Quotes from Malidoma Patrice Some

The power of nature exists in its silence. Human words cannot encode the meaning because human language has access only to the shadow of meaning.

As long as we are not ourselves, we will try to be what other people are.

The spiritual thirst that is latent in everybody can never come to a place of fulfillment unless people begin to think of each other as potential brothers and sisters.

Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity—the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom—and reconnects with that world of Spirit.

Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity—the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom—and reconnects with that world of Spirit.

The power of nature exists in its silence. Human words cannot encode the meaning because human language has access only to the shadow of meaning.

Among the Dagara, darkness is sacred. It is forbidden to illuminate it, for light scares the Spirit away…. The one exception to this rule is the bonfire.

Whether they are raised in indigenous or modern culture, there are two things that people crave: the full realization of their innate gifts, and to have these gifts approved, acknowledged, and confirmed. There are countless people in the West whose efforts are sadly wasted because they have no means of expressing their unique genius. In the psyches of such people there is an inner power and authority that fails to shine because the world around them is blind to it.

Wealth (among the Dagara) is determined not by how many things you have, but by how many people you have around you.

The focus here is not on ritual itself, but on opening up something in hearts and spirits that has been locked away so long that individuals can barely remember the source.

We need ritual because it is an expression of the fact that we recognize the difficulty of creating a different and special kind of community. A community that doesn't have a ritual cannot exist. A corporate community is not a community. It's a conglomeration of individuals in the service of an insatiable soulless entity.

We do not always allow ourselves to work through pain. More often than not, we think pain is a signal that we must stop, rather than find its source. Our souls do not like stagnation. Our souls aspire toward growth, that is, toward remembering all that we have forgotten due to our trip to this place, the earth. In this context, a body in pain is a soul in longing.

ritual is called for because our soul communicates things to us that the body translates as need, or want, or absence. So we enter into ritual in order to respond to the call of the soul.

The clock tells you everything and keeps you busy enough to forget that there could be another way of living your life.

our law says you do not hurt someone unless they hurt you.

The only place where abundance is warranted is in nature. A person who wastes is a person who insults the gods. In light of the waste encountered in the modern world, one wonders if anyone knows that there is a world outside of this abundance where people are aware of priorities other than materialism.

To be a leader, or the helpmate of a leader, you have to first die as a person, and Mother was mourning for her approaching death as just a simple village woman.

In the surface world our ability to make things happen is very limited. This limitation is a reflection of the incompleteness of a world without the spirit realm. So Spirit is our channel through which every gap in life can be filled. But the spirit realm will not take care of these gaps without our conscious participation. Thus our collaboration makes us central to the actual happening of a ritual.

The truth is our disconnection with Earth translates into a kind of disrespect of the feminine. How far can you go in violating the mother that gave you life? As long as the feminine is diminished the connection between us and the Earth will always be underscored by a big question mark. We have abused the Earth so much that we don't know which direction to go. We must wonder about this increasing masculinity that is translated in terms of repeated violence or love of it.

speed is a way to prevent ourselves from having to deal with something we do not want to face.

the sweat of one person has significance only when it serves everybody.

people have had to update their trust because money has intruded into everything,

A true community begins in the hearts of the people involved. It is not a place of distraction but a place of being.

It is the right of the grandfather to tell the grandson later what was said while in the womb. It is the right of the grandfather to give the name that will serve as a life program to its bearer. Grandfather