To link ancient and ageless healing wisdom with our modern methods of curing.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "To link ancient and ageless healing wisdom with our modern methods of curing."

Cuthbert Oliver
5 years ago
Views:

To link ancient and ageless healing wisdom with our modern methods of curing. Western medicine has brought us many boons but there are glaring deficiencies as well.

1 To link ancient and ageless healing wisdom with our modern methods of curing. Western medicine has brought us many boons but there are glaring deficiencies as well. We focus too much on the intellectual, scientific and methodological and too little on the intuitive, receptive, artistic, compassionate and mystical. Though masters of technology we are impoverished in the psycho-spiritual healing realms. Going back to our root or core self with the help of ancient African wisdom gives us not only an understanding of our origins but a clear perspective of a new and at the same time very old paradigm of healing unconfined to the space-time continuum. Inward Bound Foundation exists to recreate in its entirety the original indigenous medicine and to restore these time-honored principles by researching plant medicines, sophisticated African divining techniques and the power of the dream time. Any healing modality linked to nature and our primal selves is likely to be most "true and undistorted by the ravages of our modern predicament. Inward Bound Foundation is dedicated to making these timeless values available to the West. 1

Tshisimane Healing Center is located in the Tropic of Capricorn in the

The center was originally founded in 2002 by Dr.

embraces both Indigenous and Western medicine.

, a foundation and nonprofit, nongovernment 501(3)C organization.

Tshisimane comprises approximately 3000 acres of land in the Soutpansberg

range than in the whole of Canada. The land is spectacularly beautiful.

CONFERENCE & MEDITATION AREA HEALING HUT LODGE EXTERIOR Currently,

2 Tshisimane Healing Center is located in the Tropic of Capricorn in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The center was originally founded in 2002 by Dr. David Cumes, a Santa Barbara surgeon, to provide a healing center that embraces both Indigenous and Western medicine. The center is formally a part of Inward Bound Healing Journeys Inc., a foundation and nonprofit, nongovernment 501(3)C organization. Donations are tax deductible. Tshisimane comprises approximately 3000 acres of land in the Soutpansberg Mountains, a central lodge and meeting place, healing area, clinic and other support buildings. The center is selfsustaining with regard to water, sewage (septic tanks) and electricity (solar.) There is a greater diversity of plants and trees on this small mountain range than in the whole of Canada. The land is spectacularly beautiful. LODGE PORCH LODGE EXTERIOR LODGE INTERIOR CONFERENCE & MEDITATION AREA CONFERENCE & MEDITATION AREA HEALING HUT LODGE EXTERIOR Currently, support for Tshisimane has been provided mainly by Dr. Cumes and a few individuals who are interested in aiding the development of the center. Direct Relief International in addition has provided significant support in the form of Western medicines, equipment and supplies. They are prepared to give ongoing support. YOGA ON THE MOUNTAIN 2

Hlongwani (local traditional healer) The primary goal of Tshisimane Healing Center is to validate, practice and

and use plant medicines for their treatment.

Western medicine is very good at curing the physical body with modern technology.

than ours. This work is already in progress.

Africa and abroad have reaped the benefits of indigenous healing wisdom.

plants while respecting the intellectual property rights of the healers.

3 Hlongwani (local traditional healer) The primary goal of Tshisimane Healing Center is to validate, practice and research ancient indigenous healing techniques and bridge these ancient methods with current ideas of integrative medicine. These primal methods employ divination and dream telling for diagnosis of physical and psychospiritual maladies and use plant medicines for their treatment. Since Tshisimane is in the tropics the reservoir for these plant medicines is huge. Western medicine is very good at curing the physical body with modern technology. However, when it comes to healing the psycho-spiritual dimensions of illness indigenous methods are much better than ours. This work is already in progress. Local peoples have benefited from the Western clinic operating out of Tshisimane and Westerners from South Africa and abroad have reaped the benefits of indigenous healing wisdom. In participation with the indigenous healers Tshisimane plans to build an extensive knowledge of the local plants while respecting the intellectual property rights of the healers. Priceless indigenous knowledge is being lost as the older sangomas who worked with the full healing range of biodiversity die out. 3 Array of indigenous medicines Amaryllis (ancestor plant) Tshisimane plans to establish a program for the preservation of the plants that have proved effective for healing for eons. This will be a longterm program dedicated to preserving and cataloguing plants used by the indigenous healers. Associated with this effort will be a research program organized to identify the plants, their location and availability and their amenability to being reproduced in a controlled environment. Researchers are invited to visit and examine the plants for potential benefit for diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

SANTA BARBARA HEALING HUT house for as long as the healing requires. The existing bath is used for healing with cleansing plant medicines. Dreaming is also a vital aspect of the healing.

