Beloved by those who have already become part of his global village, Malidoma Som? is a living example of all that he teaches. Born into the Dagara tribe of Upper Volta in West Africa, Malidoma was given a special destiny at birth. He was to become a cultural ambassador between the endangered indigenous life of his African village and the inevitable modernization of the West. Having grown up in the lap of his grandfather, a powerful tribal elder, Malidoma's life was to radically change at the age of four. Upon his grandfather's death, the young Malidoma was taken from his village to be raised by Christian missionaries, who indoctrinated him into Western culture. At the age of 20, Malidoma escaped and returned to his village after a treacherous journey through the jungle. After 16 years, no one remembered him except his mother. Malidoma had to prove himself to his tribe through a gruel ing initiation ritual, which only confirmed his true destiny - to be a man of both worlds. Malidoma Patrice Som? returned to the West to complete his education: a doctorate in Political Science from the Sorbonne in Paris and a Ph.D. in literature from Brandeis University in Boston. Malidoma currently teaches seminars with his wife, Sobonfu Som?, through the International Learning Center, based in Grass Valley, California. Malidoma is also the author of two books, Ritual: Power, Healing and Community (Swan-Raven) and Of Water and the Spirit (Jeremy Tarcher). The Som?s live in Oakland, California.

CG: Your name, Malidoma, means "to befriend the stranger and the enemy," a destiny that was given to you at birth. Would you tell the story of how you discovered your purpose in life and how you have fulfilled your destiny? MS: One's purpose in life, from a tribal perspective, is not really "discovered" by the individual as modern language seems to indicate. Instead, in the Dagara tribe where I come from, one's individual purpose is something that is already set prior to birth. And it is the task of the living to discover the purpose of an incoming soul before it is born, rather than figuring it out later on. The understanding is that any person who is being born is coming here from the world of the ancestors. There, the individual in spirit form plans a trip to the human world that is motivated by a task. It's like filing a petition to an office to ask for a grant: Once it is approved, you are on your way. During the time when the mother is pregnant, there are a number of rituals that are done by the tribal elders to communicate with the incoming soul and find out what its purpose is. The elders, who are in essence living between the two worlds, ask the mother a series of questions while she is in a trance. It's sometimes funny to listen to her voice become thinner and the thinner, reflecting the long distance the soul is traveling on its way to earth.

CG: Does everyone have a destined purpose? MS: From the Dagara point of view, it is impossible to exist in the human world without a purpose. Life is rough enough with a purpose; it's hard to imagine a life without one.

CG: Is this similar to the Hindu belief of reincarnation? MS: It just is what it is. In the Dagara tribe, we don't have a word for "reincarnation." We just have a word for traveling from one place to another. It's not a linear kind of travel that requires a vehicle; it's travel beyond the time and space, from the realm of the ancestors back to earth.

CG: Do we have anything like this in Western culture? MS: Western culture tries to compensate with tools like career counseling. But even people who have a plan about how they are going to live their lives and what career they're going to have must be supported by some powerful spiritual lineage. There needs to be a sense of cosmic purpose. It's true that Westerners do seem to spend a lot of time figuring out who they are and why they're here. And the search often becomes an end unto itself.

CG: What does Western civilization have to learn from African ways and what does Africa have to gain from the West? How can that relationship be healed from the ravages of colonization? MS: You've first got to look at the two cultures as two sides of the same coin. Each side needs the other in order to be itself. The modern world is over-inflated with materialism, whereas Africa has suffered greatly from colonial imperialism. One of their major challenges is day-to-day survival, due to famine and ecological imbalance. In my village, I once heard a starving man say, "My hunger can be traced to someone who has overeaten somewhere." People in the Dagara tribe understand the balance of nature and they cannot see themselves as separate from the rest of the world. What they experience is the result of the opposite happening somewhere else. Consequently, the problem with the West is that it is too self-individualized, too narrow-minded. Whereas, the indigenous world is too open-minded. What the Dagara tribe can give to the West is this open-mindedness, a rich spiritual tradition that can help Western people accelerate this process of discovering their life purpose. In return, Africans can benefit from the West's overflow of materialism, until it can at least match its spiritual riches.

