What is your name & location?
Blessings to you, loves. I'm Gogo Thule Ngane, Sangoma Priestess & Medicine Woman. I'm currently located in the mountains of Southern California outside of Orange County. I'm very much a nomadic traveler, however, constantly moving through the earth exploring and teaching.
How do you heal (or help heal) people?
In 2011, after lots of frustration, depression, and experiences of lost, I magically discovered that it was all due to the fact that I had a calling to become an African Traditional Healer or Sangoma in the Zulu tradition. My elevated ancestors were calling me to pick up and learn their ancient ways of healing and living. As a seer and diviner, I hold space to move between the spirit realm and physical realm in a way where I can receive messages about your spirit. I use an ancient form of bone divination and channel my amadlozi {elevated ancestral guardian spirits} to diagnose or find the spiritual root of who you are and what is in the way of you fully coming into your gifts, well-being, and spiritual connection.
Once, we know what the ancestral & spirit realm reveals about your mind, body, and spirit at this time, I work with people through ancestral rituals and holistic healing methods to bring back balance and retrieve power/wisdom that may have been lost through pain, trauma, ancestral karma, and the challenging experiences we've had within this lifetime and past lives.
I also hold space for healing through these methods in workshops, ceremonies, and retreats or holistic events. Healing is something that happens with your permission, intention, and work. I am the facilitator and guide on the journey. In more ancient and indigenous times, we used to be surrounded by elders who could see the symptoms, signs, and omens within and around us to guide us on the journey. Since our traditions and rites of passages have been lost, a lot of my work is to intuitively notice, channel, guide, and hold space for you to do your healing work towards remembering who you are or remove the blocks in the way.
As a Sangoma, I use plant medicines, dreams, trance, ancient chants, songs, drumming, and tools given to me by the Amadlozi to facilitate healing and harmony with the earth as well as our natural divine selves.
There is this quote by Rumi that I admire:
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
We are already whole and complete beings with everything we need within if we could just let go of the barriers or re-open the doors that have closed or lay dormant. You were born with power. Waking that divine energy that resides within you is the work.
What type of benefits does your method of healing provide?
Ancestral healing has many physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual effects and transformation to offer and is very specific to each individual. At the heart of it though, this art form helps us understand the root of our problems from an ancestral and indigenous perspective. I recently worked with a woman who has been having pain on the left side of her body. The left side represents the ancestral mothers. As we sang and drummed and worked with her, an ancestral mother came through crying and saying that the particular chant we were singing and the work were helping her elevate from the trauma of being hanged from a tree and taken from her children early in life. So this client was experiencing a physical imbalance in her life due to what her ancestors had been through.
There is so much ancestral work that has not been passed down and hasn't been done for generations.
There is so much we can resolve and put back into balance through this work which transcends time and space. As I like to say, this work/life is very cosmic! I have seen things people would never believe me if I told them and what I truly love is that the Amadlozi have so much to give and help us remember if we dedicate ourselves to relearning their language {energy}, which we all speak.
When we honor them. They honor us.
When did you realize that you wanted to heal people/why did you start?
I was born in Burkina Faso, West Africa. It's considered one of the poorest countries in the world. My dad would take us there when we were younger during the summer every few years. After a while, my goals in life centered around wanting to help my family and my people. Naturally, I wanted more for us, African people. I started out in the nonprofit/grassroots world, traveling to Africa, raising funds for civil war victims, and volunteering for global causes. Eventually, the international nonprofit world came with so many disappointments. I sat in front of government officials in Africa that just had to say yes and LIVES would be transformed but the politics and economics around it were too disappointing for my emphatic heart. I thought what kind of world do I live in if I have to convince people to help people, their own people EVEN. I started to feel guided towards working with people more one on one and spiritually because if we could get our minds/spirits right we wouldn't even have half of these battles. That whole 'change yourself to change the world' vibe came over me as well, so I started with myself. Who am I, REALLY {mind, body, spirit}? What am I truly here to do? What is the bigger picture? Thousands of internal questions started to unfold as I worked on my personal and spiritual development. Spirituality started to feel like a love affair or sacred dance. As an Aquarius, I have quite the imagination and as I started to see that magic {spirituality} is very real beyond religion, I started to feel at home. Slowly, things started to point in the direction of being a healer but I really didn't know why nor felt like I had permission or spiritual gifts. I also had a Catholic upbringing to face and unlearn. So I was determined to find out my purpose when I stumbled across {when the student is ready...} the woman who became my Baba/teacher and did a divination to find out what my ancestors had to say. The answers were revealed more clearly. My first experience of an African traditional spiritual ceremony left me in awe at how much more depth there is to our culture. I followed the guidance of spirit and started my initiation/rites of passage. This opened a deep portal to things I would never have imagined to be true about this petite West African girl in America who was once too shy and scared to live fully or dream outside of white picket fences.
