Of Water and Spirits
I’m currently reading a book by Malidoma Somé entitled Of Water and Spirits. For the third time. Each time, the book hits a different part of my body. I’ve been dreaming since the first read of driving up to Northern California and meeting him over a cup of tea. But I just found out that he passed away a few months ago.
Lesson #1 (a big one)- Life is too short. Stop waiting. Do what means something to you… today!
The story of how his work came into my life is a crazy one and a testament to the belief among book nerds that books have a soul of their own and know how to find their way to the rightful owner.
Malidoma Patrice Somé is a West African Elder, author, teacher from Burkina Faso. A native of the Dagara tribe. During the pandemic, a man named Mike floated into our lives seemingly out of nowhere. One of the cottages had been unoccupied for a while now, and he just waltzed in one day, unpacked, turned the entire place into a plant sanctuary with almost hundreds of seed starters and beautiful flowers, and then just like that, poof, he was gone. He had been an apprentice to Malidoma Somé during his time in Africa, and he lent me the book to take a peek.
One evening, at one of our parking-lot-projector movie-nights during the pandemic, he played a documentary for us to watch, a pretty powerful b/w film about the people in the Amazon being tricked by the missionaries, their lives taken in front of their eyes. In the middle of the engaging movie, Mike blurted these words out loud to no one in particular, “Why would anyone be a documentary filmmaker? It’s like spending your entire life documenting others’ lives instead of living your own.”
Two days later, he had already moved out and we never heard from him again. The book remains with me. And deeper still, his words remain with me. They haunt me every now and then and I proactively make an effort to “live” my life so that I’m not just simply documenting others’.
Malidoma Patrice’s work is incredibly powerful- 1) It reiterates clearly my very thoughts from having been around indigenous people for five years straight with no connection with outsiders, he puts words to everything I felt when I returned to the city 2) It reminds us to be more conscious, more cautious, and more aware of the happenings of the direction we’re taking as human beings, and of the unfathomable power of indigenous wisdom. I plan to read out loud passages from his book on my IG stories for those interested in learning more. So if you’d like to hear them, follow me here.