So I want to talk about the place of African women, the place of women in African spirituality and some of the African indigenous religion and belief system. As a woman, you have a sacred, very... place and this is seen in a lot of tradition where if someone wants to do some workings on you, on a person, they will ask them for their mother's name, not their father's. mothers but their mothers name. And this is because the potency that the vibe has, the potency and the relationship between the mother and the child is very much important.
You can refer back to my video on energy cords for women and how I stressed in the strength that the cord may have, can have between a mother and a child. And this is why in African spirituality the mother is the most important. Has a tremendous very important role in terms of the family in terms of the well-being of the children and also because we are coming from matriarchal societies and that is reflecting all aspects of life and Magic or Bullying system also will reflect that One way like I mentioned is that when someone wants to do workings on you And back then we didn't have any pictures and things like that and even if you didn't have any of their you personals like hair, DNA or whatever, they will ask you for the person's name and the person's mother's name because they will try to influence that cord through the mother's cord. And this is also why a lot of people, a lot of African people, if you ask them at a random for their mother's maiden name, most of them will not give it to you because we know that this is something that's really sacred and that people can use against you. Now, also, it also means that if you are somebody's mother and you're trying to do workings on them, you will have a lot of influence doing that.
And this is why a lot of men whose mothers are against them or doing workings against them or against their marriages or what have you, will have a harder time fighting that off because the mother has an upper hand. And most of the time, the traditional... healer will ask them to find an older woman who could intervene in their favor and that older women could be the mother-in-law, it could be a mentor, a mother figure in the person's life. And that is really important. It also shows that no matter on what side you stand, there's always a woman that has to step in in order to offer protection or in order to validate what is going on.
on or to accelerate the healing. Now it's not this is not in all traditions there's a lot of different traditions like I've talked before that I'm from the Bami Lekki tribe in Cameroon and within our tribe depending on which village you come from there may be some different local custom or a different tradition that you will follow but one of the commonalities when you go from a village to another or you even go from one tribe to another or you're from another African country, sub-Saharan Africa, you will see that the role of the mother in everything that has to do with mysticism, energy work, healing work, spiritual work, the mother figure is very, very important. So the mother is important when she's alive because she can offer you extra protection. Sometimes they will ask you to come with your mother so that she can give you some blessings to strengthen you for protection as well.
And even once the mother or the woman has passed away, all the time the ancestor that we call upon are, most of the time, many times, the mothers. Because in life they were healers, they were fighters, and then once they pass and join the ancestors, they still retain those qualities and sometimes those powers are even stronger. This is not to say that the men don't have powers and protection as well, they do. And...
We also can call on your grandfather and the male figure. It also depends on your relationship, the name you carry, the energy you carry with you. In our tradition, for example, only women can have a traditional ancestor's name that can be male or female. But for the men, they will have a man ancestor name. So this is also to show that a woman can embody the masculine energy and be able to curtail it and to master it.
But in our tradition men don't get to be called by the name of a female ancestor. Well I'm not going to dive into why in this video but it's just to underline that those energies are around you and you can use them and as a woman you have the power and the strength to basically do a lot of things and be able to produce a lot of things. protect your children and intervene and and help them strive or heal faster but of course you have to be yourself in tune to all of those different things you know sometimes you will feel like something is wrong sometimes you will have a hunch and you have to be able to know it is a hunch you know that the information is correct and follow it and trust your intuition and the energy that's that that's guiding you um uh unfortunately a lot of african Africans now are still very scared of their own traditions due to the impact of Christianity and colonization.
But a lot now are seeking back their roots, seeking back this information and seeking back to be able to be whole again in practice without having to necessarily go to someone else. I do believe that we all have healing capabilities and we all have abilities to have a spiritual path where we can be a part of the world. where we don't need to rely on other people.
Everything is within ourselves. That doesn't mean that we cannot rely on other people because we can, obviously. But for those who want to do it themselves, it is possible to do it.
And I know some people will scrounge and not appreciate this, but I'm a big believer of self-initiation because this is the path I took. Some people will go see a mentor and get initiated that way. For me, I wasn't scared to face whatever will come my way.
And of course, this is not a path for everybody. And in my tradition, it is not thrown upon to self-initiate. We have particular rituals, energies and powers that are being given from one generation to another. So let's say your grandmother or your grandfather, the person holding the power, will basically choose one child among his children or the children around him to teach and to transfer the knowledge to.
And that person may not be the firstborn. Basically, the person will have to assess the character and the ability of the person we can call his successor. the spirit world and with all of the power that he has accumulated. And so upon his passing sometimes the successor is named before the person passes away, sometimes it is divinated after the person has already passed away. And then that person will inherit a whole array of workings, powers, totems and all kind of different things.
