Simon Royle: Tag

Sharon reached out, and with a glance at Mark who nodded and smiled, took the baby in her arms. She sat down in the sand next to Maloo who was waving the smoke towards them.

The chanting by the elders increased in volume. There was not another sound on the beach. Maloo gestured to Marty and she sat down next to him, gracefully folding her knees below her. Maloo gestured then to Mariko to sit by Sharon. Gabriel and I were next, Gabriel sitting alongside Marty and I next to Mariko. The chanting reached an even higher level and suddenly I felt it again. This time the Elders and Maloo came into my mind.

Maloo picked up the naked baby and held him high above the smoke. The smoke swirled around and I felt Mariko’s uneasy thought. It was smoothed with thoughts from Gabriel and Maloo. “It’s OK. The baby will not be harmed. This is to cleanse the evil passed to him through us and protect him from sickness.”

I saw Gabriel nod to Maloo who handed the baby back to Sharon and showed her how to lay the baby’s head with the top against Marty’s stomach. Marty got Sharon to take one of the baby’s hands and Mariko the other. Then Maloo took Marty’s hand and Sharon’s in his, and nodding to us, I picked up Mariko’s hand and Gabriel’s. Now we were all physically connected.

The chanting of the Warlpiri elders was suddenly joined by that of the Tibetan monks and I felt all of our minds connecting.

I breathed out slowly and let my mind float free. And there we were. All of us joined as a golden orb of feeling. Within the orb I could feel my son’s mind and then, a surprise, the mind of another, almost indistinct, but there in Marty’s stomach. Gabriel squeezed my hand.

Maloo’s clear, loud thought came through as a feeling more than words, and the feeling was the path to the absolute present, reaching from the past to the future through the moment of now.

I felt my father and my mother. I felt them in our collective mind. They passed through us all and touched the mind of our son, Philip Gabriel Zumar.