My Kontomblé Journey
~ ~ For the sake of Transparency, Nobility, Honor, Grace, and Trust ~ ~
I recognize currently, that it can be helpful for some of the members of the various communities I find myself joyfully a part of these days, for me to be as absolutely transparent with you as I can be about my process, growth, and evolution as a reader and diviner, and more specifically, a Kontomblé Voice Diviner.
I was not trained in a traditional manner.
I was trained through modern means.
What I mean by this, is that Spirit began coming to me in many ways as a little girl and I had no context or way of understanding what was so, so in many ways I ended up blocking out a lot of my childhood experiences and memories. There is certainly more to unpack here that is not relevant to the topic of transparency around my experience so I will save that for future expressive endeavors, perhaps. What is important to know is that, from childhood, I had these gifts that were not being acknowledged, and I was not born into a cultural context that could acknowledge them or teach me how to, which is so often the case for so many these days.
When I say I was not trained in a traditional manner, it is more accurate perhaps to say that I was not born into a tradition that could hold me for who I was, who I perhaps came here to be, but instead like so many of you I was born into a society that had forgotten that having an eye or an ear for Spirit is something we call a “gift”. A world that has forgotten (and certainly, on many levels is now remembering-) what a contribution these gifts are to our communities. To be me and to be trained in a traditional means is impossible, for I am not of a child of a traditional era, place or way. And all of this is perfect. I was meant to be born into this world, just as you were, and we were meant to find our way home, to ourselves, together.
It wasn’t until my early twenties that I began to explore other means, traditions, modalities, histories, and art forms that could contextualize this experience of being aware of Spirit for me. A modern mirage of options- a feast of possibilities that many Seers and Seekers swim (and sometimes sink!) through in these times. Theatre school was a huge beginning for me, that opened the door of expression and communication with multiple layers of reality. Modern forms of initiation, including leaving my body and “going down the tunnel of light to the otherworld” three times during injuries to the head in my early twenties- and returning “remade” and like a “new person” with far less memory of my past also added to this. Some of you who know and have worked with me may have heard me speak of my experience as a Walk In. I remember the place and frequency that bore me back into this body was one of extreme beauty and love. One of absolute bliss and divine synesthesia, a place where all the senses mingled as one, into what can only be described as the most exquisite and divine music in all of the Universe (at least this is what it felt like!). This music surrounded me and was me, there was no me- just this music which was everything, and this everything was All, and all of this All was a beautiful golden sequence of Astral geometry! It was glorious! The third of these Near Death Experiences was one of the most blissful experiences of my life and a total “return to home”.
Then, in my later twenties came Kundalini Yoga, White Tantra ceremonies, and Access Consciousness and the Tools of Talk to the Entities, which gave me a framework of an effective and exacting way of using language to clear and liberate my being from my mind, and also from unwanted entities. Soon following, like a storm of recognition and ancient memory activation in my life, came the Kontomblé. The Kontomblé, from the beginning, remembered me and were able to see my path far more clearly than I could ever have imagined. During my first reunion with them, they told me I was one of them and spoke of many things that were to come along my journey with them. After several years of them being in my life, as mentors, through other diviners and also in the form of Spirit, I believe now, in many ways- that they have been with me all my life. I believe it was them who brought me to the Tarot cards, it was them who brought me to the Tea leaves, it was them who brought me to move across the country to a place I never knew and to commit, slowly, meticulously, delicately and fully to the path of being a diviner and specifically a diviner of the Little People.
All this being said, I have also been told by the Kontomblé that I am “doing this all backwards on purpose” and that my untraditional manner of attending solely the Kontomblé Voice Divination Initiation with Elder Malidoma Somé is something I am willing to be absolutely transparent about- as two years into my journey of Voice Divining the Kontomblé, I am finally equipped to be more public about it.
It is true that the Kontomblé have been steadily training and mentoring me throughout this process, and even so, I hope to continue my process of learning through many more trainings, teachers, and trusted elders, as well as journeys in the years to come. I am always a student of life, and my personal journey of learning what it means to be working with this lineage has only just begun. In time, I trust I will continue to study with more teachers, Elder Malidoma included, as well as continue to learn more deeply about the lineage streams I carry within my own blood and bones. I will also continue to follow the urge of spirit and the calling of my heart to move forward with the Kontomblés requests from me as a diviner. One of those requests has been to publicly claim them, and so with this statement, I remain steadfast in my devotion and commitment to these loving, intelligent, wise, far-reaching little relatives of ours.
