Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.
Ancient African Proverbs
Geral T. Blanchard • Jun 26, 2022
Ancient African Proverbs
New Title
Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.
- Nigeria
A man who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the man doing it.
- Swaziland
The poorest person is not the one without money but the one without vision.
- Ghana
Old men sit in the shade because they planted a tree many years before.
- Uganda
Youths talk first and the listen; the elders listen and then talk.
- Lesotho
A Pygmy’s shadow is greater with a setting sun. (Our ancestor’s merits are often only recognized after their passing.)
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
Gather knowledge from the minds of turtles. (Like the Elders, they have seen it all).
- Tunisia
A man who prides himself on his ancestry is like a potato plant, the best part is underground.
- Swaziland
Bequest two things to your children – the first one is roots; the other one is wings.
- Sudan
A tree is strong because of its roots.
- Zambia
Good sailors are made by turbulent seas.
- Zululand
Do not set sail using someone else’s star.
- Nigeria
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. If you are on a road to nowhere, find another road.
- Uganda
The key that unlocks is also the key that locks.
- Algeria
Make money but don’t let money make you.
- Tanzania
A man’s wealth may be superior to him.
- Gabon
If you are going to bathe, get thoroughly wet. (If you decide to do something, go all the way.)
- Malawi
If you row another person across the river, you get yourself there.
- Tanzania
Water always finds a way out. (There is a solution for every problem.)
- Cameroon
The same boiling water that softens potatoes also hardens eggs.
- Mali
No matter how hot your anger is, it cannot cook yams. (Too much anger can limit your ability to move ahead in life.)
One lie can destroy a thousand truths.
- Ghana
When the head is too big, it cannot dodge blows.
- Mauritius and Zambia
One head does not contain all the wisdom.
- Ghana
Many words do not fill a basket.
- Benin
If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.
- Malawi
A monkey does not see his own behind; he sees his neighbors.
- Zimbabwe
When a monkey climbs a tree, its bottom becomes more exposed the higher it goes.
- Malawi
A monkey that lives amongst dogs learns how to bark.
- Nigeria
Do not blame your god for having created the tiger, but thank your god for not having given it wings.
- Ethiopia
The one-eyed man does not thank God until he sees a blind man.
- Ghana
When you climb the mountain and reach the top, do not forget the branches and shrubs that helped your footing.
- South Africa
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
- Ghana
Never tell the man who is carrying you that he stinks.
- Sierra Leone
People are man’s medicine.
- Senegal
A single bracelet does not jingle.
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
If you fear something, you give it power over you.
- Chad
He who looks for honey must have the courage to face the bees.
- Seychelles
Suicide kills those who love you.
- Kenya
Love, like the rain, does not choose the grass on which it falls.
- South Africa
Do not be so in love that you cannot tell when the rain is coming.
- Madagascar
A letter from the heart is read on the face.
- Kenya
If there is cause to hate someone, the cause to love has just begun.
- Senegal and Gambia
A real fortune teller says: “If it is not a boy, it is a girl.
- Madagascar
A wise man who knows his proverbs reconciles difficulties.
- Ghana
Africa’s long history has given rise to much wisdom. For more proverbs, check out Life is God’s Best Gift: Wisdom from the Ancestors on Finding Peace and Joy in Today’s World by Sam Chege (Kenyan).
*********
Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
More Articles
In recent years psychotherapists have become increasingly aware of the risk of transmitting trauma intergenerationally. By examining the impact of the Holocaust, or the experiences of Native Americans who were systematically abused by colonizers including the Catholic Church, it becomes obvious that indirect passage of depression, despair, anxiety, and damaged self-regard are but a few of the ancestral legacies of uninterrupted abuse. If, however, trauma can be passed from generation to generation without direct experience, could it also be possible for the reverse to happen?
Just as we have started to witness the reality of individual post-traumatic growth (PTG) – not just bouncing back after trauma but bouncing forward – could we entertain the concept of intergenerational growth (IG) – in other words, thriving from generation to generation?
There can be two levels at which trauma is processed. The first tier may be a time of quiet denial or the dissociation of nearly all thoughts of how painful the past was. The body feels it, but the mind does not speak it. On the second level a person awakens to the entirety of it, often an unpredicted and sudden onslaught of previously suppressed details with extensive associated pain. When trauma is reconstituted at the second level it often happens unwillingly. A person may be swept away by an awakening that seems very ugly. It feels like too much to absorb in its entirety. The result is often to feel afraid, even shattered – at first. Now with everything out in the open, what must be done with it?
At the second level of awareness, it is almost impossible to go on pretending that everything is fine. No longer can the visuals and emotions be kept submerged. One wonders, “Damn it, will I ever get better?”
Traumatized persons, with their pervasive pain, typically seek mood altering experiences. This can include ascetic restrictions, hedonistic over-eating, chemical dependency, sexual dependency, sexual anorexia or celibacy, romance addiction, relationship dependency, compulsive gambling, TV or movie binging, rock climbing, auto racing, reliance on antidepressants and/or antianxiety medications, religious addiction, and so much more that can serve to pacify, distract, and avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. By thrill-seeking, the higher the risks being engaged, the greater mood alteration one can experience. It’s a big dopamine splash and more.
