Namaqualand
It took longer today to understand where Temples wanted me to send the healing energy. Eventually, I was led to a location northwest of Cape Town, in the region known as Namaqualand, in South Africa’s Western Cape.
I was shown and felt a tall waterfall falling into a river that flowed into the ocean, so the location was inland, but not very far, maybe an hour’s drive or so from the coast. Close to the river, I’m shown another abandoned site, this time with a building. The building was tall and square on multiple floors, like a long rectangular box, and was very industrial-looking. I could not get a clear sense of what the building had been used for, but I did get a very clear sense of the degree and depth of negative impact on the soil and land and then extending into the waters. The building seemed to have been abandoned a long time back and just left to decay. The windows were just dark hollow openings in the building, with no glass. The whole site was empty, and the immediate surroundings around the building were barren, sitting on pale, flat, dry sandy soil. I could feel how the toxins that had moved into the soil were leaching into the water and flowing towards the ocean carrying the poisons.
So far, at every point when I've asked about healing the waters, I've been stopped and heard “Someone else is working on the waters”. And so clearly, working directly on healing the waters is not mine to do at this time. So I asked to be shown what needed to happen at this site, even though I was also being shown the water nearby.
The healing light traveled from my hands in the Temples, upriver and following the contours of the water, but moving only in and through the soil next to it, not in the water itself. The flow moved from the Northern Cape coast inland, in the opposite direction to the water flow.
Once it reached the abandoned site the healing light spread out, quickly covering the whole area and gathering more and more in strength and intensity. Once the light had reached a saturation point, the building began to collapse. It fell in an almost identical way to the Twin Towers in New York City during the 9/11 attack - the tall rectangular building collapsed completely in on itself from the top down in one column, and then the earth opened and swallowed the entire building whole, in one swift, big and powerful action. The soil above it immediately covered over where the building had been and there was now just an empty clearing.
I thought that the healing was done and started to leave; I was stopped and made to keep going and look deeper. It was then that I sensed that everything beneath the soil was as if dead, or inert, inanimate. Like the lights had gone out and the presence and radiance of all of the life forms had left. I was not yet sure what to do, so I asked the healing light to continue flowing powerfully into the whole area.
After some time of just letting that happen and holding a totally open expectant state, there was a very clear felt sense of a shift, and many different kinds of earth and natural world spirits began to return; the tree spirits, the soil spirits, the stone spirits, the plant spirits, the microorganism spirits….all of them started to flow back to their homes one by one in quick succession, awakening and reanimating everything. It was truly incredible to witness. Everything started to light up and vibrate. It felt like their individual and collective presence and radiance had once again been restored. The water spirits were the very last to flow back in…it felt like they were waiting for everything else to heal, reanimate and reawaken first.
Once that part was complete, exactly where the footprint of the building had been, this big, beautiful, strong native South African tree rose up from the soil until it was fully in place, deeply rooted, standing powerful and strong. It immediately began casting rare and welcome shade, food, and all kinds of nourishment for all living beings. As that happened, the vision shifted into the whole area being healthy and vital again for humans as well. I got the sense that this became a place where people could come to rest, relax and enjoy the shelter and shade of this beautiful, powerful tree. Later, I realized it was an African baobab (Adansonia digitata), also known as the tree of life. See below for more information on these extraordinary trees.
Important Location Notes - On The Map
One aspect of this healing that has been perplexing me greatly is the location in the physical world. For days I could clearly sense the overall location on the map, but the exact place kept eluding me. Or rather, my logical mind kept getting in the way and doubting. I went over and over and around and around in circles with Google and other maps for days; I had seen this river and waterfall ever so clearly, and yet nowhere in the vicinity of where I was being shown were there any similar bodies of water. Meanwhile, my sensing took me time and again back to a very small village called O’Kiep in Namaqualand, about an hour south of the Namibian border. If you keep reading the notes you will see why healing-wise. And, there is water there, in fact, the English name is derived from the Nama word “U-gieb”, which has several meanings, including -
the great brackish spring,
the place of the big tree &
the little fountain.
So water - Yes. At least at one time, a big tree - Yes; both of those tracked 100% and as I kept asking about the location it was always a clear and strong - Yes. Over thirty years on this path and honing my skills, I have learned to powerfully trust, allow and follow that. And it’s important to remember that the correspondences between the unseen and seen, the shamanic and the physical, are very rarely identical, for many clear and obvious reasons to those on this and similar paths. And yet and still, try telling my logical mind that…! So, without being able to be sure, all I can imagine is that perhaps now or at one time, there was an underground river, and maybe even a waterfall (is that even possible? Hydrologists, please let me know…) feeding the water in this location. Or, the river and waterfall are not right next to it but a distance away. I remain greatly curious about this aspect of this particular healing and location.
Another possibility - several locations can, when working in the unseen, merge and collapse into one. So it is also possible that the clear landmarks I saw - the tall rectangular building and the waterfall and river are in fact in the same general geographical location, but not adjacent, the way I was shown them. I realize I may never know and at some point, it becomes a fruitless exercise to keep wondering… the importance of the healings themselves far outweigh any logical mind satisfaction.
Meanwhile, for my logical mind’s sake (!) here are images and locations that are the closest to what I saw -
The building I saw, right next to the water
Cornish beam pump and mine pit in O’Kiep. Source - here
The Cornish engine house at O’Kiep. Image source - here
The waterfall and river I saw
The Nieuwoudtville waterfall on the Doorn River in the Northern Cape, 31/2 hrs south of O’Kiep. Image source - here
Further Information
O’Kiep - Still Mining
O'Kiep was for many years the centre of the Namaqualand copper fields which was known at the turn of the century as the richest copper mining area in the world.