Take from there and bring to here. The message in Dave s dream could not have been clearer or more direct.

) His vision: Bring the healing traditions of Africa to people who have only known allopathic medicine. Dave has complied by establishing sangoma healing in his hometown, Santa Barbara.

4 SANTA BARBARA HEALING HUT house for as long as the healing requires. The existing bath is used for healing with cleansing plant medicines. Dreaming is also a vital aspect of the healing. This is an integral part of the process in South Africa where guests stay over to dream and come into contact with their deepest inner needs, much like the Aesclepian temples of old. Take from there and bring to here. The message in Dave s dream could not have been clearer or more direct. An accomplished surgeon with a busy practice in Santa Barbara California, Dave is also trained and initiated as a South African sangoma (indigenous healer.) His vision: Bring the healing traditions of Africa to people who have only known allopathic medicine. Dave has complied by establishing sangoma healing in his hometown, Santa Barbara. As instructed, he has built a healing hut in his garden where divining and healing rituals have been given to dozens of clients. Dave lives in a small studio in the back of the property and is using the adjacent house for healing much as he has designed the center in South Africa. Healing is no longer restricted to out patient treatment and clients are able to stay in the There are medicines for every psycho-spiritual eventuality such as good luck, dreams, getting in touch with one s spirit guides, getting rid of negative energies etc. It is difficult to transport these from South Africa to California so Dave is developing a similar repertoire of healing plants gleaned from the Santa Barbara chaparral that could be used locally. Native American healing supports the same concepts, e.g. burning sage for spiritual cleansing and mugwort for dreams. These plants serve as messengers to the spirit world or passwords requesting a particular type of healing for a distinct plant medicine. They work at an energetic level, though for some physical ailments the benefits may be HEALING HUT AT TSHISIMANE 4 CONSTRUCTION OF RITUAL BATH pharmacological as well. This is part of the research at both healing centers.

5 Dr. David Cumes, MD, Founder and Principal and Board Chairman Dr. Cumes will act as the leader of the effort. Mr. Gene R. Kelley, Director, Consultant for Human Factors Engineering Mr. Kelley will act as a managing Director for the non-medical aspects of the Program. Don Lubach, Ph.D., Employment Adviser and Coordinator, UCSB Dr. Lubach will provide support for developing the staff requirements and selecting scientists to assist with the plant research. Inward Bound Healing Journeys 1114 Del Mar, Santa Barbara, CA tel, fx, e.mail cumevac@juno.com web site or LODGE: INSIDE & OUT GORGE WITH HARRY POTTER FOREST 5

Little in Dave Cumes upbringing could have predicted the life he would follow after he turned 40. Trained as an M.D. and then a surgeon in South Africa, Dave emigrated to California with his family in 1975 to begin a residency in urological surgery at Stanford Medical Center.

