The Okavango Delta is exceedingly flat, with only slight variations in height that produce temporary islands during the winter months, which are essentially sections of desert that have not yet become fully submerged beneath the rising water. The rest of the landscape is transformed into a pristine wetland; swamps, lakes, rivers and waterways lush with vegetation and teeming with wildlife.
My first five nights in Botswana were spent at two tented safari camps in the Delta: Gunn’s and Pom Pom. As the lion travels (the African equivalent of “as the crow flies”) the two camps are approximately twenty miles apart. The various lodges within the Delta apply to the federal government for fifteen year concessions that enable them to build semi-permanent camps for accommodating tourists. If their concession isn’t renewed at the end of the fifteen year period, they must dismantle the camp entirely, removing every trace of their inhabitation. In spite of the impermanent nature of this arrangement, the two camps were quite lovely, with comfortable rooms made of canvas and spacious porches overlooking the stunning landscape.

As the Delta is only accessible by way of plane or boat during the seasonal floods, I travelled first to Gunn’s by way of a six-seater plane from Maun, which actually touched down at a nearby camp called Eagle Island because the airstrip at Gunn’s was flooded. From there, we took a short stroll away from the airstrip and climbed into a medium sized motor boat that had been pulled haphazardly to shore.
The driver of the motor boat set off at a startling speed. Although I had seen elephants from the small plane I flew in on, my first close-up glimpse of a large land animal, a male giraffe, was a blur as we zoomed past. For about twenty minutes, we sped through the intricate maze of waterways, which seemed indistinguishable from one another. The edges of the channels were thickly lined with papyrus and reeds, and white and pink lilies floated in clusters on the surface of the water, their long, spindly roots buried deep within the sand below.

When we arrived at camp, I was introduced to a fellow, O.B., who would be my guide for the duration of my stay. There was only one other guest at camp, who was also under O.B.’s care, although she preferred boating to walking so we were split up according to our interests. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I was told that my first experience in Botswana would be a private bush walk after lunch with not one, but two guides.

For generations, the inhabitants of the Delta have traversed the flooded terrain by way of a dug-out boat called a mokoro. Traditionally, mekoro (the plural of “mokoro”) were carved from locally harvested wood, and while that continues to be the case within traditional villages, mekoro built for commercial use are fashioned out of fiberglass. The mokoro is shaped like a canoe, although they are narrower, have lower sides, and sit lower down in the water. Boys who are raised in the bush learn to maneuver a mokoro in the traditional manner, which involves standing at the stern and gently propelling the boat forward by way of a long pole. Interestingly, the “poler” doesn’t alternate from one side to the other as one would when paddling a canoe, but rather, “poles” on one side. If he’s carrying a passenger, that person sits right in the center of the boat on the deck.

Naturally, polers develop exquisite balance, and their elegant posture against the backdrop of the gorgeous setting is quite breathtaking. In general, one travels by mokoro at a contemplative pace. However, the polers maneuver the boats surprisingly deftly when necessary, altering their course quite suddenly, for example, in order to avoid an unwelcome encounter with a crocodile or hippopotamus, and managing to do so without themselves or their passenger falling in.

In this manner, we departed from camp and gently glided to a nearby island, O.B. and I in one mokoro and the other guide poling alongside us. His passenger was a large light blue cooler filled with drink boxes and snacks. Although there had been a great deal of lighthearted chatter on the dock as we were preparing to leave, O.B. and I quickly settled into a comfortable silence, surrounded by the sounds of insects and birds.

Traveling by mokoro in the Okavango Delta

Shortly after we had set off, O.B. silently guided the boat in a different direction than what had seemed to be our general trajectory. He drew the mokoro to a full stop, gestured for me to look to my left, and I beheld my first painted reed frog. It was half the size of my thumb, and he had spotted it from at least five yards away.

O.B. reverentially explained that the pattern on the reed frog’s body is determined by the relationship between its body temperature and the outside temperature. Its color and pattern will change according to whether it needs to warm up or cool down, almost as though it’s adding or removing layers of clothing. At the moment, this particular painted reed frog was covered with an intricate symmetrical pattern made of tiny black dots, which reminded me of traditional Australian Aboriginal art. Although I knew it was a little rude, I couldn’t resist laying my fingertip against its tiny, cool back while it rested vertically upon a swaying reed. O.B. looked on with quiet amusement, clearly enjoying my delight at his discovery, yet turning away shyly when I exclaimed, “Well spotted!”

