The Sangha Circle
In the early hours of 25 March 2020, the great polymath iSanusi Credo Vusamazulu Mutwa passed on to the Ethereal and Ancestral Realms. As he transited he made a call to heed the impending lockdown, and begin a 21 Day Initiation Journey that would accompany the lockdown period. His transitioning call was merely an echo of decades of warnings he had issued through his lifetime.
At midnight on 26 March 2020, a mere day later, South Africa went into national lockdown as a pre-emptive precaution to limit the spread of Covid-19, a new pandemic that was causing global pandemonium. At the same time a group of healers and seekers came together and journeyed through the initial Level 5 lockdown, seeking to unearth aspects of ancient wisdom and understand the collective call of the ancestors for the time of crisis.
The Sangha Circle is a forum that was born from the 21 Day Initiation Journey, and has since emerged as a sacred space to journey together at this Time of Shift and Turning; a time that nobody has initiated for; a time when everything we have known no longer holds currency, and we are requested to gain new skills and learn new tools – together.
Objectives
The Sangha’s key objectives are:
- Creating a safe space to learn and grow from Ancient Wisdom, Afrikan Spirituality and Indigenous Knowledge Systems
- Learning from and building community
- Inspiring each other to become instruments of change
- Rising together as healers to prepare for this emergent Time
- Healing self, humanity and the environment
At its core, the Sangha Circle sits around the collective potter’s wheel, reshaping narratives, reshaping practices, and reshaping knowledges, while seeking to create indigenous industries and restore healing.
Fractals as Method
In Nature we see fractals everywhere, where the same pattern or shape, repeated over and over creates a complex shape. Examples include the cells of a honeycomb, the scales of a snake, the parts of a cauliflower, the structure of a leaf – each unusual and unique; each repeated over and over to create a tangible complexity.
We can also think about social phenomena, what is happening amongst people, in terms of fractals. In this, we think of activity fractals. If you look at an organization where people are dedicated to the same task you will start to see fractals of activity: patterns of action, interaction and behavior that are consistent and can be predicted. Based on these observations we may choose to create activity fractals of a new way of organizing, a set of actions that may not yet have been practiced and which nurture life; biological life and spiritual life. A set of actions that are aligned to the future that we want to bring into being.
An activity fractal can thus be undertaken by individuals or small groups of people. This notion is rooted in understanding two concepts: periodicity in systems, and fractals. The invitation to create activity fractals draws on the work of Meg Wheatley and Neil Baker about Leadership Fractals, but also incorporates insights from Perturbation Theory in quantum mechanics
Sangha Activity Fractals
The following Activity Fractals of the Sangha were set up as a conglomerate of activity with different focal points:
Fractal 1: Art, Music and Drumming
Fractal 2: Collective Meditation & Environmental Healing
Fractal 3: Heal Thyself
Fractal 4: Divine Surrender
Each of these fractals are woven into activities with collaborating communities, such as those of Mothong African Heritage Trust, Tlholego Ecovillage and the Earthrise Collective.
Dancing with Activity
Fractal 1: Art, Music and Drumming
Engaging the modalities of art, music and drumming to ignite freedom, healing, expression of self, expression of our ancestors, as a route to reverberating ancestral knowledge and finding unity. The collective is one with the universal vibrations from the Ancients. They seek to offer unbounded love and emergent learning in a bid to manifest oneness during this critical Earth Time.
Fractal 2: Collective Meditation & Environmental Healing
Transmuting destructive energy at Sacred & Water Sites by cleaning up the physical and metaphysical rubbish with our hands and hearts. Engaging this and collective meditation in a bid to unify, cleanse, transform, mutate, immunise and regenerate ourselves and our fellow human beings, through our sacred Mother Land & Water, from which we come.
Fractal 3: Heal Thyself
Activating Ubu-Ntu through restoring the “Wounded Healer” – peeling off layers of the Ego and filling our cup before we help others, to ensure inter-generational healing. Key focal areas include spiritual, mental, emotional, nutritional healing and plant medicine.
Fractal 4: Divine Surrender
Surrendering to divine logic, waking up to our divine gifts, serving our divine purpose.
Dancing with Imaginaries
The Sangha’s imaginaries dance with bridging, restoring, enquiring, supporting, and reclaiming towards soulutions for a communiversity.
The motto for the Sangha Circle is a clarion call to collective action, and draws on the words of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh:
“In Deed, the Next Sanusi is a Sangha!”
