and the sand, we start to befriend the opposites of light and dark within us.  Nothing is wholly good or bad, light or dark. It is our reactions that make it so.

Many people are speaking about the war in Ukraine and Gaza while the hidden war against animals and nature continues unabated. As humanity fights with one another and with issues of power, powerlessness, wealth and poverty, the natural world is dying. What can individuals do? As a traditional South African healer or Sangoma the answer is simple; we need to connect to our own ‘Ubuntu’ (humanity). This involves befriending our ancestors and our inner demons or conflicts. Ubuntu is a circle and speaks about the importance of all of us to hold hands and embrace our collective humanity. In traditional Xhosa and Zulu culture every human being is seeing as being related when you go back far enough. Why? Because we all have red blood and this blood or life force is transferable from person to person regardless of creed, culture or skin colour. We are the natural guardian and custodians of planet earth. We have an unassailable duty and responsibility to all of life on earth. The animals and plants are counting on us to respect life. And when we look closely at the natural world, we see the teachings of mutual respect and understanding shining back at us. Plants are wonderful teachers and demonstrate unconditional love in their offerings to the world of medicinal plants that spread healing and harmony.

In order to heal our world, we need to look into the past and see how our ancestors dealt with chaos, whether environmental or man-made. We are lucky in Africa to still retain a connection to our distant past.  Southern Africa is thought by many anthropologists to be the birthplace of mankind. Our ancient ancestors are thought to be a small band of hunter gatherers or San Bushmen that inhabited the coastal regions of South Africa. They left their mark with numerous rock art paintings highlighting their incredible spiritual and tracking talents. They are the spiritual ancestors of current sangoma or African shamanic lineages in Southern Africa and represent what is possible when we connect to our spirit through trance dancing, plant medicine and following the tracks of animals in the sand. We are part of nature and in order to heal our environment and prevent species extinction we need to learn the language of nature.

I was on a recent ‘Dreams and Tracking retreat in the Kalahari Desert’ and I was speaking to one of our Bushman trackers about healing and dreams. In my experience as a sangoma I have encountered many people who are not remembering or connecting to their dreams. As we walked through the bush together, hundreds of kilometres away from modernity, I asked him if he could recommend any plants that can help people to remember their dreams and connect to their ancestors. The reason being, as a sangoma we believe that as people connect to their dreams and ancestors then they connect to their ‘Ubuntu’ (humanity), and balance and harmony is returned to the circle of life. The Bushman tracker walked past a shrub, stopped, and broke a piece off and placed it in his mouth. He then smiled in a gentle way and told me about this plant. He said that this particular medicinal plant was very powerful because it can heal conflict in the community. If people are struggling with one another in the community, they bite a piece off and spit it on the ground between them. This will help reduce the conflict and spread harmony. At this time the Ukraine war had just started thousands of kilometres away. The bees were going about their business pollinating flowers, and an interesting flock of birds were gravitating around a nearby bush speaking in the language of nature that we were trying to understand.

One of the Bushman elders started to speak in an animated way with the young tracker and they were pointing at me. The elder then approached me and asked me if he could participate in my ‘shrine tent activities’. He had heard about this white sangoma and wanted to see what I do. I was overjoyed and said, “yes of course, join anytime”. Every year on my Kalahari retreats I create a shrine tent for 7 days in the bush. It is a place where I teach people ‘inner tracking skills’; in particular how to connect to ancestors, dreams and ‘ubuntu’, the circle of life. The next day the Bushman elder called Gqikau joined our shrine tent with about 10 or more of his family/ community members. I beat my sangoma drum and we danced and sang together. I explained how I teach people how to pray in the sangoma way and then we all prayed together. It was a beautiful blend of different languages and cultures. The birds took a flight closer to see what was going on. The bushman band said that people visit them from all over the world but never tell them about their lives only asking many questions about them and how they live. They said they were curious about modern people and how they experienced life. I thanked them for their comment and then we went around the room and each retreat participant gave their name and where they came from in the world. People listened to one another. We then spoke about what was happening in the world, and one of the bushman ladies said the biggest problem she has noticed is that people are becoming selfish, they don’t want to share.  We compensated for this by listening deeper and bridging our ancient and modern worlds.

John and San Bushmen elder Gqikau on retreat in the Kalahari desert in 2023

At the end of our ceremony in the bush I offered Gqikau one of my sangoma fabrics which I draped over his shoulders. At the same time, I noticed a vulture flying towards us, low, almost touching the trees, and then flying over our heads. This was a wonderful sign, as vultures often represent transformation. Sangomas view them as powerful healers, with the ability to transform poison and negativity. This was a realisation of a vision I had for many years, of ancient and modern people sitting around a fire revisioning our humanity.