Shortly thereafter, we disembarked on an island, pulled the mekoro to shore, and huddled on the sand. While sipping his cold fruit juice, O.B. delivered a well-rehearsed speech pertaining to safety, which can be distilled to, “Do everything I say. Period. ” When we had finished our drinks, I obligingly fell in step behind him and the second guide followed me, illuminating the need for a second guide during bush walks: there is always a guide at the front and rear of the guests, who are sandwiched in between them for safety.

That afternoon, as well as during the following morning when we undertook our second bush walk together with a larger gaggle of guides and guests, I was introduced to the art and science of tracking.

(To continued…)

When I journeyed to ask for guidance before making our decision, the Grandfather Bushman approached me and placed a simple wreath made of branches and leaves on my head. He smiled gently and said, “Well, child, it is the correct decision to cancel the trip, but you do know that you must still come. For the call to Africa still burns in your heart, and you must heed that call.”

During the intervening weeks, a series of auspicious events has led to my traveling to Botswana in June as planned, although I will be doing so under quite different circumstances. A remarkable Brazilian woman named Janaina Matarazzo who lives in Botswana set things in motion when she contacted me and invited me to teach shamanic journeying in her community. The warmth and clarity of her invitation provided the seed of a trip that has since begun to take shape: Janaina quickly enlisted the support of a friend in Maun named Deborah Carter, who teaches yoga and leads yoga safaris throughout Africa, and who has since become my official workshop sponsor and British/Motswana guardian angel. As I write this, Deborah is continuing to lay the ground for a workshop, which at this point, mainly involves getting the word out locally as the gathering space, meals and accommodations have all been arranged owing to her efficiency and skillfulness.

The workshop will be a two-day introduction to shamanic journeying from June 11^th- 13^th, which is being offered to the local community. My inspiration and my guidance have been to volunteer my time in the hopes of reducing the tuition and making the workshop more accessible financially, as the community is not an affluent one. Still, there are the meals and accommodations to account for, as well as a well-deserved nominal fee for Deborah’s time and efforts, which still amount to a tuition fee that is more than what many people can afford. In view of that, the intention of this post is both to update you about the evolving form my trip is taking, and also to invite you to make a donation that will enable a Motswana (or local person) to attend the workshop, and remember their innate shamanic gifts and spiritual heritage.

When I reflect on how events have unfolded related to this trip, I’m so moved by the support and encouragement I’ve received from my community, the unseen world, and my unexpected collaborators in Botswana. For those of you who have read my previous posts about the trip, I’m sure you’ll agree that this process has been a powerful reminder that shamanism operates outside of linear time. And I promise you that I will sing to the elephants (and the leopards, and the antelope, and the lions, and the trees, and the people, and the spirits of the land….) every chance I get!

If you feel moved to contribute to the scholarship fund to support a Motswana in attending the workshop, you may either transfer funds into my Paypal account (which is listed under: info@juliemkramer.com) or you may mail a check to the following address. The tuition is approximately $475USD per person and donations of any amount are wholeheartedly welcome.

P.O. Box 6116

Boulder, CO

80306

The young girl says that some waters have healing powers that attract animals and humans alike. She gestures for me to look around and I see numerous snakes making their way towards the pool from different directions; some are slithering through the grasses and others are traveling by way of the creek like the snake that we first came upon. “Your trip to Botswana is like this gathering of snakes. The people are traveling from all directions to gather together and drink from the radiant depths of the healing waters of Africa.”

With that, her grandfather appears and together, we return to where my helping spirits are waiting. He begins to perform the preparations that are generally undertaken by my helping spirits, while they observe respectfully. He follows their typical protocol, diverging only to rub his powdery charcoal over the front and back of each of my chakras, which he carries in a leather pouch around his waist. He concludes in our usual manner, laughing as he adorns me with the amulets that I wear on my head, throat, wrists, and ankles during my journeys. I gather from his laugher that he may think I’m a little over-dressed for the occasion!

Although his granddaughter has translated for us in the past, this time, we leave the others behind and wander off together on foot. Eventually, we reach a tall, leaf-less tree and he invites me to sit next to him with our backs against the tree trunk. He explains that this tree is sacred to his people and that they have been visiting it for generations because it is a portal to other dimensions. He wishes to demonstrate, so he asks me to follow his awareness and we are transported to a scene where several elephants are gathered around a muddy watering hole.

