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Going Solo or Singing With the Choir?
by Elana Zaiman
Liv Fun: Vol 4 – Issue 3
Years ago I heard this story about an African tribe: When a woman in this tribe knows she’s expecting a child, she heads out into the wilderness with a few women friends, and they pray and meditate and listen for this child’s song. When they hear it, they sing it over and over again. And when they return to their village, they teach it to their entire community, so that when this child is born, everyone can sing this child into the world.
The community continues to sing this child her* song when she enters school, comes of age, marries, and when she is ready to sojourn from this world to the next.
There’s one other time the villagers sing this person her song: if she were to commit a terrible social wrong. In such a case, the villagers would gather together, form a circle around her, and sing her song to her — not to shame her, but to remind her that though she committed a wrong, she is not the wrong, and she can move past it.
Most of us have not lived in one community our entire lives. We moved for college, marriage, employment, or because we fell in love with a particular place or a particular person in a particular place. In these new places most of us probably joined communities — faith-based, academic, work, yoga, book, hiking or neighborhood — because we understood that if we didn’t, we would somehow be unmoored, disconnected and alone.
Perhaps this is why I’m intrigued by people who choose to live in retirement communities so that they will not be alone, and yet doggedly distance themselves from the other residents in these very communities.
Liv Fun
by Leisure Care
Autumn 2015
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Going Solo or Singing With the Choir?
by Elana ZaimanYears ago I heard this story about an African tribe: When a woman in this tribe knows she’s expecting a child, she heads out into the wilderness with a few women friends, and they pray and meditate and listen for this child’s song. When they hear it, they sing it over and over again. And when they return to their village, they teach it to their entire community, so that when this child is born, everyone can sing this child into the world.
Leaving Amazonville
by Skye Moody
My apartment building is cheek to jowl with Amazon’s main campus. When I peer out our bedroom window I look straight into Amazon offices. Just about anyone who lives in this neighborhood can say the same. One of Amazon’s drone testing sites is so close to my windows that I’ve actually witnessed two experimental package delivery fly-overs and occasionally wonder what I’d do if a drone accidentally crashed on my balcony.
A Strategic Approach to Friendship
by Tammy Kennon
While it’s no surprise that social isolation can be detrimental to our emotional health, scientists are now finding surprisingly strong evidence that it can be deadly — as damaging to our health as smoking, alcohol abuse and obesity. Conversely, researchers are finding that having strong social connections improves our health, helps us ward off disease, and demonstrably extends our lives.