Excerpt from Odyssey magazine article, summer edition 2023-2024, Click here to view.

Ubuntu in the New South Africa

Ubuntu Retreat 2022 at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, South Africa. Sangomas practicing Ubuntu around the ceremonial altar.

Ubuntu is an old South African word meaning ‘humanity’. I just completed my 7th year of Ubuntu retreats at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo. The numbers of retreatants have steadily grown over the years. I felt priveliged to teach the old teachings of Ubuntu that was taught to me through my Xhosa sangoma apprenticeship. My Xhosa elders speak about ‘Ubuntu Ubunzulu’, the depth of humanity teachings. It starts with the individual person. We are all born human, however the elders say that we have to make a decision to become a human being. In the isiXhosa & isiZulu languages they speak about ‘umntu, ngumntu, ngabantu’. A person becomes a person through other people. As we listen to one another and engage with acts of kindness, consideration and empathy we feed our human family and ourselves.

Ubuntu is a circle of interconnectivity beginning with the human world and stretching into nature. The more harmonious and balanced the human world the more opportunity we have to help our non human families, animals and plants. The Ubuntu circle stretches upwards into the future with our current actions affecting the next generations, and it also stretches backwards in time to our ancestors. In South Africa we have many words for our ancestors, abazali bam (our parents), abantu badala (the old people) and one of my favourites, amathambo (bones, representing our bone people). There is an implicity responsibility to remember and honour our ancestors. As we do this we strengthen ‘isidima’ or dignity, facilitating a deeper sense of ‘Ubuntu’ and the interconnectivity of the human and non human lives on our planet.

I recorded a few of these teachings whilst leading the 3 day retreat in Ixopo at the Buddhist Retreat Centre. Please click the links below to access the youtube videos.

A discussion on the 3 jewels of Buddhism vs traditional Ubuntu practice in South Africa.

A talk on developing an Ubuntu practice with emphasis placed on Dreams, Ancestors & personal responsibility.

Leopard Medicine in the USA

I have just arrived in Fairfax near San Francisco for my seventh USA tour. My first tour was in 2009. I was called by the spirit of the black bear, renowned by the Cherokee as the guardian of the herbal medicine realm. And again last week I dreamt about this mystical creature, further inspiring me for this new tour.

Despite jet lag (an 8 hour time difference) and a terrible cold from London, I feel optimistic and excited about this year’s journey to the United States. My teachings will focus on helping people to connect to their ancestors and the natural world. I will use plant medicine (non-hallucinogenic) and dream work to facilitate these workshops, retreats and public talks.  And for passion and inspiration I will use rhythm in the form of African dancing, drumming and chanting to enliven the spirit and open the hearts of all who attend.

I call my work ‘the way of the Leopard’ because the Leopard is one of the main totem animals for us (Sangomas) in Southern Africa. The Leopard represents pure instinct and encourages us humans to listen to the wind, our hearts and the world around us.

As I went to sleep last night I was disturbed by a sound on the roof. It was loud and disruptive, like cracking rocks. When I investigated I was delighted to see a mother deer and her fawn scampering under the trees. I then awoke to the sounds of hawks flying overhead and crying to one another. I took these signs to be good omens, indicating that the land was accepting me. Then I went to the nearby ‘Best Buy’ store to buy a sim card. My new no had 777 as part of it’s sequence. My lucky numbers! This sealed the deal. I’m sure my US tour will be a huge success!

 Tonight I will be speaking for the first time in Oakland, near San Francisco. I will be joined by my assistant Seyta Selter and Kimberly Conner, a multimedia journalist from New York City, who will be documenting my work to share with people interested in natural medicine. Kimberly recently spent some time in South Africa working for one of our prestigious newspapers, the Mail & Guardian. She fell in love with the country and its people and was called to write a piece on the Sangoma culture. I feel honoured to help her with this task.

If you would like to join me tonight or take part in one of my events in the US please click here for more information about my US tour.

In Blogging, Events

Webinar - Understanding Dreams

Join John TONIGHT for a free Webinar where he will be talking about dreams and how people can get the most from their nightly journeys.

In Events

Portland Events

John will be leading public talks, workshops & Sangoma private sessions as part of his Way of the Leopard World tour.

In Events Tags African Shaman, John Lockley, Nelson Mandela, Portland, Sangoma Medicine, traditional Shaman, USA, Way of the Leopard World tour, Xhosa Medicine

New York City Events

Way of the Leopard world tour with public talks in New York & weekend workshops.

In Events Tags African Shaman, Ancestral Medicine, John Lockley, New York City, Sangoma Medicine, USA, Way of the Leopard World tour, Xhosa Sangoma

Syracuse, NY Events

Way of the Leopard world tour, Thursday talk & Weekend workshop. Sangoma private sessions by appointment only.

