A Disease of Our Time

Werner Herzog on Psychoanalysts: "They are a disease of our time"

"....one has to be very, very careful 

how we deal with each other and 

that's one of the reasons why I hate 

Psychology and Analysts, they are 

A Disease of Our Time, they should 

be all just put on an airplane and 

flown into An Island and they should --

-- in the in the in The Pacific --  they 

should analyze each other but 

they should not bother us -- 

Besides, these, these people --

they just come like just boldly, as if it was 

A Profession or A Science already 

and and they they do not confess 

that uh their knowledge is 

not much more than, let's say, 

Brain Surgery [was] during 

The Middle Dynasty in Egypt 

for during the Pharaoh-time 

So, out with them, forget about them 

they are disease, they are our disease 

I think it is one of the greatest stupidities 

and the greatest mistakes 

of the 20th century there's something finally and definitively wrong about psychoanalysis uh uh I have all my figures in my films are not really psychoanal analysis they are not captured with psychoanalysis and I believe that um um explaining every dark little corner that we have in our soul is a very unhealthy and a very stupid and a very dangerous thing we should not do that why because uh when when you uh inhabit a house and you illuminate every last corner of the house with strong lights the house becomes uninhabitable and human beings illuminated to the very last corner of their darkest Soul uh become inhuman and uninhabitable

Calling The Capitol

 

Calling The Capitol

Wise Birds

JFK 50 Year Commemorative Edition | David Ferrie Scene (Joe Pesci) | War...

CBS News :

After a stint in The Marines he became 

fascinated by Communism. He is said 

to be a dedicated Marxist and 

a fanatical supporter of Fidel Castro 

and ultra left-wing causes. 

He spent last summer in New Orleans 

and was arrested  in a brawl with 

anti-Castro Cuban exiles. 

The D.A. :

Lou? Sorry to disturb you this late. 

Matter of routine. Get on this 

Oswald connection 

in New Orleans. 

Check out his record. 

Find any friends 

or associates 

from last summer. 

Let's meet with 

The Investigators 

day after tomorrow. 

Lou :

On Sunday? 

Sunday. 11:00. 

Thanks, Lou. 

Wade :

I would say that He is The Killer, 

The Law says beyond a reasonable doubt 

and to a moral certainty. 

I thought a motorcycle had 

backfired. I looked to my left. 

A second shot hit him in the face. 

The rifle, a cheap World War Il, 

Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano 

was ordered from a Chicago mailing house 

and shipped to Oswald's alias, A. Hidell 

at a post office box in March of 1963. 

This same rifle was used to assassinate The President. 

That ties it up. 

Another nut. Jesus Christ, anybody 

can get a rifle in Texas! 

As far as Oswald's associates, one name 

keeps popping up : David Ferrie. 

Oswald was seen with him 

several times last summer. 

The D.A. :

I know David. Strange character. 

He's been in Trouble before. 

He was a hot-shot pilot 

for Eastern Airlines. 

Got canned after an alleged 

homosexual incident. 

These photos were found yesterday 

among Oswald's possessions 

in the garage where Marina Oswald 

and her children are living. 

Somebody mentioned Ferrie on 

that Texas trip. Find that out. 

Marina Oswald :

He no shoot anyone. 

He good man. Good husband. 

Lou :

So it seems David Ferrie drove off 

on Friday afternoon for Texas. 

A source said he might have been 

a getaway pilot for Oswald. 

The D.A. :

Hold your horses. 

What kind of source? 

Lou :

.....the anonymous kind, Chief. 

I remember Ferrie speaking at a meeting of 

some veterans group ranting against Castro. 

Extreme stuff. 

The D.A. :

They're bringing him out. 

Numa, turn it up. 

Here he comes! 

Anything to say 

in your defense? 

Jack Ruby :

Oswald! 

He shot him! 

He shot him on TV! 

There's a man with a gun! 

Lou :

Seventy cops there. 

What were they doing? 

No trial now. Somebody just saved 

The Dallas D.A. a pile of work. 

The D.A. :

Let's get David Ferrie 

in here anyway. 

Lou :

It's wrong. This is crazy! 

Kronkite :

Yesterday, in the midst of sorrow, 

the business of government went on. 

