Mineral is the storage place of memory, the principle of creativity, resources, stories, and symbolism. In the cosmological wheel, mineral is located in the west and is colored white. The elemental energy allows us to receive messages from the Other World, and to remember our origins and purpose in this life. In Dagara physiology, our bones, not the brain, are the storage place of memory. In the village, it is not uncommon to hear an elder say, “This is in our bones as it was in the bones of our ancestors.” In the West, there is a similar saying, “I knew it in my bones,” which refers to a deeper, more elemental knowing than is possible through rational thought. To the indigenous person, mineral is also equivalent to stone. As they say, the bones of the earth are the stones and rocks we see. To know the true story of our earth, including the story of ourselves, is to listen to the rocks.
Mineral is about communicating, the ability to translate things, the ability to converse. It has a lot to do with social connections. A lot of Mineral people are relatively talkative. In the indigenous world they are the Storytellers, the Great Communicators. Mineral is also something that we must see in terms of the conveying of energy, to convey energy that comes through you on its way somewhere else. This is why any person who is a Mineral person is supposed to be running energy, whether it is through your hands or your body or whatever. Mineral people are also recognized as Stone people–not that they’re stone but because the stone is seen as the one that stores information. They say if you want to know the story of the earth, listen to the stones or listen to the rocks.
Water, Earth, Mineral, Fire or Nature – the last number of your birth year equals your Dagara Cosmology sign. For example, if you were born in 1987, the number 7 means you are Fire, born in 1953, the number 3 means you are Nature.
“A person’s purpose is energetically inscribed in their bones and its actual translation into work should agree with the message engraved in these bones. The question is, what happens when what you do does not align with who you are? It means that you are likely to experience low self-worth, a lack of enthusiasm about what you are doing, and above all, a nagging sense of inner emptiness; In short, an identity crisis. Indigenous people recognize that when the individual does not remember, gradually it is the culture, the society, that forgets.” -Malidoma