So, the story is today of a woman, a mother called ‘MORPO’ and a daughter called ‘CIRELLE’.
Now the interesting thing about this mother and daughter is that Morpo was by herself, she had no husband. Her husband had died and she was for all intense and purpose in that time too old to have children and she did not have any children before Cirelle. But things happened, it was not an immaculate conception, it was the normal way and she fell pregnant with Cirelle.
She had Cirelle and they lived in a community. People helped her and she was not alone in the world. She is a capable, competent woman and looking after Cirelle.
Cirelle is an uncommon child because from the minute of birth, she has golden hair and very large green blue eyes. They are very deep, deep eyes.
Cirelle doesn’t make much noise. She doesn’t cry very much, she doesn’t even laugh very much, she doesn’t really communicate with those around her.
This is a little worrying for Morpo because she has seen many children and they are crying and wanting attention from birth. But Cirelle was not like that.
One thing that Morpo noticed about Cirelle was that often she would be shocked.
Morpo would walk normally into the room and Cirelle was not aware of her presence and when Morpo went to her Cirelle would make a face and jump.
Morpo thought this was odd and was concerned that there was something wrong with Cirelle. So she called the Shaman. The Shaman examined and did some tests and discovered that Cirelle was deaf.
At first Morpo is very distressed by this. Cirelle being a baby couldn’t care a less, but Morpo knew that in the world that they live in, you need to hear. You need to be able to hear a pack of wolves coming for you. You need to be able to hear if there are birds where you can get eggs. You need to be able to hear what people are saying to you and things like this. It was a survival requirement in the place that they lived.
As Morpo accepted and became more accustomed to Cirelle’s deafness, she started to do different things so as not to surprise Cirelle and tried to communicate with her as talking was not working.
So, when she was coming towards her, she would flash something or open the window so that light would come in or she would come up and delicately touch her daughter gently so that Cirelle was not always shocked.
It was very challenging for Morpo because she had to think in a different way. She had to think of not just the normal way that we communicate, seeing, hearing and feeling naturally, she had to start really thinking about the world around them.
How was she going to make the world safe for her child? How was she going to make her child safe in the world and not just safe, but how could she flourish? How could she provide for herself?
What Morpo started to see was vibrations. She really listen to what people said to her and how they said it. The words had different tones and they had energies about them and something underneath all of that, was vibrations and it was just as the air goes, then when the person speaks it vibrates in the voice area, the voice box, this voice organ she could sense.
She started to be able to sense the vibration that came from that and then she started to look at the way the person was saying it, and the vibration that was coming from the body it was emanating.
She also looked at the trees and the plants and she started to look around and she could see all of these different things, these vibrations and she realised that whilst we have this way of communicating and this way of doing things, its actually superficial, there’s something underneath that and that something underneath it, you don’t need to hear!
You don’t necessarily have to have hearing or sight! You just have to have an awareness that there is this other thing underneath it that is driving that vibration, that can change very subtly.
She realised that that was how she was going to make Cirelle safe.
She tried many different things. Morpo would put Cirelle’s hand on her chest and she would say a word: for example: bread. She would hold the bread and say: bread, bread and then place Cirelle’s hand over her ear and her body so that Cirelle could understand bread.
She didn’t have to hear it, she didn’t have to read the lips, she didn’t have to see it, she just put Cirelle’s hands on different parts of her body and say: bread.
And from the vibration of that word came the visual of the bread and the energy of the bread went into the bread. Also who made the bread, making it the whole picture in this vibration.
What is interesting about this story is that it has two developments.
One is that Morpo was able to see, visualise and understand that there were vibrations going on around that other people were not aware of. These vibrations said the same thing as was actually being said. You didn’t have to hear it. They didn’t know that you could just understand by the vibration.
Morpo realised this, so she taught this concept of vibration to her daughter Cirelle.
That was the first step, but was it enough for Cirelle to be able to communicate like that?
Because her mother has a particular energy, a particular vibration around the word bread, but the neighbour next door might not have the same energy, or vibration around the word bread and she could touch the neighbour and the neighbour could be saying bread but the vibration she could hear, could be meat. Maybe for them, meat was their staple and for Morpo bread was their staple.
So, even though Morpo could communicate with Cirelle, for Cirelle to be fully functional in the community and to live and survive, she had to learn how to read the vibrations of everything that was around her.
Whilst Morpo discovered it and was able to pass it on, Cirelle actually owned it and developed it.
She didn’t have to touch people, she learnt that just by looking and really focussing on a person and with her deep, dark, blue-green eyes, she was able to see beyond the face, see beyond the colouring, see beyond what the lips were saying and see the vibration that it was making and then could tell what it was that they were saying.
You could say, in some respects, the emotion, the energy, the emotional energy that the person was feeling talking about bread, or meat, or talking about their love or their disappointment, those were the vibrations she could read.
She understood that her mother had given her a wonderful gift and we thank Morpo for realising this reality of vibrations.
Morpo and Cirelle were not Shamans. They were ordinary people making an extraordinary discovery and then making extraordinary actions with that discovery.
So, this idea of vibration for Cirelle became the way in which she communicated. She couldn’t speak, but she could read the people perfectly.
They thought she was a celestial being because she knew exactly from the vibration of the person not only what they were saying, but what they really meant, what they really wanted, even though they were not verbalising it.
With the gift of her beautiful eyes, she was able to see into the real person and from their vibrations knew exactly what they wanted.
That’s the key of this idea of ‘Sound’ in our Shamanic Tradition.