posted October 17, 2007 01:19 AM         

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 behavior 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.

When I have shared this story in my lectures, a fair
amount of people in the audience come to tears. There
is something inside each of us that knows we have a
song, and we wish those we love would recognize it and
support us to sing it. In some of my seminars I ask
people to verbalize to a partner the one phrase they
wish their parents had said to them as a child. Then
the partner lovingly whispers it in their ear. This
exercise goes very deep, and many significant insights
start to click. How we all long to be loved,
acknowledged, and accepted for who we are! I have also
done a workshop exercise in which everyone in the room
is given a piece of paper with the name of a simple song
on it, such as "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "Twinkle,
Twinkle, Little Star." In the whole group there are
perhaps eight different songs, and a half-dozen people
have the same song named on their paper. Each person
is then asked to mill round the room while they whistle
or hum their song. When they find someone else playing
the same song, they stay together until they find
everyone who is singing that song. Thus they create
small groups that serve as touchstones for the duration
of the program. Life is very much like this exercise.
We attract people on a similar wavelength so we can
support each other to sing aloud. Sometimes we attract
people who challenge us by telling us that we cannot or
should not sing our song in public. Yet these people
help us too, for they stimulate us to find greater
courage to sing it.

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.

posted October 17, 2007 02:37 AM         

What a wonderful tradition. We need that tradition badly in all the world.

Amazing how we think we are much more advanced than some people in the world but actually that is very questionable in many ways.