6 Little in Dave Cumes upbringing could have predicted the life he would follow after he turned 40. Trained as an M.D. and then a surgeon in South Africa, Dave emigrated to California with his family in 1975 to begin a residency in urological surgery at Stanford Medical Center. After serving on the faculty at Stanford and spending a year in Seattle, Dave finally settled into private practice in Santa Barbara. Once the practice began to be successful Dave returned to South Africa to fulfill a dream he had as a child. He wanted to spend time with the last of the hunter-gatherers of the continent the Kalahari Bushmen. Dave s quest began after this extended visit to the Bushmen in 1987 where he experienced their intimacy with nature and felt their untainted spirit. Here he was able to restore his relationship with wilderness in terms of what he had experienced in the Kalahari and what he termed wilderness rapture. He began to formulate a theory around the use of wilderness for spiritual practice and healing which he integrated into both his yoga practice and his medicine. He distilled this into a philosophy of the how-to s of wilderness rapture and wrote two books on healing, the first based on using nature as medicine, and the second (The Spirit of Healing,) the general principles of what it is that makes us heal. After writing Inner Passages Outer Journeys he founded Inward Bound and began to take people into remote wilderness areas for restoration and selftransformation. Inner Passages Outer Journeys was the theoretical side of how this worked, and the Inward Bound trips were the experiential part of the philosophy. He continued his surgical practice with renewed equanimity and balanced his life with yoga and periodic trips into the outback. On trips to Peru he was exposed to curanderos or shamans and began to realize they had deep knowledge of healing that in spite of all his medical training he was not privy to. When he went back to South Africa and began to consult sangomas about the logistics of upcoming Inward Bound journeys, they HEALING POLARITIES OF NATURE EMBRACED BY INWARD BOUND - painted by Paul Cumes would throw the bones and give good practical advice. However, in addition they would invariably look at him and add, the bones, they say you should be doing this work; the bones say you should be doing African medicine; your grandmother s bone is telling you to be initiated; your ancestors want you back here in Africa! After the sixth such reading, all of them given by different sangomas, none of whom knew each other, he was still not committed. After a couple of years, out of frustration for his reticence, the ancestors revealed themselves directly to him through a woman sangoma who went into a trance. They told him in no uncertain terms that he was ignoring his destiny and needed to be initiated. After this powerful revelation he relented. He found an elderly Zulu sangoma in Swaziland who agreed to teach him. P.H. Mntshali threw the bones and there was no dispute. The training began on the cusp of the millennium. Since that time his life has changed profoundly. The journey which he undertook chose him, he did not choose it. 6

Dave was told by the bones and various expert sangomas going into trance that his grandmother on his mother s side was the one who would help him become a different kind of healer.

He was instructed to build an ndumba (healing hut) in California where the THE BONES ancestors could feel at home and assist him.

Once he started the work, his incessant migraines, an indication of the ancestor sickness, went away.

He has often wondered why he was going back to invest so much time and money in South Africa when many others were trying to leave and when he was perfectly happy living in California.

7 Dave was told by the bones and various expert sangomas going into trance that his grandmother on his mother s side was the one who would help him become a different kind of healer. Moreover, there was a foreign spirit, a black woman who had been a sangoma and a friend of his maternal grandmother. She wanted to be the guiding spirit for the divining bones. He was instructed to build an ndumba (healing hut) in California where the THE BONES ancestors could feel at home and assist him. The bones were going to be his main tool for a new kind of healing, and Mntshali who was a master, was to teach him. Once he started the work, his incessant migraines, an indication of the ancestor sickness, went away. After being initiated Dave bought 3000 acres in the Soutpansberg Mountains in the far north of South Africa where he has built Tshisimane (The Source,) an indigenous based healing center. He has often wondered why he was going back to invest so much time and money in South Africa when many others were trying to leave and when he was perfectly happy living in California. The fact that he dreamed the property long before he first saw it made it clear to him that this was the only thing for him to do. Moreover, there were several dreams over a period of more than 10 years that confirmed the ancestors had led him to Tshisimane. These included one of a house with walls and no roof and that was how the homestead looked when he first saw it. The most seminal dream was in brilliant technicolor of a huge mesa with spectacular rock formations forming a sheer cliff wall. Tshisimane has the identical appearance. 7

Complete director s quarters, conference and meditation

Canvas roll-downs for healing hut (see photo 2) Solar power

improve existing data base and expand ongoing research and

DIRECTOR S HOUSE, CONFERENCE & MEDITATION AREA (INCOMPLETE)

Satellite hookup for communication New 4x4 vehicle

both locations Repair rustic bush camp for visiting

8 Complete director s quarters, conference and meditation area (see photo 1) Furnishings and audiovisual equipment Canvas roll-downs for healing hut (see photo 2) Solar power for buildings Medicine garden and work area Modify and improve existing data base and expand ongoing research and library 1. DIRECTOR S HOUSE, CONFERENCE & MEDITATION AREA (INCOMPLETE) Fix roads and develop and tree tag additional trails Satellite hookup for communication New 4x4 vehicle Operation costs including travel and clerical support in both locations Repair rustic bush camp for visiting researchers and conferees (see photos below) 2. HEALING HUT (WALLS INCOMPLETE) FOUR VIEWS OF THE RUSTIC BUSH CAMP WHICH NEEDS RENOVATION 8

ENCOUNTER THE HEALING POWER OF THE AMAZON

ENCOUNTER THE HEALING POWER OF THE AMAZON The Sápara people invite you to the NAKU Clinic for a healing retreat to experience the transformative power of Amazonian plant medicine. 1 Amazonian Healing Retreat: