Your Song

Amazing…and it makes me consider how we might aquire random or accidental ‘songs’ in our lives that do not serve us if we have not been blessed with an authentic song…and it makes me think that the work and the play we do here is about finding our authentic song that we were not blessed with at birth…perhaps we can bless ourselves with that song? I think that’s ‘The Work’.

"Of all the African tribes still alive today, the Himba tribe is one of the few that counts the birth date of the children not from the day they are born nor conceived but the day the mother decides to have the child.

When a Himba woman decides to have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child who wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches him the song. When they make love to physically conceive the child, they sing the song of the child as a way of inviting the child.

When she becomes pregnant, the mother teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people gather around him/her and sing the child’s song to welcome him/her. As the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. If the child falls, or gets hurt, someone picks him/her up and sings to him/her his/her song. Or maybe when the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.

In the Himba tribe there is one other occasion when the “child song” is sang to the Himba tribesperson. If a Himba tribesman or tribeswoman commits a crime or something that is against the Himba social norms, the villagers call him or her into the center of the village and the community forms a circle around him/her. Then they sing his/her birth song to him/her.

The Himba views correction not as a punishment, but as love and remembrance of identity. For when you recognise your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when the Himba tribesman/tribeswoman is lying in his/her bed, ready to die, all the villagers that know his or her song come and sing - for the last time that person’s song."

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I cry. Thank you. Appreciate how much vibrational wisdom exists in so many diverse ways across our world.

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I shed a few tears while reading that as well. I felt such a deep longing…an ancestral yearning…a recognition of something long lost… or never in my possesion. And I felt how safe and embracing and calming and confidencing the experience of being would be with that song as the foundation of my life. Imagine how different the world and my place in it would feel…my experience of everything would be fundamentally different I think. Tears of sadness and tears of feeling into the beauty of what’s possible when humans ‘get it right’.

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This is so beautiful, very emotional too. Thank you.

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I cried too at the beauty, love and wisdom of the Himba tribe. :heart:

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Yes to all of this. Thank you for sharing. Tears for me too. I’d love to be surrounded by that song of love, truth and authenticity

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