Spin your Spirit
Caught in the UmPhafa Thorns The UmPhafa tree, zizyphus mucronata , has a double thorn. The thorn on the bottom of the branch hooks backwards, while the thorn on the top of the branch spikes forwards. The tree has many names, including the hook thorn, and the Afrikaans, blinkblaar-wag-‘n-bietjie (shiny leaf wait-a- bit). All the names refer to the vicious nature of the thorns. Animals and humans alike find it difficult to escape the thorns once entangled in them. King Chaka, the Zulu Chief, told his people that the backward thorn holds memory while the upward thorn points to the future. We cannot have one without the other, so we must look forward to the future but never forget the past. I know, in my own life, I am often deeply caught by the backward hook of memory and by the tree’s elliptical seed. The tree seems to have a sense of its own magic. Synonyms for elliptical include: cryptic, dark, equivocal, murky, mystic and nebulous. Memory, and how we...