Where my journey with the Little People has been filled with experiences that far surpass what one could fit in a blog post, I wanted to share with you a little context for who I am and where I am at with my personal growth as a diviner. I understand that as a collective we are undergoing a lot of important conversations around what it means to be reviving these ancient technologies and connections in our world. This includes the important conversations around reciprocity, remediation, and respect for the lineages one works with and/or carries. I know that as a White practitioner working with a West African lineage I have privileges that others do not, and I hope to be conscious of that in the ways in which I carry out my work. In my training with Elder Malidoma Somé , when he was asked about the concern of White practitioners, practicing the Dagara ways, his response was not only inclusive and supportive, it was also enthusiastic and insistent, and that is all the blessings and encouragement my heart has required to move forward on my path. Even so, this means that I have an opportunity to share these gifts with and offer support to members of disenfranchised communities, the African Diaspora and many Indigenous communities included. For this reason, I plan on making regular offerings in the form of donations to communities in need, as well as make my work more accessible to the BIPOC community by way of Scholarships and BIPOC rates for particular offerings.
It has been asked of me before, by a curious and generous-hearted client of mine, to share a bit more about this. She so beautifully expressed her concerns here:
“Are there any reflections you can share in relation to working with a lineage of spiritual tradition rooted in African cosmology? I wonder if there are teachings shared in your learning journey that you would be open to sharing with me about the protocols of sharing Kontomblé work. I feel it is important for me to ask this question to be able to consider receiving this medicine, to know that the process and protocols encoded in the ethics of the communities of its origin are valued and respected.
My heart feels called to ask out of care and non-judgment. I am on my own journey of question around the "how" of working with humans & spirits of diverse lineages in good, reciprocal, and decolonial ways. Given my own heart compass within this journey, I am guided to invite this question as a practise of care. ”
And I would like to share a bit of my response with you here:
“...For a more technical response to your question, I attended a training with Elder Malidoma Somé, who brought the Kontomblé and the wisdom of his people to the West. His name means, "Makes friends with the enemy." And in that training, I was taught traditional protocols that he was taught by his Elders in some way and form. Yes, I suppose you could say we did go through a distillation of the rites that a diviner would go through in Burkina Faso...The necessity of finding a modern means in which to initiate an individual from a background as culturally deprived and spirituality starved as ours in the US, is perhaps what drove and sculpted this into being. While culturally our worlds and upbringings are so incredibly different, the energies of adversity present in both are the same. Elder Malidoma shared that this is truly a response to a larger issue at hand, which is the issue of the current levels of adversity that the planet is moving through and purging. One aspect of that issue, which he spoke of during our training, is that Spirit is looking to reach as many people in as many ways at this time, because there is a sense of urgency around having as many of us "wake up" and answer the call of our heart's medicine, as soon as possible.
The Kontomblé are great innovators, so one thing Elder Malidoma shared, is that the way they express and communicate with us in the West is very different from how they communicate in Africa. He shared with our group that this is because the conditions of the West are so dire, so dense, so far-removed from Spirit, that a different approach is required. Often this looks like them coming through with a lot more humor, silliness and gusto. Whereas in Burkina Faso, they will be a lot more intense, with more demands, and far more serious...He also shared in his teachings that for this very same reason- many of us who are connected and called to work with them, come from all sorts of different lineages and cultural backgrounds. That this is, in part, their attempt to reach as many hearts as possible... I know navigating these spaces can bring up a lot of questions and concerns for many, and so I hope my answer has been satisfactory and respectful. Thank you again for your care in asking this of me.”
As I mentioned earlier, I know of the importance of being able to talk about these concerns within our community, as a way to find solutions together. I’m still on my journey, as are you, and it is my hope and my prayer that we can continue to grow one another through the sharing of our gifts and uniting of our medicines in a way that brings joy, love, and laughter to the world. In a way that brings expansive growth, promotes radical dreaming, and crystallizes revolutionary ideas into form, through the coming together of many opened hearts and fully embodied Spirits in our combined lifetimes. It is my hope and prayer that we may continue doing the work of seeding these dreams for a better future, one where the Earth and Mother Nature are respected, fed and deeply nurtured, and one where our dignity as human beings is reinstated and remains intact, for the generations to come.
Thank you for joining me in the work of a lifetime! Thank you for being here and receiving my words! I look forward to sharing more with you all about my journey in years to come!
From my heart, to yours,
Aislinn