AM writes:

Today my little baby transformed shockingly into someone else. The head shaving ritual served me a spiritual lesson regarding the mortal body in multiple ways. Hair gives our bodies a significant amount of identity and character. Without any, my little guy seems shockingly different, even to the mother whose body he is still a part of. As he glanced into the mirror I saw surprise in his eyes, but there was also a disarmingly fast acceptance. As though he has a much easier time disengaging from the attachment to our specific familiarity with earthly “clothes”. I am not able to articulate my lesson today. I have a sense of loss for the mischievous little baby whose wispy, soft hair frequently enhanced his mischievous eyes by hiding them. And in that loss is the voice of God trying to tell me about the body being a utilitarian vessel, a vehicle of the soul (Side note: with hair - Acura, without - Scion XB). Hair loss through age, or treatment of a disease also seem to speak to me about the fragility of what we embrace as the manifestation of a person. It locks and limits

read the wiki entry the spirit to that particular look. Picture every birthing center and maternity ward as a runway for the fashion designer Gods in charge of birth (most of them), and your soul is forever zipped into whatever was in vogue the week that you were born. I find myself disturbed that I am not more connected to the spirit of my own son. Perhaps that is why I was drawn to today’s actions, so as to invite myself to recalibrate. The Wiki says: “In Hindu tradition, the hair from birth is associated with undesirable traits from past lives. Thus at the time of the mundan, the child is freshly shaven to signify freedom from the past and moving into the future. It is also said that the shaving of the hair stimulates proper growth of the brain and nerves, and that the sikha, a tuft at the crown of the head, protects the memory.”

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