Recorded on August 8, 2007
Summary
The host Alan Steinfeld is talking to Ena and Esu from the Barka Foundation about Malidoma Some, an initiated African elder from the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, and his indigenous African spirit technology.
Transcript
Alan Steinfeld
Welcome to New Realities. This is Alan Steinfeld. This program is dedicated to evolving human potentials and an evolving world. This series explores the ideas of how to become more conscious beings and present programs each week that help us look at our automatic behavior, become more spiritually aware, open, and create a better planet to live on. Tonight’s guests are two people very much involved in creating a better planet. They are Ena and Esu, and they’re part of the Barka Foundation. Are you on the line there?
Ena
We are.
Alan Steinfeld
Good. This program really explores different types of spirituality, and I know you’re connected to the West African understanding. Can you give us a little background on the traditions you come from, your teacher, and then we’ll go into what initiatives you’re taking? Go ahead. Ena. Esu.
Esu
What brought us both to the place that we’re at, and who we would like to give thanks to, is Malidoma Patrice Some.
Alan Steinfeld
Uh-huh.
Ena
If anybody wants to read about him. Esu, maybe you can give this information, because he has a website.
Esu
Google him.
Alan Steinfeld
Spell that name.
Esu
M-a-l-i-d-o-m-a, Malidoma, which means to become friends with the enemy or to make friends with the stranger, and his last name is S-o-m-e, Some. And he is an initiated African elder from the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso.
Alan Steinfeld
So that’s traditional African spirituality?
Esu
That’s right. He calls it indigenous African spirit technology. He’s sick of the word Shaman and shamanistic and all that, and he’s really in that terminology, indigenous technology.
Alan Steinfeld
And this is West Africa, right?
Esu
That’s right. This is Burkina Faso.
Alan Steinfeld
If I did a show with a shaman from Mali, the Dogon tradition.
Ena
Yeah. They’re right above Burkina, the Dogon tribe.
Alan Steinfeld
So do they connect with their knowledge? Do they share knowledge?
Ena
They share a commonality, it’s expressed in different ways, but it’s such a basic way of being.
Alan Steinfeld
What are some of the core beliefs in this tradition?
Ena
It’s life. It’s how they live.
Alan Steinfeld
Like how?
Ena
How do they live? You use words like tradition, but if the whole world blew up tomorrow, they’d just get up and go about their way.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, what do they do? How do they live? Like, aren’t they also being invaded by technology and all that?
Ena
Yeah. That’s why we’re on the phone right now.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay. Okay. Good. But give me a little taste of their traditional life and how they’re in touch with the great spirit.
Ena
If every high school student in the United States, in particular, were to go to an indigenous culture before they graduated from high school, the whole world would change very, very quickly. You’d see people that have had the blessing of being able to hold on to tradition despite colonization. There’s no separation. You know, they’ve already got what we’re running after bumping into walls looking for.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. And so what do they do? How do they live? I mean, is everything alive to them? Everything is consciousness?
Ena
Yeah. It has to be, because they’re so intricately connected. They don’t know anything else other than being completely and totally a part of what is in their lives.
Alan Steinfeld
I see. So they’re just always connected. I mean, how did you two, two white guys, kids, from the US, how did you find yourself in West Africa studying this tradition?
Ena
Through the grace of the ancestors.
Alan Steinfeld
And how was that?
Esu
Blessing of Malidoma Some.
Alan Steinfeld
But how did that actually happen, like, in the detail part?
Ena
He’s a teacher, and he has trainings where he shares his tradition with people who are seriously interested.
Alan Steinfeld
So what was it about that tradition that really got you both?
Ena
Yeah, it got us both. Well, the thing of it is, they believe in the Dagara tradition and I’m sure other traditions around the world, that we sign a contract before we came here into the physical form. And if we have the good fortune, then we are able to fulfill that contract.
Alan Steinfeld
What do you mean by what kind of contract?
Ena
Truly living life on purpose and knowing what that purpose is.
Alan Steinfeld
And what is that purpose? To be caretakers of the planet, would you say?
Ena
Oh, yeah.
Esu
It’s individual. It’s different for everyone. For Ena and I, it has been about changing our lives very dramatically in order to align ourselves with this very singular sense of purpose for us, which is about giving back.
Ena
Reciprocity.
Esu
Is about giving back to Africa, is about creating reciprocity with indigenous cultures from all over the world.
Ena
Everywhere. Yeah. Just stop holding on.
Alan Steinfeld
But you know, there’s lots of things out there. There must have been something particular about what this guy said that just really activated something. Can you remember that moment where you said, yes, this is what I want to do?
