Flying High

I'm leavin' on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate (love!) to go... ~ Songwriters Denver/Marnay

I'm leaving in the morning to start my travels heading to New Zealand! I first make a stop in Maui for a few days to visit family and then I leave from Honolulu on October 28.

The "story with in a story" has already commenced so, I can only hope it gets even more strange and interesting than it already has been! 

Still nervy... solo for a whole month... but now starting to get excited (once I get that 50 lb suitcase upstairs!)  

Happy Birthday to Me!

"The love we give away is the only love we keep." ~ Elbert Hubbard

In this blog post I had to, very abashedly, mention the fact that I had not had any sort of physical intimacy in the past eight years, not an intimate hug, nor kiss, nor sex in any way - my eight year drought!

In that blog post I had thought it was funny that I was having to exercise my knee so that it would be in tip top shape when I finally came together with C.

But, then, I think after that post, as you know I had broken up with C. However, in another post, after the break-up, I mentioned that I was still going to keep doing everything I had been doing to make my dreams come true - even continuing the knee "exercises!" 

Well, I have to say, two nights (well, actually into the wee hours just one day ahead!) before I turned 50 years old I broke my "eight year drought!" Woohoo! 

I happened to be at this pub (in my mom's home state - we were still on our months travels there) and a guy who looked almost exactly (I kid you not!) like this guy came in with another friend. They both looked about 28-30 to me. They came up to the crowded bar where I was sitting to order beers and I, per usual, introduced myself (that's just how I am - to anybody - not just a hot looking guy!), the guys got their beers and then went and talked to a group of people (I learned later) that were competitors with them in what seemed kind-of like and Iron Man race that was held that weekend in the town we were in. 

Anyway, this bar/restaurant closed kinda early - last call was at 10:30 PM - so this "hotty" guy comes back up to me (after literally not being around me for the past hour-and-a-half) and says that he and his friend are going to walk the couple of blocks to this other bar (the only "real" bar, i.e. no restaurant, just a bar, this town has!) and did I want to come with them? I was like, it's farther than a couple of blocks, but sure, I'll go, but get in my car 'cause I'm driving there, not walking!

So, we end up at the other bar and then the "hotty" starts "hitting" on me pretty heavy and I'm just going with the flow... 

Well, to make a long story a bit shorter... I break my eight year drought with this guy! However, as the drought is being broken, I'm thinking, this guy just doesn't seem like he has as much "experience" as I would expect of a 28-30 year old. I'm like, yeah, it's been eight years, but that doesn't mean I hadn't been with some really "experienced" guys in my "former life!" 

Well, after my super cute guy and I break my drought, I ask him - because, really, I felt something was just a little "off" - "How old are you?" And he replies back, "Nineteen." At that point I'm thinking in my head, well, holy f'n shit, I would not have guessed that, but it makes perfect sense! And then my next thought: Score: L - 19 (or something happily similar!)!!!

So, when he tells me he's nineteen I say to him, "I wish I knew you in ten years. You are going to make some girl very, very happy!" And he answers back, "I'll be here at the same time next year for the race!" So cute... as if in the year between now and then he will gain more "experience" and we can "hook up" again!

I was thinking totally positively when I decided that I was going to keep up with those knee "exercises" - despite C. breaking up with me - and in the end, it paid off... hell, yeah, it paid off!!! : )

A Thinking Body - Part Two

"The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them." ~ Bernard M. Baruch

So, as in my post, A Thinking Body, I mentioned the very "interesting" occurrence that my D. O., Dr. J., had experienced happening within my body. Trying, in many ways, to explain what he truly felt was - unexplainable - and in the end, the line I took most to heart was him telling me that my body, was so slowed down, that it was as if it had just stopped to, "think."

As I said, I had left his office with a lot of optimism and hope... I had felt like my Spirit had been giving me clear signs that "things" were about to change for the better in my life, and then when Dr. J. told me that it seemed as if my body was preparing for the "peace" before some major change, it just made me view both my body and Spirit seeming to be on the same page as to the positive direction my life was heading, even if, my logical mind still had no conception that such a dramatically positive change was coming my way...

As always, I had my doubts - my lack of faith - but I tried hard to keep reminding myself of all the "signs" I had been receiving and that was enabling my “hope level” to remain high.

