The Rope to God is Made
of a Dot and a Line
A Visionary Mathematician Teaches Us About Kalahari Bushman Spirituality and The Two Rooms of Existence
Prologue: The Mystical Rope
The original ecstatic practitioners, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, believe everything is connected by lines of relationship. Depending on the strength of the line, it is called a thread, string, or rope. The most important main line is a strong, personal rope to the big Sky God. It is a direct connection between you and your Creator that also functions like a telephone line and electrical line, to put it in modern terms. The rope to God delivers sacred songs, sends you to the visionary classrooms, and transmits the changing power of n/om—the vibratory life force required for healing and spiritual transformation.
The Bushmen dance and sing with syncopated rhythms and embellished melodies to strengthen their ropes to God. They perform with such emotional fervor that they become “spiritually cooked,” referring to the experience of n/om waking up. This sacred ecstatic fire lifts their hearts to bolster relations, foster sharing interactions, and circulate joyful vibrations throughout the whole community.
T!ae, Bushman doctor. She is on the cover of our book, Way of the Bushman. Drawing is from
The Pinnacle Prayer Book
They have long understood that you cannot just get spiritually cooked once and then assume that your rope is empowered. Human beings quickly get spiritually cold and their ropes weaken, making it necessary to re-ignite and re-enter the spiritual fire often. Again, the main rope is the most important; when your rope to God is strong it strengthens and takes care of the other relational ropes.
The Dot of Eternity and the Line of Temporality
A few months ago, Brad was sent to a visionary classroom where a mathematician stood at a long blackboard, explaining the nature of the rope to God:
The professor’s back was facing the class as he wrote on the board with chalk. He made a dot and said, “In eternity the rope is a single, tiny dot that is also an infinite circle.”
Then he drew a series of dots in a line and spoke again:
“In this sequence each dot of eternity is the same but it appears to repeat, creating a line that moves forward through time. This is the line of temporality. There is really only one dot, and what appears as repetition is actually recursion—the circle re-entering itself. The rope to God is therefore made of both the eternal recursive dot and the temporal repeating dot, stretching into a line.”
The professor went on to explain that there are also two rooms that comprise reality—one belongs to eternity and the other to temporality. These correspond, in turn, to First Creation and Second Creation, Bushman terms for the realm of infinite, constant change and the realm of form and finitude, respectively. In First Creation the rope to God appears as a single dot, and in Second Creation, the rope appears as a line.
These two rooms may also be depicted as:
You live in both rooms but primarily go about your day feeling steeped in Second Creation knowings, doings, and details. Sometimes, however, you catch a glimpse of your other numinous home.
In Second Creation both realities feel separate, as if they exist side by side. In First Creation, however, the two rooms are experienced as distinct yet inseparable (not one, not two!). Their embedded and imbricated nature is revealed.
Human beings primarily engage in spiritual activity to cross over for a brief time into First Creation and palpably feel at home in the big room of divine mystery. Re-entering First Creation brings the awe-ness of all-ness, the big love, the bright light, the perfect embrace, the smoldering joy, and the one endless smile.
Recursion: Building the Rope to God
The dreamed lecture was extraordinary. Though much of it was incomprehensible upon waking, Brad caught the feeling for the essence of its teaching. The mathematician was explaining that the primary dot you choose is the most important decision you make each and every day. He went on to say that the rope to God is the constant re-indication (re-enactment and re-emphasis) of that primary dot or hallowed cornerstone. You can’t make the mark once and think the work of constructing the rope is done. Each re-indication is akin to laying down another stone in relationship with the original cornerstone.
In your daily life, two things beg to be done (only two things!): 1) Make the primary dot and then 2) Make it again.
Over time, the dots become the line that is the rope that lassoes you and pulls you along the path. From the perspective of eternity, this is more a dynamic circle of recursion rather than a linear progression—Ouroboros swallows its own circular nature while expanding its breadth, depth, and height to hold a growing universe.
Consider each moment of your life as a series of dots that comprise the growing rope as it is experienced in linear time. Each dot is also the rebirth of an entire lineage of dot makers and rope builders. History moves forward one recycled eternity at a time, appearing to progress as a line while it is actually a circle re-entering its own dynamic nature, changing with each go around the merry-go-round-hallowed-ground that remains intact in order to interact and transact with all the changes of creation.
A Small Stone in the World – The Identity of the Mathematician Revealed
Brad woke up wondering who the prodigious mathematician was in his dream. He was especially humbled by the impossibility of making the master teaching clear to others. Brad felt like he knew this man from somewhere—his voice was familiar, but in the dream the professor faced the blackboard and his face was never seen.
A few days later, we received an email informing us that Tadeu Fernandes de Carvalho, the son of Brazilian healer, João Fernandes de Carvalho, had passed away. Brad immediately knew this was the teacher in the dream. Tadeu was a close friend of Brad’s and a professor of mathematics. They spent considerable time together when Brad was in Brazil writing the book about João’s life (see Hands of Faith: Healers of Brazil). Only a few people knew that Tadeu also was born with his father’s spiritual gift. Brad recorded him saying this about his father:
My father is a spirit with a different relationship to matter than most of us have. For him, matter is an instrument for his soul. It is not something to keep, but something to dole out freely to others. He can’t personally use it, but he can give it away. He can make bread, but he can’t eat his own bread. He is unable to keep the material aspect of the world because he doesn’t need it.
My father has never claimed to perform a miracle. He also never interprets anything that happens . . . He does not want to be remembered as a healer, a magical person, or as a saint. He only wants to be remembered as a simple person. Perhaps the most precious gift he gave us was the understanding that we are nothing more or less than a small stone in the world and that we must love each other and thank God every day.
Both João and Tadeu were made of the same dot, lived inside its numinous circularity, owned a rope to God, and belonged to eternity. They made holy bread for others as they taught one lesson: we are nothing more or less than a crumb or a small stone that must “love each other and thank God every day.” Their particularly strong divine connection may have been a miraculous gift, but it was their simple, humble way of nurturing this rope in their daily lives that was the true miracle.
A Never Ending Encore
Today and every day, choose the primary divine dot and subsequently re-indicate it, re-enacting that choice again. Do so in a way that invites sufficient creative variation. Rather than mechanically parrot a prayer, song, or dance, introduce enough difference to bring more sacred emotion and vibratory life force to the turning circle. This ongoing recursion is what builds the road and launches your journey. The sacred circle that turns and burns creates the line you seek to walk as it weaves your rope to God one dot, one choice, and one heated prayer-song-dance at a time.
-The Keeneys, September 27, 2019. Reposted September 19, 2020. Illustrations by Hillary Keeney.