O’Kiep is the oldest mining town in South Africa where copper was first discovered and mined in 1855. In 1862 Phillips and King, who started the mining activities in Namaqualand in 1852, was taken over by a London-based company which was called "The Cape Copper Company" and they continued mining in Namaqualand until May 1919 when production ceased. In 1927 Newmont Mining / American Metal Company, two American mining houses purchased the Namaqualand Copper Fields from the defunct Cape Copper Company, and the O'Kiep Copper Company was formed in 1937 and started mining in 1940. In 1984 Newmont sold the Okiep Copper Company to Goldfields of SA which are still mining in Namaqualand today.
Source - https://www.okiep.co.za/hotel-accommodation-northern-cape
Mining Ecological Damage
1. Health Risks - The health risks from copper mining are extreme. One of the waste products is sulphuric acid and other chemical toxins, which can make the water and air poisonous to drink and breathe, respectively. The metal particles in the air can cause lung diseases and harm skin and eyes. Mining leads to infertility of the land nearby, rendering it inhabitable for humans as well as animals.
2. Air Pollution - Sulphuric acid is used for extraction and refining of copper, and the acidic fumes, when mixed with water vapor, resulting in acid rain. There are several other pollutants such as oxides and nitrates of various metals along with respirable dust, which can cause substantial damage to the lungs. These pollutants form a dense cloud and make the air unbreathable.
3. Degradation of Water resources - Tailings formed from copper mines are known to degrade water to such an extent that it changes colors and becomes extremely acidic. Additionally, the spent electrolyte and leaching solution is also discharged into water bodies, leading to the mass murder of aquatic life. It upsets the ecosystem of the area.
4. Waste Rock - When the copper ore is mined, the waste rock is dumped in huge piles along with the spent ore from the heap, dump, and vat leaching. These piles contain sulfide minerals in the form of pyrite and pyrrhotite, which can oxidize and make sulphuric acid and several other toxic wastes. These toxins exhaust the fertility of the land and kill the flora and fauna of the region.
5. Sludge - The semisolid waste products from mining, including soft mud, slush, slime, etc., that settles in tanks are hard to get rid of. In the copper mining process, this sludge is called gunk. This sludge is mostly treated before being released into the environment. If untreated sludge is discharged in water or dumps, the toxins seep into the underground water and disturb the water table.
Ishmeet Singh - Impacts of Copper Mining on Environment, 2021
The Artist’s Eye - For What It’s Worth
The South African artist Dillon Marsh often looks closely at how human activity leaves traces and scars upon the environment. “Air and water pollution, acid mine drainage, toxic waste, and abandoned, non-rehabilitated mines continue to be a detriment to the environment,” he says. But unlike slash-and-burn foresting or melting glaciers, there’s no obvious visual reference for understanding the impact mining has had on the earth. The bounty is extracted from underground and then exported elsewhere. “Due to the nature of mining operations, where minerals are extracted bit by bit over long periods of time, it has always been difficult to imagine the full amount extracted from each mine.”
So Marsh did some research. He compiled numbers on the historical output of pure minerals from five mines in the Namaqualand region and then used Google Earth to approximate the area of those mines. With those data sets, he used CGI to render huge copper orbs, and then digitally added them to photographs of the mines. In For What It’s Worth, each floating sphere is a volumetric estimate of how much copper has been extracted from each mine. Source - here
O'Okiep Mine - 284,000 tonnes of copper.
Image source - Dillon Marsh - For What It’s Worth project
Conservation - Information, Protection and Ways to Help
Repairing the Damage (or trying to)
Three-quarters of a century ago diamond mining was added to livestock grazing and cereal cropping as a serious cause of landscape degradation in the north-western semi-arid region of South Africa, Namaqualand. Since that time the activities of diamond mine operators and prospectors have eclipsed all other land uses as a cause of degradation in this region. Discontinuous patches along virtually all of the 400 km of the Namaqualand coastline have been, or are currently, being mined or prospected.
Research Paper - Restoring degraded landscapes in lowland Namaqualand: Lessons from the mining experience and from regional ecological dynamics - Peter Carrick and R. Kruger - University of Cape Town 2007
The Succulent Karoo Desert (includes Namaqualand)
Stretching from Namibia down the west coast of South Africa, the Succulent Karoo is a vast, semi-arid desert, with sweeping vistas, mountain ranges, ancient rock formations, wild coastlines, and clouds of stars arching overhead at night.
Home to more than 6,300 plant species, almost half of which occur nowhere else in the world, it is a secret land of weird and wonderful succulent plants (the richest on the planet), among which run an eclectic mix of insects, reptiles, scorpions and arachnids, all adapted to the arid conditions of the region, where moisture is largely gained from dense sea fogs.
The Succulent Karoo is an extraordinary exception to the general species paucity of most arid regions and is one of only two arid regions in the world to earn hotspot status.
Conservation South Africa - video story - People Need Nature to Thrive in Namaqualand, South Africa
The Baobab Tree
Baobabs are an iconic and important African tree. These magnificent trees form an integral part of many savannah ecosystems, but also play an important role in rural people’s lives, providing nutritious everyday food, fibre for making household products, medicine for ailments, and as a connection to the spiritual world. More recently, the global trade in baobab products has connected many thousands of rural African families with a direct income from the products made from baobab fruit.
Boabab Foundation South Africa
African baobab thumbnail image - Babobab Foundation