So, as per Dr. J.’s request I went back two-and-a-half weeks later to see him for my fifth appointment. This appointment being on a Monday. I had to tell him that I had my “deathly” ill feeling of nausea. I also mentioned to him, right at the start of my appointment, that my boyfriend (what do I call this guy who I can’t seem to let go of, despite every reason that I should, and who never seems to be able to let go of me either - the guy you know as, C.!) had just broken up with (I didn't mention to him - AGAIN!) me!

Following will be an explanation of what happened after the last time C. broke up with me... what was it in mid-July? My dear grandmother, may she rest in peace (though over my relationship with C. I feel sure she is rolling over in her grave!) would have titled the last year-and-a-half of my life with C. as, “As the Worm Turns,” in a sarcastic homage to the soap opera of old, “As the World Turns” - the one with all the shenanigans and drama!

Anyway, I mentioned to Dr. J. that the most recent out-of-the -blue-break-up had happened on Saturday afternoon, just two days before my appointment with him. He then explained to me that it very well could be that the stress I was under from that inexplicable breakup was what was making my body have its severely adverse nausea reaction. I then had to tell to him my “deathly” ill nausea had come over me exactly one week before the time of my "boyfriend's breakup!*

This time when Dr. J. put his hands under my body and began feeling what was taking place within, I asked him to compare my “thinking” body of my last visit to this one - the one that was as sick as I ever get - and he told me that my body was exactly the opposite of how it had been on my last visit. This time, he said, it felt like my body was under attack, that it was stressed out to its limit, that nothing no longer was the same as before.

I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed. I had had such high hopes about everything before; about my illness going away, about my relationship with C. once again seeming back on track and as good as ever, about my dreams finally coming true. But that wasn’t how it was. It was the opposite of all of that.

When I got in my car and began the two-and-a-half hour trip back I decided to forgo getting on the main highway that led to the interstate and home, but rather, to take back-country roads. I didn’t have a map; I didn’t need one - I knew west and from there it was easy to just head that direction, and whenever there was a road south, take that direction, too.

A whole other story developed just from that forty-five miles of slow, country driving - the short version being: I took a risk and overcame a fear, stopping at a place that I didn’t think I had any business being at - but it turned out to be exactly what I needed - because when I found my way back to the interstate that would take me home, I felt more confident of who I was, what I wanted, and where I was going.

So, now as I drove those monotonous, interstate miles I began to think on C. and why the “Universe” had “plopped” him so randomly, so unexpectedly, in my life. I questioned what reason the “Universe” had for making me endure everything I had endured with C. over the past year-and-a-half. I questioned why C. had come into my life without me seeming to have gotten one single thing out of him having done so! “Why?” I kept saying to myself. “What was the reason; what was the purpose for C. ending up in my life?” I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t understand the “game.” I felt a over a year of my life had been spent, and wasted, on this one person who, in the end, took so much from me and gave so little back!

It all seemed like a waste and I didn't know how to make it not seem like that! It felt like I was given heartache when all I believe I deserved was my heart's desires manifest!

I kept driving, on the auto-pilot of thought, on a road that went straight, for mile after mile, and yet everything in my world felt twisted into a meaningless wreckage of shambles! 

But my mind kept shouting, over the music that loudly played through my car's stereo, that this whole thing - this year-and-a-half of ups and downs - the highs of excited anticipation, the lows of being cast off with no reasoning - had to have purpose!!!" I could not accept that the "Universe" did not have some positive thing come out of, what appeared to me now, to be nothing more than sheer shenanigans!

I continued my thinking, if the "Universe" is going to have dropped some random guy, fatefully in "my lap," make me fall in love with him, allow him to break my heart time after time, and think "It" was going to get away with that without a quibble from me then, it had another thing coming! 

I literally could not accept that what I got for all my time and effort over this long period of time with C. was for nothing - and further, that the "Universe" thought that it was acceptable!

And as I began to think, how could I get one freak'n positive thing out of all the shit that I went through, out of every negative aspect of this "randomness" that the "Universe" dropped in my life - C. - of everything that I endured, a thought came in my mind. And what was this thought? Where did it come from? Musings, yes, but what "inspired" it, i.e., where did the idea have its inception; how was it "conceived?" I can't say exactly, but what I can say is, that I came to realize that there was a way to say to the "Universe," "You got to play your game, now I'm going to play mine!" Sort of like, check and then checkmate!

