Hi all, today I want to share with you this beautiful text from Alan Cohen. It is such a profound reminder for me, to stop and listen , and remember my song. Enjoy!
Love,
chameli
By Alan Cohen
When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. Then the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud.
Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else. When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child’s song to him or her.
Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child’s song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing.
At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song.
Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person’s bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life. In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child.
If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them. The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behaviour is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity.
When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.
A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.
You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not.
When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.
By Alan Cohen is the author of the best-selling The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and the acclaimed Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It.
wow amzing, how beautiful, i will remamber my song too.. thank you for sharing, chameli and thank you to the African tribe who remember at this and practice that..
Thank you Chameli and mostly Thank you Leonard!
dearest chameli!
thank you!
how beautiful!
good reminder for me as a mum!
thanks for this blogg and all you do
love jessica
So lovely…. music and song to reach the longing for identity.
Oauw!!!! Beautiful! Thanks for sharing!
Oh this is so beautiful………I can testimony, that since I had to leave my daughters (they were 14 and 12, now they are 23 and 21). I had to take care of my self, and in this aloneness the grieve, the loss, the longing of the mother inside of me who wanted her girls back was overwhelming me and took over, to overcome that big monster, I HAD to sing myself songs, to help all this dark strong feelings to find a flow…… somehow by grace they did after many many years of stuckness. By grace I found my song, Gods bells were ringing a lot of time to me giving me trust and comfort (or do we say solace?). And still new notes are revealed to me…..today I can be happy and in my heart even if the “abandonment” of earlier times still has an affect on my daughters and they have to sets limits to me. I can now totally accept what LIFE has asked from me ruthlessly. Today I can sing, receive my song and sing to whomever is ready to receive it. Oh Chameli thank you so much to share this story with us,………how beautiful response especially when you feel separated with loved persons and you don’t judge, withdraw or feel like collapsing anymore but you sing out of your heart their soul-vibrations, they will recognize themselves………ahhhhh
Oh Chameli, I absolutely LOVE this! I just discovered you thru your comment on WWRWTW Facebook page. I am SO glad!
You have just given me a piece of what I am in the midst of creating. I am moving forward into my dream of finding property where people can come to heal. But more importantly, I want to take in teens in the foster care system & help them turn their lives around to discover the gifts that come from all the chaos they have been thru.
When I read this, I saw a tribe of women that will join me in my work w/ these young girls. Singing, Dancing, Praying w/ them, w/ me.
I was so moved by the visual that came to me that I went outside & opened my arms to the sky & I walked my prayer!
Thank you!
greetings Cyndee! I used to work with teenagers who had a tough back ground, and yes the work was to remind them of their light. that light that shines through the worst of worst (which many of these kids had been through). I bow to your dedication.
chameli
Beautiful…thanks for sharing.
Africa has great spiritual traditions and respect for
the mother earth.
How amazing! How deeply touching, tears running down, relief getting space!
… and so I am able to enter the room with my song again, beeing connected again, what a gift. I am so thankful for having the chance to share in this circle.
Thank you so much Chameli for having always an inspiring or consoling view ready for us women
With Love
Barbara
LOVE, love , LooooVVvvvve!
thank you for charing this wisdom, when i read this i felt the earth-heart sing my song and i recognized the music of every soul i ever met/shall meet.
thank you.
thank you….
<3 <3 <3
So very beautiful, so deeply touched in my heart, thank you…
I love this song we create together, it is reminding me of the deep deep
chameli
Dear Chameli,
Shortly after the love of my life and I moved in together, he was playing a song on his electric guitar while I stood listening and doing dishes in the kitchen. He had been playing it for eight years and wanted to do something with it. Everytime I heard it, a melody would come and rise in my heart and in my mind I could feel it fit together. In those days I was so shy to sing it even to him. Then one day he recorded it and I would play it when he wasn’t home. Within hours I had the melody and lyrics all in my head. I was so scared to sing it to him because I did not like the sound of my voice. But I did sing it to him. It was another half of his song. He was in shock and could not tell me until hours later how joyfully overwhelmed he felt by this. We began to write and sing together. Out of that one song others came. We used songs to overcome financial stress and excruciating medical treatments which my husband needed. After six years of singing, we found a mentor who told us very much the same things about songs as your blog posting today. Singing my lover into the next world felt natural. Then singing to overcome lonliness and purposelessness became a daily ritual. Artwork came out of those songs. Now after eleven years finding my way, I’m working on releasing a first album of these transforming songs. Every fibre of my being resonates with this posting today. Our own song is the source of courage, strength, compasssion and wisdom. It connects us with Consciousness itself. Our song reveals out own voice to us so that we will not be afraid to hear the rapturous Truth of who we really are and what we have come here to do.
Bravo on this beautiful blog. Much Success to you all.
Ganga
dear Ganga, thank YOU for sharing this. It is touches me so deeply. May your singing together open many many hearts, reminding us of our own song, and the importance of sharing it
love
chameli
This was very refreshing to read on this Thanksgiving morning! I “tweeted” it on twitter! I love all your stories and inspiration!
xo
C
This is the most beautiful story I have had the privilege of finding in my lifetime. Thank you for realigning the power of identity in song. A sacred secret and thank you for sharing. I’m on a journey that is looking for my song. Vibrations are tuning into my heart. I am listening.
beautiful!
what a beautiful remembrance! it is my fundamental belief that we are all to sing and i look soooooo forward to the day when we all take our own stage in our own lives and sing our way home. blessed be, to you and your beloved. may you be reunited soon.