Ena
I can tell you for me that it wasn’t about anything that had to do with my head at all. Because when he spoke, it did not enter my being through my ears. It entered through every cell of my being and went into the marrow of my bones and woke me up.
Alan Steinfeld
How long ago was that?
Ena
Oh, Lord. Don’t ask me time.
Alan Steinfeld
Was that like years or months or days?
Ena
I met him the year 2000.
Alan Steinfeld
Not long ago. Eight years ago.
Ena
Not long ago.
Esu
But also lifetimes ago. I mean, it’s been lifetimes coming to this moment.
Alan Steinfeld
So, YouTube, Ena, is that the same for you, something woke you up?
Esu
Well, it’s been a sort of a very sudden but simultaneously a rather gradual awakening.
Alan Steinfeld
And then you both went to Africa. And what did you see in Africa when you went there?
Esu
Well, I’d like to actually go back for a second and tell you a little bit about this process of awakening.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay. Great. Yes. That’s what the show is about. It’s about awakening, so please.
Esu
So, you know, I was in the corporate world, and I was producing television and working with internet media and working with real networks, the pioneer of streaming media on the internet and Microsoft and their Windows Media division and all that corporate hoo-ha. And I actually, my wife at the time, who, you know, we’re no longer together, went to an acupuncturist who couldn’t help her through acupuncture and she said, you know what, come with me, I’m gonna go out of the box a little bit and see what else I can do to help you. And she did a traditional African divination. And this was a style of divination that is done in the Dogon tradition, that’s also done in the Dagara tradition, it’s called cowrie shell divination.
Alan Steinfeld
It’s called what’s an imination?
Esu
Cowrie shell. You know those little shells that are white, they have like a sort of a… I think it’s a sea creature, actually, and they used to be traded in Africa as a form of money. You sort of see them in knots.
Alan Steinfeld
So they throw those shells in order to kind of see what’s happening with the person.
Esu
That’s right. And I should say that Ena is a very wonderful diviner. You know, I just want to throw that in as an aside. She’s been trained over the period of years in Africa and is a very talented diviner.
Ena
They throw bones to the… I saw a film about Credo Mutwa from South Africa.
Esu
Yeah. It’s all about throwing the bones. I think that would be fascinating. It pretty much is the same, it’s just that they use a different medium.
Alan Steinfeld
And so they this person took your wife, ex wife to this shell thrower and what happened?
Esu
And I was there, yes, I was present, and my daughter, who was about five at the time, was also present. And it was absolutely fascinating. I mean, we were just blown away by the process.
Alan Steinfeld
Well what happened, tell me.
Esu
Well, I mean, I can’t really remember the details, you know, she was able to get to certain… You know what it was? There were certain ritual prescriptions. What came out of what comes out of any divination is what’s referred to as a prescription, which means, basically, Spirit is telling us something in the divination.
Ena
Giving us an answer to our question.
Esu
That’s right. To go do. And, um, I think, you know, the thing that an, and it often, it deals with nature, it deals with the elements.
Ena
Yeah, the Earth.
Alan Steinfeld
So it gives you a directive to take action in your life?
Esu
Let me back up for one second here. There are five elements in the traditional Dagara cosmology.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. It’s the same in Hindu and Chinese philosophy as well.
Esu
Yes, they’re similar. It maps very much along lines of traditional Chinese medicine. So there’s earth, water, and fire, which are all identical to TCM, traditional Chinese medicine.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. I’m an acupuncturist, so I know what you’re talking about. Yeah.
Esu
And then in the African spirituality, in the Dagara tradition, there’s nature, which corresponds to wood in Chinese, and there’s mineral, or stone, which corresponds to metal.
Ena
It also has to do with bones.
Alan Steinfeld
I see. That makes sense.
Esu
And so, you know, everything is kind of seen through this elemental lens and perspective. So I think one of the prescriptions that came out of that divination might have been to put an egg, a fertile egg, in running water, in some kind of a stream, some kind of running water. And that had to do with abundance and it had to do with protection.
Ena
It has to do with connecting to the spirit of water. It’s about the spirit of water and what the spirit of water has to offer that we have forgotten in this culture.
Esu
And what does this root of water have to offer that we’ve forgotten? The water had to be on a mountain, I believe, and the mountain is symbolic of one’s greatness, one’s truest, greatest potential. Beautiful. In this way, you know, beginning to follow this kind of work, you actually begin to step into your true power, into your greatness and into your.
Ena
Into the contract.
Esu
And for me, you know, it was a process of aligning myself with my soul purpose.
