Umkhosi woMhlanga explained - Reed Dance Ceremony

The annual Reed Dance Ceremony is a Zulu event that sees tens of thousands of young Zulu virgins (maidens) flock to Nyokeni Palace in Nongoma where they deliver fragile reeds, symbolic of their precious purity, to the Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu.


Here is an interactive map of Nyokeni Palace which shows what happened at this year's (2015) Reed Dance Ceremony at the palace in Nongoma.


Be sure to hover over the yellow icon if you have any burning question you need answered. This is my first attempt at this kind of infographic so be kind.

Life and Death of an idea

It starts off somewhere in my brain, I cannot say exactly where. Out of nothing it comes alive and consumes my every thought. No matter how I look at it; it is perfect, it is beautiful; it is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

It is a great idea.

I don’t talk to people much, but when I do, I usually spew a lot of small talk that usually amounts to nothing.

This is why I prefer to write my thoughts, to make an argument online in the written word, where I can gather my thoughts, groom them, fine-tune them and project them into the world like a mother does to her child.

I can’t tell you now what kinds of chemicals are released into my brain when I suddenly get a good idea, but I can assure you by speculation that no recreational drug beats it.

I could be in a 15-seater taxi when it strikes me, but I will be smiling among strangers commuting to or from work like a retard.

The thing about these world-changing ideas is that they have lives of their own in my mind. Like a Russian nesting doll, they are minds within a mind, albeit a troubled one.

You see, an idea is born in my mind, and like a newborn infant, it is full of hope, this miracle that comes out of nowhere.Each idea starts off life with a great deal of hope, with a positive mindset in the world that is my mind.

The intricacies and realities, as far as my mind goes are at first kind to the young idea. An idea soon grows to see the world of my mind for what it truly is, cruel and unkind to the wellbeing of the young idea.

Soon enough, doodles on paper from the idea’s youth are stark reminders of what the once highly-spirited idea used to be, a far cry from its current wellbeing.

As with humans, the harsh environment of the world that is my brain soon kills what was a child-like outlook on the world. My mind is cruel to any good idea, and few have survived into advanced age, although barely.

“You’re not good enough,” an idea in my mind is constantly told by Common Sense. “You’re a waste of space,” my Logic shouts. It Is a dark, dark world in there and very few good ideas survive a constant bombardment from Anxiety, by far the cruellest of the bunch.

A once vibrant, but now decimated idea finds refuge from aliens of another world; ideas of another mind. Bound between sheets of dead trees, dark squiggles come alive as an idea jumps from the mind of a long-dead author into mine, hundreds or even thousands of years later.

I am then reminded of the immortality of my ideas and how they can live long and prosper if only I preserve them on dark squiggles between sheets of dead trees.

Maybe, just maybe the beautiful idea can make its way into a less troubled mind, a world better suited to nurse it back to health and nurture it into something amazing.

Preoccupied with the well-being of the idea, I sometimes forget about the ultimate end of the world, the Apocalypse of my mind; my ultimate death.

I love the way words go. The way thoughts can materialize on paper and digital screens, how they can cause a reaction and make another human connect with you, albeit in a positive or a negative manner.

All that matters is that you connect!

Without preservation on dark squiggles between sheets of dead trees, the idea will surely die with me; it will cease to exist within the world, as will I in mine.

This makes me wonder, being the being that I am, being alive and conscious, might I be an idea in the mind of a God? Well, that might make me out to be nothing but a dream, a fleeting thought destined to live and die in a flash.

Why I'd take science over religion any day

Televangelists perform seemingly modern miracles right in front of our eyes, so to speak. Advanced space telescopes look into deep space to find amazingly earth-like planets all over the galaxy.

These two are claims that profoundly engage us as humans and both compel us to make the most important of life's decisions: what to believe. What one believes greatly impacts one's behaviour and personality; basically one's worldview. But how does one decide which one is the correct fact?

Well, to avoid any conflict one may simply accept both, that some men and women can cure people with little more than prayer, and that there are indeed many other planets like ours in the Milky Way galaxy. For the curious, both these disciplines accommodate those who wish to "prove" or further investigate these "facts". For the first one, only your faith is asked of you, and the other one, science is offered as a truth-finding tool.

For intermediate truth-seekers, the televangelist asks that you call in and receive the prayer and the miracle that comes with it. While the organization responsible for the discovery of a new planet attaches an article explaining how the discovery was made. If one is still not convinced of the validity of either claim, then you are more than welcome to take the academic route. Theology is preferred for the first claim but science (and engineering) is the taken for the second claim.

In theology one is told, by authority that miracles do happen and that prayer does change the physical laws of the universe and the proof of it can be found in the authority of holy books and past philosophers (who conform to such ideas). In science however, one is taught to never accept any idea unless it has been proven independently countless times, and even then, one is taught to try as they may to disprove accepted ideas to test their strength and validity in reality.

In summary, in religion you are told to believe what you are told (and here I transcend all levels of theology to the highest authority who will basically tell you to believe what you are told), and in science you are told to go investigate it yourself and you are taught methods that will lead you to the truth of a physical reality.

For these reasons, I am obsessed with the communication of science, and I am very much against the proliferation of religion as it counteracts any progress I make in communicating methods for truth-finding.

I have made it a principle of mine to vanquish misinformation and vow everyday not to accommodate alternative means of truth-finding that are in fact false and more than likely lead to great conflicts as we do away with our desire for the honest truth, the physical reality of the universe.

So, two amazing things happen: a miracle on television with a man or woman praying, and a miracle in another solar system with a large team of scientists and engineers sciencing (sic).

Who do you choose to believe?