CG: In your book, Of Water and the Spirit, you mention how your tribe was shocked that homelessness exists in the US. MS: Yes, it is amazing. It says a lot about the importance of community in African culture. People from my tribe automatically assume that a culture so materially rich would be in perfect harmony as a community: They think that everyone is taken care of. They say, "The white man's magic must be working for him." So when they hear about something like homelessness, they have to adjust their perception of the West. They have to edit their idealism. Until now, they have believed that in order to have such magnificent cities Westerners must have mastered the concept of community, that Americans must have even greater tribal skills and values than Africans. So, when they learned that at the heart of these cities there were people without homes, it shattered the illusion. I didn't even dare mention violence and drugs.

CG: You talk a lot about the role of the ancestors in life. Would you explain why it is so vital and what you mean about "healing the ancestors"? MS: We began this conversation by defining one's life purpose as a journey from the world of the ancestors. Needless to say, the link between our world and the other world is very tight. And to not pay attention to that truth is to set oneself up for a lot of problems. That's what I have noticed in my personal experience. People who only look to the future and never look back soon learn that the past keeps catching up with them in all kinds of ways. When I talk about healing the ancestors, what I am referring to is a level of relationship. Pay attention to the fact that the ancestors do exist, even if they are out of our sight. They are still present energetically, spiritually and otherwise. To not acknowledge them, to not even say a word to them is a form of denial, because we are them. So, the first step in the healing process is the recognition that they are there. And that they do take human form to come back here. This is what immortality really is. The human body is like the clothes that we put on. And when they wear out, we dispose of them. That's what we call old age and death. Then we come back with a brand-new outfit. The problem is that clothes can be so sophisticated that some people think that's all there is.

CG: Why do you think our indigenous American Indian culture was destroyed? MS: I wonder why, because I don't think that progress necessarily has to entail severing ties with the past. In many ways, it was the same kind colonization that Africa experienced at the hands of the Europeans. At the pure core of indigenous life, there isn't much difference between one group of indigenous people and another.

CG: In terms of our evolution as a species, do you think we can ever recover this? MS: We are bound to. If you look at Earth as a home, it is inevitable. Just as civilizations die and are reborn, there comes a time when our disconnection from the past is so bad that it forces us to change things, whether we like it or not. CG: The Aborigines of Australia proclaim to be a race that is 50,000 years old, the oldest surviving race on the planet, yet it is on the verge of cultural extinction. Do you think that the entire earth is on the verge of irreversible self-destruction? MS: No. What we call extinction is actually a self-reprocessing. Somehow indigenous culture as we know it is bound to shift into a new modality. Out of necessity, it has to face the sweeping effect of modernity. When I see people from the Western culture embracing indigenous ways, it is one of the ways to heal the negativity of the modern world. An indigenous person can no longer exist in a pure state, but it is possible to be in a modern body with an Aborigine soul. Then you will be able to change the world as it is. Unfortunately, this loss of indigenous culture is a tragic thing. It defines modern life as a systematic loss of knowing who we really are. And I wonder how much this sacrifice is really worth. Environmentally, we are reaching the critical mass, but that does not mean we have reached an apocalyptic moment.

CG: In the West, there are many prophecies about the Apocalypse, the Aquarian Age, whatever you want to call it. Are there any prophecies in African culture that parallel this? MS: Yes, there are, but such things are not dwelled upon as radically as they are here. I know of some elders who claim that big chunks of the Earth are going to be claimed by water, and that earth that belongs to nobody is going to come out of nowhere. They also say that there is coming a radical moment of forced awakening. But all this does not mean human extinction. Rather, it means human transformation.

CG: Since you were virtually kidnapped by missionaries at the age of four, how have you synthesized the Christian tradition with the African one? MS: Basically I've looked at it from the point of view of cosmology. Every culture sustains itself with some system of cosmology to satisfy the human need to associate with the divine, as well as having a supernatural framework to function within. The Bible, like the oral tradition we have in our tribe, is a set of Creation stories. But there is a significant difference in that Christian cosmology is characterized as dogmatic, patriarchal and somewhat limiting, whereas, the cosmology of the Dagara people leads to a spiritual practice that does not need dogma to support it. It leaves people alone to attempt to fulfill their life purpose with the help of their community.