The President met with Henry Cabot Lodge, 

Our Ambassador to Vietnam 

and members of his Cabinet. 

The major subject was Vietnam 

a crisis that does not pause 

for bereavement. 

From this meeting came affirmations 

that the US would continue aiding 

the new government of Vietnam in its 

war against the Communist insurgents. 

David Ferrie. 

Come on in. 

Thanks for coming. 

Remember me? We met 

on Carondelet Street 

after your election. 

I remember. You make quite an impression. 

I've heard you're a first-rate pilot. 

Legend has it you can get in and 

out of the smallest field. 

I'm a pilot myself. Flew grasshoppers 

for the field artillery in The War. 

Make yourself comfortable. 

Mind if I smoke? 

How could I? 

As you know, President Kennedy 

was assassinated on Friday. 

A man named Lee Harvey Oswald 

was arrested as a suspect then 

murdered yesterday by a man 

named Jack Ruby. 

We've had reports that Oswald spent 

The Summer here and that 

you knew Oswald. 

I've never met anyone named Oswald. 

Anyone who told you that has to be crazy. 

He served in your Civil Air Patrol Unit 

when he was a teenager. 

If he did, I don't remember him. 

Lots of boys in and out. 

Surely you've seen this. Perhaps you 

knew him under another name? 

I never saw him before in my life. 

The D.A. :

Then we must have gotten 

mistaken information. 

Thanks for straightening it out. 

There's one other matter —

We heard you went to Texas shortly 

after The Assassination on Friday. 

David W. Ferrie :

Ah, well that’s True, 

I drove to Houston. 

The D.A. :

What was so appealing 

about Houston? 

David W. Ferrie :

I hadn't been ice-skating in a number of years;

Since I had some young friends with me, 

we decided to drive to Houston to go skating. 

The D.A. :

Do you mind explaining for me, Dave 

why the urge to go ice-skating in Texas came to 

you during one of the worst thunderstorms 

in recent memory? 

David W. Ferrie :

….Spur-of-the-moment thing. 

Storm wasn't that bad. 

The D.A. :

Where did you drive? 

David W. Ferrie :

We went to Houston. 

Saturday we drove 

to Galveston, and 

stayed there. 

The D.A. :

And Sunday? 

David W. Ferrie :

In the morning, we 

went Goose-hunting. 

The D.A. :

Did you bag any? 

I believe The Boys 

got a couple. 

The D.A. :

Boys said they 

didn't get any. 

David W. Ferrie :

-- come to Think of it, 

They're right. 

There were thousands of geese everywhere. 

But you couldn't approach them. Wise Birds. 

The D.A. :

Your Friends said you had no weapons in the trunk. 

Isn't it difficult to hunt geese without a shotgun? 

David W. Ferrie :

I remember now. I'm sorry. 

I got confused --

We got out near The Geese, 

and only then did we realise that

we had forgotten our shotguns. 

Stupid, right? 

So, of course, we 

didn't get any geese. 

The D.A. :

Thank you for your time. 

Sorry this must end 

inconveniently  but 

I must detain you for 

questioning by The FBI. 

David W. Ferrie :

Why? What's wrong? 

The D.A. :

I find Your Story to be 

simply not believable. 

David W. Ferrie :

Really....? 

....What part? 

============

The FBI :

This afternoon The FBI released 

David W. Ferrie  of New Orleans. 

After extensive questioning 

and a background check 

The Bureau found no evidence that Mr. Ferrie 

knew Lee Harvey Oswald or had 

any connection with The Assassination. 

The Agent-in-Charge would like to make clear 

that Ferrie was brought in for questioning by 

The District Attorney of Orleans Parish. 

Lou :

I thought we were on the same side. 

Why are they saying that? 

The D.A. :

Pretty fast, the way they let him go. 

They must know something we don't. 

So let's get on with our lives. 

We have many homegrown 

crimes to prosecute. 

JFK David Ferrie & Jim Garrison - Eyebrow

Do I Have to Answer That?

"....You have to Answer Questions, yes."

Johnny Depp lawyer's feisty cross-examination of Dr Spiegel IN FULL

Johnny Depp lawyer's feisty cross-

examination of David Spiegel IN FULL. 

Things get very feisty indeed on Day 20 

of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial 

as Johnny Depp's lawyer Wayne Dennison 

cross-examines Psychiatrist Dr David Spiegel. 

