Image credit: Dixon Williams
San vibrational healer, Q7, was a collaborator to the Sound and Soil project near Namabeep in Namaqualand (Northern Cape) earlier in June of this year. In the podcast sent to me by Q7 recently, he shares the impact of this project to a broader community on Cultural Survival. Listening to Q7 speak on Indigenous Rights Radio. I was initially reminded of the flow of a river. Of water. Of a fluid medium that will diversify both through its given volume and the path of its trajectory. And then, deeper into the podcast, Q7 started speaking about Mycelium, and imagery of water became the entanglement of Mycelium. I once again marvelled at how Mycelium is woven into Q's speak, his thinking, his reflection and most especially, his doing.
Mycelium is the metaphorical florescent light by which Ancestral memory links back to, its hyphae deeply fossilised and embedded in the earth and in granite rock. Mycelium is the both the physical and metaphorical reality that - by the threads of its hyper-extended subsoil hyphae - has 'survived' cultural genocide throughout the most brutal colonial history imaginable. Mycelium is simultaneously the mapped reminder of this cultural extermination, and how survival depends on the rootedness of those that can remember through Care. Those that will pick up the dry, dehydrated and impoverished Stapelia's and nurse them back into what the memory of the flower was. And how it can be again.
The 'doing' of Mycelium is what is spoken of in the podcast: the hyphae tips that are reaching out towards the young one's of the Steinkopf (and other) communities. The 'doing' of Myclium are those growth tips that will be reaching beyond the Sound and Soil project, connecting with Dina Christiaan, an incredible Nama woman who is leader of the Cultural Dance Group in Steinkopf. Gathering the Mycelial-memories of an almost extinct past through heritage work, Dina is able to simultaneously water the younger growth tips in her community through dance. And this was Q's take on the project also: how music, dance and nature can heal trauma.
We will be travelling back to Steinkopf the coming weekend, where the video od the collaboration with the dancers of Steinkopf will be shared with the greater community. It is a deep privilege to be part of this project where sound, healing and listening weaves.
Thank you for walking this journey with us ...