Journaling has enjoyed a ubiquitous status throughout the many phases of my physical and spiritual lives.

My first diary was a gift from my mother, Xoliswa. I cannot remember when exactly, it could be around my 10th birthday.

She didn’t show me how to use it. I suppose she trusted I would know what to do. This had to do with the fact that she would let me read some of her journals, the vanilla ones. I do believe she had a saucy stash somewhere but that’s neither here nor there!

I remember one of my most impactful journals was the year I turned 13 in 2005. So much happened that year – I remember one day realising I had a strange lingering feeling on my solar plexus –  like palpitations  that would intensify at times.

I documented these feelings and it wasn’t long before I picked up patterns of feelings associated with near-immediate happenings.

I would have palpitation-like sensations before some unexpected news was broken to me. Exposure to language has allowed me to express that feeling as umbilini (intuition).

I understand umbilini partly as an intuitive process capable of having psychosomatic manifestations such as feelings of anxiety, visions, what western doctors term “auditory hallucinations” and more.

Umbilini can be like an altered state of reality where time moves in an unhurried fashion, vision as clear as day – all senses heightened and receptive to copious amounts of environmental stimuli (from both physical and spiritual realms).   

At first occurrence, umbilini is discomforting to the body and mind. It forces the mind into a constant state of  anticipating its next occurrence – trying to decipher when  and why it happens.

For some it can go as far as presenting as  paralysing spells of panic and anxiety with  a strained grasp of physical reality.

I must say that I do also recommend mental health help when such symptoms present themselves in conjunction with spiritual help to avoid misdiagnoses. 

When understood and harnessed, umbilini evolves from an uncomfortable stimulus to a navigational tool, if you will. It trickles into every minute aspect of one’s life which in modern times we refer to as “having a hunch”.

One literally has a hunch about everything! Like even when your phone is about to ring, or you are about to receive an unexpected visit. The “hunch” for some presents in incredibly specific fashion.

When I underwent initiation yesiXhosa, my shaman uMathiyane would know exactly who was coming to the house and when. She would sometimes say “oh so and so is coming” and one day I asked her “how do you know that”, to which she responded: “The real question is how don’t you know that?”

Apparently, my intuition is to be so sharp that I intuitively know when people even say about motioning to my spiritual home. “Wild!” I said.   

I captured this teaching in my 2019 thwasane (initiate’s) Diary Vol 1 as I titled it. The journal itself was an old repurposed A3-sized book with pages ripped out, given to me by my shaman – she was not fond of me taking ALL of my notes on my phone. She oddly set a precedent for my future spiritual nurturers. 

On meeting my spiritual grandmother, MaPitsi Ka Mohoto, she gave me a journal – this was just last year. I watched her as she scratched around her bookshelves and cabinets giving me about 15 books or so to read as well as a journal.

It was a brand new blue and green journal with an elastic fold. She said: “OK my Gogi, you’re going to obviously keep yourself occupied koNdumbeng, reading and journaling. This is a difficult journey so you will have a few explosive thoughts, feelings and revelations.”

“Thokozani Gogo’Mkhulu, thank you,” I said as I knelt in front of her. I went through the literature. “What an interesting woman”, I said.

She had given me literature themed around African feminism, holistic African medicine, indigenous Indian medicines, African poetry, a Qur’an and a Torah.

The next day, I went to her ndumba (sacred prayer room) and I taught her about the names and symbolisms of her crystals – she had a bowl that she used for readings. Her interpretations were purely off intuition-based knowledge (and were accurate).

She didn’t know the names of the crystals, but she has meanings attached to them, as they were a divination tool. Her interpretations closely resembled already existing meanings.

She looked at me with an almost elated expression and said: “I should have known that abantu abadala [referring to her spirit guides] would send me a child  who knows about amachakra [chakras, referring to the embrace that crystals enjoy in yogic practices].”

We both laughed and I proceeded to make some notes for both her and I in our respective notebooks.

I will always be appreciative of the encouragement to write and document African indigenous knowledge... I urge every sangoma and custodian of tradition and custom to adopt the same. 

Camagu!