Alan Steinfeld
So your ex-wife had this reading and it was really amazing. It shifted your life and then you said, I want to know more about this.
Esu
That’s right. And sometimes you can say no, no, no, and you run and scream and head the other way. But as Malidoma says, you can run but you can’t hide. But Alan, I’ve got a… We we’ve started working with this woman in this, um, very, uh, alternative African spiritual modality. And then we ended up bringing Malidoma Some to the Northwest. This was, I was living in Bainbridge Island at the time. Right.
Ena
Oh, outside of Seattle. I know Bainbridge. You have that few connection to Microsoft.
Esu
And we ended up bringing him to Port Townsend, where he started a year-long training with a whole bunch of people. And lo and behold, you know, it turned out that he had already been working with people on the East Coast, which is where I soon moved, and Ena was working with the people in the East Coast, and that’s how we met, and everything began to kind of fall into a very deep alignment with a notion of healing and a notion of, you know, sacredness and building community and all sorts of good stuff that comes out of this work.
Alan Steinfeld
So you left your job? You left the whole corporate world?
Ena
It’s awful hard to pull back.
Alan Steinfeld
Is that what happened to you?
Esu
Yeah. I basically, I knew toward the end of my corporate career, I mean, it wasn’t immediately after that, it was a period of over two years after that that I began to really feel like I needed to be of service to the world and that I couldn’t be in the corporate world anymore just helping to make shareholders more wealthy.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. So you wanted to do something that gave back to the planet.
Esu
That’s right.
Ena
That’s right. And not only to the planet, it’s much bigger than that.
Alan Steinfeld
Well tell me, how much bigger is it than the planet?
Ena
Well the first thing to realize is the ancestral line that did whatever they had to do in order for us to be living and breathing in this moment.
Alan Steinfeld
Uh huh.
Ena
That’s where we start, with Malidoma.
Alan Steinfeld
So attributes to our ancestors.
Esu
It opens a gateway to the world of spirituality and other dimension and spiritual technology which is what he’s been teaching us. And it’s through remembering where the heck you came from, whether you know their names or not. You know, I mean, how many of our ancestors suffered and died and kept on keeping on and made new members of the lineage.
Ena
So we could.
Esu
So that we could be here talking on the phone about it right now and saying hallelujah, thank you very much, you want to help us out please.
Alan Steinfeld
Exactly. You’re an instant, almost an infinite amount of people in our lineage and our line that has brought us to this moment. It is something to definitely pay tribute to and acknowledge.
Ena
Most people don’t even know it’s there anymore.
Esu
Okay wait wait wait. Ena has another identity. One thing about Ena that I’m going to tell you.
Ena
No, stop.
Esu
Is that she’s a songstress, she’s a singer songwriter. She’s published. She has songs that come through her, songs that are directly from Spirit. And so it was all about the ancestors, so I’m gonna put Ena on the spot.
Ena
Oh no. Uh-uh. Just give us a little hum. Just a little bit. Just to connect. It’s not about you and your ego. Just let something come through you. Oh no, we all know that. I just wanted to do it right.
Alan Steinfeld
Well you’re doing it right already.
Ena
I guess if I have to do this, the first thing I have to do is tell the story about it.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay.
Ena
And I have a magic magic magic magic cabin on a magic lake it’s a vortex that is one of those places like Africa that will change your life and I was living there alone well not alone because I had a dog and two cats and
Alan Steinfeld
Whereabouts is that? You don’t have to tell us exactly.
Ena
It’s an unorganized territory in Maine.
Esu
It’s the bush.
Ena
It’s the bush. Township three north district.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay.
Ena
And I had to prepare to help be a container for a woman’s gathering and it was about thinking about and experiencing what it was like to bring the matriarchal line of all of us into the gathering. And I didn’t know what to do. You know, I’m not a facilitator. So I went for a walk and I walked till there wasn’t any more roads and then I kept walking down by the shore and all of a sudden I came upon this ginormous, ginormous rock. And the only way I could get up onto it was that there was a tree that had fallen over onto the rocks like walk, you know, kind of climbed and walked up the tree and the rock was huge and I got up on there and there was a briar patch, there was a raspberry patch growing on the top of the rock.
Alan Steinfeld
Wow.
Ena
So I stepped into the middle of the raspberry patch and I said a prayer. I said, please help me, please help me. I gotta go do this with these women and I don’t know what to do. So they gave me this song and I’ll do my best to sing it.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay.
Ena
And this is dedicated to all of those for whom I sing. We are the ancestors of tomorrow as we live and breathe today. We give birth in every moment with what we think, and do, and say. In honoring those who came before us, we create the world anew. Open your heart, let love fall freely, in all you think, and say, and do. Then all of our children’s, children’s, children, will have their chance to pray to you.
