Dun-birds, come out of hiding!
Speak to us
from rainbow throats
outside time.
The practice of divinatory rituals was well known to ancient cultures, and practitioners of divination--diviners--have played a significant role in constituting our knowledge of the world(s) and being human, as well as in interpreting this knowledge.
The divinations I offer are in the Dagara tradition as taught by Malidoma Somé, elder and diviner from Burkina Faso.
East Coast Village, Cherry Plain, NY
In the Dagara culture, every adult knows and practices basic divination skills, but for issues involving complexity and nuance or to get a broader, fuller perspective, they turn to a skilled diviner.
Divination is a way of asking for the other worlds’ involvement in our lives. It is a way of asking those ones to extend answers to questions we might have about our gifts and purpose: be they remarkable or everyday; embraced, lived, or in potentia. It is a way of tracking how we are doing in relationship to the spirit worlds and to the elements, to see if we are on course, to remember somewhere we have already been, to quicken our journeys towards our song.
Divinations pluck us into the life we are meant to live and the medicine we are meant to carry.
They are the whiff of fire between our palms, joker’s face in the crowd, dive of flying fish into clouds. They press between our eyes like dreams, like the unseen.
Divination is a way of asking for the other worlds’ involvement in our lives. It is a way of asking those ones to extend answers to questions we might have about our gifts and purpose: be they remarkable or everyday; embraced, lived, or in potentia. It is a way of tracking how we are doing in relationship to the spirit worlds and to the elements, to see if we are on course, to remember somewhere we have already been, to quicken our journeys towards our song.
Divinations pluck us into the life we are meant to live and the medicine we are meant to carry.
They are the whiff of fire between our palms, joker’s face in the crowd, dive of flying fish into clouds. They press between our eyes like dreams, like the unseen.
Every diviner utilizes forms or techniques that take off from her unique relationship with Spirit and with reality, blending these with what she has learned from her teachers and lineage traditions.