The largest female notices that we’ve arrived, and alighting from where she had been languishing in the mud, she ambles towards us. She greets me by lifting up her trunk and emptying its contents over my head, showering me with mud-streaked water and leaving me dripping wet from head to toe. I become mesmerized by her left eye and I spend several minutes staring into it, marveling at its depth, and the fringe of impossibly long eyelashes that encircles it. She invites me to touch her skin, so I place my hand against her face, feeling the intricate topography of her cool, rough skin.

She says that she and her kin are looking forward to our visit in June. “So many cars, trucks, and buses pass us by,” she explains, “but occasionally, there is a light within one of them and even more rarely, the entire vehicle is filled with light. That is when we know that we are being seen and honored as beings, rather than objects. That is when a true meeting becomes possible between ourselves and the humans within that vehicle, with whom we very much desire connection and communication. This is what will occur with your people.”

Suddenly, a gruesome scene of a poacher removing the tusks from a dying elephant passes through my awareness and the elephant says, “When a human is desperate, their awareness becomes very narrow, very myopic. They are not able to see the absurdity in the loss of so great a creature for so small a prize, which will only provide but a fleeting moment of security or prosperity. The life of an elephant is a high price to pay for so little gain, but in their desperation, they are unable to see that.”

“We elephants have structured our society around the well-being of the whole, not the betterment or the furtherment of a single individual. Decisions and choices are made on the basis of what will best serve the whole. And while within our family systems, as within yours, there are certainly varying degrees of awareness and consciousness, what invariably prevails is what will serve the whole.”

“There was a time when human societies were based on the same principles, but that is seldom the case now. That is why the great creatures of this earth are murdered in unthinkable numbers. Now there is desperation, greed, and covetousness. These killings are not in the service of the whole but are indicative of the fact that there is no longer any regard for the whole – for the interconnectedness of all beings.”

I feel moved to ask her how we can honor her and her tribe during our trip and her answer surprises me: she would like us to sing to the elephants. To express our reverence, appreciation, respect and love for them through song. Then I ask her if there is something that she and her kin would like to teach us and she replies, “We are going to help you remember how to grieve. You have forgotten to mourn your dead and this is something that we know a great deal about. This will be our teaching for you.”

I ask her how her vibration would feel if she were to drop her form, recognizing that the way in which she appears to me may limit my ability to recognize the fullness of her being. She says that she would feel like love and protection. For a moment, her form dissolves, and I rest in the field of swirling light that remains, absorbing the palpable qualities of love and protection. “We will also help you and the others become imbued with our love and protection, so that you are never again separate from these things.”

She signals that our time has come to an end and turns around to make her way back to the cool mud, waving good-bye with her tail as she walks away.

Suddenly, the elder Bushman and I find ourselves back at the base of the sacred tree where we began. He wishes to spend a moment talking about inter-penetrating awareness – how animals, stones, plants, trees, and humans are capable of expanding their awareness such that they can be in connection with and become penetrated by one another and other dimensions. “This tree, for example, is a direct conduit to the stars, and it grew in this precise spot in order to receive and emit the transmissions from the stars through its physical form. Next time, I will teach you more about the stars, but that is all for now.”

As we walk, the landscape shifts around us, finally settling on a dry, expansive grassland. We continue walking and in the distance I see the Bushman grandfather and his son, the children’s father. When we reach them, the young girl once again begins to translate as the grandfather sets about providing me with further ritualistic preparations.

There is a large fire burning within a circle of stones and he reaches inside the stones and gathers powdered charcoal from around the fire. He methodically spreads the powder all over my body, ensuring that I’m completely covered. He includes the bottoms of my feet and the palms of my hands, as well as my hair; he pays special attention to my hair because he says that the hair is very important in Africa. Then he begins to draw symbols into the black powder starting with my forehead and continuing all the way down the front of my torso. He turns me around and draws more symbols all the way up my back, ending at the back of my head.

He gestures for me to step into the fire, and when I do, he stares into the center of it and it grows up all around me. The strength of the fire seems to enliven the symbols; one by one they emerge from where they were drawn onto the surface of my skin as three-dimensional shapes and drop into the fire. A thick, amber-colored fluid begins to drip from each spot where there was a symbol, which causes the fire to crackle and swell.

