3 Chapter Three – Reclaiming Ubuntu: Ancestral Relationships and the Medicine of Radical Belonging

My late grandfather, August Adriaans, who was born and raised in the western cape near Cape Town, South Africa, often recounted stories of life in Apartheid-era South Africa. As a young boy growing up in Toronto, Canada, I sat and listened intently, witnessing and absorbing these passionate and vivid generational trauma narratives. Under Apartheid, my grandfather, whose ancestry is likely African and South-Asian, was classified by the government as “colored,” a term that is used to describe individuals from mixed ancestry. During Apartheid, his family’s 14-acre homestead was seized under the Group Areas Act when the land was re-classified as “white-only.” His wife, my grandmother, Elizabeth Mouton, a white woman descended from French Huguenots who fled religious persecution and other European settlers, was re-classified as “colored” because she was married to a brown-skinned “colored” man.

I remember sitting with the energy of what I later came to understand as a lot of anger, grief and confusion. In retrospect, these early cross-generational encounters opened a portal to my own ancestral healing journey, not only for myself, but also on behalf of my multi-racial ancestors. How does someone with multi-racial ancestry reconcile, heal and integrate the ancestral legacies of those who were oppressed and those who inflicted the harm? The African philosophy of Ubuntu – “I am because We are” – has been central in helping me address these questions.

Ikaya: The home of August Adriaans and Elizabeth Mouton Adriaans near the corner of Prince George Drive and Victoria Road, Grassy Park, Western Cape, South Africa which was demolished in 1971, under the Group Areas Act when the area was re-classified as “White-only”

As a Psychologist, healer, and mindfulness practitioner, a personal and professional calling of mine has been to explore and tend to the experience of being multi-racial in these modern times. Early in my journey I looked to elders such as ancestor Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu who was a South African Anglican bishop, theologian, and human rights activist. Much of Desmond Tutu’s work centered on the importance of truth, reconciliation and forgiveness in helping South Africa heal and forge a path forward in the aftermath of Apartheid through his seminal work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The main objective of the TRC was to promote reconciliation and forgiveness among perpetrators and victims of Apartheid who suffered gross human rights violations between March 1960 and May 1994. Tutu spoke often about the African philosophy of Ubuntu which underpinned much of his work. In a chapter entitled, “Ubuntu: On the Nature of Human Community” from his book God Is Not a Christian and Other Provocations, Tutu shares his definition of Ubuntu:

“In our African weltanschauung, our worldview, we have something called Ubuntu. In Xhosa, we say, “Umntu ngumtu ngabantu.” This expression is very difficult to render in English, but we could translate it by saying, “A person is a person through other persons.” We need other human beings for us to learn how to be human, for none of us comes fully formed into the world. …Ubuntu is the essence of being human. It speaks of how my humanity is caught up and bound up inextricably with yours. It says, not as Descartes did, “I think, therefore I am,” but rather, “I am because I belong.” I need other human beings in order to be human. The completely self-sufficient human being is subhuman. I can be me only if you are fully you. I am because we are, for we are made for togetherness, for family. We are made for complementarity. We are created for a delicate network of relationships, of interdependence with our fellow human beings, with the rest of creation.”¹

As I turn inward to reflect and be with the essence of Tutu’s words, there is something about Ubuntu that invites one to “come home.” I notice a softening of the emotional and physical barriers inside me that were created, reinforced and passed down across generations of racial divisiveness and trauma. It is as if the spirit and practice of Ubuntu invites me to come back into relationship with my multi-ethnic ancestors, and for these ancestors to come back into relationship with one another in a more intentional way. Included in this invitation are my indigenous ancestors from Southern Africa, as well as the European ones, the West and Central African ones, and the South and East Asian ones. I am because We are.

The calling and medicine of Ubuntu has laid the foundation and has created openings for my ancestral healing journey. As a Black man of multi-racial ancestry, I was ambivalent and at times fearful about working with my ancestors for many reasons. What would it be like to relate to ancestors who endured horrific experiences such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Dutch East Indies Slave Trade and Apartheid? Would I be able to metabolize the pain and grief associated with those experiences? I had an even stronger aversion to forming relationships with my European ancestors, some of whom enslaved the largest numbers of West African people in the Caribbean countries of Barbados and Guyana. How could I forgive those who did such harms during their lifetimes? Would they even want to relate with me?

In deepening into these questions, I came across the work of Daniel Foor who offered teaching in a non-dogmatic healing arts approach called Ancestral Lineage Healing. In my first training with Daniel, he spoke about some of the assumptions that underlie work with the ancestors. One such assumption is that, like the living, not all of the dead are equally well.² The Ancestral Lineage Healing approach begins with assessing wellness on our lineages, forming relationships with vibrantly well guides, and then moving into more difficult terrain.