I worked on myself first and then I shared what felt like the greatest COSMIC GIFT to those who listened or witnessed my transformation.
Why is what you do so important?
So many reasons...but everything in my experience has shown me that the world/consciousness is shifting/rising. More and more, day by day, people are tired of the extremes of religion, the system, the fake food & dis-ease, the work like a slave, the false education, the patriarchy, the oppression, the injustice in the streets and battles in our homes. All of these things have been a direct attack on the spirit, your spirit. Many speak of spiritual warfare and it is real. There is light and love but there is also destruction and rebirth happening. This work is important simply because we are waking up and the activation is encoded in our DNA. The elevated ancestors, ancient ones, Gods/Goddesses, & forces of nature are calling us to remember and bring things back into MAAT {balance/order}. We aren't going backward, but we are going forward with the TRUTH.
What is your inspiration to continue doing what you are doing? What is the fuel that keeps you going?
My own transformation is my 1st inspiration. I feel like I finally found myself and love myself much more than before. Who I am is definitely a path I continue to walk and discover but with so much more guidance through the fire. It's not an easy journey but one that makes life worth living.
My Baba, who risked her life for me and passed on the tradition authentically.
My large and huge divine family in the spirit realm also fuel me. They gift me, surprise me, and challenge me like no other but it is always worth it.
The fact that this is all so much bigger than me. There is a lineage of medicine people before me and ahead of me. Sometimes I can't believe they chose me to do this work, in this way, in this lifetime. It means the world and when I see that same gratitude in the eyes of others dedicated to their journey, it feels full circle {whole}.
How does it make you feel when you are healing people?
Purposeful. On time. Like an instrument being played by the hands of the cosmos. I feel at home.
What are your visions &/or goals?
The vision is to be of service to my earth purpose, of service to the elders {amadlozi} that walked this path before me, and to have enough physical and spiritual space to welcome people home to the ancient ways.
In between that some babies, husbands, and lots of good food & music. ;-)
The ancestors rarely reveal the whole vision to me all at once but I listen by being as present in each moment as I can. To be guided by them and walk fiercely towards the missions given is the ultimate goal.
Tell us a fun fact about what it is that you do, or something people may not know.
It's easy to think that a priestess is someone who sits on some kind of throne. I am usually in the nature, bruising up this beautiful body, doing the most challenging work to live, operate, and vibrate from my highest self. I have made every mistake and faced the deepest pains. I am constantly dying and being reborn by the womb of mama earth. The portals I travel come with major responsibility. This is my life and even though I've tried to run at times {lol}, I find myself back home {falling out in front the shrines} surrendering again and again. They chose a stubborn child but I'm relearning and I'm grateful.
In one sentence, what is your message to the world?
Most of us are feeling called or pulled towards something, go, follow, listen, and discover what is begging you to remember.
Is there anything else that you would like to share about yourself or what it is that you do?
Thank you, WeHealToo, for honoring the healer in me. Sawubona {I see & honor you}.
To the readers...
May we cross paths in the most divine ways.
May there be love, light, and strength all around you.
May you connect with what is for your spirit.
Join me on my journey at www.sacredliberation.com | @thuleheals | fb.com/SacredLiberation
**Photo credits: www.hanawolf.photography
instagram: @hanawolf.photography