In Events Tags Ancestral teachings-, John Lockley, New York, Syracuse, traditional South African Shaman, USA, Xhosa Sangoma

Dancing into Dreamtime

Dream retreat in the UK featuring Charlie Morley on Lucid dreaming & John Lockley on Sangoma dreaming.

In Events Tags Ancestral Medicine, Charlie Morley, Dancing into Dreamtime, dream lineages, John Lockley, retreat, Tibetan lucid Dreaming, Xhosa Sangoma practice

African Zen Retreat

John will be facilitating a retreat at Ixopo Retreat Centre in Natal, SA. He will be exploring Sangoma medicine practice & similarities with Buddhism.

In Events Tags African Zen, Ancestral practice, Buddhism, Indigenous Medicine, Ixopo retreat centre, John Lockley, Sangoma practice, Xhosa Sangoma

African Zen Retreat

John will be running the first African Zen retreat of it's kind in South Africa at Ixopo retreat centre.  

In Events Tags African Zen, Ancestral world, humanity, John Lockley, Nelson Mandela, Sangoma, Ubuntu, Xhosa tribe

Sangoma Training

John will be working in the Eastern Cape, South Africa with his community running traditional Sangoma ceremonies.

In Events Tags Ancestors, John Lockley, Nelson Mandela, Sangoma, Traditional Medicine, Xhosa nation

Mind, Body, Spirit Festival in Brighton, UK

John will be performing live at this years Mind, Body, Spirit Festival in Brighton, UK.

• Private Sangoma Divinations on Sunday 3rd Nov.

In Events Tags African Shaman, Ancestors, Body, Brighton, Divinations, John Lockley, Mind, Sangoma, Shamanism, Spirit Festival, Traditional Medicine

Sangoma USA Tour

John will be touring the USA going to Portland, Oregon & New York City.

In Events Tags African Shamanism, Indigenous Medicine, John Lockley, New York City, Oregon, Portland, USA tour, Xhosa Sangoma

Ancestral Blessing Ceremony in Ireland

A one day workshop dedicated to healing the land through healing our Ancestors. Participants will learn how to connect to their Ancestors & how to understand their dreams.

• Sun 25th - Private Sangoma Divination sessions

In Events Tags Ancestors, Buddha Bag, dreams, Drumming, Dublin City, Ireland, John Lockley, Oscailt, Xhosa Sangoma

Sangoma Talk in Dublin

John will be giving a Sangoma talk at Buddha Bag on Baggot Lane. The talk will include a discussion on Dreams & Ancestors.

It will feature live South African drumming & singing.

In Events Tags Ancestors, Buddha Bag, dreams, Drumming, Dublin City, Ireland, John Lockley, Xhosa Sangoma

Trance Dance in London

* John will be leading a trance dance ceremony in the heart of London. * Sunday 18th - Private Sangoma Sessions.

In Events Tags Ancestors, John Lockley, London, Nelson Mandela, passing clouds, traditional Shamanism-, trance dance, Xhosa Sangoma

Plant Medicine Retreat in Ireland

John will be leading a Plant Medicine Retreat in Sligo, Ireland.

• Participants will learn the ancient art of Plant Medicine to heal, restore & invigorate the human spirit.

• Private Sangoma Divinations available upon request.

In Events Tags Ancestral Medicine, Ireland, John Lockley, Nelson Mandela, plant medicine, Sligo, traditional Shaman, Xhosa Sangoma

Glastonbury talk/ Ceremony

John will talk in Glastonbury on Sunday 30th.

• Private Sangoma Sessions Monday 1st July

In Events Tags African Mysticism, Ancestors, dreams, Glastonbury Festival, Indigenous Medicine, John Lockley, Modern World, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, Xhosa Sangoma, Xhosa tribe

Talk at Consciousness Cafe, Totnes

John will be giving a talk on Thurs 27th in Totnes entitled 'Indigenous Medicine for the Modern World'.

• Private Sangoma Sessions Fri 28th & Sat 29th

In Events Tags African Mysticism, Ancestors, Consciousness Cafe, dreams, Indigenous Medicine, John Lockley, Modern World, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, Totnes, Xhosa Sangoma, Xhosa tribe

Dublin plant Medicine Workshop

John will be in Dublin facilitating a plant medicine workshop on Sat 22nd.

• Private Sangoma Divinations  Sun 23rd.

In Events Tags Dreaming, Dublin, Indigenous Medicine, Ireland, John Lockley, Nelson Mandela, plant medicine, Xhosa Sangoma, Xhosa Tribe- traditional shaman-