Life As Art: Rewiring My Brain To Understand The Dagara

An earthen shrine in Dagaraland

Unexpected Beginnings

I grew up in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, and while I went to college and spent most of my career in California - one of the most diverse states in the USA - my experience did not reflect that diversity, so while I had a deep appreciation for different cultures, and a respect for African traditions and spirituality, it was very foreign to me for nearly all of my life.

So when I began to deepen my relationship with Ancestors and Earth-based spiritual energies, through a connection to an ancient African Divination tradition - it brought up a lot of questions, shrouded in mystery, with very little clues offered to find the way to the truth.

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know" ~Diane Arbus

This quotation was shared with me by my teacher in the Dagara Divination lineage, in response to one of my many questions on the endless journey of trying to understand the inner workings of the Dagara wisdom lineage.

The Way Opens

In 2014, in a moment of struggle and personal crises, I was introduced to an ancestral healing practice called “African Divination.” My first session, the only instruction I had was to speak into a quarter, my problems, prayers, and questions, and when I met the Diviner, hand him the quarter, bring a journal, and keep an open mind.

He was a white man, about my father’s age, and he invited me into his Divination room in his garage nestled in the redwoods north of San Francisco. The room was full of African carved statues, staves, figurines, traditional textiles, and many interesting objects that I would come to learn were Shrines to the various Ancestors, elements, energies, and beings that he worked with.

During the Divination, I was struck on many occasions, by the precise seeing into my world - intimate details of my life seemed to be out in the open, things I had never shared with him, and scarcely spoken to another human ever. But somehow, through Divination, it seemed I was being connected to Ancestors and guides, who knew my story deeply.

I was asked to complete four or five rituals, most of them were intended to simply “open the way” of connection to my Ancestors, and the Earth - to essentially let these potent unseen allies know that I heard what they had asked me for, and I was showing up to do the work that they requested.

The Journey Deepens

It was strange at first, to go out alone, with small jars of ash, water, spirits, and little bits of food, and find places near rivers, trees, and the ocean, where I needed to make offerings and reveal what is in my heart, to the Ancestors and the elements - but over time, as I continued to receive Divinations, I grew comfortable in this practice.

Eventually, I began to really feel that I am not alone in this life - ever. That I am always accompanied by my Ancestors, the Earth and the Elementals, and other spirit guides on my journey.

After years working with Divination medicine, I had completed hundreds of rituals, had built my own Shrines to the Earth and to my Ancestors which I tended daily, and had begun to naturally create ways to tend the connections to these unseen allies as part of my everyday life.

Then in a Divination around All Hallows Eve in 2020, the Diviner said to me, “the Wedeme are speaking, they’re calling for you with an invitation, they’re saying that the way is open for you to carry this medicine.” It was a powerful and disorienting moment. Of course, I had questions, and there weren’t many answers. The guidance tended to be different ways of saying “trust your heart.”

A New Mind Takes Root

Knowing that I was called to carry this Divination medicine, was a deep and humbling honor. It was also a bit frightening. Some of the instructions when the path opened were things like, “It’s okay if you don’t want to step into this path. But once you say yes, you can’t say no.”

The reality is that by accepting the invitation to carry this medicine, I had to give my destiny over to Spirit, in ways that I am still learning to understand. And that’s the journey that I’m sharing here, a process of rewiring my brain to make room for a different paradigm, for a new mind to take root.

One of my core values in my spiritual life, is to live in sacred reciprocity with the indigenous cultures and peoples that are the true caretakers and lineage holders of the traditions that have nourished my path. The native Americans and the Red Road, the curanderas and ayahuasceros of Mexico and the Americas and their plant medicine teachings, the indigenous Hawaiians and their Ho’oponopono medicines.

So when I found myself being initiated as a medicine carrier of an ancient African Divination lineage of the Dagara People in Burkina Faso, I sought out to learn as much as I could about the place, the people, the culture, the history, and most importantly, to find ways to give back in appreciation for the opportunity and privilege of stepping into this living lineage.

And if I could sum up this “new mind” paradigm in one word, it would be Animism. A topic that I was somewhat familiar with, but had never really studied directly until this journey unfolded.

One of the books that really helped me to rewire my mind around a more Afrocentric and animistic paradigm was “Shabaka’s Stone: An African Theory on the Origin and Continuing Development of the Cosmic Universe” by Kaba Hiawatha Kamene. This book is non-linear, expansive, full of historical depth of pan-African wisdom traditions, and most importantly for my journey - it spoke directly to the journey of unlearning the “me-first” Western colonial frame of mind, and the complexity and beauty of the traditional African community-oriented paradigm.

Life As Art

As the unlearning and rewiring journey progressed, another flow of energy emerged as I discovered the Dagara Collection Art, and befriended the artist Oumarou Traoré. Not only did I now have relics of Dagara spirituality hanging on my walls, but I had a direct relationship with Oumarou in Burkina Faso, and he was as eager to share about the daily life of the Dagara, as I was to learn everything I could about the culture and the people.

From that moment in early January 2023 until now, nearly every day, I receive a series of messages from Oumarou - sharing a different lens of life. And the sum total of what I’ve learned, is that the Dagara live Life As Art.

Every interaction becomes an opportunity for a gathering. Every gathering is a dance. A song. A celebration. Whether it’s a wedding, a birth, a homecoming, or a funeral - it’s a dance, a song, a ritual, and a prayer.

They dance and sing their praise, their grief, their dreams, and their myth. And not just Life As Art - a life of togetherness, in artful ways.

The fabric of community among the Dagara is the central thread that holds everything together. Their entire way of life, centers on tending shrines to the Earth, to the ancestors, to the spirits, as a community, and making offerings to open the way for healing, to maintain right relationship with the unseen world, and to restore balance when things are thrown into chaos.

The Dagara have sustained their traditional culture over tens of thousands of years through storytelling, dance, song, and ritual. There is no separation between the self, other, earth, and Spirit - they are simply different organs in a collaborative body of wholeness, interdependently co-existing for each others benefit and well being.

There is so much more to share, and I will, over time. But the purpose of this piece, is to illuminate a bit of my personal story of relating with the Dagara culture, their ancestral healing practices of Divination, and to share a glimpse of how Divination and the Dagara Collection Art may awaken something in your own journey - or call you into connection with your Ancestors and the unseen spirits of the Earth.

A Sacred Effort to Open the Way

From The Ashes is a living library and a sacred offering. We began with 3 canvases and a dream to bring the earth-based animistic wisdom of the Dagara people to the modern world.

Our collection now includes 22 pieces, and your support will help us to expand even more! When you bring a piece of the Dagara Collection into your life, you are participating in the renewal of ancient wisdom traditions.

The fire is temporary. The rebirth from the ashes is eternal.