Interview with Makhosi Noentla Khumalo

Interview by Nkhensani Mkhari

In the quiet margins of our overstimulated world, there are conversations that hum with ancient memory, slow, sacred dialogues that pulse beneath the surface of language. This interview with Noentla is one such conversation. Anchored in healing, ancestral technologies, and the forgotten rituals of nourishment, it unfolds as a woven text, part oral history, part invocation, part recipe for return. Noentla speaks from within an unfolding journey of spiritual reckoning, ritual

inheritance, and the long arc of remembering. Through water and fire, cloth and curse, we are invited into a cosmology where food is frequency, rivers are portals, and heartbreak is an initiation into deeper love. This is not an interview in the conventional sense, it is a ceremonial offering.

Conducted by our editor Nkhensani Mkhari with intuitive care and deep listening, the exchange traverses landscapes of embodied knowledge and ancestral instruction.

The conversation resists linearity, choosing instead to meander like the river sometimes clear, sometimes turbulent, always alive.

As Khemisi, we hold space for this text as both testimony and teaching. May it be read slowly. May it be read aloud. May it remind us that healing is not a destination, but a devotion, a daily return to spirit through the ordinary rituals of bathing, eating, speaking to water, listening to dreams.

This is Chapter One.

Interview with Makhosi Noentla Khumalo

Conducted by Nkhensani

Noentla: I’ve been reflecting a lot on women’s struggles with fertility and motherhood, especially in my own lineage. It felt like a collective voice calling out. What new pathways are asking to be formed, how we are taught to silence ourselves. How our wombs and portals within are calling for us to listen deeper.

Nkhensani: Of course, yeah.

Noentla: When Inimba (i) creates, it’s chaotic or calm provided the environment that is created during gestation because it’s a visceral kind of protection. It comes in, uncovers, continues that protective energy, leads you to healing, and then sits with you, guiding the emotional and physical healing process. Also for women to learn to trust inimba is a sacred path to inner liberation without guilt.

Nkhensani: How is that embodied? What’s the lived, felt experience of that process?

Noentla: By returning to the medicine of self trust, to ancient knowledge systems that still hold the codes of rites of passage. Rites of passage are the necessary links to holding sacred energy, they have a place that we have lost. Thus losing much of ourselves in the process. We have lost ancestral technologies that keep us in alignment with ourselves. The healers are the keepers of those codes, thinning the veil between the physical & the spiritual or ancestral. We use nature's elements for this communication; as portals, retrieval, or purification. I have created a personal relationship with nature so I can get closer to this veil & fetch the knowledge from the other side, for myself to overcome my own life’s challenges. Meeting amazing healers along the way that have helped me walk through certain thresholds. Water is proven to be my strongest ally. There was even a time when the water tried to take me. But because we have lost these ancestral technologies, they have faded, but the ancestors have bestowed some lineages to preserve them. Before we were able to travel in between realms because our very nature is to forget we are forgetting the very technologies for our alignment but spirit always finds a way. The portals between realms may have closed, but the original medicine remains.

Nkhensani: So how did the healing begin for you?

Noentla: My biggest breakthrough in healing was learning how to lay to rest what didn’t belong to me so I can carry my own load. When you carry the responsibility of lineage healing your discernment for your own fractures & ancestral fractures is key. But this comes after peeling the layers back & removing one self from the noise of distraction. My process of healing has come from many initiations & willingness to walk through many ego deaths & traveling far & wide for purification. First, the curses have to be laid down before approaching the waters, the lineage curses or patterns must be addressed. Someone in the family line must be willing to pay the karmic debts. I think this is the source of most of our struggles. We are not balancing the scales for our lineages. Thus leaving the gates open for many different and foreign energies to prevail in our family structures & dynamics.

Nkhensani: That’s intense. So you had to cleanse that first?

Noentla: Exactly. Come pure with pure intentions with deep reverence, only then can you approach the waters. You return the curse to the earth, then begin the calling back of your soul fragments. Those patterns carry so much; trauma, betrayals.It's a repeating pattern in lineage things always causing collapse.

Nkhensani: Even when you're on the right path?

Noentla: Yes. Lineage curses or negative patterns destabilize everything. Even when you’re aligned, it causes rupture.

Nkhensani: Shifting a little: what role did food and water-based rituals play in your healing journey?

