Blog Post by Petya Bartosch about her book titled Healing Hands. This book is a celebration of different cultural healing practices and rituals in the most remote corners of the African continent. Most importantly, it is a personal journey of learning and self-discovery as I learn more about the depths of healing on a physical, spiritual and emotional level. If anyone would like to purchase Healing Hands, if you feel it resonates with you please email info@petyabartosch.com and we can custom print the book as it is not published yet.
The idea was to document different cultures and ways of living in connection with nature. Secondly, I wanted to learn about how different cultures treat illnesses naturally. I found this approach allowed for a deeper connection and relationship to take shape with the people we met rather than just photographing them. I was genuinly interested in what locals and traditional healers had to say and any advise they had for living a healthy and happy life due to my struggles with my recent diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis (an inflammatory arthritis in the spine). In return those we met and photographed felt proud that I valued their advise and happy to share their cultural beliefs and remedies. We were met with open arms in the Kalahari, along the white nile in South Sudan and all the way up to Burkina Faso on the fringe of the Sahara. It is this story of connection behind each photograph that I find gave the journey and final book profound significance.
Frost Photo Tours planned all the logistics, local contacts with different ethnic groups, translators, security, and put together seamless itineraries to the most remote areas in Africa, making this project possible. We travelled to Namibia to visit the Ju/‘Hoansi San, South Sudan to spend time with the nomadic Mundari poeple in their cattle camps, Burkina Faso to visit the Bwa people and Benin to experience the sacred voodoo mask ceremonies and meet with traditional Fa Oracles (Voodoo priests).
Through my travels into East, West and Southern Africa, I have been given gifts of knowledge and gained a new understanding of the body, beyond the physical and my mind has been opened to alternative treatments for various ailments. The purpose behind this collection of work is highly personal as I struggle with an autoimmune condition Ankylosing Spondylitis, that greatly affects my spine and ability to function. I have always been inspired by different cultures and their connection to nature and feel that they have much they could teach the rest of the world. Cultural interactions aside, the sheer experience of travelling through Africa itself has reconnected me to my sense of happiness and fulfilment, allowing me to slow down in appreciation of life’s simplicities.
I made the fundamental decision to move away from western approaches and understandings of health and this took me on an incredible research project to gain new insights into healing. I believe Africa holds the secrets to living in balance and harmony with nature and within oneself. The cultural rituals in this book offer a paradigm for an intimate relationship with the natural world that both surrounds us and is within us. I am immensely grateful for being slowly accepted and welcomed by each community as I asked to learn more about their culture and explained my condition that has brought me to them.
When embarking on this project I did not know what to expect, all I could do was become vulnerable and humbly open-minded to new perspectives and ways of living. For example the Voodoo priest I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with cut my back in small incisions where my SI joint is swollen because they believe you bleed out your illness and release the pain. Most medical consultations were not so extreme but focused more on natural remedies and plants that are natural anti-inflammatories as well as looking at the effect of emotions on physical pain and cleansing trapped trauma. I loved learning about how colours can also affect our mood and general wellbeing.
In the end I have been deeply touched by the extensive knowledge shared with me on how to truly understand what my body is trying to tell me. To be honest, since starting this project I believe I have come a step closer to understanding what my greater purpose on this Earth is and what I am destined to give to others in this lifetime. It has been a privilege to experience the joy and complexity of this cultural exchange of knowledge. The hands that have taken me from one place to another, from one lesson to the next and held me closely, are what gently hold this photo book together.
Traditional healing is complex with different unique beliefs and cultural understandings that have stood through the test of time. This book merely touches the surface of Africa’s endless wisdom in hopes to inspire the viewer to challenge their own perceptions of healing and consciousness of culture in a modern and fast-paced pharmaceutical world. This will be a lifelong quest of mine.
If anyone would like to purchase Healing Hands and if you feel it resonates with you please email info@petyabartosch.com and we can custom print the book as it is not published yet.
Stay ahead of the adventure. Be the first to know about our newest destinations—sign up now!