The grandfather explains that each symbol carries a specific vibration and is programmed to attract foreign energies of different kinds, which need to be drawn out of me before we proceed any further. Once the dripping has ceased, he helps me out of the fire and invites me to lie down on the earth. His granddaughter sets about using dirt from the ground to fill the spots where the symbols were drawn, which are now holes leading inside my body. “We’re filling you up with the pure land of Africa,” he explains.

Once I’m all filled up, the grandfather points towards a circle of round, flat stones nearby, which are about a third the size of my palm. There are 21 stones in all, representing the 18 people who will join Tami and I when we travel to Botswana in June, plus the two of us and our guide. Each stone is etched with a symbol that represents each of the 21 individuals. “With this circle, I’m calling the people together for a very specific purpose,” he says. “To remember.”

“I use language to communicate with you because you’re most comfortable that way, but my natural way of communicating is through symbol and telepathy. Our symbols are imbued with complex and subtle meaning. They do not point to a singular thing. When you put words to things, you restrict their meaning. When you and the others come, you will begin to remember how to experience things as they are – rather than experiencing your concepts of things. Whether it’s a stone, a tree, an animal, a hill, or a person, you will experience their qualities directly. Rather than labeling it as a ‘something,’ you will ask it to reveal itself to you in its fullness, so you may behold it fully with your whole being.

We Bushmen are the keepers of history, which is too long and complex to be contained within language. The history of the world is so vast that it cannot even be told in the course of a whole lifetime. That is why we have passed our wisdom, stories, and knowledge from one generation to the next using symbols, which are programmed with information. Let me show you.”

He reaches down and takes one of the stones – my stone – from within the circle of 21. He places it against my forehand and it melts into my body, becoming indistinguishable from me. Then he steps towards me, takes my hands in his, and rests his forehead against mine. As soon as our foreheads touch, tears well up inside me. A golden glow alights inside my head, and my heart feels tender and open. The predominant feeling is one of utter familiarity. Suddenly, this Bushman elder is as known to me as I am to myself. There is no longer anything between us, separating us from one another.

His dry, calloused hands continue to hold mine and we remain thus in silence for some time, our foreheads still touching. Then he gently pulls away.

“That is the symbol of your soul and this circle of stones represents the gathering of your 21 souls in Botswana. For each of you, this journey is deeply connected with your soul’s purpose. What I just shared with you is the knowledge of the breadth of your soul. I used telepathy to transmit and awaken the information that has been programmed into the symbol so that you would remember who you are. I will do that with each of you, as one of the reasons you’re coming is to remember who you are.

Some of the members of your circle may be traveling to Africa for the first time in their current lifetime, but they have spent other lifetimes here. In fact, certain spirits who have developed great mastery during their lifetimes in Africa choose to reincarnate as Westerners, only to one day return to Africa to remember their knowledge, and then bring it forth in the West.

We Africans are very concerned about lineage, but that doesn’t necessarily mean biological lineage. For example, my people will soon die out, but our lineage lives on through the knowledge that is encoded in the natural world and through the humans we are choosing to share our stories with. All of you coming are my descendants, and my family. I am deliberately passing some of my knowledge to each of you so that it can bear fruit through time and space.

You people have the ability to dream a dream of peace, hope, harmony, love, and beauty for humans, animals, and our planet. You are waking up from the dream of fear, violence, lack, and despair that so many are dreaming on our planet. You will carry forward the dream of bountifulness that my people have always dreamed. This is what you are waking up to. This is what you are remembering.”

With that, the grandfather signals the conclusion of our conversation. I ask him how I can possibly express my gratitude to him and his family, and he gently dismisses me. In closing, he tells me to suggest to those who are drawn to the trip to ask their helping spirits to take them to meet him in non-ordinary reality. If they reach him successfully, and if he places one of the stones on their forehead, they will know that they are called to be a part of this sacred journey.

Her father resumes speaking, and gestures towards the rear of the large cave. The further back into the deep cave he points, the fainter the petroglyphs are. I begin to understand that he’s showing me the earliest drawings that were made on these walls by his ancestors.

“We Bushmen have extraordinary memories because everything we know is passed down to the next generation orally. With each generation, more knowledge is acquired. So each generation surpasses the last in terms of their capacity to remember. We remember everything – the names of our ancestors and their stories, the animals, the rains, the plants and their properties, the stars and their movements, our traditional remedies, our practices, the landscapes in ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality. We know all, and we are known by all.

We choose to remain hidden because we would face so many dangers were we to join society. Let me show you what we have already endured.”