CG: Having experienced both ways, what would you say is the difference between a matriarchal and a patriarchal society? MS: It is the difference between community and a lack thereof. The matriarchal path is essentially grounded in family. The individual is given collective attention, which is the essence of how a tribal community maintains itself. In a matriarchal society, there is no need for child care, since the children belong to the whole community. Every home is their home. The difficulty for Western communities is that they are having trouble escaping the patriarchal system, which is based on competition and domination. Instead of nurturing, it isolates the individual in order to maintain control. It has very little feeling for another. Rather, it is more interested in consuming and dominating. But even the most patriarchal pundits are longing for some nurturing. They are trying to compensate with power. Ironically, the more powerful they get, the hungrier they become.

CG: Is it possible to have a society that integrates the two? MS: In many ways, that is the goal of modern life.

CG: Would you talk about the role of magic and the supernatural in your life? MS: Spiritual life in the Dagara tribe is grounded in the magical. Everything that happens in everyday life is measured by the yardstick of magic. Every kind of phenomenon is seen from the perspective of magic, or lack thereof. To the Dagara, it's not "magic," it's just a natural part of life. But it can only happen under a certain set of circumstances. Magic is what provides excitement in life. Here, people get excited by going shopping or going to the movies. There, people get excited by associating with the supernatural. To tell you the truth, it is extremely exhilarating to find yourself facing up to the other world while still in your logical consciousness. Magic allows other alternatives to be examined. It is inclusive rather than exclusive. And it releases you from a reality where two plus two always equals four. Once you accept the magical dimension of life, it shows itself in a very friendly way.

CG: Do you have to believe in magic in order for it to work? MS: If you define magic as an energy unto itself and you regard belief in the same way, then it is energy plus energy that creates reality. It is your conditioning that allows magic to exist. Once you immerse yourself in a certain vibrational context, it stays imprinted in your psyche for life.

CG: Can a skeptical person experience magic? MS: I'll tell you a little story. Once a skeptical person visited my Dagara village because he had heard about some of the magical things that happen there. He set out to prove that it was all mumbo jumbo. But when he came face-to-face with magic, he screamed aloud that it was not real and not possible - all while he was running away. Skepticism is like concrete in front of a raging river.

CG: What is a kontombl?? Is there anything like it in Western culture? MS: In Western stories, I have heard them referred to as leprechauns. When you see them, they have a reddish glow. They are friendly, but most people are afraid of their power. My sister has about seven of them around her. I guess they are like guardian angels. The kontombl? can do all kinds of fantastic things that challenge human understanding and fill an individual's life with beauty. That's their purpose. They are the ones that make the magic happen and teach people how to enjoy this dimension of life.

CG: How can Westerners use magic in a society that is dominated by Christian tradition and the scientific method? MS: Ironically, the mythology of Christianity has been able to fulfill the craving of the human psyche for the magical. But magic has been made into something evil. Because modernity is so heavily founded upon Christianity, it is at a loss as to how to incorporate a magical dynamic. What must take place is a severe editing of Christian dogma in order to make space for open-mindedness. I would also suggest a little more flexibility to leave the door open for alternative energies to come in. But it will be hard to get groups like the Christian fundamentalists to agree to this. The Devil is what keeps them in business.

CG: Is there anything like the Devil in African religion? MS: No, unfortunately. There's just positive and negative energy and all negative energy is all self-manufactured. So, people have to take responsibility for their negative energy. For example, the kontombl? only look evil if you exude negative energy, because they are simply mirroring it back to you. If you are scared, they look ugly.

CG: In African culture, does magic have anything to do with witchcraft? Why does Western society fear it so much? MS: There is nothing terrifying about witchcraft. In fact, it reflects a deeper understanding of the fabric of nature. But because these people were in touch with something that was so powerful, they could not be controlled - which is why they were persecuted. They were a threat to the establishment that Christianity was the sole proprietor of. This was the real reason for all the negative propaganda about witchcraft. Other than that, witchcraft is the most sophisticated and scientific aspect of spirituality. Witches understand how one energy plus another energy can produce a third one, how a plant can be used as an ally in healing, and how one world can crack open up as a result of an energy dynamic in the other. In the Dagara tribe, people aren't bothered much by witches, because people understand where they're coming from.

