I came to Africa with one purpose: I wanted to see the world outside the perspective of European egocentricity. I could have chosen Asia or South America. I ended up in Africa because the plane ticket there was cheapest.

I came and I stayed. For nearly 25 years I’ve lived off and on in Mozambique. Time has passed, and I’m no longer young; in fact, I’m approaching old age. But my motive for living this straddled existence, with one foot in African sand and the other in European snow, in the melancholy region of Norrland in Sweden where I grew up, has to do with wanting to see clearly, to understand.

The simplest way to explain what I’ve learned from my life in Africa is through a parable about why human beings have two ears but only one tongue. Why is this? Probably so that we have to listen twice as much as we speak.

In Africa listening is a guiding principle. It’s a principle that’s been lost in the constant chatter of the Western world, where no one seems to have the time or even the desire to listen to anyone else. From my own experience, I’ve noticed how much faster I have to answer a question during a TV interview than I did 10, maybe even 5, years ago. It’s as if we have completely lost the ability to listen. We talk and talk, and we end up frightened by silence, the refuge of those who are at a loss for an answer.

I’m old enough to remember when South American literature emerged in popular consciousness and changed forever our view of the human condition and what it means to be human. Now, I think it’s Africa’s turn.

Everywhere, people on the African continent write and tell stories. Soon, African literature seems likely to burst onto the world scene — much as South American literature did some years ago when Gabriel García Márquez and others led a tumultuous and highly emotional revolt against ingrained truth. Soon an African literary outpouring will offer a new perspective on the human condition. The Mozambican author Mia Couto has, for example, created an African magic realism that mixes written language with the great oral traditions of Africa.

If we are capable of listening, we’re going to discover that many African narratives have completely different structures than we’re used to. I over-simplify, of course. Yet everybody knows that there is truth in what I’m saying: Western literature is normally linear; it proceeds from beginning to end without major digressions in space or time.

That’s not the case in Africa. Here, instead of linear narrative, there is unrestrained and exuberant storytelling that skips back and forth in time and blends together past and present. Someone who may have died long ago can intervene without any fuss in a conversation between two people who are very much alive. Just as an example.

The nomads who still inhabit the Kalahari Desert are said to tell one another stories on their daylong wanderings, during which they search for edible roots and animals to hunt. Often they have more than one story going at the same time. Sometimes they have three or four stories running in parallel. But before they return to the spot where they will spend the night, they manage either to intertwine the stories or split them apart for good, giving each its own ending.

A number of years ago I sat down on a stone bench outside the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique, where I work as an artistic consultant. It was a hot day, and we were taking a break from rehearsals so we fled outside, hoping that a cool breeze would drift past. The theater’s air-conditioning system had long since stopped functioning. It must have been over 100 degrees inside while we were working.

Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was room for me, too. In Africa people share more than just water in a brotherly or sisterly fashion. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous.

I heard the two men talking about a third old man who had recently died. One of them said, “I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and we decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead.”

The man fell silent. I decided not to leave that bench until I heard how the other man would respond to what he’d heard. I had an instinctive feeling that it would prove to be important.

Finally he, too, spoke.

“That’s not a good way to die — before you’ve told the end of your story.”

It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours.

Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.

So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue.

Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe.

Who knows? Maybe someone is out there, willing to listen…

Excursion into potential food-planting land with our ferral cat - bottom left 19/01/2011

Our veggie patch

...Cabbage

Artichoke Flower

 

Compost

 

Please contact Marisa (021) 797 1857

Mobile 082 500500 4

email:  info@novalis.org.za / marisa.gray@inbox.com

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It is unhealthy if these 3 realms are taken over or dictated by the other, which we are today witnessing all over the world through financial instability, unemployment and major unrest.

Threefoldness is the application of 3 separate, independent and self-organizing realms which mutually negotiate and correct each other on matters of common concern.

These 3 realms consist of:

1)      The ECONOMIC LIFE as an associative co-operation dependent on actual needs, practical knowledge and skills.  Economic activities are organized and carried out in the spirit of brotherhood with the objective of meeting the needs of every person on the planet.  Rudolf Steiner advocated the view that the entire economic life is embraced by “The Law of True Price” – in a nutshell: that which is of value to me may not be of value to you..

2)      Government/State/Politics/LEGAL regulates and enforces laws protecting human rights EQUALLY – A rich man cannot buy a politician if the State and Economic Life is separate; human labour is not a commodity to be bought or sold.  A corporation is not a person.  Political questions concerning human rights and obligations would be the sole duty of this domain independent of economic concerns AS WELL as defending the human rights from foreign meddling.

3)      FREEDOM in CULTURAL rights includes science, art, religion and education.  Culture can be seen as the cultivation and recognition of human capacities.  Finding the best solutions to unfold these capacities are the task of the cultural realm.  Only spiritual/mental, feelings and insights should be a requisite. Governments and/or corporations should NOT influence culture, how we think, learn and do.  We should have the freedom to choose.

The above is but a mere sketch of the Threefold Social Order.  For a more comprehensive view please click here

The healthy social life is found when,

in the mirror of each human soul,

the whole community finds its reflection

and when, in the community,

the strength of each individual is living.

 - Rudolf Steiner -

In AFRICA we call it UBUNTU !!!

A  young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.  Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.  John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to ‘clean up’ the bird’s vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot.  The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even more rude.  John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer.  For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed.  Then suddenly there was total silence. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said

“I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”

John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude.  As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird spoke-up, very softly,

“May I ask what the turkey did?”

 ”…literally restructuring the physical foundation of your existence with the Source Codes of regeneration.”

“What we would like for you to understand is that the upcoming alignment is the one you have been waiting for…it is ostensibly THE most powerful event of the ages…an adjustment that will enhance your lives in every way.” -PHC

From the perspective of the Pleiadians, the purpose of the 11:11 gateway is to anchor the frontrunners of new humanity both into the crystalline unity grid…the portal to full multidimensional consciousness…and into the heart center (crystalline core) of our planet….that which will precipitate the final integration period, the alignment of the physical body. This unprecedented alignment between the earth and those starbeings/lightworkers ready to be “plugged in” will apparently trigger a great psychic and physical opening that the PHC are coming forth to address.”

(From Elizabeth Bardin)

Joining with you and people every where who are linking together in Unity and peace,                 

Robin Goff

The Dome of Light is burning bright and you are invited to add your Light every time you see an 11 on the clock. It is so important that we work together to create the optimal climate for CHANGE at this crucial time on our planet. Join us in building a powerful field of energy to support significant shifts toward a more peaceful world.

I have seen enough to convince me that we all must now make shifts in the way we live and use resources. Perhaps this shift requires a massive change in value systems that have conspired to create unreasonable standards for material consumption.