Finding the Source: One Man's Quest for Healing in West Africa

by Dave Kobrenski

Overview

The spellbinding account of an artist's unconventional journey through West Africa to overcome a debilitating illness-and to find the true source of his pain.

Deep in the heart of Africa, there is a power as old as the Earth. This is a land where ancestors walk among the living and impish spirits dwell in the forest. Occult knowledge is guarded by secret societies, and blacksmith artists carve sacred masks that invoke deities. Here, art is magic...and it is not for the uninitiated.

An ocean away, Dave is a struggling artist who longs for adventure in distant places. When fate brings him to West Africa, his dream becomes a reality, and he's drawn into a world of ritual drumming, ancient traditions, and vodoun magic. But the dream soon turns to a nightmare.

The mysterious illness comes on violently. As Dave convulses with pain, the villagers call it a curse, suspecting sorcery or ancestor spirits. At first, Dave's not so sure. Back in America, his doctors lead him down a dangerous road of pharmaceuticals and opioid painkillers, but the condition only worsens. As the years go by, Dave's suspicions deepen, and he must decide. Was it really a curse that beset him all those years ago?

Facing a life of disability and heartbreak, Dave's final desperate quest for healing brings him back to West Africa to answer that question. To find the source, he must question everything he thinks he knows, and put his trust in the words of a shaman and in spiritual forces he's not sure exist. But in the end, it's his own demons he must confront, before the curse finally destroys him.

A touching and profound real-life adventure story that spans continents-and worlds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780982668986
Publisher:	Artemisia Books
Publication date:	04/21/2022
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.83(d)

Editorial Reviews

03/07/2022

Author, artist, musician, and traveler Kobrenski (Drawing on Culture), candidly shares his long search for meaning in life–and for relief from the autoimmune disease he lived with for two decades. Thinking of himself as “a mystic vagabond poet of days past,” Kobrenski drifted in life while searching for purpose until he came across a West African drumming course. African music became his passion and livelihood, leading him to new friends and new love. But on a visit to Africa, he finds himself struck with a debilitating illness. His concerned local friends warn that he might somehow have been cursed and encourage him to seek out a sorcerer, but Kobrenski returns home before taking such a step. Back in the United States he is diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis and starts a lengthy battle with his body and himself.

Africa and art serve as lifelines to Kobrenski during years of misery, disappointments, losses and an unhealthy relationship with opioids, all of which he describes with vivid power. When he is faced with the risk of losing his ability to play music, he takes the advice of a shaman and, with the help of his African friends, undertakes a quest to appease the ancestors and lift his curse. The narrative skips back and forth in time, as well as through subjects, with Kobrenski's interesting asides and historical connections offering a welcome context for his story, which he shares with disarming frankness.

Kobrenski aptly captures the struggle of many chronically ill, between wanting to make the most out of life, fear of commitment because of their pain, and the growing desperation for a cure–which, in this case, even makes potentially being bitten by a scorpion sound like a good idea. Though his treatment choices prove unorthodox, his call to never give up on love and to never identify yourself with your adversity are vital reminders in a book that will inspire seekers whose lives are touched by chronic illness.

Takeaway: A painful yet hopeful story of chronic illness and an African quest.

Great for fans of: Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Anna Lyndsey’s Girl in the Dark.

Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: A Editing: B Marketing copy: A-

BookLife Reviews

2022-03-10
In this memoir, an American visual artist and musician tells of developing a debilitating illness in Africa, which began a journey of self-understanding.

Kobrenski recalls how, as a full-time art student in the United States, he “dreamt of seeing the world in its purest form—and shunned the middle-class white existence I was born into.” His interest in Ghana was piqued when an esteemed professor asked him to illustrate a textbook he was writing about Elmina Castle in that country. The author’s ongoing fascination with West Africa led him to take a drumming course in Boston, and he later became a djembe drum instructor. In 2001, he was asked to teach at a cultural center on the Ghanaian coast; a month after the 9/11 attacks, when international travel was heavily disrupted, the author was struck down by an excruciating illness. The author’s friend, a Ghanaian dancer, called it a curse—“the dark side of vodoun.” After his return to the United States, Kobrenski was diagnosed with a type of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis, but the reason why he was struck with it was unknown. The author returned to Ghana, where he consulted shamans and began to learn to listen to his body and confront his dependency on pain medication. Kobrenski cleverly employs a nonlinear narrative to immediately transport the reader to the center of his physical pain from the start: “It radiates from the center of my spine, up my neck and down to my hips, flaring outward like the thorns of a brittle acacia branch along its route.” He shows keen attention to detail, creating a vivid atmosphere of isolation and vulnerability. Over the course of the book, he returns to moments of suffering while gradually revealing his backstory and moving toward catharsis, which makes for compelling reading. On occasion, Kobrenski’s mode of expression can feel mildly cloying: “Another maiden had set her sights on me. Unbeknownst to me, she was casting her net. Her name was Africa.” However, this is a minor issue in a work that often has a captivating sense of immediacy.

A colorful and well-structured remembrance of a struggle with chronic pain.

Kirkus Reviews