Alan Steinfeld
Nice. Thank you. I should connect you to Susan Weed, who’s recording all these.
Ena
Oh my god. I’ve been to Susan Weed’s place.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh, right. So she’s recording a bunch of those folk songs.
Ena
Oh, nice. I didn’t know that.
Alan Steinfeld
A bunch of kind of hymns to the planet, you know. So she.
Ena
Oh beautiful, that sounds wonderful.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that inspiration. So if we get back to Africa and then this thing that you’re doing now, which is your organization called The Barka, B-A-R-K-A.
Ena
Yes.
Esu
Barka means thank you.
Ena
It’s a big, big, big thank you. It’s gigantic thank you.
Esu
Yeah. And there’s a plea within it that is about the reciprocity that we’re talking about. I mean, you know, if I can just say this. If I can give one message tonight, it’s about the true need for reciprocity between our very modern technological, sophisticated Western world. Consumerized. And the indigenous world that is still very directly connected to nature and spirit and survival, and that we need to help each other. That, yes, we have many gifts and things to offer, aid and money and all sorts of stuff like that.
Ena
But they can teach us how to live.
Esu
And they’ve got something that is of equal value, which, you know, we have forgotten ourselves. And that is, you know, the wonder of being alive and the joy of community and protecting and caring for one another. And, you know, when you go into the bush of Africa, you know, on the one hand, you say to yourself, wow, I guess this… You know, they have no possessions. They have no running water, you know, this.
Ena
Oh, they live in filth. They live in filth.
Esu
Yeah. The chickens and the goats and the sheep and the donkeys, you know, the pigs, everyone’s running around pooping all over the place. Can we say bad words on the internet?
Alan Steinfeld
You can say whatever you want.
Ena
Oh fabulous.
Esu
So people are living in shit. And you know.
Ena
And their immune systems are so strong you wouldn’t believe it.
Alan Steinfeld
Really? Because a lot of Africa, you know, is dying from a really depleted immune system.
Ena
I’m talking about people that live true indigenous lives. They have a joy that shines through their eyes. The adults haven’t lost their ability to play. They play like children. And they’re wise.
Alan Steinfeld
Isn’t it true that a lot of Africans are tempted by what they see in the West and in America and want to like let go of their old ways and become more modernized?
Esu
Wait. Say that again?
Alan Steinfeld
I’m saying don’t a lot of the young Africans see what we have here in America and wanna forget their old ways and wanna become modern?
Ena
Yeah. And we want ’em, because we wanna record, especially the elders. I’ve had the privilege of being blessed by two elders that were over a hundred years old and both of them are now gone.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. So the youth of Africa isn’t totally, doesn’t seem interested in what the elders have to offer.
Ena
Yeah. And if it’s not recorded, it’s gonna be lost, just like it was lost in this country when the white people came and blew everything to bits. That’s what’s gonna happen over there with modern technology. And it needs to be recorded, because it may be the only thing that’s left.
Esu
Alan, the youth of the indigenous cultures are being very drawn to Western society, Hollywood and the cities. And that’s why people like us, white folk from Maine and from Queens, New York, are being called into the bush of Africa because this is our passion, and this is what we’re willing to do. And someone has got to do it because, you know what, if the wisdom of the elders and of African spiritual traditions is not brought into the modern world, we won’t be here in a few generations.
Alan Steinfeld
Right.
Esu
We need their wisdom, their connection with nature, their connection with Spirit, in order to survive.
Alan Steinfeld
So what can we do? Tell us about the initiative so we can help preserve that wisdom.
Ena
Well, we need to take a deep look at ourselves. We’re sitting here on Fire Island and we are sitting in garbage. There’s garbage all along the boardwalks, there’s garbage all over the beach, and if you go into the ocean you can look around and realize that you are swimming with garbage. I’ve had plastic bags wrap themselves around my ankles three times in the last two days.
Alan Steinfeld
I see.
Ena
And, you know, and it’s because we’ve lost what those people are still holding so dear, that we’ll also be lost to them.
Alan Steinfeld
So what can we do? So we have to clean up our own planet, is that that’s what you’re saying really?
Ena
Well, yeah, simplify. Simplify. You know that the biggest offender on the beach here, the very biggest offender, and I found a bird carcass. Bones only. Actually it was a bird skeleton, not a carcass. A bird skeleton wrapped up in ribbons and balloons and stuff like that. And I wish I had kept it because I would have taken a picture. So that I could show it, even go along the beach and say this is what we’re doing. The biggest offender is balloons.
