Story About the Baby in the Journey Drawing

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of my upcoming memoir. It is about my experience of dying and coming back to life when I was eight years old. 

"I wonder what is up ahead; instantly I see and feel the answer with all my senses and my heart. I am going home to the Great Heart. I can feel this Great Heart is so huge it can hold every person, all animals, each tree, whole rivers, oceans and every creature that lives in them. No one is excluded from the Great Heart.

My deepest injuries and scars are rising to the surface and fading. I am changing into being like an octopus who can move gracefully in every direction. I am no longer limited by all the ways I needed to protect my own life. There is nothing to defend against in here. 

I come around a curve in the tunnel. There is no comparison on earth to directly describe what I am seeing and feeling. I am coming home to warm light that fills me up. Home where I am restored. Home where my soul began as a seed grown in love. I am being returned home to where I am a beautiful sound sung by the Great Heart.

My shape is now like when I was a baby. The rhythm of my heart beat is in unison with the pulse in the living walls of this tunnel. They are one and the same."

My First Return Trip to Africa in Forty Years happened this April 

Through amazing synchronicity of connections, and kind people helping us we have found the first person who remembers me from when I was eight years old in 1977. She has been located in Zimbabwe.  We received a four minute video of the recorded interview. She has memories of playing with me when I was recovered after being shot. Her grandmother (no longer alive) took care of my gunshot wound where the bullet grazed the top of my head.  

Before we watched the video we were considering that she might be speaking of another white child who was shot, but after watching the video we became convinced it was indeed me she was speaking of.  The events she reported matched my memory of what happened down to the most specific detail. She also provided more information than I remembered which gave us leads to follow up and research further. We have a list of research questions such as who orchestrated my return flight to the U.S.  This is research on my life in context of war where records may not have been kept. We don't know what we will find. It was a very consious choice to spend  7 years documenting my account before we began research. It has been very interesting for me that to date every event and circumstance of what I remember matches historical accounts and facts. 

This is an incredble process. When I first watched the video, her  hand gestures and fascial expressions resonated in every cell of my body. I was stunned. Her voice, and the sounds of the language are just as I remember. I weep thinking I will get to see her in person again this coming April. It is a dream come true for me. I am scared, excited, and grateful. 
I believe something that has been incomplete may become whole, and something will be healed. May I be able to share it in a way that benefits many others. 

​Robin Aisha Landsong

 Artist
 I share my art  to spark our remembering that we are connected to our own spirit and to one another.  I hope to inspire each person to live their unique brilliance.  
Author
I have been writing and drawing my memoir for eight years and I am nearing completion. To get updates as I progress toward publication and book release, please fill out the email sign up at the bottom of page.

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Story about Calm Lion and  Expansive Lion Drawings 

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5 "Dying and Coming Back" of my upcoming memoir. I have just met the fourth of five beings who helped me understand and accept I was dying. Ato, a character mentioned in this excerpt, is a man from the village who was like a father to me. The two lion drawings shown on this page illustrate this section of the chapter. 

​"When I arrive a few feet before this being I stop my rush at once. The kindness that radiates from him takes my breath away. My clutched hands soften in the presence of his pure peace. When I look up into his eyes, I suddenly feel calm. This being is so still, he is like a high mountain lake without a ripple on the surface. Standing before him I cannot remember why I would ever feel disturbed. I feel him holding me as if I was in his warm embrace, but I am two feet from him.

When I try to look closely at his face it is difficult to decide what he looks like because he seems to be continuously changing. I think he is tall, but then I am eye to eye with him. I think his face is narrow, but then it widens and I am looking at a great lion. I am sure he is male, but then he changes again and I see a feminine face. As soon as I decide I know what he is then he changes. I stand there for some time watching this kaleidoscope of life forms.  At first I want him to stay the same so I can count on what I am seeing, but the longer I watch I start to feel delighted and look forward to what will come next.

I have the urge to show this kaleidoscope man to Ato and then to my surprise Ato’s face briefly passes through the kaleidoscope array. My heart lifts with my love for Ato. Then Ato’s face changes into a person I do not know. The love in my heart remains the same for this unfamiliar person as it was for Ato. I did not know it is possible to feel the same love for a stranger. I realize there is a space in my heart that can hold love for every creature and person I am seeing. My desperation to get back to my family settles down because there are more people to give and receive love than I believed. 

The royal being changes back to the original face I saw when I first came upon him with kind soft eyes that evoke my complete trust. As he looks me in the eyes I feel anticipation growing within, as if I am going to receive a gift beyond anything I have ever known before. He closes his eyes and mine close also because we are linked by a grace I have never felt before. Behind my closed eyes I see millions of points of light connected by beautiful living lines made of the same light. This gigantic living web astounds me. I am seeing all of life is gracefully linked together like a million swallows flying as one great bird. 

Something changes and I am not just looking from the outside at this wonder of living lines; I am inside these lines of connection. I look around me with awe seeing every being, every tree, person, frog, mountain, lake, planet, star, and myself are interconnected by these living lines. I am wide open to what is so real all around me - all life is connected and I am never alone. I am flooded with relief and gratitude."

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More About my Memoir

In 2009 I began writing down my childhood experience during the Rhodesian Bush War in 1977. I thought my Rhodesian experience was going to be a small chapter in the full manuscript of an earlier book called Belonging In the Web of Life. A friend informed me it was a full book of its own. I initially resisted her statement, but she turned out to be a messenger of a bigger picture than I could see.  

My memoir, currently titled Singing the Song of My Tribe, is about when I was eight years old and was abducted from the United States and taken to Africa. The abductor, a military man, put me in the care of a hired helper who promptly left me behind in the bush. I was lost and alone, but also free of my dangerous abductor. I made my way to a rural village where I was taken in and cared for. The people of this village became my first experience of true family.

I was given a naming ceremony. They named me Aisha which translates to she who is alive, or she who lives. I received this name just days before I was shot by a militant Rhodesian soldier. The bullet grazed the top of my head and I began to die of blood loss and shock. I experienced miraculous healing with five beings who consecutively held me in complete love until I could receive the magnitude of the gifts they were giving me. I was moving closer to merge with the full expanse of light that was the Great Heart. I then heard my Mama Eahton, the woman who had adopted me as her own, singing her Medicine Song from the other side of the veil. Her song awakened my memory of my purpose to sing Medicine Songs. The moment I remembered my purpose it turned me around in the tunnel, and I came back to live this purpose. 


To get notified on public reading with art slide shows of this book in progress, as well as the completion and publishing of this book, please sign up to receive my newsletter and your welcome email you will receive a gift of a Downloadable PDF of Mama Africa Turtle that you can print out for yourself.

  

These are my art tools. Just like I am using 27 letters and punctuation to write my memoir, these 132 colored pencils (pictured above) are how I draw all the detailed work on the animals, and pastel (pictured below) are most often how I create the background.

The first mock book cover and title that John and I created.  I decided to find another title and image because I learned memoir book covers ideally show the main character and the setting of the story.

2nd Mock Cover we created for my memoir.  The publisher will create the final version. 

White Buffalo Calf drawing during the drawing process. Click on  BUY ART tab in menu to purchase a reproduction printed on many mediums from canvas, greeting cards, iPhone cases, and even shower curtains.