Noentla: : Food was central, but also restricted. The dream medicine I was taking required fasting from certain foods to allow it to align the body’s energy, kind of like an African chakra alignment.

Nkhensani: What kinds of foods were you restricted from?

Noentla: No dairy, no eggs. No garden-grown beans carry frequencies that disturb the medicine. You could only eat the top half of a chicken head, wings, breast. No thighs or feet. For four-legged animals, only the right front leg. And no grilled meat until you’ve been through the fire rite specifically drinking goat’s blood. That initiates you into fire before water.

Nkhensani: So food and water play sequential roles?

Noentla: Yes. Even at the river, we eat before entering the water. It's about celebrating with the spirits before the ceremony begins.

Nkhensani: How is ancestral knowledge expressed in how we eat or grow food today?

Noentla: Sadly, I don’t see much of that anymore. Maybe only during ceremonies. It’s been modernized. Meat used to be sacred only eaten during ritual. Now it’s everywhere, every day.

Nkhensani: There's a spiritual disconnection there. What changed for you when you lived off-grid?

Noentla: Nourishment became about strength, not hunger. I wasn’t eating because I was hungry. I was eating to fuel work: carrying water, chopping wood. The dream medicine gave me energy. My body became stronger than ever, even though I was so thin. I had stamina. I could run up and down the mountain five times a day with groceries on my head.

Nkhensani: That sounds powerful. Makes me want to retreat into nature myself.

Noentla: I used to invite friends all the time—no one came! But just listening to the river… bathing became a ritual. As a thwasa (ii), you don’t use hot water. River bathing was daily. And now, even in the shower, I talk to the water. That’s my cleansing. It’s not just about being clean, it's about being present.

Nkhensani: In “Water Heals,” you describe water as a membrane between dimensions. Have water spirits ever shared messages with you?

Noentla: Yes. Nomhoyi (iii), my most connected spirit guide she isn’t separate from water, she is the water. She is purified. And you don’t need to be in the river toconnect. Speaking to the water reawakens her. As for Mami Wata (iiii), she came to me during a heartbreak, a moment of thin veils. She reminded me that heartbreak is also love. That love is what thins the veil. She told me, “Your heart will always break more, because you have the gift of seeing.” Those who see deeply will meet her if they allow themselves to love deeply.

Nkhensani: That’s beautiful. Do food or smells ever appear in dreams as ancestral messages?

Noentla: I’ve been taught to be cautious with food in dreams there’s manipulation there. But I’ve had dreams of the liver of the cow, tied to family meetings and sacrifices. Smells trigger remembrance. We send messages to spirits through smoke burning bones, feathers, herbs. Spirit doesn’t need much. Sometimes just the gallbladder of a cow that’s enough. These are dreams that trigger rituals. I’m eluding that food dreams can be citing manipulations or rituals; it depends on context.

Nkhensani: Do you see your fashion and editorial work as a kind of recipe book for the future?

Noentla: I do now. At first, it was just me honoring my ancestors. Both my grandparents were tailors. Fashion is our lineage language. But through past-life work, I’ve realized I was always a weaver of sacred cloth. Water Heals is my first truly intentional project: a recipe book in cloth form. The scarves I want to make will carry the sacred medicine. The way the prints are transferred, the cloth itself all of it carries codes. People will be wearing healing cloth.

Nkhensani: What daily rituals can people adopt to reconnect spiritually?

Noentla: Talk to your water. Speak to the water you drink, the water you bathe in. For food, be intentional. Sit with your meals. Say a prayer. Don’t eat in a rush or while working. That hurry is a form of spiritual illness. Pause. Treat food with reverence.

Nkhensani: I feel that deeply. Thank you for this, Neoentle. This has been profound.

Index

i. Inimba refers to the emotional bond or visceral connection, often described as a deep, gut-level feeling between a mother and her child, or between someone and their bloodline or home.

Extended/Spiritual Interpretations:

It can describe the intuitive pull a mother feels when something is happening to her child, even from far away.

In ancestral or spiritual terms, inimba can also refer to the umbilical connection that remains spiritually active long after the physical cord has been cut.

It represents unspoken knowing, gut instinct, or an ancestral pull—a kind of soul tether. Sometimes associated with homesickness or a longing for origin, inimba can emerge when one feels disconnected from their roots, child, or calling.

Usage Examples:

“Ndiyiva inimba yomntwana wam.”

→ “I feel a deep bond or pull from my child.”