CG: How would be define the word "shaman"? MS: That's interesting because I only encountered the word "shaman" in the West. The way I understand it, the shaman is an intermediary between this world and the other world, like a priest. This person is in touch with all kinds of beings and all planes of consciousness.

CG: If you were to return to your tribe in Burkina Faso, is that what you would do? MS: Probably.

CG: Will you return to the Dagara tribe in your later years? MS: That is my hope. It is hard to go into a deep, energetic meditation while trapped in the Western world. I have most of my visions when I go back to Africa. The context lends itself to this kind of insight. In the US, I have found this kind of vibration in the high desert of the American Southwest and in the Rockies. New Mexico and Arizona are a bastion of spiritual power.

CG: Do you think the American Indians will ever recover their indigenous spiritual power? MS: It will be a slow process. They have been hit so hard.

CG: Why do you think Western society is so obsessed with drugs? MS: Behind that obsession is a deep longing for spiritual experience. When the right model or context doesn't exist in society, the psyche tries to access it by other means. The problem is that people who do drugs end up with wrecked bodies. It is a failed attempt at spiritual fulfillment. It's a catastrophe. Until people are provided with a genuine magical and spiritual experience, drugs will continue to be an issue.

CG: In African culture, you have an initiation ritual that prepares you for life. Yet Americans lack this rite of passage into adulthood. Why is initiation so important and what can American teenagers do to have this kind of experience? MS: The importance of initiation is kind of obvious: It gives you a clear direction for your life by confirming the purpose you have set for yourself prior to being born. The initiation process makes it clear to your psyche that your life is worth living for that ideal. Needless to say, if you don't get it then something within you begins to rattle. And it turns you into a rather unstable person who is extremely temperamental and probably driven to excess. One of the ways this condition could be remedied is to create a symbolic initiation experiences for teenagers. It would probably be a journey somewhere in the wilderness and would entail some form of risk-taking that teenagers always do anyway. At least it would let them know they live among people who care about them.

CG: Do teenagers need to leave home to have this experience? MS: Not only do they need to leave home, but they need to have this experience with people who are not from their immediate family. They need to leave their own familiar context. Only then can they welcomed back by the family and honored by their village when the initiation is complete. Without departure, there cannot be a return.

CG: School was something that you had to master in order to be who you are today. How important is an education and is it something that everyone needs? MS: I believe that because of the growing complexity of this world, without education, you limit your ability to fulfill your purpose in life. It is not that education is necessary for the development of the self, but it is vital in order to function in the world. I am sure that there are many Africans who know more than I do, but you have to be able to explain things from a modern, logical standpoint in order to make sense. People don't believe you unless you have a credential. The reality of modern life is that you have to go to school in the interest of your life purpose.

CG: In your book you describe how you used your ability to see auras to help you succeed in school. Have you always had this power or is it something you developed? MS: I've had to figure out a way to make it work for me through trial and error. It doesn't come with a manual. In essence, reading auras is the realization that thoughts and feelings have a vibrational signature to which you can attach meaning. You can see an aura like a book. Once your curiosity is oriented to interpreting the spectrum of vibration, then you begin to understand what it means, like learning a language. I was never aware of this ability until I completed my initiation when I was 20. This kind of powers seem to awaken when you are at a point in life where you can handle it.

CG: How do American blacks respond to you? Is there a feeling of spiritual kinship or a culture gap? MS: Both. On the one hand there is a very strong attraction to the values I have exposed in my book. American blacks have a tremendous desire to rediscover their African roots and reconnect with the ancestors. It seems to be a matter of great urgency. But so much alienation has gone on for so long that the ways to do this are very difficult to find, especially for those who have taken refuge in Christianity. It is hard for them to reconcile their Christian allegiance with the desire to explore their African roots, even though they are so attracted to it. I understand because it took me awhile to make that shift.

CG: Do you think it is possible for African-Americans to ever recover their native heritage? MS: I would like to hope so. I've been to a number of institutions in this country where African values are systematically being taught. If it's going to happen at all it has to be presented with a positive feeling for African culture. The amount of negative press being propagated out of Africa does not contribute to their ability to embrace African culture. In contrast to modern American standards, life in Africa is like living in a ditch. Once again, it will be a very slow process, if it happens at all.

