disruptive dreamers: A Conversation with Pooven Moodley

At the heart of our mission to regenerate and rewild the earth lies the knowledge of ancestors, elders and wisdom keepers whose teachings are grounded in interdependence with the Earth. But how do we access their wisdom with integrity, reciprocity, and care? How do we cultivate a meaningful dialogue with our ancestors amidst the noise, chaos, and distraction of distractions of modern life?

Over the past three years, the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) have petitioned to have May 8th declared Ancestors’ Day—a public holiday to honor African spirituality. For over three decades, Contralesa have advocated for the rights of traditional leaders and protections of indigenous customs. “The essence of being African is understanding the role that ancestors play in our lives,” said spiritual and traditional healer Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi in an article with IOL. “Africa is the cradle of humankind, and therefore we cannot surpass the African identities and ethos that anchor us.”

Pooven Moodley is a social justice activist and environmental and human rights lawyer with a deep understanding of how ancestral wisdom shapes South African life. A veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle and an advocate for communities resisting extractive industries, Moodley has long lived a life of service rooted in justice, compassion, and care. But his journey to African spirituality took time.

Ahead of Ancestors’ Day, we spoke with Moodley about his path toward ancestral connection, the need to hold the trauma of indigenous communities with care, his belief in ancestral belonging, the revolutionary vision of the Earthrise Collective, and the importance of healing ourselves to reclaim our place within Nature.

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This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. The article was originally published on LinkedIn on May 8, 2025.

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Project Biome (PB): Contralesa have been working towards designating May 8th Ancestors’ Day in South Africa. This would be a significant milestone given the demonization of indigenous spirituality and practices in the country and continent. I’d like to hear about your relationship to ancestral belonging and spirituality. When was it brought to your consciousness?

Pooven Moodley (PM): For many activists in the anti-apartheid struggle, the [spiritual] part of our lives wasn't quite revealed early on because most of our energy, time and focus was devoted to dismantling apartheid. After [democracy in 1994], many of us realized that, ‘wait a minute, we dedicated a lot of our lives to these different struggles. But why do we still have such massive inequalities? Why are people not truly free from the trauma of centuries of oppression in South Africa? You ask yourself a lot of questions because we did everything we thought we needed to do for freedom, justice, and equality. But we still sit in a space where a lot of that's not there for a majority of the people. So that kind of inquiry has always been there. Like many people, I was grappling with the question of identity and belonging because each one of us come from different ancestries, spaces, and places. And I had to ask who I am in relation to everyone else, for example. Having been born in South Africa, my ancestors were put on a slave ship from India in the 1800s to work on the sugarcane fields in South Africa. Looking at that arc, I realized my ancestors came from a place that was colonized to another place that was also colonized and later implemented apartheid.

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That, then, intermingled with the idea that I belong to this place, land, and the spirit of this continent. All of those questions were part of a journey that I was going on spiritually from a very young age.

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PB: Was there a specific moment or experience that prompted you to start exploring ancestral forms of spirituality?

PM: I think the activism pushed me to the point where I realized there's more to this. And so part of that took me on a journey around the world to different indigenous communities. For example, there was a community in Australia that I supported in their fight against a multinational poisoning their rivers. What I didn't realize back then was that every time I went to a community, the community would take me in as their own. I’d get immersed in the culture, worldview, and cosmic vision. They’d also take me into their ceremonies. Through that process, I was actually being initiated. It was kind of a dual journey: one of activism and one of a spiritual unfolding that was happening without me fully understanding how it was unfolding. Fast forward to the point, I’ve become connected to different traditions across many parts of this continent. Over the years, we started putting the pieces of the puzzle together and realized that so many people have been displaced and dispossessed. So much has been taken from them in most cases. So justice and equality are things that I’ll continue to fight for. But at the same time, we’re being pushed into a deeper process. For example, let’s say we were to defeat the [extractive] multinationals, there's a bigger mission that lies ahead which is the transformation of the planet. With that, there is a deep rebirthing happening.

PB: I'm curious to know how you feel ancestral wisdom can play a role in that rebirth. In an African context, we understand that you cannot separate yourself from your ancestors even if you feel like you can. How can our forbears guide us on that transition to a rebirth of Mother Earth?

