August 3, 2014
Sabian Sage Newsletter
Rock-a-bye Baby
Please enjoy a short journey through the well-known nursery rhyme. It began with a reflection on Leo 11 “ Children on a swing in an oak huge tree” that brought up “Rock-a-bye Baby”, and you will notice it continue thematically over the next few days: Sabian symbols, Leo 11 - 15. My thanks for the encouragement from readers to follow through on the Rock-a-bye Baby theme.
Know that the Sabian symbols open whole worlds of sense, excitement and understanding. For the thoughtful wayfarer, there is really nothing like a session with Blain Bovee, Sabian sage. Ask about the gift-able bundle of readings special!
Rock-a-bye baby
in the tree tops
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
cradle and all
The famous lullaby nursery rhyme Rock-a-bye Baby does have a hint of disturbing meaning. Like most, even at an early age, I often wondered at what was going on inside this lullaby.
What is this about? Why does it say the cradle will fall? Why does the idea of baby, cradle and all coming down qualify as suitable for a lullaby lyric?
The simplest and most obvious line of interpretation is that Rock-a-bye Baby is about falling asleep. Surprise! Alright, not so much a surprise.
However, perhaps of interest, and by way of unpacking some of the threads of sense within Rock-a-bye Baby, consider the following lines of thought.
Let us start with ‘sleep’… the very stuff of lullaby. Consider the word ‘fall’ as the fulcrum or pivot upon which the nursery rhyme turns. We say, ‘fall asleep’ and understand this quite well in our own experience. It remains one of the most profound questions of human experience, and perhaps the most ignored or least understood questions as well. Where do we go when we ‘fall’ asleep?
If the nursery rhyme is about falling asleep… and why would it not be?… then the tree is an expression of consciousness. The tree top is the waking state, where the baby begins. The bough represents a mid range state of consciousness, a bough being a limb by another name, and a limb being an in-between state as in the words liminal, limbic, subliminal, and limber, a fascinating extension of sense we relate to muscle tone and ease of motion such as bending, swaying without breaking. Trees with brittle branches break easily in a strong wind. Flexible trees, bamboo for example, bend and move with the wind. As expression of consciousness, both metaphoric directions work. The sturdy oak tree represents strength and majesty, wisdom and archaic connection. The bamboo tree represent the flexibility of consciousness, bending now into subliminal realms of slumber and swaying back into wakefulness.
The connection of sense between the words ‘bough’ and ‘limb’ appears to be restricted to the English language. Most derivations around the world connect ‘bough’ with ‘arm’ and ‘shoulder’. The stretch from arm to limb is not too far, however. Perhaps we could say, on the basis of long experience as parents rocking babies in our arms, that “when the bough breaks” is when the baby is set down to sleep in the cradle, and also, many a time there has been when parental arms ache from long nights of comforting an infant child. The arms and shoulders unlock… break their caring hold of the child… to lay the child down.
The connective action between the bough/limb and the tree top/waking state, is rocking. The active power that works to create the rocking motion is wind, or perhaps breath. Breath is rhythmic, especially when calm and relaxed and free from the hew and cry of a restive child. Rocking is closely associated with cradle through the sense of ‘wag’, to move back and forth, or side to side. Within the Sabian symbols, Leo-Aquarius 13-15 describes the birthing journey including several references to wag, wagging, rocking and swaying.
Wind is also spirit. As the spirit moves us, now we sleep, now we awaken. When spirit wind moves, a rocking motion brings about a shift in consciousness. There is a transition from one realm to another. It is ever to sleep we fall.
Notice it is not a matter of ‘if’ the bough breaks, it is ‘when the bough breaks’. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. This is an important use of language. If you were to employ post hypnotic suggestion while attempting to get your baby to sleep, you would say “when the bough breaks”, not “if” the bough breaks. This plants the suggestion that it will happen, sleep will come, denial and resistance are futile, now my sweet angel, go the &^$# to sleep!