As a Psychologist, this trauma-informed approach resonated deeply with my extensive work with survivors of various types of trauma. When doing difficult work, it’s important to develop resources for strength and resilience before diving into the pain too quickly. This idea helped me resolve some of the fears and ambivalence I initially had about working with my own multi-racial ancestors. Dagara Elder, Malidoma Somé also offered important insights and teachings on forgiveness and the idea that ancestors who did harm while living may be highly motivated to make things right in the ancestral realm. Just as we learn, evolve and grow over the course of our lifetimes, so do our ancestors.³

The technologies of ancestral reverence, animism, and ancestral lineage healing have helped me to decolonize my own healing journey as well as the work I offer to others. These approaches have provided me with a framework to access important layers associated with racial trauma and colonialism that are generational, historical and systemic in nature. Decolonial approaches acknowledge that the root causes of disease and of being unwell have much to do with the emotional, physical, spiritual and cultural disconnection resulting from internalized White supremacy, colonization, and other extractive and exploitative systems that many of us and our ancestors have lived through. For me, the antidote to some of these harms has been to reconnect to culture, re-establish relationships with ancestors, and take an animist approach to life. In other words, Ubuntu – I am because We are.

Ancestral lineage healing has offered me tools to not only reconnect with lineage strengths, knowledge, and guides, but has also provided me with mechanisms that allow my multi-racial lineages to do important forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing work with one another. My West African lineage on my father’s mother’s line were the first of my diverse lineages to present to me. In the absence of conscious relationships with these ancestors I had assumed that they were the most unwell of my lineages, given the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. However, much to my surprise, these ancestors were in a state of vibrant wellness. There was a strong sense of cohesion and intact cultural strength among them. Ancestral lineage healing allowed me the opportunity to let go of the “story” that western culture has presented about people who endured slavery, and to consciously relate differently to these ancestors.

Similarly, I had preconceived ideas about some of my European ancestors, particularly those who left Europe to settle in South Africa. Again, many of the “stories” I had internalized about White South Africans emerged from a lens of systems of racial oppression such as Apartheid. When beginning to work with my mother’s father’s line, I felt apprehension and fear which surely were remnants of the generational trauma that many of my people endured in Southern Africa. However, when invited to connect with a vibrantly well guide on this lineage from a place and time on the lineage before these harms occurred, I was overcome by the sense of love and welcome offered to me by my guide and other ancestors on this line who were well in spirit. This relationship helped me to metabolize and let go of the pain and trauma that I was holding in my own body related to racial trauma. Now I am filled with a new story that I am loved, and that I do belong.

White supremacy and other systems of oppression are built on notions of hierarchies, divisiveness, and choosing sides. As a multi-racial person, there has been a societal pressure to choose sides. In North America, and especially in the United States, race is often seen as a Black/White binary. As a young person, I remember being perceived as not Black enough by some and as too White by others. I felt that my other ancestries from South Asia or South America, for example, were often overlooked. As a multi-racial individual, I had been searching for ways to feel racially whole. Following the ancestral healing work with my various lineages, my guides encouraged me to participate in a harmonization session.

In the Ancestral Lineage Healing model, the process of harmonization occurs when two or more healed lineages relate more directly with one another. Often the process of harmonization offers an opportunity to do more direct forgiveness, reconciliation or accountability work between lineages. It was moving and powerful to have my West African ancestors and my European ancestors dialogue, and commit to repairing their relationships with each other related to the harms that were both endured and inflicted. In some ways this process was reminiscent of Desmond Tutu’s work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The process of harmonization also offered an opportunity for my lineages to more consciously share and blend gifts and strengths, both through me and within the larger community. In addition, the harmonization has helped to clarify my/our unique gifts and contributions in this lifetime. I’ve achieved a sense of wholeness as a result of braiding my diverse lineages in this way. There is a sense of radical belongingness that I internally feel now and can better offer to others through my healing work, teaching, and in other relationships. In partnership with my loving ancestors, and in centering the cultural wisdom and practices of my lineages, such as Ubuntu, I’ve found healing and purpose.

In closing, my ancestors encouraged me to share a poem that I wrote while visiting South Africa and the land where “Ikaya,” home of my maternal grandparents August Adriaans and Elizabeth Mouton Adriaans, once stood.

Coming Home to UBUNTU

Blood flows red, with excitement, anticipation, longing…

To be home

I want to see you, feel you, claim you… Ikaya!

Red wine welcomes

We glow in awe, brimming with love, so red

So deep the potholes of love swell

Fill our cups

But wait…the laughter of children

Oh the children, so pure, their precious red hearts and ours together, Ubuntu

We eat, we feast on delicious red sauces, African sunsets, galloping gazelles

Red drums, around blazing fire we dance, dizzy red synchrony…our tribe

Feet firmly planted on warm, red earth, finally!

I also offer this guided mindfulness practice that incorporates the mantra of Ubuntu and helps us be with and explore our thoughts and feelings about race and racial identity in these times. Access the UBUNTU Mindful Racial Awareness⁴ practice here:

https://youtu.be/bB29SOOjiqk?si=0PCv1qgeHN-LlRX-