Johnny Depp's Lawyer asked 

Dr Spiegel about whether the

psychiatrist called 

The Pirates of the Caribbean 

actor an 'idiot' as well as a few 

other pointed questions.

Christopher Hitchens vs JFK

Christopher Hitchens vs JFK (the movie) and others...

From the BBC2 series The Late Show - 

a round-table discussion on the then just 

released Oliver Stone movie JFK. 

Sparks fly as per usual but the most interesting 

facts come from fellow guest Anthony Summers.

STRAWBERRY FIELDS

2008: THE DEATH OF STRAWBERRY FIELDS 

The 2008 Bond movie Quantum of Solace doesn’t get a lot of love from Bond fans. It is overshadowed by the critical acclaim of its predecessor, Casino Royale (2006), and the phenomenal commercial success of the film that followed it, Skyfall (2012). Audiences weren’t expecting it to be a direct continuation of the Casino Royale storyline, and parts of it were incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with the earlier film. It was a revenge story about a man who chose not to take revenge, which was a plot that few expected or even recognised. There was also a significant section of the audience who considered Quantum of Solace to be a pretty silly title for a film. 

Then there was the issue of the editing. A deliberate decision had been made to copy the hyperkinetic, frantic editing of the Jason Bourne films, in an effort to make the Bond franchise fresh and contemporary in the twenty-first century. The second unit director Dan Bradley was hired in part because of his work on the Bourne franchise. The result was, unfortunately, difficult to follow. It was as if the editor knew what was happening in the story but didn’t feel like they had to share that information with the audience. Roger Moore was one of those that was unimpressed. ‘I enjoy Daniel Craig, I think he’s a damn good Bond, but the film as a whole, there was a bit too much flash-cutting for me,’ he said in a radio interview. ‘I thought Casino Royale was better. It was just like a commercial of the action. There didn’t seem to be any geography and you were wondering what the hell was going on but there you are, call me old-fashioned and an old fuddy-duddy!’ To be fair to the editors they were only given six weeks to cut the film, which didn’t give much time for refinement. There remains the hope that the film will one day be recut, at which point its reputation could improve massively. 

One of the more memorable parts of Quantum of Solace is a Beatles-themed Bond Girl called Strawberry Fields, who works at the British Consulate in La Paz, Bolivia. Fields’s mission is simply to ensure that Bond leaves Bolivia on the next available flight but, as the plane doesn’t leave until the following morning, she goes with him to a hotel and sleeps with him instead. In a first for the franchise, she immediately regrets her actions. ‘Do you know how angry I am with myself?’ she asks. Perhaps she knew the odds of a woman living after sex with Bond. He doesn’t seem too concerned about her regret, however, and takes her to a lavish party to meet tech billionaires, politicians, Bolivian military officers and various assorted goons and murderers. 

The next we see of Fields she is, of course, naked and dead, lying face down on Bond’s bed covered in crude oil. The plot justification for this was that it was misdirection on the part of the villain. He was falsely giving the impression that his evil plan revolved around oil, when in fact the precious liquid he was intent on hoarding was water. Quantum of Solace is a harsh, brutal, extremely violent film about two damaged people – Bond and the Bolivian agent Camille Montes – who are cut off from their emotions and robotically seeking revenge. A key image is the desert, representing their arid states of mind where no love can grow. All the water has been hoarded by the film’s villain, who must be defeated in order to save the Bolivian people, and also to allow Bond and Montes to heal. When Strawberry Fields wanders into this hard, serious film, it is as if she has entered the wrong Bond film by mistake. Fields would have been a hoot in Die Another Day. 

Fields’s pointless death is more upsetting because this promising character never had a chance to shine. But at the point when she was killed off, the likelihood of death for a woman who slept with Daniel Craig’s Bond stood at a franchise-high rate of 100 per cent. Every single woman he slept with in his first two films died shortly afterwards. This is something that Judi Dench’s M highlights in the film. ‘Look how well your charm works, James,’ she says, referring to the dead woman. ‘They’ll do anything for you, won’t they? How many is that now?’ Daniel Craig’s last performance in character as Bond was in a sketch for the BBC charity Comic Relief, in which he was berated by Catherine Tate’s character Nan. ‘Let’s face it, every time you entertain somebody in the bedroom department, next day, wallop, they’re dead,’ she tells him. At long last, this defining aspect of the Bond character was being publicly recognised and challenged. 

