I’ve been having these weird talking spells right before I finally sleep. I’m not sure if I’m “talking in my sleep” since I’m half awake, but the words are a stream of consciousness that don’t feel like they’re coming from me.

Last night I said something along the lines of “I think the universe speaks every language and all things are being translated at all times.”

“All things” includes everything from humans to cats, trees to bees, and rocks to moon to planets to stars. Like there is this eternal conversation happening at all times.

I believe it may have been triggered by the last thing I highlighted in “Ritual: Power, Healing and Community” by Malidoma Patrice Somé:

“A sacred life is a life ritualized life, that is, one that draws constantly from the realm of spirit to handle even the smallest situation.”

The smallest situation is pretty small! The typing I’m doing on my phone right now is small! Just took a big paused to ask myself “Am I drawing from the realm of spirit for this?!” 😂

Wanting to write that quote got me thinking that I could be throwing the best hits from the things I highlighted into these posts. I’ve always wanted a way to track and process the things I highlight in books and… Maybe I’ve discovered a way to do this!

This is the very first thing I highlighted:

“Can the modern world find ways to perceive the subtle knowledge and imagery of the tribal world? Can Western understanding open a place for tribal visions of spiritual life and community rituals to enter?” – Michael Meade

I’ll just scan up to where I’m at now and grab a few more…

“I’ve seen [Malidoma] with a medicine bag made of hide and full of shells in one hand and a laptop computer in the other.” – Michael Meade

The rest are from Malidoma Patrice Somé.

“Where ritual is absent, the young ones are restless or violent, there are no real elders, and the grown-ups are bewildered.”

“The Dagara people […] are suspicious of abundance. It translates into a cultural attitude that a person of abundance is a person too worldly to deal with hardship. This is an obvious trick from god to put someone asleep before the final blow.”

“The greatest shock that American culture has on traditional people is its notion of speed.”

OK… I didn’t highlight this next part, but it’s burned it’s way into my mind and I’ve mentioned it to several people already…

“One of the elders asked, “Where do these white people run to every morning?”

“To their workplaces, of course.”

“Why do they have to run to something that is not running from them?”

“They do not have time.” I had to say this word in French because there is no equivalent in the local language. The conversation came to a halt when the elder had to ask what this “time” was.”

😳That’s that next level BPT! 😂

“To remember how to perform ritual, we must slow down. I believe the difference between the indigenous world and the industrial world has mostly to do with speed.”

“The indigenous world, in trying to emulate Nature, espouses a walk with life, a slow, quiet day-to-day kind of existence.”

“Ritual is not compatible with the rapid rhythm that industrialism has injected into life.”

“The corporate world dims the light of the traditional world by exerting a powerful magnetic shawdowlike pull on the psyche of the individual. […] [T]he machine world either refuses to provide a sense of complete satiation or it just doesn’t have it to provide.”

“[S]uccess [of ancient tribes] can be seen in the fact that in it there is room for the entire person to exist. This means that the world of progress with its all-consuming tendencies is an essentialist that feeds on anything that lives, turning the human into an indentured servant fed with things material, yet starved for everything else. In this context, ritual is this return to the ancient with a plea for help directed to the world of spirit.”

“To be in a machinelike culture is to have one’s soul constantly at risk of being sucked out.”

Uh… That’s probably good. I said “a few”. 😂

Anyhow, what I’ll say is this book has been filled with bangers. It took me a bit of time to adjust to his culture. Stories about kids dying because someone didn’t complete a ritual in a timely manner was breaking even my crazy ass mind. It totally defies western logic but… All these bangers are coming from the same guy so I’m like… Whelp… In that world I suppose you need to keep your ritual game tight!