My account of my day on Sunday, written in third person as it is Chapter Fifty Six of my blog, Stories of the Lost Child.

"Sheychen had planned At Last To Go Home.


Return.


Come, Come, Wherever You are, Come Return, We are Not Whole Until We Welcome You Back and We Carry Your Pain and Heal it Together.


"Michael Meade, renowned story teller and teacher, tells about a healing ritual in Zambia. If a member of the tribe becomes ill - emotionally or physically - the belief is that an ancestor's tooth has lodged itself within the person and is responsible for the sickness. Because all members of the tribe are connected with each other, the suffering of one affects the others, and all become involved in healing. The tribe's healing ritual is based on the understanding that , as Meade relates, "the tooth will come out as the truth comes out." While the sick person must reveal the rage or hatred or lust he or she is experiencing, for the full truth to be revealed, each person in the tribe must express his or her own buried hurts and fears, anger and disappointment. As Meade describes it, "The release happens only when everything comes out, in the midst of dancing and singing and drumming. The whole village gets cleansed by the release of the tooth through the release of these difficult truths."

This ritual holds great wisdom. Unlike in our own culture where we consider illness or depression to be a personal liability or affliction, members of this tribe are not blamed or isolated in their suffering. Rather suffering is a shared concern, a part of everybody's life. Pain does not belong to one individual. Not taking pain personally is essential to Radical Acceptance. As the Buddha taught, life's difficulties are not owned or caused by an individual - our changing states of body and mind are influenced by myriad variables. When we recognize this, remaining open and vulnerable and accepting with each other, we heal together.

Realizing the truth of belonging, that we are all suffering and awakening together on the path, is the most powerful antidote to personal feelings of unworthiness. When my fear or my shame becomes our shared suffering, Radical Acceptance flowers.

When, in true friendship, we release all distancing thoughts and ideas, when we behold each other with clarity and love, we nourish the seeds of liberation."
Tara Brach 'Radical Acceptance' pages 302-303


It was long over due. Her Tribe were meeting for a Healing Time and she sent a message that, yes, long overdue, she was coming home.


She took Bear and MillieBunny, LostChild and Littlest One. She packed their night things, as they would be staying with their own home tribe that evening and through the night time hours and all through the Healing of the Tribe work the following day.


After six hours of LongBorn working and 2 hours of travelling, they arrived and LostChild was tired and scared and fortunately her home tribe noticed and brought hot food and pure water and made sure they were fed and warmly arrived.


The evening work was deep and LostChild still felt tired and scared because many of her Tribe had come and she did not know or remember all of them. Forty or so LongBorns gathered. Bear watched and also kept guard at the gateway to the sacred place. The pain of the LostChild grew and SteadyGuide kept the practice moving towards opening and more opening.
Then the sun set.

That night LongBorn created a nest for LostChild to sleep in and listened to her mourning and pining for NewFinder and HeartFriend. LostChild held Bunny and Bear close and nestled her face deep in cardigan and heard the kind words of NewFinder and eventually, fell asleep. Fortunately they had a room to themselves, as the tribe had spread out through the village.


Then LongBorn found that the airbed that she had blown up, had deflated. Bummer!


It was 1am and she went to get the pump from the car. But someone had locked the door to the building and she was locked in. No key. She looked for the key. No key. She truly was locked in.


Longborn went back to their room and tried to go back to sleep on the floor.


Unfortunately on her visit to India, during those awful times, she had slept on floors and also had been locked in. Longborn felt slightly sick with panic. Another hour went by whilst she tried to calm down, using all the calming methods she knew. Eventually LostChild just began howling. Littlest One sobbed, Bear came and held them and MillieBunny just sat and looked frightened and scared. LostChild did what SHE knew to feel safe and then LongBorn herself hit terrible despair.


Now it was half past two in the morning. LongBorn looked at MillieBunny and saw how horribly frightened and scared and upset she was and so decided it was NOT FAIR on Bunny. She had to help Bunny. So LongBorn got up and decided Enough was Enough. She took the air bed downstairs and hunted high and low for the key. It had to be somewhere and if not she would hunt out another LongBorn and ask them WHERE the key was hidden. Bunny needed her to stop this, Bunny was too frightened.


There it was, in a box on the top of a high cupboard.


So LongBorn blew up the airbed, fetched a spare towel, made them all a drink, found a banana and shortbread, settled everybody back down and thought.


And what she thought was, what was required here was a pretty radical acceptance and it required love, compassion, healing, forgiveness and deep kindness. It required others, as the healing at this level is relational. This was not something that could be healed alone, in isolation. She needed the others. She needed to turn to her Tribe and let them in.


