Confessions of a libra

Look, but don’t touch | Credit: Here

02.09.25

I want to let you in on an Ancient African secret. A secret that many Africans know in their bones, in the shiver of their spine. Fear and reverence are often intertwined. Fear can be one of the purest forms of reverence. Not everything you adore must be touched and tampered with, as a show of reverence. Often the need to claim, to possess even for research purposes or with all the best intentions – is reminiscent of coloniser logic. That is the kind of logic that had men leave their homes, climb aboard a ship to disrupt other men in their homes, enslave them and claim ownership of their land.

I myself, like my men a little afraid of me. It could be a little of the Domme in me, or it could be an ancient understanding in my very cells. Some of the most respectful men I have met with partners, showed that fear-reverence register. It is why I am attracted to men who are overly spatially aware. Men like this tend to value being seen as safe, and are always conscious of the space they take up. This is different to hypermasculine men who will sit with you on public transport, spreading their legs wide like they are holding the weight of the world in their balls.

I want a man to make me dinner and worry about whether I like the taste, whether it’ll be enough to appease me. That is the level of emotional range women have in their sleep. This to me, is the bare minimum. I want eye-contact when you speak to me, I want to be able to undress you with my eyes. The type of fear that accompanies reverence isn’t fear from harm, but a healthy acknowledgement of power. Let me take you through some examples.

While many questions I’ve been asked over the years about Africa were truly based in ignorance and racism, I have picked up on curiosity surrounding how Africans live with such a suite of dangerous animals. Now, I want to preface this by saying, it’s kind of ironic for these types of questions to come from Australians in particular. Our cultural belief lies in living harmoniously with animals. Africans respect the animal kingdom deeply, and in a way that will never be understood by the West.

In the West, it’s cute to say things like ‘I don’t cry when people die in movies, but I do when dogs die’. This is an actual quote from someone who used to be a close friend and a sentiment I’ve heard echoed a lot amongst White Australians. Another time, I will dissect why that is utterly disturbing but for now, let me paint a picture on the African side of things. Now I am a Southern African, so please take this into account as you read my work. Africans are afraid of animals in a lot of ways, but that fear is actually reverence. It is a recognition of their role in nature, and the power that these animals have to exert their will and protect themselves. We do not see animals as something to conquer and possess. We prefer to watch them doing their own thing, in their own environment.

When I moved to Australia, people asked me what I thought of zoos, especially as someone who would have had access to seeing some amazing animals back home. I only got to see those very animals, when we travelled in preparation to leave the country. I was born in suburbia in Zimbabwe, so the only way I would see a wild animal is if I went out of my way to. So there’s no real major difference there. However, in Zimbabwe we have national and regional ‘parks’. Designated lands, thousands of kilometres wide, made for animals to enjoy themselves in a suitable environment. We will then go to those places, drive through (yes like the Safari’s you’ve seen on TV), and interact with the animals that way. That is actually a great example of the principles that we have on animals.

Unlike the Middle Easterners (or West Asians as I heard is the actual appropriate term), or the Westerners who aim to take the animal from its native home, and capture it for audiences – under the guise of ‘conservation’. The difference lies in values. When we think of animal conservation, we not only want to conserve animals, but we want them happy at home. Just as you in your human body would rather be assisted in familiar grounds than taken to a random country or location away from your family to get help. In Zimbabwe (and possibly other places), historically our predecessors picked animal totems as representatives of different ‘clans’ or families. The secondary less known-purpose of the totems was for animal conservation.

Culturally, you do not eat meat from your totem animal. Mine is an E-land, and I did eat it unknowingly due to a caretaker feeding it to me. However, I have atoned appropriately since then. We recognised very early on (earlier than the Habsburgs) that incest and incest-adjacent (cousins) children were born with genetic abnormalities. The totems functioned exactly as a family. It also functioned as a system similar to Astrology, in that families derived from a specific animal are said to have the traits of that animal. This could differ between the genders, so female E-lands are known to be bossy, take charge types that take care of their families. While the male E-lands (like my father), are known to be quite self-involved and tend to pull away from family life to do their own bachelor activities. That sort of thing.

So we had these systems that would not have made sense to a coloniser travelling through, looking for intel on how to immediately take everything over and mine resources. For those people that live nearer to animals, like your village people or those who live in low density areas near forests – they have learnt to adapt their behaviour to suit the animals they cohabitate with. This is similar to the videos I have seen of women who live in the woods in North America, who make friends with the local beers and other animals.

It is known that Baboons are very smart and strategic. They will evaluate if they can take you on, and how much disrespect they will give. They are known to target women, as they identify women likely by their African print wrap skirts but likely their scent as well. They are much more likely to steal directly from a woman’s hands. I’ve heard stories of Baboons being caught stealing bread and giving the homeowner a slap before fleeing. Truly because they could. I’ve heard of lions saving children and humans from tragic situations. I’ve heard stories of people with the crocodile totem, crossing croc-infested waters time and time again without being harmed.

I lived in a house in childhood with plenty of snakes in the backyard. There was an old story about an old White couple next door who kept snakes as pets and one day they escaped and scattered in the area. We’ll never know if that’s true, but we were in that house for at least a year. I never got bit, it wasn’t for a lack of my mother trying to get rid of the snakes – but there was also an element of co-existing. We learnt their rhythms. They were typically nowhere to be seen first thing in the icy dewy mornings but by midday, you’d find them sunbaking. As such on both ends we developed a relationship that honoured the other. This is an example of the African philosophy surrounding fear and reverence.

I grew up being scared of my mother. That feeling of being scared of your parents is something many can identify with. Yet are you not able to hold that and love at the same time? I was fearing her because I recognised the power she had to harm, whether she used it or not. I want the same in a partner, man or woman. I want my Spirit Council and any who dare to walk with me to feel that same level of fear-reverence. For what is between us, if not love and respect?

I recently had an initiation, the weekend of the 23rd of August. Spirit was putting me through it honestly, testing me. Checking my faith. And my response was, if they have walked with me and couldn’t produce anything – they shouldn’t walk with me at all. I was determined to find an outcome to my little conundrum that validated what I knew. That I deserve the help, that I shouldn’t have to fight so hard to make certain moved happen. I went on a walk, I told Spirit I will go through the Council one by one and make them prove to me that they are actually assisting me. The relationship you have with Spirit is twofold, I feed them as much as they feed me.

Worse comes to worst, if this is all a simulation but I can’t game the system in a way that satisfies me, then I would simply take myself out of the game. I was pushed to a point of no return that weekend. I went full Witch and essentially said, we both bow or I’m out. I’m not going to be the only one bowing. I don’t put my faith in things that don’t feed me back. This anecdote I am giving is to say, even Spirit is held account in my life.

I have a healthy fear of Spirit’s power and as such I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I am honest even about my inconsistencies and that honesty is the price I pay for reverence. Spirit must also have a healthy fear of me. That I would abandon them, not keep their stories alive, not feed the family line and not relieve generational tension with my words. My issue with religion was because the Christian God was one I felt more fear than reverence. I feared getting it wrong, and the punishment that would come from it (hell). With Spirit I am afraid of the power because I have felt that power. I have felt it in my own body, I have felt it as a knowing in situations that righted themselves almost magically. I know some of what people fear in me, is Spirit.

As an Zimbabwean Spiritualist, my view of the world is, not everything you love you have to touch. It may be why I have such a budding relationship with the Unseen. I believe nature finds ways to reveal what you need to know when you have a pure heart and genuine curiosity. I am going to learn and integrate more Kemetic knowledge from my room, than some of those people digging to find Cleopatra’s tomb. I remember being in High School and learning about the fate of people who tries to open things they were not supposed to open.

Where I come from, if you see money on the road that’s not yours you don’t touch it. How can you be sure why it’s there and under what circumstances it was left? What if it’s some sort of trick? You might think us superstitious but I think of us as similar to the Celts. We have experienced such magick in our environment, that we have heaps of lore and customs that have a basis. It might only make sense if you ever travelled to or moved to Zimbabwe.

It’s not that Black people never thought about building submarines to go try and map out all the deep sea creatures. Due to our innate spirituality, epigenetic memory and oral tradition – we have known other ways of learning what we need to know. Just as that proverb goes, if you love something let it go. This is one of the truest lessons you can learn about life and love. When you are in the forest alone, and you see a tree trunk that looks like a face? Leave it alone and go about your merry way.

When you hear a voice calling you from an alleyway in an unfamiliar place? You don’t go closer to it to figure out what exactly they are saying in that weird accent.  While horror movies like to make fun of the stereotypes of Black people running from danger and White people running toward it, that stereotype has historic and cultural implications. Black people have a level of forethought surrounding danger that is primal and instinctual. We operate very much according to our intuition largely and that becomes the driving force of our decision making. We are taught that sometimes you just know things. Just like Psychics, even though for you it might only kick in when you’re in danger. In which case you don’t question the impulse, you follow it.

It takes a big ego to get your hands involved in everything, as though your touch were somehow more special than the next. Instead, learn to be more observational. Learn to pick up cues from afar, and putting weight into the forethought than the immediate action. It is the difference between your mature brain that knows the flame would be really fun to play with, but if it burns it would not be worth it. And the toddler brain that goes, what if I just poke it though?

You want a partner who excites you enough that you want to impress them, but that you fear letting them down. You want to fear that they would leave if you didn’t bring your honest self, your best self. Not fear because you are physically or psychologically unsafe. I want anyone in any area of my life to know that my sweetness comes with spice. My balm comes with a dagger. And my power is in my restraint. Know that if you fear an animal, a Goddess, a life path… that in itself is information to be examined with compassion and a little objectivity. Fear doesn’t cancel out reverence, fear fuels it. May every lover you have, feel the weight of your power like a stiletto to the neck. Asé.