Within uYalezo is encoded the varying degrees and cycles of the development of consciousness from an elemental, plant, animal, human and cosmic level. This cosmology maps the flow and movement of time and cosmic energy, as well as their effects on isimo sentlalo. Isimo from imo/ -mo in isiXhosa relates to the states or modes of being, and se/-intlalo refers to the personal, familial and communal, as

1. Kemet is an ancient name for the country we call Egypt. It is a vocalisation of the hieroglyphic values translated as KMT, which means “black land”, likely referring to the fertile black soils of Africa. Well as physical, mental and spiritual well+being. It is in this way that everyday life is ever+linked with the changing physical elements found on the planet, but also intricately connected with the cycles of the

moon, the sun and other celestial bodies as they make their orbits throughout the universe and within us.

uYalezo therefore invites us to collectively dream and meditate on iThongo and time. Due to global imperial design that has been put in place for more than five centuries, we have been introduced to mechanical time – and the patterns of our everyday lives have become accustomed to and determined by it. With the advent of the Coronavirus, as well as many other events that have occurred throughout time, our very notions of time – past, present and future – have been destabilised.

These messages being communicated by our ancestors in this moment, and uYalezo being a mnemonic device that maps ulwimi lwabaPhantsi, bring into our consciousness the urgent need to reconnect with our cosmological and metaphysical time, so that we can re+connect with self as well as the various dimensions of existence as our ancestors learnt through INDALO, the cosmic blueprint of our identity.

uYalezo is a sacred art and science premised on divination and spi+ritual technology, which is a necessary tool to shift us from mechanical time and into cosmic time through iThongo. This cosmic language therefore re+aligns our beings and consciousness beyond the matrices of power and distortion that limit our experience of our selves and amaThongo – higher dimensional planes.

As such, uYalezo becomes a portal to re+connect us with INDALO. We are able to access these dimensions because of the energy encoded in each of mkhulu Andile Dyalvaneʼs symbols and ceramic stools and through iThongo as an intra-experience of the divine expressed through each of us. In other words, everything that happens inside of us is a manifestation of what is occurring on an external and higher plane – emaThongweni: we receive energy from the cosmos and it is grounded in our physical body; we access that energy as information through the plasma in our blood; and in turn, as light codes in the structures of our DNA, thus making our ancestors present with+in us through our gifts, thoughts, sensations, dreams and many other forms.

Since INDALO is a vast energy grid or network that is constantly flowing and vibrating with all things in the manifested and unmanifested planes of existence, our ancestors communicate through this telepathic link. We are able to simultaneously access information and knowledge that does not yet exist in this time line (future) or that has been forgotten (past).

It is in this way then that sithonga sihleli, sithonge silele (we access the ancestral dreamscape while asleep and awake) as there is no discontinuity between the physical and ancestral / spiritual realm.

It is through this awareness that our consciousness is guided into the more subtle dimensions of existence and experience. Our ancestors knew this and communicated telepathically without the need for sound-speech-language.

However, sound and language are some of the various forms in which the sacred art and science of divination manifests. The first sounds and language – ulwimi – that our ancestors used are vibrationally linked to physical and energetic parts in our bodies, the planet and cosmos, thus enabling. communication / manifestation to occur. The isiXhosa maxim ‘umlomo uyadalaʼ attests to this. metaphysical truth that uMzi+Mba is the primary technological interface we use to navigate this dimension. Since we are infinitely connected with

INDALO, we have the power to create or destroy by virtue of our intention. If we can consider clay as the ancestral blueprint for the materiality of our bodies or uMzi+Mba, we are brought into the appreciation of the divine unity that clay exhibits through its union with water, earth, air and fire, and how the birth of each body as a vessel is dependent on the balance and harmony between these elements. The human body is also a device that is born out of cosmic harmony between these elements and many other forces that flow in varying degrees within the bio-rhythmic and cosmic energy fields.

This reveals to us that what we are, internally and externally, is an interface between various elements, frequencies, and energies, and that it is the dynamic interplay and interrelation between all of them that allows for the possibility of new forms, new beings, and new worlds to come into manifestation. This is the realm of consciousness that iThongo guides us into as the originary operating system in alignment with the cosmic laws of this interplanetary system we are experiencing ourselves in collectively in this moment.

Through the use of clay as a device that holds information and memory, mkhulu Andile Dyalvane encodes the messages received emaThongweni, the memories from childhood life and the consciousness in which his village of Ngobozana operates in, thus allowing each of us to locate and access individual self as a unique part of the divine whole.

As with each stroke that makes up each individual symbol and chair of the iThongo collection, INDALO also operates on the principle of flow (motion), connectivity and communication forming a dynamic whole. This could be attributed to the harmonious relationship between our body, mind and spirit; past, present, future; ancestors, us, the unborn; as well as the masculine, feminine and androgynous states of being. The fluidity between these elements create the conditions for iThongo to co+operate and assist in maintaining balance between the personal, familial, communal and cosmic life cycles.

It is in this way that mkhulu Dyalvane is entranced in a cosmic dance while birthing each symbol, stool and universe. It is through this spi+ritual technology that organic matter, consciousness and spirit become key entities used in the communication process. Through, with and by touching clay, Nyangʼ iyangqungqa2 interfaces with the collective field and collapses time. If abaPhantsi (the ancestors) are the consciousness that lives within the earth, then clay carries their energetic essence and becomes the technological and cultural dream to manifest iThongo.

The mode by which Nyangʼ iyangqungqa encodes the symbolical knowledge and wisdom of amaXhosa allows for a shift from the English – and its Latin, Greek and other culturesʼ symbolic influences on. how we see and know ourselves – and enables us to tap into the geometry and consciousness of ulwazi lwabaPhantsi. In so doing, Nyangʼ iyangqungqa transforms into uMalusi (a shepherd, and the title of the work installed as an offering of appeasement to his ancestors on the site of their previous village), which guides this generation and the next towards holistic healing through gentleness, song and wisdom. The vast knowledge of the natural and metaphysical worlds that uMalusi acquires by being immersed in the everchanging landscape, received emaThongweni or activated in the DNA, are manifested as uYalezo.

2. “Dancing Moon”, a Native American name that Dyalvane was given by a shaman in Maine in the US.