| INTRODUCTION
In Bushman Shaman, Bradford Keeney details his initiation into
the shamanic tradition of the Kalahari Bushmen, regarded by some scholars
as the oldest living culture on Earth.
Keeney sought out the Bushmen while in South Africa as a visiting professor
of psychotherapy. He had known of the Kalahari “trance dance,”
wherein the dancers’ bodies shake uncontrollably as part of the
healing ceremony. Keeney was drawn to this tradition in the hope that
it might explain and provide a forum for his own ecstatic “shaking,”
which he had first experienced at the age of 19 and had tried to suppress
and hide throughout his adult life.
For more than a dozen years Keeney danced with Bushman shamans in communities
throughout Botswana and Namibia, until finally becoming fully initiated
into their healing and spiritual ways. He offers readers accounts of
his shamanic world travels and the secrets of the soul he learned along
the way, including his discovery of the “rope to God” in
a Bushman shaman dream.
Chapter 22: Seen by the Original Ones
 I
HAVE DANCED ALL NIGHT with the Bushmen and have slept for only
an hour. As I wake up and start to rise, I hear a voice. It says, “Tilt
your head slightly to the right.” I do so without any thought
as to what purpose might be behind the instruction. Although I feel
my head tilt, I realize that my physical body hasn’t moved at
all. Beginning to feel anxious, I wondered what was going on. Then the
voice returned, “Don’t worry. Enjoy yourself. Make sure
to ask that you go all the way.” The voice was reassuring and
I immediately felt relaxed. That’s when I started to float upward.
I was hovering about six feet over my body, which was still lying curled
up on a sleeping bag.
I no longer felt anxious but instead was exhilarated about the possibility
of flight. I spoke out loud, saying “I want to go all the way.”
That’s when I flew straight up into the sky, going past all the
clouds and breaking out of the atmosphere. Within moments I was in the
vast, dark void of outer space, flying so fast that I felt as if I had
become a comet. A long trail of light was left behind as I sped through
space.
Stars and planets could be seen everywhere, but what caught my attention
was a planetary-sized bonfire in the distance. Its flames pulsed, making
it look like a breathing fire, a cosmic dragon filled with unimaginable
power. I felt free of its influence. I had escaped its tug on me. I
asked again to go all the way.
Faster and faster I went. Then I remembered that I had been here before.
The Guarani shamans had sent me to this place. And I had seen it in
numerous spiritual ceremonies, including the spirit-calling ceremony
of the Lakota Indians and in highly spirited country church prayer meetings.
I was familiar with this black infinite space filled with bright stars
and streaks of light. But I had never seen the big fire and never had
I gone this far for this long.
The flight was thrilling and I wouldn’t have minded if it never
stopped. But then, without notice, I landed upon barren sand. There
was neither bush nor grass within sight. There was only sand on the
ground beneath me. In front of me stood several camelthorn trees with
a small amount of green coloring in their branches. I stood still at
first because it seemed as though I was being watched. Although it was
silent, a spirited current was in the air.
The current entered me and my head began to tremble. Moving down my
spine, it went all the way to the bottom of my feet. I felt a warmth
and soon my belly started to shake and jerk. Then the current came up
through my voice and I started to sing with a powerfully shaking sound.
My eyes closed and I saw nothing. I was only aware of hearing the vibratory
sounds. Then I heard nothing. I could only feel. There was only an awareness
of n/om. I was absorbed in n/om.
I don’t know how long I was in that state of mind, but the next
thing I remembered was seeing the Bushmen women shamans all around me.
They were holding on to me, singing and rubbing their hands all over
my belly. I wondered where I had been and where I was.
My journey had taken me all the way. I had gone to the Kalahari. Yet
I was already in the Kalahari. Had I traveled to the end or the beginning,
to the past or the present?
I looked up and saw Cgunta Bo and Toma Dham smiling. “Where did
you go?” Toma asked. I started to tell him about flying among
the stars. “Yes, this is very good,” Toma responded.
“Did you see the fire?” Cgunta Bo asked before I could even
tell him about it. “Yes, I saw it, but I didn’t want to
go near it. I flew right by that fire.”
“That’s important,” Cgunta Bo replied. “That
fire is the original ancestral fire. It can kill you. Never be tempted
to move toward it. Did you go all the way?”
“Yes, I went all the way. When I started flying, a voice told
me to ask that I be taken all the way. I went to a place where the ground
is made of sand.”
“Did you see the trees?”
“Yes, there were a few trees with a few green leaves on them.”
Cgunta Bo was now very serious, as he carefully asked “Was anything
else green?”
“No, Cgunta, only a few leaves on the trees were green. That’s
all the green I saw.”
“That is wonderful! You are very fortunate. You were taken to
the beginning of everything. That is where the Original Ones live. They
were our first ancestors, the first Bushmen. Part animal and part human,
they could communicate with all the plants and animals. Did you feel
them watching you?”
“I felt it,” I said.
“And they sent you back. We could see that they taught you more
about the n/om.”
I looked up and saw Tcque !ui, the chief’s wife. She was coming
closer to embrace me. Years ago, she had given me my Bushman name, Bo.
She started speaking in her gentle voice. “The ancestors have
given you their approval. Now we have nothing more to teach you. You
are in their hands now. Whatever you need to know or receive will come
from them. You have become a big shaman, what we call a n/om kxao, an
‘owner of n/om.’ The Big God sent you to help us save our
ways. Now we will learn from each other, with the help of the ancestors.”
The other women also came toward me and we all began hugging one another
in a huddle of pulsing vibrations. After a few moments, we sighed together
and opened our eyes once again. Tcque !ui resumed talking, saying, “We
want you to tell others about the Big Love. Teach them to shake and
open their hearts. Show them what it is to be a Bushman shaman.”
As the women shamans helped me stand up again, I saw Tcque’s husband,
Bo, the chief of the village, walking toward us. Helped along by his
walking stick, he was getting older with each visit. I wondered whether
he would be there for the next visit.
Bo and I hugged one another as the rest of the community gathered in
a large circle. Then he spoke. “We want you to tell everyone that
you are a Bushman shaman from the Kalahari. This is your home. You speak
for us.”
©
Bradford Keeney, 2005
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