PM: I think we're trying to fix the planet with our minds. We’re applying all these scientific, technological solutions but they alone won’t fix anything. People tend to speak about decolonization. But even that process follows a logic that doesn’t lend itself to the rebirth that we need. Steve Biko, [leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa], once said that the greatest weapon of the oppressor is the minds of the oppressed. I’ve been reflecting a lot on that because on the one hand, we understand that oppression happens, we’re aware of how we are captured as oppressed people. My sense of what he was saying, even back then, was that we have to tap into something bigger because your mind can definitely be controlled. What ancestral wisdom shows us is that we are much more than our minds, or our bodies. And especially in Africa where your ancestors are centrally part of your sense of self and your traditions. So if we’re disconnected from our ancestors, we're disconnected from the past and the future and so on.

PB: I wonder how you impart that approach to someone who feels, for whatever reason, that they cannot access those ancestral connections? For example, I think of someone who has, through centuries of colonial propaganda, internalized the belief that non-Western spiritual is inferior, pagan, and wrong.

PM: A few years ago, as part of the Earthrise Collective, [a cooperative of creative thinkers, healers, artists, writers, and wisdom-holders], we spent a week gathering in the Dahab Desert in Egypt with activists and wisdom keepers from different traditions. In the end, we came up with this metaphor of a canoe. We’re trying to steer it, but the current is so strong that it starts to fall apart and we're heading to a massive waterfall. That's kind of where we're at [as a planet]. So the question is what do we do? Many different traditions are saying we have to face the reality of what we've created as a starting point. And while we’re in the canoe, we have to defend, protect, and love whoever is inside. I think of that in terms of ecosystems, biodiversity,  and sacred sites. We then have to launch a new canoe that creates a new pathway.

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What ancient wisdom tells us that we need to embark on this journey of unification given how separated we've become. And there are various degrees of separation. There’s the separation from Nature, the separation between humans. But there's another level which is the separation from ourselves because we’re severely disconnected from ourselves—the higher self. What ancient wisdom is bringing forward is the interconnectedness of everything. Many elders from different traditions, including in South Africa, are basically walking on this path silently and quietly.

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But they’re walking this path while trying to create a new pathway. But that pathway has to be energetic. It has to be connected to the ancestors. And so when we're thinking about the future and manifesting a future, it can't be limited by our minds or even our imagination. There's such a vast field of opportunity out there that we can tap into to create something different.

PB: I love the mention of slow pacing because it runs contrary to how we’ve come to live our lives. Consequently, we fall into the trap of trying to outpace the destruction around us instead of taking a breath, and listening to cues from our ancestors, and leaning into the customs and traditions they’ve passed down to us. You mentioned us being at a breaking point. You talked about the importance of elders and wisdom-keepers. I think some people have that curiosity around ancestral wisdom, but might be concerned about engaging in extractive behavior if they were to approach a community of elders, healers, and wisdom-keepers. Where would be a safe place to start?

PM: I think it is important to understand that a lot of these communities are traumatised. Everywhere you go, there are communities that have been violated and decimated for centuries. That trauma remains through the ages. And it's not just recent trauma they’re processing, but ancestral trauma too. Trauma can manifest in different ways. Some people are angry and rightly so. It can be challenging to get out of that cycle of the trauma. Many elders that I've met from different traditions around the world undergo a deep process of healing in themselves. Then they reach a point where they have a full understanding of how things are happening, how things have unfolded, and where to go. Without that approach, you play into the division game, where the trauma impacts us and then we want to put that trauma onto someone else because we've been wronged. What I've also learned is that a lot of that trauma is caught in the land. So if we don’t, individually, go through our own healing process, then everything we try to do will repeat old patterns, you know, because we want to try and do something new, reality is we're bringing all the trauma, you know, that's there.

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We cannot transform the world without individual transformation.

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PB: Right.

PM: But once we crack [the trauma open], we truly go through our own process. I think we are part of a timeline where we have to hold the ancestors. It's part of our responsibility at this time. Because if you're in a ceremony and different ancestors are in the same ceremony, there's a lot of conflict between ancestors, right? Because if you're in a ceremony and different ancestors are in the same ceremony, there's a lot of conflict still between ancestors, right? I've been in various types of ceremonies, including one where the conflict between different ancestors was so rife. I experienced a powerful and well-known Zulu [the largest ethnic group in South Africa] ancestor, stepping in the room and basically stamping his foot on the ground, like, ‘what's going on here?’ (Laughs) It's not simply about what we’re holding, but also what our ancestors' are holding. Once we heal and release that, then we're in such a powerful place where we can co-create and build something new which I’ve started to see happen in many traditions I’m working with.