CG: How do you perceive the tribal warfare between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi? Is there any way to alter the course of imminent genocide? MS: That is an important question. A lot of people misunderstand this tribal warfare between the Hutus and the Tutsis as a sign of primitivism. Historically, you have to realize that the way Burundi and Rwanda were created as countries was setting up this type of tension. If you create a political border that gives an overwhelming 85 percent majority to one tribe and a 15 percent minority to the other tribe - and them tell to become a modern nation - you are asking them to throw away their traditional form of leadership for something they know nothing about. They have been given the means to create a fully armed modern army without the experience to handle it. So, they just shoot each other with machine guns. Even though they are in the middle of it, the energy of war has become its own driving motivation. You have to remember that in a situation where modernism wants to prevail, there is a very strong temptation to maintain division, because division makes it easy for control and domination to occur. Ironically, to the modern sensibility, harmony is boring. As happened in South Africa, I think that the killing will cease when the majority no longer feels insecure.

CG: How do you feel about the changes that have taken place in South Africa under the leadership of Mandela? MS: You have to compare South Africa today to the state it was in before Mandela came to power. You have to admit that the changes are both very radical and quite miraculous, although it has taken decades for them to evolve. It does confirm that human hope is strong enough to make reality manifest. As a result, this corner of the continent is spearheading a wave of shifts that will eventually embrace all of Africa. It shows that peace is possible.

CG: What do you think of the Rastafarian movement? MS: It is really a form of symbolic return. What Marcus Garvey was originally advocating was repatriation to Africa, but it didn't turn out that way. But the Rasta movement has fostered a sense of identity which was really lacking, especially among those who grew up as slaves. In many ways, Haile Selassie was the figure of a black messiah, like Moses was to the Israelis, which was essential to restore some sense of identity to the descendants of former slaves.

CG: Do you think Pan-African unity is possible? MS: It is still a dream but I would like to think it might happen someday. The first wave of change has been with names. For example, the country where I was born was called Upper Volta and now it's known as Burkina Faso, which means "land of the proud ancestors." The Congo is now known as Zaire. And Rhodesia has become Zimbabwe. All the colonial names have reverted to African ones.

CG: What is the role of Africa in the 21st century? MS: In the 21st century, I think that Africa will become an increasing player in international relations. The existence of the Third World is going to cause tremendous problems for the rest of the world, which will try and find ways to draw it into consumer technology. Africa as a marketplace will begin to emerge. And with that will come an inevitable decay of traditionalism, a shift from spirituality to materialism. It will be a sweeping process of modernization. The good thing is that basic human needs will be met. I see the 21st century as a time of radical change, and a partial move toward Pan-Africanism.

CG: Do you see yourself as a cultural guardian to help Africa through this change? MS: I would like to see myself in that way without usurping anyone else's role. I want to make sure that each individual African culture has one. On the cultural level, I want to see a constant exchange so that we better understand each other and diminish the rather patronizing nature of modernity. It's an attitude which comes from isolation and ignorance, of one culture not caring who the other is.

CG: What else do you wish to accomplish in your life? MS: I want to make sure that I have preserved the tenets of my culture in all that I communicate. After that, I want to make that there are some people who will continue to do the same thing. Eventually, I want to return to my village and be a player in the whole village scene. I want to make sure that people remember the importance of ancestry and don't get too far away from it. It's where I would like to raise a family so that my children get the feeling that they have lots of mothers and lots of fathers. But I would like them to know both continents. I would want them to get their education here. My mother and father still live in my village, where my father has become an elder. He inherited my grandfather's role of being in charge of all the rituals. In turn, perhaps I will inherit it from him. Virginia Lee was Associate Editor and served on the Editorial Board of Yoga Journal from 1980-85, and has been widely published in magazines ever since. She is a regular interviewer for Common Ground, and has also written two books: The Roots of Ras Tafari published by Avant Books of San Diego in 1985, and more recently Affairs of the Heart published by Crossing Press of Freedom, CA in 1993. She currently works as a freelance writer in Santa Cruz, CA.