SteadyGuide, who would be teaching LongBorn for the next two years, arrived early the next morning and she asked to talk with him. She told him that LostChild was vulnerable and fragile and that the night had been hard and the day ahead was daunting. He asked her to do what she needed, be what she needed and ask for what she needed. She said she thought she might cry and she might get scared and she might run away. He said all that was fine, all that was part of the Day Of Healing for the Tribe. All the hurts could come into this space and no hurt was a hurt in isolation, it effected each one of them, each hurt was a wound to the Tribe. Today they had come together to work healing on the wounds.


So LostChild stepped into the dance. Bear and MillieBunny watched from a perch high enough to see and near enough to be included.


And the five hours of Healing Dance began.


At first it was hard, honouring the space they stood in, honouring the earth they lived upon, praising the One within and in All. Three Dances and then a shift took place.


A Dance to Lord Rama, the warrior and Beloved True Friend, began. It was a Dance from LongBorn's time in India, the words the same, the chant and mantra the same.


Shri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram Om.


Longborn let go. The rythym built up and LongBorn felt the entire Tribe there and flowing, pulsing, joining together.


At last LongBorn realised that Sheychen was coming home.


Sheychen danced, she moved from longborn to longborn, her own people, and felt their arms hold her and their eyes gaze at her with kindness and care. She realised she had at last come home, come home like she should have done 23 years ago. Into the Dance, she brought the pain of the rapes and of being a member of this tribe who had been raped, and yes, this was done to her. "He raped me, repeatedly. Help me. He held me prisoner and hurt and abused me. Help me. It tore me apart." She did not say it aloud, but it felt as though the entire tribe now knew her wounding, knew the source of her pain. They brought her back to home.



The tribe opened their arms to her. When the women's voices sang, it was with sadness and care for the pain of being a woman and the fact that as a woman this can be done to any of them. The women sang for her pain and embraced her from their hearts. And when the men's voices sang, they sang of the sadness, deep sadness that makes men, their brothers, hurt a woman member of their tribe this way. They sang with acknowledgement that men do and can hurt women in this way.


This flowed into the dance and the pain rippled through the Tribe and was held with such softness.


Sheychen sobbed, she howled and the sobbing and the howling joined the beat and sound of the music and flowed with the other voices and the prayer and the chant. She howled so deep and she howled so long and the tears fell unceasingly and the arms kept moving and holding and chanting and knowing and accepting and gathering her in. The Dance moved her through her people and the drum kept the heart beating.



Sheychen cried too for the LostChild raped at 8 and for LittlestOne left to Burn when only a small baby. She wept for for LostChild being hit and being thrown, mocked and abused and for the confusions and shames of young LongBorn being a pseudo mistress to her own father.
The Tribe and the Dance held all her pain and welcomed it in, each one holding this pain as their pain, a shared pain, no shame in this pain. And each one who held a pain felt held and honoured in their pain. This pain is also ours, breathed the Tribe. We are not whole until each one of is is whole.



And the next dance was the prayer of the Medicine Buddha, deep and strong and powerful.


Sheychen again opened her heart into the Dance, and she now felt it, the acceptance. This pain she had been carrying deeply wounding her heart, was not her pain alone.


The pain was not hers alone.


She always thought it was. She carried it in isolation and shame and hid it and felt it gnaw at her. But this pain was not hers alone. By definition of being a LongBorn, a human being, a member of this HeartTribe, this pain was shared. This pain touched others, this pain effected all the others. This pain was a shared pain and in this time, the Healing Time, the Tribe held this pain and embraced Sheychen, loved her, wept with her and brought her heart solace and genuinely welcomed her home, enfolding her back in to their heart of love where love heals.



And then the next dance was of resting the heart and as the dances went on, many dances, Sheychen knew she was healing, she had danced through the cycles of this pain, she had seen concern and care as the tears flowed down her face and people reached out with their eyes and their hands to communicate the sharing of this pain. They would not intrude on her releasing her tears. They honoured and respected the release and the acknowledgement of the burden long carried. The Tribe itself began to heal the long wound of one of their own torn open. Their shared wound. They carried the burden with her. They all carried this shared wound.



And by noon time, Sheychen had danced herself back into her Tribe, strong again, herself again. She had brought her pain truly home and been met with love and sorrow and mourning and grief. Sheychen had acknowledged her own pain and faced and been honest about what she carried. She had brought that home. She had been held through the pain and knew she would be held again and again until the pain had been heard properly and released. The Tribe had heard and felt and had sorrowed with her. Then the HeartTribe had begun to build and grow with her until she stood as their daughter once more, as a mother and as a friend and emerging elder. She had come back. She stood again with her people. They touched hearts together and the music pulsed on.


They rested and breathed the words of healing into their hearts and bunny sat on Sheychen's knee and Bear sat by her. SteadyGuide prayed and breathed words of soothing and words that knitted together broken bones and broken hearts. Sheychen lay down and allowed it to seep into her very cells and felt all the people around her breathing and absorbing strongly and fiercely too. A sacred healing taking place, knitting them back together to become a Whole Tribe again, all welcomed in and loved.