Now when you get to... look at who's not getting the power or who's not being called a successor this is actually talking about the older children and unlike the tradition, the Western tradition that's kind of like you know when you read about kings and castles and princes and stuff like that it's more like you know the prince who gets to get on the throne, you know all of his brothers and sisters are trying to kill him to take his spot but in our tradition if you're not a successor it's even more for you a call for you to make make something out of yourself and to self initiate or to find another tribesman to be initiated or another practice to be initiated on and that has very much a lot of power because if you manage to gain that knowledge to experiment and to be well versed in your craft so that people come to you that is also being very well seen especially if you have healing powers or you come from a family of healers so the idea of self initiating is not not at all taboo. It seems like now in 2016 everyone is kind of on the internet trying to self-initiate themselves or seeking out for mentors and stuff like that but in our tradition this is something that's completely normal. You will always have a group of people that will be initiated and you will always have people that will self-initiate. Not only when you have a child that's already awakened or born with some powers that are already awakened, as a parent you can choose either to have a mentor and mental image.
initiate that child if you're not yourself very much in tune to that aspect or you can simply initiate the child yourself or let the child self-initiate. Of course the caveat in that is that the advantage of having a mentor or somebody initiating you that means it's somebody that's providing a lot of experience that can guide you on your path and you know help you avoid certain traps if you'd like. and give you support.
So the other side of that is that when you're self-initiating, you're gonna have to, you know, hit some bumps, you're gonna have to, you know, fall and get up on your own, but at the same time the strength you will acquire because you will become, you will develop your powers on your own. Okay, so in that area I think, you know, African spirituality is there for you to grasp, you have it in you, and as a woman you have to understand that your power is very potent and that you have a significant role to play in the well-being of the people around you. The mother is the one that's going to be transmuting the knowledge and the belief system to the child.
From the moment the child is born, in our tradition, like I said, we... an early age we teach them some of the basic foundation of our magical workings. Like I mentioned didim is being taught to children as soon as like one year old, as soon as they are able to hold it.
They only hold it when they are a child, they put that in their sleeping corners and we carry them. So they grew up around magic. There's no taboo around magic.
it and it's even better for us when somebody is actually when you actually brought up so that you see all the different things like we'll talk to you we talked to the child about spirits what they are where they are how to honor them who are the ancestors just so that when you grow up it's something that's natural to you it's not something that's gonna appear as you know some sci-fi thing and it's also because a lot of time our children are already born in tune with some aspect of the spirit so they have different experiences, they may come and tell you about dreams that are actually very, very vivid or tell you about experiences, memories and things like that that you as a parent or as a mother should be able to curtail and reassure the child and be able to interpret sometimes or give them pointers for them to interpret. And dreams are also a great, great vehicle used by Ancestor to provide messages and and to give guidance and to also provide support. And I'll end on this, which kind of goes and ties in with the other videos that I've made so far, is that all traditions are not the same. There are many belief systems in Africa that are practiced differently.
You will hear people sharing about their tradition and, for example, there's... one that if I say a lot of people may be shocked but for example with the Orishas or the some of the belief system from West Africa, Nigeria, the Yoruba tradition etc. people will tell you that oh you know you have to work with Papa Legba before you can work with some other deities. Well I can assure you that there are other traditions where you don't have to work with Papa Legba in order to have access to for example Yemaya or other deities. deities.
And the caveat is that I am not part of the Yoruba tradition or West African tradition, but we do have the same deities. Those deities are not recluse to that area. They are present globally and a lot of these deities are named differently in other different countries, African countries and in other different belief systems.
And if some of these deities approach you can ask them all of that. Usually between your personal relationship with the deity, the deity will tell you the things you need to do. And sometimes you'll never even know who Papa Legwa is until you meet somebody else who's practicing that way or until you go to YouTube and find out.
So it's just, I'm just putting that out there. I know he's going to upset a lot of people because some people are really strict about, you know, what they have to do. And that's fine because remember if you're If you have to do it, that means that was imposed on you.
That was the path that you were supposed to take. But all I'm saying is not everybody has to take that path. And just to just remember, we're not all different.
We have different abilities, and we have different relationships with deities. So as a woman, just know that you are very important to the craft. You are very important to whatever culture you decide to associate yourself with. or not associate yourself with.
But when you talk about a spiritual family or a physical family or a community, the role of women is one of those. Very, very important. And that no matter how much co-invitation and other things come around, it will remain that way. And obviously, we are living longer for a reason. So just accept and honor your gifts because everybody has gifts.
And if you... turn in tune in and surrender you will see that some of these gates are already already awakened so just enjoy your journey and enjoy your path