In that brief, clear moment of space and time, I decided that I was going to take one sentence that C. wrote, in over a year-and-a-half of writing me, and I was going to make something happen. I wasn't going to sit by and let the "Universe" toy with me. I was going to go and "toy" with the "Universe!"

"How," you might ask, "does one "toy" back with the "Universe?" Well, my thinking went something like this: as I said, I felt like the "Universe" had plopped C. randomly into my world and in my entire time with C. all he seemed to do was shake my world up. My feeling was that that was all I got out of my situation with C.: my world being so shaken up that at times it felt as if the North pole became the South and the South the North! And for what, I kept saying to the "Universe?" Just to "shake my life up?" "Really," I thought, "just to shake my life up?" And negatively, shake it up, my thoughts persistently added. Well, that just was not acceptable to me! Nope, not acceptable, my dear "Universe!"

All these thoughts were racing through my head much faster than the speed with which my car zoomed down the road, and they all led to that one sentence (I actually thought on two very different sentences he wrote over the course of our relationship, but my mind seemed determined to concentrate on just the one!). And the sentence that persisted in my thinking was something C. wrote in his first email to me from New Zealand after his last breakup with me in mid-July! The sentence that wouldn't leave my head was, "Maybe you should come down here and have a look for yourself ... lots of very virile young males on the street, overall, and very healthy-looking population."

BOOM! That was it! Those were the the words written that were going to make something positive come out of something negative! And it didn't hurt, that further along in this particular email, he had written: "There really are some fine looking guys here... I think you might find a handful of acceptable ones within a few days. Happy hunting!"

My heart felt like it had been broken, once again, into a thousand pieces and I was turning 50 years old, I thought to myself, virile men are exactly what I want (read: need!)!

And it was right then that I decided that New Zealand was where I wanted to go! I wasn't going to be going there to look up C. (hey, I ain't the stalker type!) I was going to go there so that I could "plop" myself randomly, and unexpectedly, into the lives of some people who had no idea I was going to come over there and shake their world up! 

However, unlike C., I was going to go over there and try to make some positive things happen. I was going to change the course of my fate (and quite possibly!) the fate of any one I might come into contact with, simply because C. had come into my life! 

In other words, if C. and I had never so "fatefully" met, i.e., the "Universe" had decided not to bring him to me and me to him, then I would never have known him and those lines would never have been written and I would never have been heartbroken, and I would certainly not be contemplating a trip to the other side of the world! 

But I was! From that moment on I decided that that was exactly what I was going to do. I was going to travel to New Zealand, spend a month exploring that country and its people, and have adventure - of only God knows what kind - all thanks to a boy, the "Universe" felt compelled to put in my path. And now, because of that, I was going to put myself in other peoples' path. 

And after my decision, after I had bought my ticket to New Zealand, (I'm GOING TO NEW ZEALAND!!!) I wrote C. an email about it all (but of course I didn't tell him I was going to New Zealand, I told him I was going to Scotland - the other place he had mentioned, and of which I had briefly thought might be my destination!)

This is a condensed version - actually two separate emails - (though all the words are exactly as I had written them, I'm just leaving out the superfluous things I had said before I got down to the "brass tacks" of my idea):

The first: 

Also, C., I want to let you know something I think you may find interesting (and good!)! Who knows, but it may be that your breaking up with me will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened at this moment in time! You see, because of it, well, mostly since after having spent this past year-and-a-half in a relationship with you and never getting the fucking reward (literally!), I have decided, that because of everything I went through, I am going to give myself a fucking reward!

And the reward I am giving myself all has to do with you, i.e., if I had never met you I would not be doing this particular thing now, if ever!

I am going to go to Scotland!!! For a month!!!

Well, first I will fly to London, maybe stay a few days there, and then on to Edinburgh! I'm sure I'll do half my time traveling by rail and then the other half I'll probably rent a car and go wherever the fuck I want! But, damn, C., I wanted/needed to get something positive out all the energy I put into "us" and I thought, that randomly deciding to go to a place that you had so vividly described, which had such ancient history to explore, such seeming sense of spiritualness about it, would be the perfect way (maybe the only way!) that I could take something from our time together and turn into some fucking amazing thing!

