Namaste To My Grandson, Owen

Namaste to My Grandson, Owen

Namaste, from the Sanskrit, is a traditional salutation that means, “I bow to you.” A small bow from the waist, with hands clasped in prayer postion, is the polite greeting in many Asian cultures. More importantly, it acknowledges the divine spark within each of us and represents a deeper greeting, “from my soul to your soul.”

A couple of years ago when my son, Phil, and daughter-in-law, Michelle, were pregnant with our first grandchild, I wondered, “Will I recognize this incoming soul? Have we met each other and known each other before this life?” Having spent years as a hypnotherapist working with altered states, both for myself and for others, I was accustomed to seeing family, friends, and acquaintances in different guises and across a startling spectrum of possible other lives, dimensions, times, and more.

Well, I didn’t get much of an answer right away, either from the baby or anybody else. For the first few months my son and daughter-in-law called the in utero baby Batman, but that didn’t feel right to me. Musing one afternoon on what might be a suitable nickname for the player to be named later, I suddenly heard, “Jupiter.” Jupiter? Where did that come from? Well, alright then, Jupiter it is. In a logical sort of way, I thought, “Well, Phil and Michelle are both large and they say that the baby is big, so maybe that’s it.” From then on, my husband and I started calling the baby Jupiter to ourselves.

A few weeks later, I was falling asleep and thinking about becoming a grandmother in a few months. As I was drifting off, I thought again about where the name Jupiter came from. In a flash, I saw a middle aged man, a farmer, who was tending his field. I knew immediately that this was Jupiter, who was also my future grandchild, and that we didn’t get along very well in that life. I quickly jolted back awake and wrote down this vision before I could forget it.

My grandson, Owen, was four days old when we first saw him, and no one noticed in all the excitement when I made a small bow, and said, “Namaste, Owen.” Now, Owen is 16 months old and full of love and laughter, and I can’t imagine a universe anywhere where I could be out of sorts with this beautiful soul. So thank you, baby boy, from my soul to yours, for another chance to know you and love you.