I’m back from South Africa and a beautiful journey near the mouth of the gorgeous and dramatic Blyde River Canyon in the northeast corner of the country. The new header for my blog is a picture I took at dusk near the rim of the canyon on March 13. Africa – so far away, yet something familiar in me was awakened. My original incarnation in this current cycle of existence, perhaps? Merging with the vast savannah in the silence of nearby Kruger Park I came to know intimately what my teacher calls ‘African Dream Time’. Time stops and one knows implicitly – there is no time, just vast eternal Oneness. The area where I stayed at a botanical reserve at the foot of the sacred mountain of Modimolle, which means ‘place where God resides’, has a very special transcendental energy, allowing the mind to dissolve and one to float blissfully in a sea of expanded consciousness and timeless existence. The Mountain has a powerful way of calling me to attention by instantly aligning my awareness in the vertical axis of the core-light within, and I find that I am in It and It is in me! 

The Blyde River Canyon area of South Africa lies on a North South axis roughly parallel to the Nilotic Meridian – a powerful ley line or energy current that connects to the Great Pyramid of Giza. A special treat and great privilege was my visit with the White Lions of Timbavati which sits along this meridian. The White Lions are considered by the African tribal elders to be the most sacred animal of Africa. Their presence on the Nilotic meridian helps hold the galactic heart for the world, flowing it through the meridian and into the world. I was a guest of Linda Tucker and her husband, lion ecologist Jason Turner, on their protected land called Tsau! The White Lions had been kept in captivity and hunted as trophies, so Linda founded the Global White Lion Protection Trust to ensure their protection and to preserve the indigenous African culture which holds them sacred. How all this came about is a fascinating story which she shares in her powerful book Mystery of the White Lions. I recommend it!

The Divine speaks to us in surprising and lovely ways, which is how I came to meet a gorgeous African bird. I was sitting on the porch of my rondavel one morning meditating to the sounds of the bush when, upon hearing a flutter of feathers, my eyes popped open. A beautiful ‘parrot’ alighted on a branch in front of me not ten feet away. He was lovely, about 12 inches (30 cm.) long, with iridescent green head and neck, yellow bill, scarlet breast, and long grey tail feathers. He wanted to be with me (and I with him!), so we sat in silence for a few minutes. I was careful not to stare and diverted my eyes while holding him in my visual field. I asked if he had a message for me and told him how beautiful he was! I felt blessed by his presence and amazed that he chose to stay so long, probably about three full minutes! Then he was off, landing on another branch to my side, barely visible, his colors cloaked in the thick bush. 

Later, I learned his name – Narina Trogon – and what a rare sighting he is. This bird is common on the eastern coast of Africa, but is notorious for being difficult to spot, since he most often perches with his green back to the observer. Our direct meeting felt all the more special and Divine.  I also learned he was not a parrot at all, but belongs to a family called Lovebirds. According to Jane Toerien & Joyce van Dobben in their Ascension to Paradise Bird Card Set, “Trogon energy is able to hold the frequency expressed by the Divine Self, free from the constraints of the ego. True freedom lies in knowing beyond any doubt that we are already free and always have been.”

In Cape Town on March 19 , an auspicious day when the full moon was Perigee (closest to our earth), I was invited by a friend to meet with a group led by Dean Liprini at a sacred site on the lower slopes of Little Lion’s Head above Hout Bay. This was to be one of the most powerful positions to view the sun setting over the Atlantic Ocean to the west while the full moon rose through the sacred gateway of Constantia Neck.

In sacred ceremony we welcomed the Divine Masculine energy of the setting sun in Pisces and the Divine Feminine energy of the rising moon in Virgo as we became a human fulcrum for the two in this rare cosmic event and balance of yin and yang. Was it this auspicious astrological occurrence which triggered the recent Internet activity of  ‘spiritual men’ calling on all men to honor the beauty and power of the feminine principle in the world and in themselves?

More on this in a future blog entry…