Just think, I will go places and meet people who I never would have come across in my life except for having met you and deciding to put my own bit of serendipity into this crazy equation that had been "us!" I'm really excited and it'll be interesting for me to visit that ancient town by the sea you so thoroughly recounted to me, Crail! I just feel pleased that my world had been shaken up by you and now I am going to use that shake up to shake up some totally unsuspecting people whose lives I will cross during my travels! It just feels so right to me! So, as that old saying goes, I'm taking my lemons and making lemonade : )

Best, 

L
______________

And the second: 

C., I met you, spent a year-and-a-half of my life being your best Pen-pal EVER, and got nothing out of it - that is until now, when you broke up with me and set me free!!! Kind of me (finally!) saying my, "C., go to hell" moment!

So, basically, since you fucked me over, I have already, in a circuitous way, been introduced to so many possibilities and people who otherwise would never have come into my life... so far the best introduction being by a grade-school friend, to this freak'n awesome guy - (he's married so it's just purely his freak'n awesomeness and the fact that he knows the world, never mind my travels in the UK and Scotland, inside and out, that makes me goofy over him... and interesting tidbit: he's actually from NZ... thought that ironic!)

So, thanks C.! And whoever said getting fucked over by your boyfriend for another girl, was the worst thing EVER, obviously didn't turn it around to make it the freak'n BEST THING EVER!!! 


And I do find the idea of you having "fucked" me over (or maybe the opposite of that?!) as my sole reason for going - as a means of serendipitously plopping myself in the middle of some unsuspecting people lives, purely because you were unexpectedly "plopped" into my life, and mentioned a place... fascinating - and so me to the core (which I guess, in essence, means I find me, and the workings of my mind, fascinating! Haha! ; ) )

I look forward (if you should be interested) in telling you of all the shit that has happened since I decided Monday, a week ago (the day after you wrote me your, Serious - READ email!) that I was going to put "Operation C. Fucked Me Over So..." into effect... and holy shit, I can't believe all that has come out of you fucking me over! Some of it is hilarious, some of it is so six-degrees-of-separation, and some of it is just sheer exciting... but all of it, as good an imagination as I think I have, I couldn't have possibly begun to have thought up! It's truly amazing! 

It just shows me that if you can't change a situation, you can still change your attitude about the situation... and that can make all the difference in the world!

C., you think you're flourishing? Hell, I think I've bloomed! : )

Best, 

L

________________

Hahaha! And this is what he wrote back in response to all that I had said in the above emails: "I am positively delighted for you that you are going to take a trip to Scotland, and I hope that you find it all that you are looking for and more. If you see something you might otherwise have missed but for me, I'm happy about that, too." 

Wow! C. obviously completely over-looked all of the, "because you fucked me over" part of my message and took my meaning to be that my meeting him was good! Good, grief, but that's C., everything always on his terms.

Well, who knows, maybe my meeting him will turn out to be "good!" After all, I am going to New Zealand!!! I leave Wednesday, with a stop in the Hawaiian Islands, then leaving for Auckland October 28th (arriving the 29th!) and not departing that beautiful country (I've seen the amazing pictures!) until November 28 - Thanksgiving Day! 

Believe me, this is the beginning of a story within a story, and I can't wait to tell of it all! 

Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers! 


*In a future blog post I would like to delve further into the mind, body, spirit connection of which I feel doctors' only have an understanding of one "part." My talk with Dr. J. makes me feel as if I would like to discuss the other "part."

Once A Year

“I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours forever.” ~ Robert Browning

Today, not very long ago, really, I turned 50 years old.

I'm presently on my yearly travels with my mom back to her "homeland" - the state of her birth. As I said my goodnight to her she said what we always have said to each other on the eve of ones birthday, "Good night my __ year old. I'll see my sweet __ year old in the morning." But tonight when she said, "Good night my 49 year old," I stopped her and said, "Don't say it! I don't want to turn 50!" I told her if I had my husband and children right now I wouldn't care at all that I was turning 50, but I didn't, yet, I reminded her.

But, then, I got dressed warmly and went outside into the cold night air, with it's sweeping breeze blowing across my face, laid down and looked up at a pitch black sky with what seemed like a zillion stars above me. I listened to my iPod, took sips from a beer, just slightly colder than the air around me, and I felt like I was "home" among my "people!" For, the bright stars that are uncountable in the night sky, make my spirit soar! It's as if, I am them and they are me... as crazy as it sounds, I feel like from their vantage point, I light up the sky they see! I can't explain very well my "connection" to the dazzling night sky, but as infinite as it seems looking out at it, it makes me feel - instead of small and insignificant - like I am infinite, too.

