Lullaby

Hi Heidi and Viv,

I'm writing you two because you were in class when I wrote "Lily" -- the piece that I still hum to Kate at bedtime?

Well, I'm working on a lullaby for the mini-musical tonight and look what I read in wikipedia:

Asia has its own versions of the lullaby as well. In Tamil (a language of southern India), a lullaby is called a thaalattu (thal means "tongue"). A melodious sound is created by frequent movement of the tongue at the beginning of the song, hence the name.

But most notably is the use of the oyayi in the Philippines, also called huluna in Batangas. In fact, the use of a song in putting a baby to sleep is so popular that almost every mother in the province is said to have composed at least one lullaby for her child.

So I don't know if I should be mad or assume my mom had one and just forgot? I know when she had her first grandchild she could only come up with church hymms in English... but she was always singing to get the baby to sleep... so maybe I'm not so "left out" after all...

I feel very comforted for some reason, and wanted to share.

Song of the Spirit

Heidi read this to us in her Alchemy of Love class -- I want to say it was the first class "Invoke the Heart" but I'm not sure.

There is a tribe in East Africa in which
the art of intimacy is fostered even before birth.
In this tribe, 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 cultures.
For this tribe the birth date is marked
the first time the child is a thought in the mother’s mind.
Intending to conceive a child from a particular father,
the mother then goes off to sit alone under a tree.
There she listens until she can hear the song
of the child she hopes to conceive.
When she has heard it, she returns to her village
and teaches it to the 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 women and midwives of her village,
so that throughout the labor,
and at the miraculous moment of birth itself,
the child is greeted 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.
It is sung in times of triumph or in rituals and initiations.
This song becomes a part of the wedding ceremony
when the child is grown-–
And at the end of life, his or her loved ones
gather around the deathbed
And sing this song for the last time.

Two weeks ago Heidi gave us this assignment:

Song of Self - Extending the Heart

Create a performance, no longer than 3-4 minutes that is a Song of Yourself. You can use words, dance, music, song, objects or some or none of the above. Think about your audience too. Where are we in the space in relationship to your performance?

There is no right way to do this.

She also said to "push ourselves" and face our fears...

So I wrote this piece. My Song of Spirit, called Lily, an organic, off-the-top-of-my-head title -- until I was reminded that my mother's childhood nickname in was Lily (for Soledad).

I handed out music (voice part only) and rehearsed the class twice on the Yamaha piano I brought with me. Then they sang it to me. Heaven.

This week, I had the CD and we played it on Gonz's laptop so they could hear the accompaniment. Then they hummed it to me...and I went numb.

Maybe Mom didn't sit under a tree waiting for a song to reveal itself -- but now the "missing link" of nondeservingness is gone. I've celebrated myself.

Here it is: Lily
(:57 seconds).

And please -- hum it to me on my special days.