In the previous episode we explored the historical context of African architecture and how it informed how people structured their lives from a cultural and spiritual perspective. In this episode we now delve deep into the origins of township architecture. How it came about. The intention behind it and how the world it created shaped our cultural and spiritual identity. Let’s get into it. 

I spoke to Gogo Moyo about how she dealt with the paradigm shifts that she faced in her journey as a Healer, a Gobela as well as one of the most prominent public figures within the spirituality space.

So I spoke to Gogo Jebhu who spent years in the corporate space and has since transitioned from being an HR practitioner to now being a full-time Gobela.

I encourage you to make time to listen to the previous 3 episodes to get a better understanding of how this topic has evolved. In this episode, I'm going to be speaking to Buhlebezwe Siwani.

She is a healer and an artist who works predominantly in the medium of performance and installations. She was raised in Johannesburg and due to the nomadic nature of her upbringing, she has also lived in the EC and KZN.  She now lives and works between Amsterdam and Cape Town.

If you are a black South African who is or has been living abroad for some time how do you define who you are?

To get some perspective on this I spoke to a few South Africans who are currently living in other countries to try to understand what their lived experience has been in how being away affects how they see and engage with their sense of identity.

I figured that this topic would need more than one person and also cannot be tackled from a strictly spiritual perspective so it will be a mini-series talking to different people from different countries.

The first person I will be talking to is Lerato Shadi.

Lerato Shadi is a visual and performance artist whose work challenges common assumptions to critique Western notions of history and make visible that which is invisible or overlooked. She works across video, performance, and installations.

Lerato was Born in Mahikeng, South Africa and now lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

I spoke to Banele Rewo who is an entrepreneur, author and content creator who has a particular interest in the psychology behind the township economy.

I spoke to Gogo Khanyakude who is a healer, a gobela, and someone that I believe is one of the most important voices in our generation when it comes to the modern interpretation of African spirituality.

Right now the vast majority of us are going through a lot. Socially, our communities are a mess. Economical ku wow. Relationships...haai ke they are crying.
So I spoke to Gogo Mahlodi to because I wanted to know how do we define what is a spiritual setback and what is just a normal challenge of life.

To kick off this little series, we are starting with exploring tarot card reading. Among many other questions, we will be asking What is tarot? Where does it come from? It is based on any spiritual belief? and what exactly do you get from a tarot card reading?

For this, I will be speaking to Bruja Thembi who is a tarot card reader and she will help to understand whether or not you incorporate tarot card reading into African spirituality?

The world that we live in today is increasingly global. Through the internet, there are virtually no boundaries stopping us from being influenced by many other beliefs and religions around the world.
This ease of access to different beliefs has meant that we have, whether consciously or subconsciously, started incorporating aspects of other practices into our own.

So in this episode what I would like to know is possible to practice different spiritual beliefs at the same time and what would that do for our spiritual journey.

I hooked up with Mkhulu Makhanya who has a wealth of knowledge about different beliefs and he'll be helping us break it down.

Part of the challenge with this process is that you are coming in with a lot of misconceptions, a lot of confusion and, to be quite honest, you are downright scared because you don't know what to expect, you don't know how you are going to feel, or if it will help at all.

So I Nkhono Refilwe Ke Badimo who will guide us through the nitty-gritties of consulting

For many of us, we grew up with a distinct aversion towards African Indigenous medicine, regardless of what form it takes or even how helpful it can be.

In Part 3 of the Practicing African Spirituality for Beginners, uMkhulu Mahlalentabeni takes us through the very basics of Understanding Umuthi.

In Part 2 of "Practicing African Spirituality for Beginners" Gogo Jebhu takes us through a deeper understanding of what umsamo is as physical structure and what it represents spiritually.

Personally, I have always found myself struggling with the information that I read or see online and how to structure it into something that is not confusing. So I thought maybe it can help if you and I can get guidance from Healers in terms of how to go about creating a structure for practicing African Spirituality in our own lives.

I've put together this short series that focuses on Practicing African Spirituality for Beginners.

In this first part of the series, we're going to be looking into Understanding Your Ancestral Lineage.

To take us through this I contacted Gogo Mahlodi who will help to break down Who are your ancestors, what is their role in your life and how do you actually get to know them and develop a relationship with them.
An amazing human being who is all about Throwing bones and banishing demons, Vuyiswa Xekatwane, also known as Gogo Mahlodi, is a writer, healer, and diviner based in Joburg. She is deeply intentional about healing, deeply devoted to the alchemic genius of blackness.

Please keep an eye on her socials to get updates on her upcoming workshop

This episode also unpacks what happens historically when two conflicting beliefs crash into each other and we look into African Spiritual aspects such as Isithunywa came to be and what they actually say about Christianity.

Then there are also African Spiritual Healing modalities that use aspects of Christianity within their practice, such as isithunywa. How are these conflicting beliefs coexisting and functioning together?