Esu
What is it?
Ena
Softbees, softbees.
Alan Steinfeld
What are you saying?
Ena
There’s a balloon here from some big department store and I want to send it, or actually I’d really like to carry it, and bring it up to the highest of the high there, and say you have to stop doing balloons because it’s killing our ocean life.
Alan Steinfeld
Wait. The balloons, like rubber balloons getting into the ocean is killing the fish?
Ena
Yeah. Of course it is. Hang on a second, I need to give a reality check here. Ena and I have been picking garbage up on the beach in Fire Island for the last, you know, several weeks.
Alan Steinfeld
And…
Ena
Yeah, I’ve been picking up garbage too as I walk along the beach too.
Esu
Right. We’ve been horrified by all the garbage. And a couple years ago, up until a couple years ago, the government was using the ocean as a dump site, a garbage dump, and now when there’s a southwest wind, the garbage blows ashore. So not only is the ocean reflecting our own culture back to us by washing our own garbage ashore, but people are also littering. And as we’ve been picking up garbage along the beach, everyday more than anything else that we see, bizarrely enough, is balloons. I mean, and it’s not like balloons are the evil of society, but it’s just such a metaphor and a symptom and, you know, it’s almost like, wow, maybe we should outlaw balloons because there are just all over the beach. It’s crazy.
Alan Steinfeld
The balloons from people on the beach you’re saying?
Esu
No, they’re probably drifting off of the mainland. It might be some topic of Africa here.
Alan Steinfeld
Huh. Well, I mean, I think, you know, we should definitely be more responsible as people about our own garbage. I mean…
Esu
That’s right. And that’s what Ena was saying about this company, Sotheby’s, that, you know, is obviously putting out balloons with their logo on it to advertise to themselves, and their stuff is washing up on the damn beach.
Ena
Yeah, it was it’s awful.
Esu
Yeah.
Ena
And not only that, you know, like even since we’ve been here on Fire Island. Last night a little girl came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy some, what are they called, glow sticks? And they’re pieces of plastic that hold some kind of liquid that gets neon when you slap it.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh yeah, that’s probably poison and toxic anyway.
Ena
Yeah. And not only that, you know, so this little girl came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy one and I said, no thank you. And she said, well you could sell them. And I said, but I would rather not sell them. And she said, you don’t like them, do you? And I said, no, I don’t, because they end up in the garbage in less than two days. And they also end up on the ground because kids leave them because they’re not being taught respect. About those kinds of things, I mean it goes beyond littering. It goes all the way back to stop making the waste to begin with. Why do we need this shit?
Alan Steinfeld
Well we don’t need a lot of stuff that’s out there, you know.
Ena
Yeah. It’s consumerism.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, well that’s how the corporations make money, you know.
Esu
Okay, so Alan, if I can get back to your question about our initiatives, you know, we’ve got Ena and I have a lot of ambitious plans to the Barka Foundation. And I’d like to also make a plea for help and financial support, you know, if you’re interested, if your listeners are interested in what we’re saying.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, definitely tell them how to get in touch with you, tell them what you need, and let’s see if anyone.
Esu
Well I’ll give you a phone number right now if people wanna call us directly. It’s…
Ena
And your email.
Esu
It’s 413-446-7466. And you can email us at hp, as in Henry Potter, Harry Potter, channel, c-h-a-n-n-e-l, at yahoo.com.
Alan Steinfeld
HP channel at yahoo.com?
Esu
Yeah. And tell people a little bit about what they would be contacting you for and what to do.
Ena
Well, you know, in terms of the issues of what we’re talking about right here, indigenous culture in Africa and elsewhere around the world is truly in jeopardy of being wiped out within the next 50 years. With the encroachment of Westernization. And we’re seeing it like up close and personal in Burkina Faso when we go out there and work in the bush. So there are a couple of things, there are several things that we’re doing. Number one, as I mentioned, I’m a former television producer. Ena also has a just a natural gift with a camera in her hands. We are filming and photographing indigenous life in the bush of Burkina Faso and now in Ghana, and we are in the process of creating television programs and documentary films to educate people and create awareness about what’s happening. So it’s not just your typical National Geographic, okay, here’s what life is like in the bush. It’s all that, but it’s also a look at ourselves, a look at our own culture, a look at the collision that’s happening right now between modernization and indigenous.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, do you have some of this stuff up on YouTube that people can see right now?
