IZILWANE SOUTH AFRICA
IZILWANE
— EXPLORATION SOUTH AFRICA —
Exploring and Documenting
the Links Between African Lore And The Relationships
Between Human Beings and Animals
~ Anthrozooecology ~
(Izilwane is the Zulu word for “animal”)
As the world approaches an evolutionary bifurcation point, a choice between destruction and change, can the ancient knowledge of Africa—Umlandu—and the shaman’s ability to “communicate” with animals help prevent species extinction, including our own human species? Do the white lions of Timbavati, as well as other animals, have something to teach us? If we change how we perceive “reality,” can we also change our headlong rush into environmental oblivion?
In an effort to answer these questions our research and filmmaking team will journey to South Africa to meet with Vusumazulu Credo Mutwa, an elderly Zulu sanusi sangoma, or shaman. Known as a powerful seer, healer, and repository of African lore, Credo also holds knowledge about the white lions of Timbavati, animals whom he and many other tribal elders consider to be sacred.
After meeting with Credo at his healing center in Kuruman on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, we will travel eastward through the snow-topped Drakensburg mountains to Eshowe in KwaZulu, Natal. Eshowe, which means “nice breeze,” is a small farming village famous for its healers, particularly its sangomas. Here we will work with Joel Dlamini, an herbalist or inyanga, and other healers, asking them what human beings have to learn from animals and how people can learn to “communicate” with other animals.
Then we will drive north to Timbavati, the home of the white lions, where Linda Tucker founded the Global White Lion Protection Trust. Although the trust is an environmental conservation project that uses scientific methods to re-introduce the almost extinct white lion to its homeland, it was not science, but Linda’s personal inter-species relationship with the white lions (along with the guidance she received from Credo and other African healers), that led her to found the Trust. In addition, traditional healers like Credo, with their non-scientific and non-Western concepts of human-animal relationship, continue to further community conservation efforts among their own people at the local level as well.
What is the meaning of the appearance of white lions in this particular place and time? Is it related to the appearance of white non-albino animals throughout the world? Many indigenous keepers of knowledge consider them variously to be messengers of change, warning, and hope.
As the team investigates the meaning of the white lions, we will not attempt to determine what is “true” and what is “metaphor,” but instead will focus on being open to different ways of perceiving reality, what we call “perceptual diversity.” We will ask: Can different ways of perceiving reality allow us to co-evolve with the multitude of species that we as human beings are now destroying? Is there a way to avoid the human-caused Sixth Great Extinction that the planet is currently undergoing by changing our eco-psychological paradigm in terms of human-animal relationships?
We will conduct research, document the journey, blog with notes and photographs from the field, take photos, and make a documentary film about the exploration. Our goal is investigate human-animal relationships so that we can deliver new concepts that will help us reconnect with the natural world that sustains us all.
Izilwane Exploration South Africa
is a project of Izilwane
in cooperation with Global Diversity Film Project
Both are sponsored by Perception International , a 501(c)3 Non-profit Organization
PROJECT DIRECTOR
TARA WATERS LUMPKIN, PHD, is a co-founder of Perception International and coined the term “perceptual diversity” in 1994. She is an environmental and medical anthropologist, who has worked as an international development consultant for UNICEF, the United States Agency for International Development, and a variety of nongovernmental organizations. In addition she has worked as an environmental journalist, professor of writing and media, and has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and has won more than half a dozen writing prizes, fellowships, and grants. Dr. Lumpkin is a certified somatic experiencing practitioner, who has guided clients through the process of healing from trauma. She is President of the non-profit Perception International, which promotes environmental, cultural and perceptual diversity worldwide. In addition, she is Founder and Project Director of Izilwane whose mission is to connect human beings to other species and to the global ecosystem by creating new ways for human beings to perceive themselves in relationship to the natural world.
For more information:
Email: info@perceptionintl.org
TARA WATERS LUMPKIN
PO Box 2160
El Prado, NM 87529
Mobile: (575) 779-0856
To make a tax deductible donation:
