Reader, the conversation with Natalie de Morney, had been set up suddenly and quickly. Natalie lives in East London and she was here in Johannesburg for only a week to set up and open her exhibition, called – re-connect-, at Berman Contemporary. We arranged everything within about ten days. On the day of our meet up it was cold, I remember that, as on my way to the studio I saw a woman walking on the stoep, her back covered with a Winnie the pooh blanket. The contrast with Natalies’ clothes was striking to me. She was dressed in thin colorful summer pants; a light woolen grey sweater and she wore no socks. For me a similar contrast presented itself also in the heavy topics we discussed and the light and bubbly way she carried herself in our conversation. Natalie chose to sit in the Mama Zulu chair, I saw her settle in the round curve as if that chair made her day. When I think about the time after our conversation, I keep seeing one word that Natalie spoke and that word brought up many stories I’ve heard lately, many thoughts and also feelings. The word Natalie spoke was: death.

A while ago, long before I had my conversation with Natalie, I wrote a story about a fictional society that has specific customs to deal with illness and death. This story is called The Boat.

Imagine, said the old woman to the little girl. Imagine an immense piece of land situated on a huge continent. There are several large rivers running from North to South. One of them is very long and windy and it runs through many different countries. It goes through mountain areas, deserts, cities, hills, swamps. This river is known for its magical powers. It cleanses, it purifies, it clarifies. Yet no one can live near it. The banks are impenetrable with spikey plants, bushes and lots of high grasses. Some of them are high like trees. The realm of uninhabited land is a few miles broad, but because people still really want to live as close as possible to the river, they have set up villages at the border of these spikey plant areas. A trail of villages follows the rivers’ course. The power of the river is felt far into the land. When someone is sick that person can go to certain spots at the riverbank to find healing.
But because the path going to those special spots is difficult; you can go there only when you are strong enough to walk that path, and when you know you need help to heal. You must go there by yourself and once you arrive, you need to make yourself a temporary home. You never know when healing will come. You need to create a space, right there near the river, where you can be safe.
The woman who sails the boat of “healing” on this magical river is vast and wise. She is tall, she has deep brown eyes with a rim of green in it. She sails her boat with a determined energy that emanates a calm and soothing radiance. She is accompanied by all kind of animals, small and big, common ones and very rare ones.
Whenever she passes a healing spot that is occupied by a person, one of her animals jumps ship and swims to the place. She never knows which animal will jump off. When the animal reaches the place with the person who needs healing, it will sit down next to the person. It will not look at the person. It will just sit and link its energy. They will talk. Every so often the person will be healed by the animal after only a few days, but sometimes it will take quite some time. When healing has happened, the animal will touch the person and leave the shore and swim to find back the boat. Sometimes though, the person can’t be healed, but needs a carrier to be moved to another world. Then the animal, no matter how big or small will carry the person back to the village, through the spikey plants and impenetrable bush. It will leave the person at his or her home where the community will come and sit in the home. They will sing, prepare fire and food and dance. Till the person has died, and its soul has been carried away. The animal will get food from the village people and then will leave. Back to the boat. Back to the vast and wise woman.

Natalie, I wonder are you someone who can carry a soul to the other world? Your wish is to become a death doula. A death doula helps a person die. You told me you want to hold a space for a person who is preparing for death. We are born with a mother, yet so often we die alone. Too often, I think.
Death is an end, the end of a story, or is it not? I believe endings are important, they determine whether we leave the story alone with a sense of peace or with a sense of regret. The end does not always occur at the end. Sometimes it happens right in the middle. Your wish is to become a death doula, and my wish is that there is a society where the dying person is surrounded by community. These two wishes have settled in my mind as two separate expressions of a need in our time.

But before the end we have a life to live and a path to choose.

Natalie, you wanted to talk to me about the book The alchemist from Paulo Coelho. This is an old book and I read it many years ago. Although it is a thin book, I was surprised by how I stumbled with it. The story line is simple, yet my mind was occupied with questions like “What does this mean? What is happening? Where is he going?

In the foreword of the 2021 edition the author tells us that “the book is a metaphor, one that he lived. “A man sets out on a journey in pursuit of some unknown treasure, and on the journey, he dreams of a beautiful and magical place. At the end of his journey, the man realizes the treasure was with him the entire time”.

For me if I think about the story The alchemist, I see a shepherd boy who has a dream about a treasure. He travels from one location to a faraway destination to find that treasure. Along the way he meets people who guide him, a Gypsie, a King and an Alchemist. He discovers the power of stones: crystals for example and a black stone called Urim – and a white stone, Thummim. They can give him guidance as to where to go. Black means yes and white means no. He encounters the belief that All is one often. Then he finds an oasis right in the middle of the desert. He wants to stay, but the only way to find the treasure is to leave that oasis. And he does. Yet, when he finds the location of the treasure it is empty. He discovers there and then that the treasure is right at the place where he had his dream. And so, the boy goes back and finally finds his treasure.

You say, he fulfilled his destiny. It is his purpose in life to travel and because he followed the dream, he finally found his treasure.

Natalie, to find your destiny, your purpose in life, has been hard and initially you choose a road you thought would protect your self. As a little girl you wondered why people were sad at a funeral, because you still felt the presence of the person who had died. You somehow knew they had left our world but could be around when they were needed. You drew paintings, but they were dark and gloomy: nothing ‘girly’. That little girl walked around the streets of the township where you lived, and you sensed the horrific pain of people who were killed a long time ago … with fire while stuck in a car tire…because they were informants for the apartheid government. You could smell the burnt tires. You couldn’t find guidance to place these experiences.

You didn’t look like your family, you were different, your skin color was a darker shade, your hair was curly and not straight. Being white was back then considered better than to be seen as black. It could mean the difference between being forcefully removed from your house or, to be able to stay in your house. Your mum’s family lost their property, your dad’s did not. Your grandfather is white. You needed to fit in, so you shut down the side of you that was not recognized by your family. You started to behave in a way that gave you some sense of safety, you became first a tom girl and later a civil engineer. You had epileptic fits. You worked hard, yet at some point your body and mind became sick. You became depressed. You reached out to an energy healer. You left Johannesburg and moved to East London. You entered the world of dreams and visions. Your healer created a channel between you and your deceased grandfather. He had a message for you. She told you, he said that you were supposed to study art. These words resonated deep within you. You listened to this message, you listened to your grandfather. You quit your job. You drifted into a nothingness for a while. You had more dreams; they revealed to you that your lineage is Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Indian, San and Nguni. All these ancestors are in you. Now you embrace all who you are.

You love moving your hands. You start to move your hands with clay. You envision something, but your hands will make something very different. You discover how to ground yourself, you walk barefoot and carry crystals, you touch them, often they are black crystals. You no longer rush; you live in the moment. Neither the past nor the future are your focal point anymore. For you believe that only in the present can we prepare our next step. To dwell in the past is, you believe, when depression begins. You now know there is nothing to be done about what happened in the painful past. You move your hands more. You express what you experience. That what was hidden, is made alive with movement, water and soil. Water is life, you say. First you make art that resembles your civil engineer career, pipes and screws. Now you replicate your curls, they are now your treasure. They re-connect you to a past that was hidden.

Reader, my memory of our conversation is like a mirage where I cut and pasted the motives of The Alchemist on Natalie’s life story. I don’t see the shepherd boy, but I see Natalie, first as a girl and later as a woman. She leaves her safe place, her oasis, walks through a desert of nothingness and finally because she moves her hands she finds her treasure: for her it is Art. And she finds another dream – the dream to become a death doula. She is along the way guided by healers, dreams, visions and stones. She embraces all her ancestors that speak to her. All in one. I see Natalie living the same metaphor as Paulo Coelho.

And I think : “Don’t we all live this metaphor?”