‘Fall’: in most, if not all, ancient cosmologies, the cardinal direction North is associated with midnight, winter solstice, with falling into deep sleep and with connecting with ancestral wisdom of those who have gone before. From the Chinese classic of change, the I Ching, for example, North is depicted by a trigram K’an, meaning a dangerous waterfall… the plunging of water between two precipitous banks of earth. The psycho-dynamic extension of this is clearly when we plunge into sleep after a long day of waking activity. Imagine a beautiful flowing river… the stream of consciousness… coming to the edge of a precipice. Also consider the fascination with which we all take in watching a waterfall. We travel to Niagara, stand for hours gazing at the immense flow cascading below. While we are in Niagara, is it not worth mentioning the link here to falling in love, the weak kneed, bough breaking plunge from one realm of reality in another? The bride and groom looking to the illuminated wonder of the world breaking over the precipice while thinking silently to themselves about the change from single life, “It will never be the same again. There is no going back. What have I done?”
Cradle: perhaps one of the most suggestive words in human language, ‘cradle’ in almost every sense indicates a turning point. think of the cradle of civilization, think of the pelvic cradle from which we bend in a physiological sense, and move forward and upright in a psycho-spiritual sense. A cradle is a safe containment for the baby to rest. To cradle in one’s arms is in a sense to lock one’s arms such that the child is held safe. Most cradles are built to rock… the direct and obvious purpose being to aid in the process of falling asleep.
There is a theory that Rock-bye-baby originated in America where field workers would suspend their new born babes in cradles from the limbs of trees on the field’s edge. The wind, as a gentle breeze, would assist in this situation by rocking the cradle while Mother worked. This is all well and good, except when it comes to the bough breaking. It is hard to imagine the bough breaking so many times as to become ingrained deep into the psyche of millions upon millions of people. It is reasonable to have happened once or twice… that bough breaking… but enough to sear the image into the collective mind? I wonder.
“Down will come baby, cradle and all”: notice that it is “down will come”. This does not say “and crashes fatefully upon the hard ground”, it says, “down will come”. The question is, “to where?”
Trees have roots, which we do not see unless by violent force of unearthing. The unconscious is likened unto the roots of a great tree. it is the unknown, the unseen, that which lies in the chthonic maternal womb of the earth. “Down will come” expresses going deep into this vast and wondrous unknown… or perhaps forgotten… realm. Here we sleep, we dream, we travel many many worlds, we learn, are taught, healed, restored. Most of what happens during sleep is left forgotten there.
Is it not befitting to end the rhyme with “down will come baby, cradle and all”?
Conclusion:
Yes, Rock-a-bye Baby is about falling to sleep; no, baby does not crash to its death upon the cruel and rocky ground. However, yes, the ego dies in sleep, falls apart, dissolves like powdered crystals in a turbulent stream. Sleep is a death of a sort, a rehearsal unwinding of a mortal coil. And yes mom and dad, rock and roll will change your children forever.
Word Crib:
Rock = a motion that lies at the core of our embodied being in this world. ‘Rock’ is also physical reality or that from which we move while falling asleep. In this way, rocking as a motion, paradoxically keeps us grounded while moving consciousness beyond our physical reality.
Tree = tree of life; tree of consciousness
Tree top = waking state of consciousness, the part of the tree that receives the sun’s first light in morning.
Cradle = all that holds and nurtures us as humans in this world; Cradle is safety and a vehicle through which one rocks safely into different realms of consciousness.
Bough = limb or subliminal states where consciousness mingles with subconscious streams and contents.
Breaks = rapid change; release from one hold of safety into another; waterfall.
Down = far below surface consciousness; plunging deeper; physical reality left behind in safe keeping until you return. To go beneath the ground sounds very much like dying. If we consider falling asleep as rehearsal for that big sleep, then yes, down is death as dark is night, where dreamtime wanders until tops of trees receive first light.
So, Rock-a-bye Baby!
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