These are the adult versions of childhood thumb sucking, according to Dr. Harvey Milkman, the author of Craving for Ecstasy (the feeling of ecstasy, not the drug). Harvey pointedly said, “Growing up consists of finding the right substitute for your thumb.”
There are many emotional reactions to a drug-free spiritual awakening experience and a ceremonial MDMA journey. While this article focuses on empathy – both the feeling and the cognitive component – it is obvious to those who have awakened from a spiritual emergency that a variety of related emotions arise.
It is one thing to imagine how another person feels. Psychopaths, despite what the general public believes, are very good at empathy on an intellectual level. Even criminal psychopaths can put themselves in another person’s position and understand their perspective. It is bigger, better, and far healthier when empathy, in its deepest sense, allows us to “feel with” other people by recognizing a sense of oneness with them, what’s called unity consciousness. To hurt others would be to hurt ourselves.
It’s impossible to talk about projection without incorporating a discussion about Sigmund Freud and Donald Trump. In this article I will skip Donald but throw in a little Carl Jung. Freud, of course, named several distinctive defense measures – reality distorting strategies to keep us safe. Two of the big ones are displacement and projection.
First, a definition of projection: This is evident when an individual attributes their own unacceptable impulses onto others. For example, a person might accuse others of engaging in thievery when, in fact, they are swindling money from their employer. Some of the behaviors and thoughts we are most ashamed of could be called shadows. We can see them first in other people before we can “call them out” in ourselves. We are defending against humiliation and mortification lest we be exposed.
Does this empathogen work in a similar manner as psychedelics, blasting us off to a sudden and dramatic awakening of the mind and soul? Not necessarily. Much like massive stress, psychedelics and MDMA can knock people off an unhealthy path and offer them an entirely different trajectory, but there is a lot of arduous individual work that must follow the use of these propellants.
So, could it be concluded that MDMA is a transcendent spiritual event -- a chemical event, or perhaps a neurological experience? By themselves, both seem unlikely. They can change activity in the brain, but enlightenment comes from hard work before and after their use. Entheogens and empathogens likely have a catalytic but not a primary casual effect in awakening.
Many events in life can change us, some in profound ways, others somewhat superficially. Some positively, some negatively. Some temporarily, some permanently. Let’s break it down.
With the “help” of psychology and the diagnoses of PTSD and C-PTSD, an entire trauma industry has developed. Much help has been delivered and, unfortunately, in many instances the assigned labels stick like glue and there can be difficulty relinquishing the newly imposed identity of “breakage.”
Many life events are transformative:
Many great minds have come out of India. Like countless spelling bee champions, Mahatma Gandhi, and Aurobindo Ghose who later took on the name of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo became a highly regarded spiritual teacher and author in the twentieth century. His main insight was that what many humans experience during altered or higher states of consciousness are glimpses of the future of evolution. And, he contended, one day these states of expansion will be normal for the whole human race.
Countless numbers of people are seeking the unity consciousness that MDMA can offer. It can make them feel bigger. And more deeply connected and powerful. Like many billions of tiny ants inching a fourteen-wheeler up a hill, every tiny bit of effort pulls the big rig along. Similarly, each one of the eight billion or so people residing on our planet today may, via a combined assemblage of singular efforts, raise their individual consciousness, while tugging the entire race forward.
“Where did all the time go?” That is the ubiquitous question every patient asks after a treatment. They ingest the medicine at 9 a.m. and, after what seems like perhaps an hour or so but was actually five or six, and once the eye mask comes off there is bewilderment as to just how much time has passed. Of course, this is all built on the bedrock notion in Western culture that time is a straight line and linear manifestation. And that there is such a thing as time! Stepping out of existing paradigms, even if for a brief “time” can be eye opening while your eyes are closed.
Traditional Native American cultures have long believed that time is a circular phenomenon. Remotely like the movie Groundhog Day suggests, every day is very similar and reoccurring like the last. In indigenous worldviews, the sun rises and the sun sets, routinely; we always have a predictable reset of sorts, the start of what we call a “new day,” or what Arapahos called “sleeps,” both reflecting measurements of time.
Dark nights of the soul as Saint John of the Cross called those long, despairing periods of our life, are never easy, in fact they are usually dreadful. They are so necessarily awful and so damn long because some of us don’t do subtlety very well. If we are open to these moments, even a tiny bit, they can serve as an internally calculated and blaring wakeup call that will guide us to solace.
John Nelson, in Healing the Split, refers to a fleeting or ephemeral sense of a higher purpose, not fully conceptualized, but compellingly near the heart. It holds answers to life’s pain but isn’t quite within our grasp…at least until the dark clouds engulf us. Then, with great staying power and inexperience matched with trust, a spiritual emergence nears surface awareness. And it always happens, as psychiatrist Stan Groff defined it, around the time of a blurry spiritual emergency.