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 choose to plant the seeds of it, can be all of these. How we remember the past joins at the node with future, sometimes creating an uneasy balance in the present.

The tree is part of the mythology of Africa. It has magical and medicinal properties. A branch dragged around the village is used to ward off evil spirits. The roots are meant to indicate underground water and if planted close to the village, it will ensure that lightning doesn’t strike.

The roots can be crushed into a compound to treat pain while a poultice of leaves can be used to treat inflammation and chest complaints.

In Zulu culture, when a member of the family dies, the eldest son must take a branch of the tree to wherever the body rests. The spirit of the deceased is spoken to until the spirit enters the branch, which is then taken home. On the way, the spirit must be spoken to constantly. If part of the journey is undertaken on public transport, full fare must be paid for the spirit of the deceased. The spirit of the loved one is treated with deep respect until it is safely home. How wonderful to be brought home with such love and care.

The zizyphus spina-christi is so named as it’s believed that Christ’s crown of thorns was made from its branches. I think all who make a pilgrimage through life feel the pain of the hooked thorn. There is no easy way to rid ourselves of painful memory, to strip the backward thorn away would only  damage the tree.

There are many lessons for me in the simplicity of the two thorns of the UmPhafa tree but the most important, for now, is to be able to balance past, present and future and to walk forward with courage.

The UmPhafa Tree

From the blinkbright tangled shade

Of the UmPhafa tree, a whisper:

Wait-a-bit,

Rest,

The women have drawn a branch

Around the village of your heart,

No lightning will strike here.

High-hooked on the backward thorn,

Memory clings, dropping dark, elliptical seeds,

Remember: Moses, barefooted before fire

Saw no path turning through desert sands;

Christ, bleeding into a circle of thorns,

Carried a different death on his shoulder.

All pilgrims know the price of the forward thorn.

Now the eldest son kneels to invite you:

Spin your spirit into the thorns,

Soul-to-soul the living-and-the-dead must travel

Back to the birthing ground,

So rising from fire and blood and seed,

In the silence that has its own voice,

You walk upright, easy-balancing the backward/forward thorn.

Ruth Everson