So, as I saw the shooting stars flash from one part of the sky to another - so many times that I was awestruck - I felt happy, really happy. I was leaving 49 years behind and heading into the beginning of my 50th year and I felt like, Wow! Reaching this new age and having my dreams come true - which is what Dreaming Miracles is all about - is going to be even that much more of a miracle than ever! And the feeling of joy, when I attain my dreaming miracles, will feel like I am the light that is shooting across the darkened sky.

And at the stroke of midnight, to celebrate my 50th year, I pressed play on my iPod to this song... And I felt blessed, for just as I was about to go inside, I watched one more star, race across the heavens, letting me know, that it really is... a wonderful world!

Oh, and I got an early birthday present late on Sunday evening of which I will tell of in a future post. Very interesting... and a little shocking! : )

A Thinking Body

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I am backlogged on my writing of post for Dreaming Miracles. It's not as if things haven't been happening, but that I just haven't written of their happenings. I'll try to catch you up...

I've written a lot over the course my Dreaming Miracles journey about the illness I've endured during these past three years: chronic, severe nausea. I've mentioned all of the different medical modalities, both Eastern and Western, that I have tried to cure me of it, the most recent being sessions with, Z., a hypnotherapist that my neuropsychiatrist, Dr. T. had referred me to. 

As I had mentioned in my post, The Dark Night of the Soul, it was thought that the hypnotherapist could do what's called a "regression" which I basically understood as taking you back to the point of some trouble, and then attempts to "re-program" your thinking - your mind - so as to see what occurred not in a negative light, and to not hold onto that feeling, whatever it may be, any longer (I'll try to write a post on that therapy soon...).

However, during all of this time I'm not sure I mentioned that within the past month-and-a-half I had been driving five hours round-trip, about once a week to see a D.O (Doctor of Oestopatheic medicine) that specializes in cranial-sacral therapy and manipulation therapy.

Originally, my neuropsychiatrist, Dr. T., had referred me to a local woman in my town who was licensed in cranial-sacral therapy in the hopes of relieving my nausea that might be due to a new diagnosis (which I'll explain further down in this post), but I don't think at the time I actually explained anything about that. But in order to make a long story shorter, I saw this woman for therapy about five or six times with no change in my nausea, at which point she referred me to the D.O. doctor that happened to be the two-and-a-half hour drive away. She had told me that she felt like I could be helped with the therapy, but that she had reached her professional limits as to how to help me, and believed that this doctor, Dr. J., would, with his medical expertise, be worth traveling to see.

I took her advice and called his office right away, only to be told that I needed a doctor's referral, and that Dr. J. only saw one new patient per week, so it would be at least a month before I could get an appointment. I then called my neuropsychiatrist, Dr. T., and asked her to call him and see what she thought, i.e., did she think he would be helpful to my condition - this "new" condition being that I had had an MRI done in the past year of my head (my general practice doctor had tested everything over the years but my head!). And, to my surprise (because I had thought nothing would show up on the MRI unless it might be an inner-ear problem), it was found that I have what's called a, Chiari malformation - a malformation that forms at the base of the skull - which doesn't present until about 28-30 years old (as it turns just when my first bouts of nausea started!).

At my first appointment with Dr. J. he found four "problem" areas that he felt he could "manipulate" to the point of fixing them, but he said, he didn't know whether or not fixing those problems would be the key to relieving me of my nausea. My feeling was that any problem area that needed "fixing" could only help my overall health so I was definitely on board even if my nausea didn't go away. So, I had that first appointment. Then a week or so later at my second appointment I asked him what his evaluation was from the the first appointment and he said he felt I had a 10% improvement on what he was working on. After the third visit he felt that I had a 35-40% improvement. But of course, if my nausea had decreased at all, it certainly hadn't gone away. It still overwhelmed me, both physically and mentally.

But then, a month or more into driving this long drive to see him, I had my fourth appointment. And almost immediately, when he began to feel with his hands (manipulate) the first problem area, he seemed taken aback. He said out loud, "This is very strange!" I asked him what he meant, i.e., was I worse, was my condition different, what was going on?