It’s true, of course, that the men he encounters don’t tend to live long either. Bond is death and it’s not just baddies who die. The usual rule is that if an ally (other than Q or M) returns for a second film, then they won’t make it to the end. Robbie Coltrane’s Valentin Zhukovsky, for example, was first seen in GoldenEye and then killed in The World Is Not Enough. Giancarlo Giannini’s René Mathis made it through Casino Royale only for his body to be dumped in the trash in Quantum of Solace. Live and Let Die and Dr. No were produced in reverse order to their books, which created a continuity problem – Bond’s Cayman Islander associate Quarrel appeared in both books and was naturally killed in the second. This meant that the film of Live and Let Die had to create a son for him, called Quarrel Jr, to avoid bringing him back from the dead. 

Of all Bond’s male friends, it is the CIA agent Felix Leiter who seems the most immune from death. He was originally killed off in a shark attack in the second book he appeared in, as Fleming tradition dictates. But after complaints from Fleming’s American agent the scene was rewritten so that this likeable American character survived – although the shark still ate Leiter’s right arm and left leg. Leiter was duly munched by a shark on screen in the film Licence to Kill (1989). 

Still, even if we accept that Bond is an equal-opportunity version of Death, who kills both male and female friends alike, the idea that women must die after having sex is not one that is easy to brush off. Fleming’s toxic emotional problems may have been acceptable to the 1950s publishing industry, but they are impossible to excuse in the twenty-first century. One person who understood this was Gemma Arterton, the actor who played Strawberry Fields. 

At the time, Arterton was very positive about the role. She signed up to be the face of the Avon perfume Bond Girl 007. ‘My character’s cool,’ she said during interviews to promote the film. ‘She’s funny, and real, and someone you could know from down the road. I’m quite tough – I have to arrest Bond at one point – but I go to bed with him, of course. So it is a good part.’ Asked about the film by the Observer five years later, she said, ‘Yeah, I don’t have any shame in that one. That was really a good experience for me.’ 

Four years later, however, she had started to express regrets about taking the part. ‘I don’t want to slag off that film, because I really enjoyed it – I was 21, and it was a trip. But would I do it now? No,’ she told ES magazine in 2017, ‘And I am grateful – it set me up … But it sits really badly with me when I make something I’m not proud of, or doesn’t say what I want to say.’ She expressed similar sentiments at an International Women’s Day event in 2020. ‘I still get criticism for accepting the Bond film, but I was 21, I had a student loan and, you know, it was a Bond film!’ she said. ‘But as I got older I realised there was so much wrong with Bond women … My Bond girl should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes […] I know I wouldn’t choose a role like that now. Because she was funny and she was sweet, but she didn’t really have anything to do – or a backstory.’ It is fitting, perhaps, that the only Bond Girl who expressed regret about sleeping with Bond on screen has become the actor most vocal about expressing their regret off screen. 

In 2018, Arterton attempted to address the problem through fiction. She wrote a short story about Strawberry Fields for the anthology Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (and Other Lies). The story was called ‘Woke Woman’. It depicted an alternative version of her first scenes in Quantum of Solace in which the character of Strawberry Fields was significantly changed. It begins with Fields being woken by her alarm playing ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC. This is an appropriate choice for the Bond universe. For all its feminist credentials it is a song about refusing to sleep with poor people, and as such is a suitable expression of Fleming-like snobbery. As the short story continues, however, we soon find that we are in a very different world indeed. 

Fields immediately dresses differently. She chooses flat shoes and light trousers, instead of the short skirt underneath a trench coat that we see on screen. In the movie, M tells us, Fields ‘worked in an office, collecting reports’. In Arterton’s story, she regularly fights drug gangs. Arterton describes how Fields has been personally requested by Bond to escort him around Bolivia, and how he makes her feel uncomfortable by staring at her in the taxi. In the film, her job is to make sure Bond leaves Bolivia, and Bond pointedly ignores her on the way to the hotel. Most importantly, Fields in the short story refuses to accompany him up to his room. ‘ “No thank you,” I say. Maybe he is attractive, but he’s at least twenty years older than me, we’ve only just met, he’s a work colleague – the list goes on. Plus this man has a reputation. Don’t women who go up to his hotel room and sleep with him usually die in some horrific yet iconic way? No, no. Not me.’ Instead, they talk about their mutual friend Penny Lane, then Fields has Bond sign the required paperwork and she leaves. She is, therefore, unharmed, and lives to fight crime another day. 

