Chloe's Totem

Perfect example of how the "woo-woo" infiltrates my life... ;-)

I begin by going back to last August, when I found a piece of bamboo while at the beach. Through psychometry (reading an object by holding it in your hand and picking up its vibes), I felt that it came from Thailand, having been dislodged by the tsunami. With it came a story: this bamboo was part of a house where a little girl named Chloe had lived with her father, a fisherman. She crossed over in the tsunami, but her father survived, and was devastated by the loss. She was six years old at the time of her death.

Jump forward a bit to October. I was attending a day-long Goddess workshop and I purchased a few things from one of my fellow attendees. One of them was a seashell cut lengthwise, so that it looks almost like a spinal column. I knew I needed to get it, though I couldn't have told you why at the time.

Now arrive at the present day, last week, in fact:
I was sorting through a few things. I came across the shell and a couple of other objects. I put them in a "manifestation bag." Then, for no real reason, I picked up the piece of bamboo. Put it in the bag, a voice whispered. The moment I stuck my hand into the bag, an image flashed in my mind: the end result. I - no, Chloe and I - were going to co-create a sacred object.
So she guided me in adding things to this piece of bamboo...the shell was glued onto the front, a little purple Goddess figure was glued in the top hole, a shell was glued here, tiny stones glued there, and there, and over there.

As we worked, she told me more of her story: She was half-Thai, half Dutch. Chloe was her Western/Dutch name; her Thai name was Napsam. Her Dutch mother had been deported in 2001; she stayed with her Thai father, the fisherman. She was going to be adopted by an Australian woman on New Years' Day, 2005 - but the tsunami took her before that could happen. (This is where my tears flowed, as I felt the grief of the bereaved parents, one biological, the other adoptive).

We finished the totem in two days.
Last Friday I wrote "Napsam~Chloe" on the back of the bamboo.
February 9th was her birthday. She would have been nine this year.
If I ever get a working scanner again, I'll post a pic of it.