Esu
Not yet. I’m really kind of just getting out of the gate here. And there’s only two of us and I don’t do computers. We, you know, and here’s where, here’s a plea for help, you know, we don’t even have the money right now for a website. I have a lot of web experience, and I’m not gonna just throw up a slapdash one-pager. We really wanna put up a very professional site, and it’s gonna require some, some funding. Or some help if somebody can do it for us. Right. So you need money to help make people aware of the African spirituality that were that’s disappearing fast. That’s right. That’s really in jeopardy right now. And for instance, you know, we have friends in a beach community called Kokrobite in Ghana. Now this is almost like a Ghanaian equivalent to Fire Island, if you will. Okay. This is a bit of a tourist destination. It’s filled with artists and musicians, and Rastafari.
Ena
Master carvers.
Esu
And master drummers. And they drum and they sing and they dance on the beach all night long. And they have their fishermen there that have been doing it since the beginning of time. And everybody, most people just live on the beach. They don’t even have a house.
Ena
It’s a fishing village. It’s a fishing village that has become a bit of a tourist town. Not like we know it though.
Esu
And the problem is, you know, there’s a hotel and sort of a patina of, you know, gloss. But you turn the corner around the hotel, and you see a town that is in a more dire state of poverty than anything that Ena and I had seen in Burkina Faso.
Ena
It got me, and I have never been freaked out by anything like that. But there was so much waste. In such a small space when you’re out in the bush. We’re talking about feces. We’re talking about, you know, excrement.
Esu
Yeah. So they don’t have sewers there.
Ena
They were just sitting in it practically. And it was really frightening. We were frightened about disease. We were frightened about the health of people. And Ghana is this incredibly wealthy country. Okay. Ghana is a bastion of Westernization in Africa. It is one of the shining lights of progress. However, they’re just imitating Western culture like, you know, making all the same mistakes and throwing out their indigenous culture in the process. You know. And so, we’re seeing all this private money come into the coast of Ghana, buying up land, privatizing the land, and this, this indigenous fishing village does not even know what is about to hit them. Ena has spent 30 years in Maine and saw…
Esu
I saw it happen in Maine.
Ena
She saw the coast of Maine become unaffordable for the local fishermen of Maine who had lived there for generations. Right. So one of our initiatives, one of the many, is to create a land trust in Kokrobite to preserve as much of an area of beachfront property as we can, and put it in a land trust that would be owned by the village. And also the money would go for drilling water, drilling wells, because right now they have no source of water.
Esu
These are huge projects for just the two of you to basically need some help with.
Ena
Well, is there water there? And he said, oh yeah, there’s water right down there. He says we just, you know, nobody’s got the money to get to it.
Esu
Wow. I always thought the government, don’t they want to put up like.
Ena
If they don’t want to they don’t want.
Esu
But it’s not, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re poor, but they’re not poor. There’s oil out there, isn’t there? They’re extraordinary. Yeah. But the government is not interested in helping their own people and preserving their own traditions?
Ena
The government is corrupt, just like every government around the planet.
Esu
And naturally, as I’ve been saying Alan, the government is interested in having Ghana be held up as a shining example of progress. And they view the, you know, old ways as needing to be… As being outdated and really needing to be overthrown. And, you know, we’re looking at a much more holistic framework here where things have to be held together and the modernization needs to occur in balance with nature, in balance, and in communication with Spirit. So that, you know, we don’t deplete our natural resources and pollute our bodies of water and, you know, leave homeless on the street when, you know, the very wealthy are, you know, living off the cream of the world. It’s just…
Ena
Well, it’s a global problem. It’s not just Africa, it’s everywhere, you know. That’s right. It’s a world view. It’s a lifestyle that’s gotten corrupt. Yes. And out of touch with the source of life. So.
Esu
So, Alan, you know, in terms of what your show is about and what you were saying earlier about, you know, what got us into this work and into this path, the spiritual work, the indigenous technology, the indigenous spiritual technology, Malidoma is reclaiming that word technology, and putting it to ancient principles and protocols and ways of working, you know, that that are beyond understanding in sort of a left-brain way.
Alan Steinfeld
Right.
Esu
You know, magic is what other people have called all sorts of other things in the past, and he’s taking it and using it and he’s reclaiming it. And my own experience, and with that kind of work, has helped me to realize that if I am going to help change the world in any way, this is it. This is it for me. I really felt a resonance and a certain aptitude to this work. And I realize that if Western culture is going to change, it needs to adopt some of the very basic principles that are found in the basis of this work. Sacredness, the sacredness of that which is sacred, you know, respect. Which connects us to the source of life. That’s what I define sacred as. Listening to the wisdom of the elders and also of the children, honoring community, and sustaining community so that your own greatness can come out in order to serve the community, to serve the whole. It’s the community that allows one’s greatness to truly come forth.