When she was promoting her film in 2008, Arterton had described her character with the phrase ‘She’s not a typical Bond girl’, a description used by many different actors over the past half-century. Regardless of how often the female characters were updated, written as being more formidable in action sequences, or played with great confidence and agency, something significant never changed. The need for new actors to insist that their role isn’t that of a typical Bond Girl never seemed to go away. There was always something wrong in the power dynamics at the heart of Bond’s relationships. It was always the woman who died after sex, and never the man. 

What Arterton did when she wrote her story was to reject the set of assumptions that the Bond franchise had been built upon. She offered another way to perceive Bond, and it was not one that many Bond fans would like. Suddenly he was the sleazy office creep, the person that half the staff warn each other about. Arterton wrote her story in 2018, the year in which Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer-director of Crash (2004) and the co-writer of Quantum of Solace, was accused by multiple women of a series of rapes and sexual assaults. He has denied all accusations. 

With hindsight, there is something symbolic about Arterton’s reimagination of Strawberry Fields. When Connery’s Bond is knocked unconscious after he criticises the Beatles in Goldfinger, he comes to and finds that the woman who was in his bed is now covered in gold and quite dead. This woman, Jill Masterson, had become the first woman in a Bond film to sleep with Bond and then die. The death of Strawberry Fields – coated in oil rather than gold – is a clear reference to this key moment, even down to the inclusion of another Beatles reference. Yet after Fields is found naked and dead on Bond’s bed, something significant in the Bond world changes. She is not quite the last Bond Girl to die, as Javier Bardem’s villain shoots the character of Sévérine in Skyfall. But Sévérine aside, it is striking that for the remaining three and a half films of Craig’s run as the spy, no other woman who is romantically involved with Bond is killed. Considering that every woman Craig’s Bond had slept with up to and including Fields had died, this was quite a shift. 

The societal awareness and changes that Arterton highlighted in her writing had finally caught up with Fleming’s demons. Arterton’s Bond Girl, the first to experience regret, was the start of a serious change for the James Bond franchise. It is fitting, for our purposes here, that it took a Beatles-themed character to inspire this change.

2008: THE DEATH OF STRAWBERRY FIELDS 

Roger Moore gave his thoughts on Quantum of Solace in a March 2009 interview with Christian O’Connell on Absolute Radio’s Who’s Calling Christian show. 

The initial Gemma Arterton quote can be found online at https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/girls/arterton.php3. 

Her Observer quote is from Tim Lewis’s 12 May 2013 interview ‘Gemma Arterton: “Our house was a bit Ab Fab at times” ’. 

The Evening Standard ES Magazine interview quoted is Jane Mulkerrins’s 6 April 2017 feature ‘Gemma Arterton on therapy, sacrifice and changing the industry from the inside out’. 

Arterton’s comments at the International Women’s Day event were widely reported, for example in Ella Phillip’s article for Harper’s Bazaar, ‘Gemma Arterton: “There’s so much wrong with Bond women” ’. ‘ “No thank you,” I say. Maybe he is attractive …’ – Curtis (ed.), p.243.

Facts and Information

Spice World Full Movie Facts And Information |  Victoria | Emma

Credo Mutwa's Initiation

Credo Mutwa's Initiation - 

Narration by Credo Mutwa

Bab' Credo Mutwa takes us through 

his initiation as Sangoma through 

The Art of Storytelling. 

Credo is not reading this story 

but he is telling The Story live, 

that is The Power 

of The Guardian of 

The Earth Mother. 

This audio book is a true gem 

and we want to be part of the people 

that archive it on our platforms.

and when there came the day when mine

placed the the port of initiation upon my head

as a first step to undergoing training as a sangom a new world was to open

its arms to me the hidden africa which even at that time was beginning to

slowly vanish a new world was opened to me

new vistas of knowledge backhand to me like distant mountains

i began to learn about our people i began to learn about

the ancient law i was told many things

as i went through the rituals of

initiation in africa when you are an initiate

you must obey your teachers without question you must

never talk back to them you must gather firewood in the forest and bring

it to you to the place of initiation you must never think of anything

outside the circle of initiation

you had to dance dance strenuously in order to communicate with your body

to communicate with your muscles to communicate with your mind

minor told me that when a person dances

he or she speaks to every vein and atari every joint

and every length of muscle within his or her body above

all she said you receive power from the earth our mother

power which flows from the deep underground into your feet

and up your spine and through the top of your head that is the power of the sangom the

person of the drum

i underwent steaming in a special skimming heart

which was called easy food and after each steaming i

i had to run out into the cold and roll upon the dewy grass

especially when it was mid-winter when snow lay upon the summits

of the great dragonsback mountains of the west of zululand my

aunt and other sangomas told me to steam myself

and then to run out into the cold and roll on the ground

your body must receive benefit from two

great powers of zamasu

heat and cold must both claim you like girlfriends

and you must dance and dance and remove all the the evil sweat from

inside you

and it was so i underwent internal parts i used to drink

medicine each morning a large quantity to fill my stomach with it

and then using a feather to tickle the back of my throat bring it back up again i used to undergo

enemas that would have made an elephant to run away screaming and have you ever had

a traditional zulu enema it's done with a large cow horn which is pierced

at the tip the whole shebang goes into your bags passage sometimes it's

equipped with a big leather bag to hold the rest of the medicine

which is poured in with a calabash and you can just hear it clogging into

your intestines and after that you must be a good runner to run out of the heart and

into the bush and then you know what will happen it would seem

as if every bowel inside your stomach has suddenly escaped through your rectum

like a snake we were forbidden certain foods

but we had to eat certain foods and at the back of the head of every one

of us initiates there was a loop of beads called the the loop

of bergalinez and we had to go from village to village

begging for food begging for grain it was part of the ritual of self

debasement that is part of our initiation

and we were told to meditate to seek the hidden power

of eternity to seek the hidden force that lies hidden amongst the stars

we call this the hidden bride

now what is this power the power comes to you in a strange way

while you are dancing you dance and you dance in a circle

striking your feet friendly against the ground and kicking your feet high you must kick your feet high if you

are redwater you must shake every inch of your body

and when the dancing is at its height

a strange spell falls over you it is as if you are no longer dancing

anymore it is as if you are floating in the air it is as if you are one with the earth

and the sky at the same time and you dance and you dance and then you will feel a very strange

thing bursting up from the small of your back

it is like it is like a pot full of hot water that suddenly jets

up from the small of your back between your buttocks right up your

spine towards the top of your head where it explodes into a mysterious space

and seems to float on and on and on towards the stars your vision

changes your mind suddenly seems to fly

you are covered with sweat but you don't feel any pain

as you dance and dance and dance and dance sometimes the powerful force of the

hidden one the new ncumu

as it is really called will come to you a second time

and you will suddenly feel a part of you living your body and you will see

yourself in the air lying helplessly on your back

while the other you dances like a maniac beneath you

and here this other mysterious you which is lying about the usu dance

in the air will float away into

regions of eternal peace i can't describe them any other way where you feel as if you

are one with every animal every tree

every river and every stream and mountain that there is on this earth you

feel a certain unity with creation and when you have fallen

down you want to get up and do it again but your weakened

human body can no longer bear the strain and you just lie there with your

face close to the sand gasping hard like a lost fish

to breathe

one day after dancing almost through exhaustion

was ordered by my other teacher fella pagat to go into the heart

and then as i knelt

inside the heart and initiate is not allowed to lie down unless so ordered by his or her

teacher when i was kneeling inside the heart

they came what i can only call a strange explosion inside my head

and then like a silver fog a strange and totally

inexplicable best of joy filled me

i did not know what i had to be happy about my body was aching every muscle was

protesting but i was suddenly filled with this great joy a joy so intense

i felt i could i wished i had the arms long enough

to embrace the whole world i i felt i felt

i felt one but yet many i felt i was one human being

and yet i was many many more and i suddenly felt in my heart

apart from the intense joy i felt a deep sorrow

i had people crying far far away i had

people thousands of them laughing

far far far away and when teacher

mine and her friend fella pagat entered the heart later

i went i crawled on my hands and knees over to them and i said

my cause that is what an initiate must say

great kings we refer to our ancestral spirits

and to those who teach us as great sovereigns and so i said to my night and

fella pagati makos

great kings lions of the world

look at his eyes said fella pagat look at the stupid ones

crossed eyes miner looked at me and said

what's wrong with you have you been stealing our beer in the dark while we were away

i spoke with downcast eyes no my aunt you know that i

i do not touch fear which is unfortunate said fella pagati

testily if you could get nice and drunk i would have the privilege of

kicking your ass now what's up with you why are you looking as a ps if you just made love

for the first time i do not understand great one

i said in reply oh you don't understand do you

what do you hear what do you feel minor ask she was always a serious woman

great mother i said i feel a stupid joy i feel

i could run outside and embrace that tree or that cow grazing next to it

of course said mine tell him fella pagat what is this that

he feels fella pagati

leaned back against the glass wall of the heart and his

his blurry eyes mocked me from under the shade of his charcoal

skin head he said for the first time christian boy

you are experiencing something that your people talk about

what is it great one you are experiencing love fat little

bastard you christians talk a lot about love but

when it comes to you you don't know what it feels like tell tell us what do you feel

great one as i have said i replied i feel like embracing everything outside

this village i feel like embracing both of you

but i hear people crying in my ears and i hear people laughing

also what is this am i going mad oh it would be a great help to me if you

could go mad said pagat what you are feeling boy

is love and what you are hearing boy are the cries of millions of people

who died tragically long ago and who died with their lives

unfulfilled what you are hearing christian boy are the sounds of happy souls who lived

this this earthly life to the full and who died

peacefully but great father i said

i why do i feel as if i should embrace everybody

because you are everybody that is what a true sangwoma should be

you should feel that you are everyone and anyone you are a white man

a black man a a colored man you are an indian

you are a priest you are a thief you are you are everything now you are a true

sangoma you have taken the first step towards what we call

to be one with the land listen again listen again sit still

and listen stupid i listened

this is

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

so [Music]

[Music]

[Music]

so

foreign [Music]

[Music] at first i had nothing and then i

had going as a far far far into the distance

sounds animal savage sounds sorrowful

sounds ecstatic sounds i hate sounds of

lions mating in the bush i had the sounds of crocodiles rejoicing

in the rivers sounds with which i was familiar i had sounds of beds

and then i had the distant growls the roars

of unknown animals roaring into the very distance

of time and then i heard something

a sound so incredible that i would lack words to describe it

imagine my friends a roaring fire a huge fire a thunderous

fire a fire

the like of which no one has ever seen

it was it

it was a great fire i could hear the crackling of huge

flames i could hear flames leaping high into the air and splashing

down again with huge roars great one what is that

i asked stupidly you are listening to the sound

of the sun said pagat

what you are hearing are the fires of the sun the fires that cause creation to be

listen again listen

i listened again and this time it was a familiar sound

the swish swishing of great waves

they cry the screaming of sea beds

and then strange sounds of mighty animals

i hate them not knowing what they were and i was to learn many years later

that these were whales the sounds that they make in the depths of the sea

[Music] it was it was

it was magic it was pure golden madness it was totally

insanity i heard the sounds of mighty waterfalls cascading in the centers of forgotten

forests i heard the voices of people happy people little people

hunting in the forest i heard the voices of bantu people speaking in languages that

i knew i heard the voices of other people

in a far far away lambs

smells assailed my nostrils the smell of fire

primitive primeval fire fire hot enough to melt

metal into vapor i smelt the sea

i smelled desert the harsh smell of unwatered sand in my nostrils

i smelt birds i smelt animals i even smelt the ants under foot

i was one with all created things for one magical moment

you must sleep said mine you are ordered

to sleep she told me to prepare

a heavenly brew she pointed out a calabash which contained a powdered

bark of a certain tree and she told me how to to boil water to take

a pinch of the powder and pour it into a small clay pot

and then to pour the boiling water onto this and to let it draw

i did as she commanded and then she said you are to take this drink

the moment it gets warm enough to to swallow

and then you are going to go to sleep tomorrow morning

you are to report to me any dream that you have had do you

understand me i said mako's imam

great king mother

they left the heart and i was alone in the gathering darkness

with a prayer to the seven winds of heaven with a prayer directed to each one

of the cardinal points of the earth i lighted the ritual lamp

and i poured snaf all around that lamp as it set on the on the down

floor and then to each one of the cardinal points i offered a white bead

and then i unrolled my sleeping mat

closed the entrance of the heart and then went to sleep

under a jackal skin blanket

i was assailed by a storm of visions and dreams that night

first i dreamt myself walking upon grassy plain

in a land i could not identify the land certainly was not africa

because the trees in that land were tall very tall like pine trees in appearance

out of nowhere they suddenly imaged four furious leopards

and they began chasing me i ran at first fled before the mighty

beasts and then somehow i suddenly lost my power to walk i found myself moving on my knees like a

trying to get away from the animals one of the animals appeared before me

a golden beast of great ferocity its eyes burning into mine it

came at me and seized me by the throat and i actually felt blood gushing out of

my mouth the other beasts closed in i felt my body being torn apart

i felt the beasts dragging my mutilated body in all directions

and i screamed and screamed and screamed

suddenly i was together again

it was as if some force some power had brought me back together again and

sewn me up like a ragdoll and the four lepers were still there

hungry spotted monsters with burning eyes

but this time they were no longer devouring me they were heading me like a goat

in a certain direction and there on the side of a mountain i saw a

huge hole and the leopards butted me like

goats forcing me to jump into the hole and inside the hole

i met a gigantic woman she was huge

she was big and she lay on her left side

and she called me and told me to come and to drink milk like a little calf

from one of her monstrous breasts i remember how she pushed the breast

into my my mouth i felt the huge nipple between

my lips the warm nourishing milk i felt

like a baby again i felt protected loved cherished you must be

strong said the huge woman the load that you are going to pay is

very very great and then she stood up

she was a and naked without a single piece

of animal skin on her she wore no beads nothing she was

she was big like a mountain she told me follow me

meekly i followed her in the dream the movement of a huge buttocks

mesmerizing me the rubbing together of a huge vice paralyzing me

and then she stood aside and ordered me to go into the hole

this time it was a cave or rather a tunnel through which i had

to go go with courage she said

and i was going through this dark tunnel when a big dog suddenly came out of the

darkness straight at me it gripped me by the right arm and

pulled me towards it but something told me do not be afraid

if you fear you shall perish if you show courage you shall survive

and the dog pulled me into a huge carving and there i

saw many campfires lighted the carving was like

no other cave i'd ever seen in my life before it was huge

and in the carving were hundreds of unbelievably old men

and women a group of them called me to their fireside

and they told me things that i did not understand

i remembered what they were saying while i was dreaming but when i woke up

i forgot every weight of what had been spoken to i woke up

drenched in sweat the dream of vision or call it what you

will was so had been so vivid so overpowering

a few days later it read the dream came back again

and there were no leopards this time no hungry beasts with burning eyes of

liquid gold there was just this huge woman who smelled of

sweat and of woman smell

this time she was bleeding between the legs

i could see the blood coming out from below her stomach

she sat in a puddle of blood i was shocked i had heard about

women menstruating but i'd never seen something like this

and the woman said come to me come boy come here kneel down before me

she dipped her finger in her blood and she shouted the finger in my mouth

and she said you must taste the mother of creation

get here inside you be with her at all times

once more she dipped the finger in her blood and pushed it between my lips

i felt its saltiness its stickiness then

she said i said mom she said

the world is sick i am sick you must find medicine

to cure the world i did not understand what she was saying

and once more she shepherded me into the huge cave and they

were no longer many grey wrinkled people but angry warriors

and they seized me and threw me onto a flat stone and one of them drove what looked like a

knife made entirely out of stone into my chest i felt intense pain

and i felt myself become weaker and weaker and weak and

i had a voice speaking in a classical zoolo saying

in death there is repent

in re-death there is death a second time

that which goes away shall come back

and that which arrives shall go away

when i finally came alive if i may use that expression

i found myself still lying on this flat rock in the dream

and i was young healthy virile and there wasn't

a trace of sickness in me at all

you