“Inimba yakhe ayikapheli.”

→ “Her maternal bond is still strong.”

ii. Thwasa is both a noun and a verb:

As a noun: A thwasa is a person undergoing initiation to become a

sangoma (traditional healer/diviner), because they have received an

ancestral calling (ubizo).

As a verb: Ukuthwasa means "to be initiated" or "to go through a spiritual awakening/initiation process".

Spiritual and Cultural Significance:

Ancestral Calling (Ubizo): A person becomes a thwasa when their ancestors (amadlozi) call them to become a spiritual healer. This often manifests through dreams, illness, emotional distress, or unexplainable events what Western medicine may misdiagnose.

The Initiation Journey: The process of ukuthwasa is demanding, sacred, and transformative. It involves learning rituals, herbs, divination, and how to communicate with the ancestors. This is done under the guidance of a trained sangoma, called a gobela.

Rebirth: After the process, the initiative is no longer the same. They emerge as a fully recognized spiritual healer. It is both a death of the old self and a rebirth into sacred purpose.

Metaphysical Interpretation:

A thwasa is someone who is being "torn open by spirit" to make space for ancestral power. It’s a journey of ego death, surrender, and alignment with ancestral will. Some describe it as being “chosen by blood”, a sacred contract written long before birth.

iii. Who is uNomhoyi?

uNomhoyi is the goddess or spirit of water; she embodies the living, conscious nature of water.She is revered as the bestower of life, since water is the source of all life. She governs the cyclical flow of existence: birth, purification, renewal, and even the transition to the afterlife. uNomhoyi is also linked to sexuality, fertility, and protection. Water is sacred and life-giving in all these realms.

Spiritual Role and Symbolism:

Water as a medium: uNomhoyi presides over rivers, streams, and rain, which are seen as portals between the physical world and the spiritual realm.

Purification and cleansing: People invoke uNomhoyi in rituals of cleansing, baptism, and renewal, asking her to wash away negativity, illness, or spiritual blockages.

Peace and healing: She brings peace of mind and spiritual tranquility, helping communities and individuals to heal emotionally and spiritually.

Ancestor connection: Water connects living people to their ancestors, and uNomhoyi is a guardian of this sacred link.

Cultural Importance:

In many traditional ceremonies, especially those involving initiation, healing, or protection, water offerings and libations are made to uNomhoyi. She is often invoked in rites of passage, especially those involving fertility or new beginnings. Her presence reminds us of the interconnectedness of life, the importance of respecting natural resources, and honoring ancestral wisdom.

iiii. Who is Mami Wata?

Mami Wata literally means "Mother Water" (from pidgin English and African languages).

She is a water spirit or goddess associated with rivers, lakes, seas, and all bodies of water.

She is venerated across West, Central, and Southern Africa, as well as in the Caribbean, Brazil, and other places where African diasporic religions took root.

Characteristics and Symbolism:

Dual Nature: Mami Wata embodies both beauty and danger, healing and seduction, wealth and mystery.

Often depicted as a beautiful mermaid-like figure, sometimes with long flowing hair, often holding a mirror or comb, symbols of vanity and self-awareness.

She is a protector of water and its creatures, but also a guardian of secrets, spiritual knowledge, and transformative power.

Mami Wata can bring healing, fertility, and prosperity, but she can also be unpredictable, luring or punishing those who disrespect the waters or spirituallaws.

Spiritual Role:

Healing and Cleansing: Many people call on Mami Wata for spiritual cleansing, health, and emotional healing.

Wealth and Prosperity: She is sometimes associated with fortune and abundance; followers seek her favor for success.

Transformation and Initiation: Encountering Mami Wata can symbolize deep spiritual awakening or transformation. Initiates of water-related spiritual paths may invoke her.

Sexuality and Feminine Power: She represents feminine sexuality and sensuality, often symbolizing empowerment but also caution around desires.

Cultural Impact:

Mami Wata has influenced art, music, and folklore widely, inspiring stories of mermaids and water spirits.

She bridges African indigenous spirituality with syncretic practices in the diaspora, such as Vodou, Santería, and Candomblé.

Rituals to honor Mami Wata often involve offerings of perfume, jewelry, mirrors, and sometimes alcohol.

In summary:

Mami Wata is a multi-dimensional water goddess, embodying the mysteries, power, and life-giving aspects of water. She commands respect, awe, and devotion from those who honor her.