Alan Steinfeld
I agree. I would love to promote Some’s work here on the East Coast anyway.
Esu
Oh, fabulous.
Ena
Is he finally coming passed here? He is, he is sacrificed, he’s, he’s a sacrifice. He’s, he’s like.
Esu
You know, fully on board with, with, you know, fulfilling his contract this time around. It’s, it’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing.
Alan Steinfeld
Is he coming back to New York at all?
Esu
He’s, he, there’s actually a training that he, a two-year training that we just did the first part of in May. And the second part for this year is coming up this week, on Wednesday.
Ena
Ena and I are helping to facilitate. Where is that going to be held? If, if people are interested, they can. It’s off the charts. You can go. I’ll give you a website. Yeah. Please give some websites and more numbers. Yeah, it’s www.eastcoastvillage. E-a-s-t-v-i-l-l-a-g-e. Eastcoastvillage.org.
Alan Steinfeld
And where is that taking place? Where is the actual workshop going to take place?
Ena
It takes place at the abode of the message in New Lebanon, New York. Oh, upstate New York. So Some is going to be there? Yeah. Is he coming into the city at all? He does. He just spoke recently in the East Village.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh, I wish I knew that. I would like to interview him for this show and also my television show I do.
Ena
Oh, that would be fabulous.
Alan Steinfeld
So when is he gonna be back in New York City?
Esu
You know what, his schedule is probably listed on malidoma.com.
Alan Steinfeld
Mala, how do you spell that?
Esu
M-A-L-I-D-O-M-A.com. And I’ll give you a book reference as well. His autobiography is an absolutely thrill… Oh, I have it actually. I think I do have it.
Ena
Oh, then read it. Read it.
Alan Steinfeld
But I live in the East Village, I wish I knew about it, because I do wanna meet him, and he sounds… So he is really the source of all this knowledge, and has preserved the traditional African wisdom.
Esu
Yes, he has. Malidoma has a foot in two worlds. I mean he’s a true world. He’s got a foot in the spirit world and a foot in the manifest world. He also has a foot in the indigenous world and a foot in the modern world. He has a PhD from from the Sorbonne and Brandeis University, and he also is, you know, was initiated in his in the traditional style of of the Dagara in Burkina Faso, and he’s devoted his life to creating communities around the world, you know, that practice this kind of work. To help bring us back into balance. Well, I definitely want to talk to him and meet him, and I think you guys are doing great work promoting what this spiritual knowledge is, and and and trying to do something huge like save the planet. Yeah, it’s a big wake-up call. You know, I wanna say one thing, Alan, that as amazing as Malidoma is, and we sing his praises and we give thanks to him every day in our prayers, you know, we are truly on our own path. Ena and I are on our own path with this work. And Malidoma has opened up the gateway for us to Africa and to African spirituality. And to indige- to the indigenous worlds, for me. Ena was already working with Native American traditions and Peruvian ayahuasca. And you know, the Barka Foundation has an intention to work with indigenous cultures worldwide. Right now, however, we are very focused in Africa. We were recently given land in the bush of Burkina. And one of our top priority initiatives is to raise money to build a traditional compound in the bush so that we can. And to drill a well. So that we can really begin to immerse ourselves and other Westerners in this very different world so that we can learn from them and so that we can bring the gifts that we have from our culture to to them in their culture without destroying their culture, because that’s very easy to do.
Alan Steinfeld
Where is Burkina? What country is that?
Ena
What’s that? What country is Burkina in?
Esu
Burkina is Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is a country. It is just north of Ghana. The capital is Ouagadougou. It used to be called Upper Volta. And it is an amazing country. And Africa is an amazing continent.
Alan Steinfeld
So the Barka, B-A-R-K-A initiatives is your kind of project to… and you gave me a sheet, you want to build this traditional compound, you want to raise money for documentaries, you want to create a preservation of land trust, and you also want to create a conference which will bring a lot of indigenous people from all over the world together.
Ena
Mmhmm.
Esu
And connect the dots, bringing people, organizations, together to help create change. You know, this may sound like a lot that we we want we’re doing all these things right now and we need help. We are putting out a call for, you know, people to join us.
Alan Steinfeld
And Alan, is there a way that people can contact you, and that you can contact us if uh… Definitely, but give your information again and then I’ll give mine. Okay. Okay, your contact Ina and Esu, what do they do?
