Come To Gather, Come Together & A Kalahari Homecoming
Two Visionary Reports
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Come to Gather, Come Together
This past spring we became mystical friends with Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980), an evangelist preacher, musician, and artist who lived in New Orleans. After receiving visionary direction to begin painting, Sister Gertrude eventually became famous for her art which is collected worldwide and housed in the Smithsonian. Read more about her here.
Sister Gertrude’s album, Let’s Make a Record, is in our regular musical rotation. Whenever we become musically, artistically, and mystically inspired by someone, it’s as if they take up residence in our home. This is how the room of our life becomes filled with expert big room keepers, sweepers, and rope handlers – people who know how to spiritually cook.
A few days ago, Brad dreamed that Sister Gertrude Morgan was in our home studio in New Orleans. She brought us all a message:
She was dressed in white and wore a nurse’s hat. She looked at us and said these words: “Come to gather, come together.” As she stood in the room where we conduct our Sacred Ecstatics intensives and sessions, we remembered how she lived her life entirely directed by her mystical relationship with God. After moving to New Orleans and starting an orphanage with two other women, Sister Gertrude had a vision of becoming the mystical bride of Jesus and God (names she used interchangeably). She also became the “nurse of Doctor Jesus.” Afterwards she was always dressed in white, like a nurse and a bride.
Sister Gertrude repeated her words again in the dream, this time with a slight alteration: “Come to gather, come together. Come together, right now.”
I was so startled by her words and the authority with which she spoke them that I woke up. After the dream, both Hillary and I felt we had transitioned again into a new phase of the work. Sacred Ecstatics was ready to “come together.” Everyone in the Guild must come to gather and work together, staying focused on keeping the mystical wheel turning and the ropes strong. It’s time for all of this to come together, right now.
I then fell back asleep and had the same dream again. This surprised me so much that I woke up with a sense of urgency about moving forward with the work. It is time for Sacred Ecstatics to really come together.
A Kalahari Homecoming
The night after Brad saw Sister Gertrude in our studio, he dreamed that we returned to the Kalahari:
We were with my former guides and had just finished a long journey. Lions and other dangerous creatures were all around, but we had safely made it through. Finally we arrived at a Kalahari village where many of the Bushman elders we have known over the years were gathered to welcome us home.
Some journalists were there to cover this special moment. A large open tent had been set up to protect the elders from the blaring sun. A reporter began asking them a lot of naïve questions such as, “Does it make a difference whether you dance for money or dance because you simply want to do so?” All the Bushmen looked puzzled. An elder Bushman woman and doctor, Twa, answered, “There is no difference. It is always great to dance no matter what.”
Hearing this conversation, I remembered how outsiders to the Kalahari typically assume that their way of making sense of the world is the same for the Bushmen. For the outsider, dancing for money, meat, courtship, fun, entertainment, celebration, hunting preparation, healing, prayer, or worship are differentiated, categorized, and rank ordered. For the Bushmen, however, any and every reason to dance provides a reasonable match to spark the fire of n/om. No matter the initial inspiration, they gather on the same dance ground to make their hearts happy and their n/om zappy.
Before I could continue pondering the nature of Bushman ways of knowing, the elder Kalahari healers came up to me with an old tin can. It was filled with money they had collected. I looked and saw a one-dollar bill folded with a small amount of Botswanan and Namibian paper currency. There was also a lot of change in the can. They handed it to me and I felt embarrassed to receive money from the Bushmen who have so little of it. They smiled but didn’t laugh. Three elder women that I had danced with for many years embraced me and asked, “Does this make you want to dance?”
In that moment I never felt like dancing more in my life. It was inspired by the unbroken relational thread that shares resources as we hug and shake with a song. Sacred Ecstatics, like the Kalahari n/om hunters and gatherers, aims to blend the world together so shattered parts mend and awakened hearts send n/om-filled music and sacred emotion into the lives of everyone.
As the evening stars came out and the women began to sing and clap, I fell more deeply into the dreamtime of First Creation. Here arrows and nails of n/om meet as people greet, bringing and sharing all they have, doing it right now and not waiting until tomorrow. There’s plenty of change in the Kalahari elders’ tin can. Reach in and take some.
-The Keeneys, September 6, 2019