He took his hands out from underneath me and told me it was very difficult for him to explain, as what he had felt within my body - the movement - for, he had said to me, he had come across something remotely similar, only once before (and that being fifteen years earlier), in his twenty-five years practicing this medicine. He explained to me it was if my body had slowed down so much that it was almost undetectable. He seemed flabbergasted and he actually said he was - "floored!" He said, "Now I understand how my students must feel!"

Since he had told me he had once experienced this "slowness," which he tried his best to describe, but felt he could only come up short, as he himself didn't fully understand it! I asked him about the other patient, if there was any correlation, but he couldn't recall that exact patient situation (he did recall it later in our talk, but it wasn't like me, however, it was "strange" - in an amazingly positive way!).

Anyway, I kept trying to understand him and so he kept trying to allow me to do so. He said to me, "It is as if your body is "thinking." It is slowed down so thoroughly it has stopped to just "think!" He then tried another explanation, saying, it was as if my body was in a decompression chamber trying to balance itself out. He went on to again try to explain the slowness of what was going on inside my body; it is like, "The peace before the storm," he said, "No, storm isn't the right word," he quickly added, "The peace before something major is about to take place, some shift, something, I believe, to be positive in its change." And he said he would be anxious to see me back in two or three weeks time to see what, if anything, had developed.

During this time, because he had used the words, "my body was thinking" and "it's as if your body is trying to balance itself out," and further that it was the, "peace before a major change." I confided in him, in very short words, my dream of having a biological child of my own, my just having returned from a silent retreat and having had all kinds of "signs" coming at me seeming to tell my spirit that some wonderful things were just ahead in my future and then I relayed to him that story (I'm sure I mentioned it in and earlier post) about getting the infection after my hernia operation and when I asked the surgeon why I had gotten it, had I done something wrong to have gotten it? She had said, "Only 1% of all surgeries result in an infection, meaning 99% of people don't get one!" I explained to this D.O., Dr. J., how happy hearing the surgeons words were to me... my feeling of jubilation at being in the 1%, telling him that I knew that if I could be in the 1% of something negative, it just told me that I could be in the 1% of something positive! And do you know what his answer back to me was after he had just experienced this, what was to him, an astonishing medical "unknown" within me? He told me, "You aren't in the 1%. You are in the .0000001%!"

And when I left him, shaking his head at the phenomenon he had just felt my body going through, and walked out of his office to my car, it was like I was in shock. I was shocked into the realization that though the logic of my mind seemed to have no comprehension of what was taking place in my life, in my near future, it was as if my spirit and my body were on the same "page!" It was like my spirit had been sending me these signs telling me to keep my faith strong and continue on this difficult path I had been on and now my body was seeming to reiterate exactly that which my spirit "knew." Again, my logical mind didn't feel any change; I still felt as nauseous as I ever had, but "something" was happening... even if I didn't yet "know" it myself.

It was an exciting time; an exciting feeling and I wanted it to be true and to see a different result from all the results of my past...

I'll tell you about my fifth visit to Dr. J., this D. O., in my next post... it too was "different," but in another "strange" way...

Bear with Me

"Some people grin and bear it; while others smile and do it." ~ Mike Jones

Please bear with me... I have so much to write about (don't get your hopes up for me just yet though!), but have not had the time (taken the time!) to write about it all. I will, within the next three weeks, have plenty to say...

Life Song of the Child

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart." ~ Helen Keller

I couldn't have come across this story at a more perfect time...

There is a tribe in East Africa in which... the birth date of a child is not counted from the day of its physical birth nor even the day of its conception, as in other village cultures. For this tribe the birth date comes the first time the child is a thought in its mother's mind. 

Aware of her intention to conceive a child with a particular father, the mother then goes off to sit alone under a tree. There she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she hopes to conceive; the child that wants to come to her. 

Once she has heard it - the song of this child - she returns to her village and teaches it to the man who will be the child’s father so that they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them.

After the child is conceived, she sings it to the baby in her womb. Then she teaches it to the old woman and midwives of her village, so that throughout the labor and at the miraculous moment of birth itself, the child is welcomed with its song. 

After the birth, all the villagers learn the song of their new member and sing it to the child when it falls or hurts itself. The song is sung in times of triumph, or in rituals and initiations. And it goes this way throughout their life - when the child is grown, as part of the marriage ceremony, the songs are sung together.

And, then, at the end of life, his or her loved ones will gather around the deathbed and sing this song for the last time.

Excerpted from the book, Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African Teachings to Celebrate Children and Community - Sobonfu E. Some