Esu
413-446-7466. And you can also email us… 74 what was the last part? 7466.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay, this program will also be archived, so people can come to the BBSRadio.com archives, look under New Realities, on the state, what is it, August 7th, and they could, you know, hear what you’re doing by just listening to the archive. So that’s good. Um, I just wanted to ask Ena, um, if there’s a difference between the Native American spirituality and traditions and the Africans. Are there specific differences?
Ena
Um, they’re very similar. They’re very similar because it’s… It’s connected to the earth. But is there any difference that you see? Was there, like, any subtle differences that separate the two? What popped into your head? What popped into my head was how many people, when they step outside the door of their house, understand or have any kind of connection to what they’re stepping into?
Alan Steinfeld
You mean the world. You mean the natural world.
Ena
The birds and the bees and the sky and the sun and the rain and the bugs and the leaves and the wind and the water. Well, most people are so disconnected from nature that they just, they nature is this huge inconvenience. And that’s how those people live. And the Native Americans here, you know, I ask forgiveness from their ancestors because, you know, we wrecked them and we kind of did that in Africa but they’ve still been able to hold on quite a bit. And um. And they’re still holding on here too.
Alan Steinfeld
Well we have to change the way we live completely because nature is just a huge inconvenience for a lot of people. They think nature is out there.
Ena
Oh that’s incomprehensible to me. But it is, you know, people think they’re separate from nature, that’s why they. Nature is the answer, you know, if people pay how many gazillion dollars to go to therapy and all they’ve gotta do is go outside.
Alan Steinfeld
I totally agree with you. So we have to change the fundamental way people are thinking, you know, that’s why I call this program New Realities because it’s a way to show people there’s other levels of reality, other ways of looking at the world.
Esu
And we have to stop brainwashing our children. We are the change that we want to see in the world.
Alan Steinfeld
Well you guys definitely are seeing you out there today on the dock and with what you’re doing and your shaved heads and all that. You definitely seem to be the change. Well so are you. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking to you and and maybe a lot of the ears that are listening.
Esu
So do you wanna just sing one. And some music, you have there from from Africa? Uh, I would need to… Oh we need to switch phones. Switch phones to do that, so…
Alan Steinfeld
You could switch phones and I’ll just, I’ll just wrap up here a little bit and you tell me when you’re ready and I’ll just say, this has been New Realities with Alan Steinfeld. If you wanna reach me, email me at newrealities at earthlink.net or check my website, newrealities.tv or newrealitiestv.com. I’m on every, right now, Tuesday night at 7.30 pm West Coast time, 10.30 pm East Coast time. I also do a television show in Manhattan and also on mnn.org, that’s Manhattan Neighborhood Network dot org, that is every Monday night at 9 p.m. on channel 57, or you can look at mnn.org and click on channel 57 if you have Windows Media Player. I’ve been talking to Ena and Esu of who are currently working on initiatives to preserve African wisdom, traditional African wisdom in Burkina Faso, which is a country in West Africa, and they work with their spiritual teacher Some, who wrote a book called Of Water and the Spirit. Right, beautiful, beautiful book. It’s an incredible… He seems like a beautiful, beautiful guy, I mean I would definitely, definitely want to have some contact with him.
Esu
Alright, so I’m gonna take you through a little musical journey of West Africa, just got, I don’t know, 10, 15 songs here, I’m just gonna kind of rifle through them.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, we only have about 5 minutes, so just play those songs and then we’ll just kind of say goodbye. Let’s play that, play like, one of your best there.
Esu
Okay, well, I’m gonna, can I jump around and play little parts of… You’re wasting your time. Here we go. Okay, jump around. Yeah.
Ena
So Alan, I just want to say that um, I know how blessed we are for being able to speak with each other this evening.
Alan Steinfeld
Thank you, thank you, I’ll see you out on the beach this week for sure. Okay. Tell them to put the phone closer to the computer.
Esu
These are friends of ours.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay, put the phone closer to the speaker.
Ena
And they told us, it is the music, the music, the music.
Alan Steinfeld
Hang up one of the receivers, too. Yes, yeah.
Ena
A big thank you to Malidoma Patrice Some for being a shining light of truth. He’s been living in the West and teaching indigenous African spirit technology and opening a gateway for truth to all of us.
Alan Steinfeld
I’ll try.
Esu
We are here in Burkina Faso, in Dobrous, out past Fala, near the Niger border. It is evening after dinner, and I’m going to hand the mic over to Buon Ami. This is a spirit man we work with.
Alan Steinfeld
We have to wrap it up now, just. This is Alan Steinfeld for New Realities Radio on bbsradio.com. Thank you for listening. I’ve been talking to Ena and Esu of the Barka initiative and playing their music and talking about spirituality in West Africa. So, thank you for listening, and I will see you next week.