It’s been about 9 months now that our collective and individual lives have been shaken by the Covid virus. 9 months that we’ve had to reorganize work, school, play to care for ourselves and one another. 9 months of retreat. During those 9 months, we were also confronted with wildfires, political upheaval, the continual evidence of the terror of white supremacy on Black lives and an increase in domestic violence and murder. As I write this, the cases of coronavirus are higher than they’ve ever been and we are facing another intense period of Shelter in Place.
9 months. How are you feeling? What has your gestation period been like? What might you be getting ready to birth?
I have given birth to three beautiful children. All of them at home, the last one “unassisted”, which medically means that there was no midwife or doctor present. It is interesting that whether a birth is considered assisted or not is based on whether a professional is in attendance. It was unassisted despite the assistance of my then husband, my two children, my friend who made himself available for the younger children, myself and all the invisible forces of ancestors and Nature that were necessarily present to usher Max into the world. My intention to birth my children in this fashion was my way of putting my trust in forces not recognized, with any degree of seriousness, in our modern culture. These forces include the unprofessional people that actually assisted me with their presence and help; the innate knowledge my body has to birth; my ancestors without whom neither I nor my child could be. It also includes things, like the soft twinkle lights that we had put up because Christmas was coming, and the safety of a familiar surrounding. Most importantly, my trust was in the intelligence of the sacred Source which is present in everything and from which everything emerges that I refer to at times as God, at times as Love, at times as Life. By the time I conceived Max, I was acutely uncomfortable with the disconnected and reductionist ways we live our modern life, often devoid of sacred connection. My deep yearning for a more connected and meaningful way of being led me to make choices like having my birth “unassisted.”
It was not easy. There is a phase right before birth that is called the transitional phase. It is the most painful part of labor as it is the time right before the baby emerges. With all three of my children—and most acutely with my youngest, Max—this is the phase that I quite literally and metaphorically lose my shit. For me, it is the phase where anything and everything that I thought I knew, had faith in or had control over goes out the window. It is the time where I scream to whoever is there: please call 911, what was I thinking, who’s stupid idea was this, where’s the epidural or morphine or someone just shoot me in the head. I can’t do this. I…can’t do this. It’s actually true. I, myself, can’t grow or birth a baby. The miracle of life and birth is a profound and collective unfolding of an uncountable number of converging elements and phenomena. It is silly to think that I, myself, am doing anything and sillier yet to think that a doctor or any assistant is responsible for the miracle that emerges. Transition lasts for some minutes but it feels like an eternity. Then, right at the moment that I surrender to death because I actually think I will die, the baby comes. My body relaxes, I am bliss and there is a miracle in my arms.
Are we in the transition stage yet? It’s been a long run. I am tired. It feels close. Maybe we are still trying to hold on to some semblance of control. Perhaps even trying to exert more control over the situation, ourselves and others. Maybe we want to hand it over to the professionals—take some comfort in the vaccine that is coming. Maybe we are waiting for the solutions that will bring us back to the way things were before the virus. Do we really want to go back to all that? The controlled, reductionist life of the unfulfilled modern material world. Or are we ready to look deeper and let go of some fundamental ideas. Let go of our ideas of how we think we need things to be. Ideas of what we thought we needed to feel ok. Ideas of what we need to achieve, how we need to look and be, what we need to have to be loved and to be safe. Maybe if we can begin to let go of those ideas, we can begin to see what is already here. Maybe we can begin to feel our deep connection to one another, to Nature and all forces—seen and unseen. Then maybe we can hold everything sacred and preserve and revere what we already have.
To birth a different life, a different world, we must go through a transitional phase of letting go. It will probably, but not necessarily, be hard and painful. Doubt will descend. And still I am ready. Because I am not alone. How can I have ever even thought that I was doing anything alone. That I was unassisted?! I am ready to birth this new world. I am ready to be birthed into this new world.
In Community,