In South Africa, I think something very powerful is happening energetically. And the different spaces that I'm working with. Table Mountain is opening up so powerfully at the moment. I spent a year there going to a cave every weekend while I was in Cape Town. A lot happened to me. And that's the other point about ancestral knowledge or ancient wisdom. Some of it has been written, some of it arrives through stories, dance, and art. But you can tap into some of these things. During my meditations at the mountain, it took me back to the time of San and the Khoekhoe. Then it took me way back to a time when the planet was going through a transformation. And back then there were four guardians, one in each direction. And the one guardian, the way I experienced it was there. And when the transformation was completed, the other three guardians left, but the one decided to stay. And the energy went into that mountain. And what I sense is that we’re reaching this transformation on the planet. These energies from the different sacred points on the planet will start to emerge and connect with each other.

PB: These experiences are so unbelievably transformative and beautiful. But I imagine they appear scary for some, which is perhaps a legacy of what we discussed before around the suppression of non-Western forms of spirituality and unlearning those harmful beliefs.

PM: It was to make everything else seem evil and unworthy. [Unlearning] is not an easy process, but it’s starting to happen more and more as people return to themselves and their ancestors. I'll tell you how I came out of the spiritual closet. (Laughs). I was working with a community in Xolobeni, [a biodiversity hotspot located on the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape], which was fighting an Australian mining company that wanted to mine their sacred sites and sand dunes. As you know, many people were killed there because of their activism. So we were traveling to the sand dunes with seven healers from different parts of the country to do a ceremony with the local traditional healers from the area. The activists had organized an event for Human Rights Day to celebrate the fact that we managed to stop the mining company. And the event started, I was with all the other healers with my cloths on, walking with them to do a ceremony at the front of the stage.

Suddenly, the community was like, “What's going on? What's he doing now?’" because they had known me as a lawyer and activist. But that was a powerful moment for me because a lot of my spiritual practices weren’t in the public domain.

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One of the things that came to me in the mountain was that we've reached a point on the planet where we have to unmask. We have to show who we truly are—not the personalities we've created. Going back to your point, I think more and more people are being brave and coming forward. I look at the number of young South Africans who are going through initiation processes and it’s beautiful to watch.

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It started as an inquiry, and then reached a point where they realized they had a calling. And it all started connecting with their ancestries. And then, you know, many of them have gone through formal initiation processes. As more ancient knowledge comes to the center, it’s become more normal to see organizations and companies with a council of elders, for example. There’s definitely a shift happening.

PB: And in my mind, I think Earthrise Collective is almost like doing that. Integrating creative thinkers, activists, and healers to tap into other realms of thinking and living. Could just chat a little bit about Earthrise Collective?

PM: Sure. So in 2020, during the COVID lockdowns, many of us around the world were asking ourselves, “What’s really going on?” As activists, we also started wondering how we could continue supporting communities while governments and corporations carried on making deals and signing licenses. At the same time, I began speaking one-on-one with wisdom keepers from around the world asking, from the perspective of prophecy and ancient knowledge, what they felt was happening. Those conversations led to a collective call in August 2020, with about 15 people. Since then, we've met every full moon. It’ll be five years since we first started. What emerged were three core streams: ancient wisdom, frontline activism, and alternative ways of doing things—all grounded in traditional knowledge. Over time, we began meeting in person too. Last year, we convened 53 wisdom keepers and activists in Cape Town to hold a ceremony and deepen the collective vision. We're now focused on transferring this knowledge to the next generation and making it accessible to anyone who wants to learn.

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The idea is that wisdom keepers themselves share directly without intermediaries. A lot of this has happened online, but we’re now creating physical spaces around the world where people can gather, learn, and connect regardless of money. It’s about bringing ancient wisdom forward for the times we’re in.

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PB: Pooven, thank you for taking the time. It was lovely to speak with you.

PM: Thank you.