He points to a specific section of the cave wall and the images I see are of war, famine, and disease. There are depictions of children being stolen, of adults being shackled and taken, and of his ancestors escaping into the wilderness for safety.

“We are nomadic and there are more of us than is believed, although fewer than there once were. We understand that our people will not continue into the future.”

He indicates how close the most recent drawings are to the opening of the cave; there is very little space left upon which the Bushmen can document their lives.

“When we’re gone, the trees will remember us, the stars will remember us, the earth will remember us, the animals will remember us. They will whisper our stories and those who can learn how to listen deeply will hear our tales. We will not be forgotten.

You and your travel companions are coming here to learn how to listen. Your people no longer know how to listen to silence, how to listen to emptiness. You will remember when you are here. Listen with reverence. Listen with devotion. Listen wholeheartedly. You are bearing witness to our history.”

He walked back a little ways and pointed to another moment in history – a prophesy.

“My ancestors knew that a great illness would descend upon this continent, and that we, too, would be impacted by it. Many blame the whites because they have visited so much suffering upon our people, but what we have done to ourselves and one another is equally egregious. We can’t conceive of a God who would create this disease and allow us to be so terribly hurt by it, so we seek to find another culprit. My people, however, know that blame does not lie with you. We also know why it has come to pass, but I will not burden you with information that is not appropriate for you to have or share.

Remember what I have told you today. Listen with all of your heart, you and the others. Listen for the whispered wisdom that imbues this land.”

Tami’s company, Sounds True, was in the process of developing a new offering for their customers: guided tours to sacred destinations world-wide, combining spiritual practice with sight-seeing and exploration. At the time, a trip was already being planned to China, and Sounds True’s partner in the venture was a tour company called Authentic Asia. Inspired by the intriguing message she had received on her hike, Tami contacted the owner of Authentic Asia, Tina Patterson, and asked if she could recommend a tour company for Botswana.

We were quite surprised to discover that under the auspices of Authentic Asia, Tina had actually facilitated several trips to Botswana. She suggested that we meet with her and a colleague named Jeff, with whom she had often collaborated on trips to Africa and who had traveled extensively throughout Botswana. Tami and I soon found ourselves sitting down with them both, engaging in an enthusiastic discussion about the creation of a customized trip. By the end of our meeting, we had loosely decided on a 10-day itinerary (subject to the availability of accommodations the following summer) that Tami and I would co-lead with 18 participants. Clearly, Tami’s guidance had been spot-on!

In spite of how remarkably far our dialogue had progressed, the trip didn’t actually feel real to me. It wasn’t until Tami subsequently asked if I would be willing to write a description of the trip for the fall Sounds True catalog that I began to grasp the magnitude of what was unfolding. That was when my first journey to the Bushmen occurred.

The chance to return to Africa was quite simply, a dream come true. Tami and I had been once before – we traveled to Kenya and Swaziland with a group in 2006, and the experience touched us both deeply. There were many dimensions to our travels, the most impactful for me being the unforgettable encounters that we had with animals. Rather than fulfilling a longing, our time in Africa awakened a reverence and passion inside of me that has been quite unrelenting. I’ve been wondering ever since how and when I could possibly return.

My guidance from my helping spirits both before and since then has been that we would return to Africa again and again in our lives. Still, I couldn’t have predicted the timing and design of the trip to Botswana. Before things went any further, I wanted to formally seek the permission and blessing of the helping spirits to proceed with the trip, and make absolutely sure that they were in accord with the plans that were being laid.

My helping spirits took me on a shamanic journey to Botswana, where three Bushmen of different ages appeared within an open, arid landscape. The eldest of the three spoke, while the other two remained close-by, each standing on one leg. He began by reassuring me that we are welcome in his land; me, Tami, and the 18 people who will accompany us whom we have yet to meet. He blessed our group and our trip, and explained that he understood our intentions to be good.

“For centuries, people have come to our continent to discover what they can take. People, resources, wildlife – all of these things have been taken from us and we have been left to suffer the consequences. Whenever anyone comes to Africa with a pure heart, with reverence, and with respectfulness, we are uplifted by it. So you and your people must cultivate devotion and reverence for the land, the people, and the animals of our continent. It is a blessing to us when Africa is appreciated, rather than being plundered or criticized.”
With his words, our trip became real for me. So, too, is my commitment to partnering with the benevolent spirits of Botswana to ensure that we prepare for and undertake our trip with thoughtfulness, care and heartfulness.