I spoke to one of the most insightful elders that I know, Gogo Aubrey Matshiqi to help unpack this complex and deeply divisive topic.

In this episode it is just me and you hanging out and exploring the mindboggling concepts that impact on how we engage with our beliefs.

Today we are at yet another technological crossroads this time brought on specifically by the cellphone and the internet. We are now trying to figure out how to use these tools in navigating our beliefs and gain a better understanding of our spirituality while dealing with the dangers that these tools pose to our mental health.

Who better to talk to than the original Digital Sangoma herself, Gogo Moyo

This topic is a two part series and in this particular episode to get a better understanding of how social media works I spoke to  Katleho Bontle Motingoe.

Katleho works in  Digital Marketing, out-of-home advertising, and Branding Building and she has years' worth of experience in the digital media space.

The reality is also that many of us live in urban areas and cities, this creates a different dynamic to the relationship between land and cultural spirituality, I would like to understand how we navigate this dynamic.

I spoke to Gogo Thato Tshukudu who is not only a Healer who carries vast knowledge in relation to the spiritual nature of land, as Operations Manager at South African National Parks, it is also literally her job to help to care for some of our most important sacred sites.

I spoke to Mkhulu Makhanya to hear his thoughts on how we can try to approach the history and function of our beliefs.

My question is, so what?

So what that everyone knows someone who has gone ephehlweni? Or that there is indumba on nearly every street?

What will all of that do for us as a people? Will help with the surging rate of unemployment? Will it reduce the high number of school dropouts? Will it reduce the number of black women and young girls who are abused, raped and whose dead bodies litter shallow graves on the outskirts of our collective psyche?

What will the death of our culture mean? Is our culture even relevant in any shape or form?

To try to unpack these complex issues I went to speak to Prof Pitika Ntuli.
He is a sculptor, poet, writer, and academic and he is also a Healer and an expert in African indigenous knowledge systems.

I figured that the best person to speak to on this topic is Nkholo Seanego who is not only a medical doctor training to become a cardiothoracic surgeon but he is also a Sangoma training to become a revolutionary. I am hoping that the good Dr. Sangoma, as he is affectionately known, can share his insights on how he navigates the realities of these two worlds that seem perpetually at war with each other.

I spoke to Gogo Aubrey Matshiqi to try to understand where these two elements intercept each other and what happens when you separate them.

Yet the idea of spirituality in parenting is something that is very rarely spoken about. Very often speaking about the spirit of a child, and how it relates to the parent, only comes up within the context of a child who has passed on either from a miscarriage or a terminated pregnancy.

The reality is that our children, whether those living or in spirit, are also on their spiritual journey. I wanted to understand how parenting and spirituality impact each other in relation to us as parents and our children.

I spoke to Gogo Simenjalo and we had a profoundly personal conversation about parenting across different dimensions and our eternal bond to the spirits which we help to bring into this world and the next.

The belief system that we have inherited is rife with pervasive trauma and leads many people to want to avoid anything with African Spirituality in its entirety.  I wanted to understand the impact of spirituality on our mental health and how this affects the way in which we build our relationship with our beliefs. 

To get insight from an actual expert on the topic, I went to speak to Vella Maseko. Not only is she an experienced clinical psychologist, but she is also a Sangoma. 

We had a profound conversation about the complex relationship between mind and spirit in trying to understand issues such as how do you determine whether you have a calling or a mental illness.

In this episode Gogo Aubrey Matshiqi guides us through a journey back in time in order to gain a better understanding of the state of the black man's soul.

In this episode, I catch with my first spiritual mentor, Gogo Moyo. We had a frank and honest conversation about our very first consultation almost 10yrs ago when she was a young Healer still finding her voice and I had no clue what African Spirituality was. We dig into the challenges of spiritual mentorship and I give my personal experience on how to seek help from others.

In this episode, I come to terms with the doubt of my beliefs. I try to get a better understanding of the basis of spirituality itself in a way that makes sense in a world where we tend to trust science than the divine

In this episode, I explore what exactly IS a surname? How did our surnames come about and how did they evolve to become such a crucial component of our social and spiritual identity?

So this is The Journey Kwantu, behind the scenes. :)

The story of the Shebeen Queen and her impact on African Spirituality seems almost disingenuous, an urban legend. She occupies an aspect of our history that is notorious to the point of being deemed invalid. Yet, week in and week out, her contribution dictates much of the practices that we believe to integral to how we define ourselves as spiritual beings.

This is a journey through which I will be exploring questions around African Beliefs and Identity.

The idea behind this series is to peel back the layers of what we have come to call African Spirituality and to gain a deeper understanding of not only our beliefs but our place in it.

There are many historical distortions and sociopolitical as well as socioeconomics that have shaped our beliefs and continue to have a fundamental impact on how we navigate different aspects of it.

In this episode, I am going to the very roots of not only my spiritual roots but my very existence. I will be having a very meaningful yet challenging talk with my mother about how it came to be that she decided that I was Christian from birth.