Tell Me Your Story. Ruda Landman
a number of people in your family, the earlier generations, were healers. Did healing not attract you?
Dineo: Well, I was raised by my maternal family, not by my paternal family.
Ruda: Oh, I see. Did you know that your father’s family was working in this tradition?
Dineo: Yes, but I was a born-again Christian, so I did not associate with those practices, because in the belief system to which I belonged, they were demonised. The healers were talking to the dead, they were talking to ancestors. The word “ancestor” was taboo in the church, so I didn’t want to associate with that. I grew up with my maternal family, who were not very strong in traditional practices. My mum went from one church to the other, so that’s what was familiar to me. I told my dad I was not going to be praising demons and the devil. I was quite resistant to that.
Ruda: So what finally facilitated the change?
Dineo: Knowing who I am, that I’m always striving towards greatness and doing better, I was struggling. It seemed as if no matter what I put in, I was not getting anywhere. I’m the one who is always hungry for wisdom and seeking understanding, so I ask a lot of questions. So I started to ask God questions and I said, “Well, God, I’m a good young person, I go to church seven days a week, but nothing is coming forth, I’m still stuck. I can’t further my studies, I can’t be in a good healthy relationship, nothing I hold seems to last. What is really going on?” The answer was that we were called to sign up for Bible studies. It was the most beautiful thing – I went there thinking that I will know Genesis to Revelation, but it really taught me who God is. God is not in the church. God is within you.
Ruda: How did you get to that understanding from Bible study?
Dineo: I asked God and God showed up, right? Because we had a Bible study teacher who taught us a spiritual understanding of who God is, not a religious understanding, not God as a figure who only lives within the four walls in which we worship and praise.
Ruda: You were lucky to come across someone like that!
Dineo: That’s true. And then I became curious about my African identity, because I started to question: If I call on the God of Abraham, and I have no idea who he is, but I denounce the God of my people, you know, of my grandfather – I was raised by my grandfather, a great honourable man, to whom I attribute a lot of who I am today – it didn’t make sense, it was a contradiction. The more I was steeped in who I was as an African, all my negatives started to shift. My dad always said I had a calling. He said, “You see, your calling will be very different from mine. You’re going to be a sangoma but you’re going to work differently.” He was right. Yes, I was trained as a sangoma, but I’m trained in other healing modalities as well. I mean, spirit does not have race, does not have gender – those things that humans have put into boxes. I feel my work as a sangoma is beyond just African belief systems; it’s more about trying to have people understand their spiritual identities and that in spirit there are no limitations and there are no boxes.
Ruda: But on a practical level it was a huge commitment. You were basically bankrupt, and one has to pay for the courses, not so?
Dineo: Ja, ja. We were going through a financial crisis in 2010, and when you work for a [leadership and change management] consultancy you are always reliant on clients. So when we didn’t have any big clients my boss said to me, “We cannot renew your contract”, and I had just said that I’m going to do this training. For me this was also a positive thing because, remember, I come from linear, logical thinking, so what this invited me to do was to really believe in the non-visible and surrender to the process.
Ruda: Step into the void.
Dineo: Yes, I stepped in fully. [During the training] I was in somebody else’s face for twenty-four hours out of the day, which was really hard. [As a teenager] you go to school and you come back home. [During the training] school is home. I stayed with this woman for about twelve months, learning and training to become a healer, but a lot happened apart from that. A lot of things were challenged, a lot of things were shifted. I became a better woman, because taking up the healing practice requires huge responsibility. You’re working with big, complex human issues. People come to you, hoping and trusting that you will help them understand what is going on.
I didn’t have money, but money came. It did come. Work started coming. I would bump into people I had not seen in a while and they would say, “What are you doing? What is going on? You lost so much weight!” And I would say, “Well, I’m in this training.” And the response would be, “Oh no, man, give me your bank account and I will help you out.” So I had to trust that there is an energy that works for me, that’s out there, and the more I put in the work, the more I would get out of the work, so it was really beautiful. I think it was important that I lost my job, because I don’t think I would have believed in the way that I do had I not gone through all those experiences. I would still be very sceptical because, remember, this other world does not work with logic. It does not work in the way that we have been taught as human beings.
Ruda: You have also said that being only a sangoma was too narrow, and you wanted to expand that.
Dineo: For me change is very good, because what was yesterday and what is today might not really speak to each other. I’m not a big fan of experts, because sometimes we cannot see our blind spots when we think we are experts, so I’m always for experimenting, realising what’s new, what has shifted. That way we become relevant. Training in being a sangoma . . . it’s never enough. When dealing with people, you tell them things, and they break down because you’re triggering old wounds, so I had to go and study something else. I had to go and do life coaching, because somebody comes to me and they think their problem is ancestral, but it’s not. You need clarity in your life and you need somebody who is trained and skilled to help you find that clarity. That requires no medicine; it just requires somebody to facilitate that. So that’s why I believe just being a sangoma is too narrow. If we are holistic healers, at least let’s have basic skills and understanding of other modalities and practices, psychology, health. I’m a big fan of nutrition and health. Sometimes people come to us and I tell them, “You actually need a medical doctor” or, “You need to go and seek a psychiatrist because this seems like this is something deep. I can help you at this level but I cannot go deeper than that, because I’m not skilled to take you there.” So it’s an act of integrity for me.
Ruda: And humility.
Dineo: Ja, ja.
Ruda: Because not everyone can say, “I cannot do this.” People usually want to own the space.
Dineo: Yes. Being a sangoma is a calling, and honouring the call is also recognising where you are limited.
Ruda: Against this background, are you a planner? Do you have a five-year plan or a ten-year plan? You cannot really, if you’re constantly open to things that happen that are not logical and linear!
Dineo: Ja, it is not my strength. I have aspirations and I send my aspirations out there for what I would like to be. I want to facilitate spiritual wellness for people; that is my plan. How is not up to me, because this work has taught me that there is divine power out there. When you focus on the details you get disappointed, because you want things to happen your way, because you have planned it so much, but that’s not how it works. I have got children, I’m married, so there have to be systems and structures, but . . . rather than vigorous planning, I’m more about allowing for the present moment to show itself. I know what I want, I know what I’m hoping for, but holding to the plans in my work would . . .
Ruda: Can restrict it.
Dineo: Yes. I’m not only a sangoma. I train other healers – the term for it is kobela – and that wasn’t planned, you know! And because it wasn’t in the plan or even an aspiration, I struggled to embrace it. It was another big change, because when I train people, they live in my space, so from a family home of five we went to a family home of nine. And having to work with people who are adults, who come from different backgrounds, to really get them to engage with the practice, but also engage in your ethos and your ethics and your home values – it has been a huge challenge, but it has also been a gift.
I