I wrote this post for SheLoves Magazine. It’s probably the most personal thing I’ve ever written.
I was shocked by how similar childbirth was to watching my father-in-law die. There is the pacing, the patience, the impatience, the watching for signs of death—or life. The living room transforms into a tunnel where the outside world is fuzzy and out of focus and inside, all senses are heightened. As the time for birth—or death—nears, erratic breathing ushers a soul into another world. There is pain. There is relief. There is hope. There is life in death.
Death and birth are undeniably spiritual for the person who’s spent time in that sacred space. Something, Someone, is invisibly present in the room with you at the gate. I’ve stood at that gate—a portal to the other world—four times now. Once, as a soul went on to the next world, and three other times, as my body welcomed three souls to this world.
Childbirth is natural and supernatural, real and ephemeral, earthy and otherworldly, you are lost forever, and find yourself anew. Birthing is raw, primitive, immodest. You abandon propriety, trusting the process. An imprint of Eden, you are naked again—and unashamed. As a woman in labor, you follow a script written thousands of years ago that billions of women have followed. You are not the first, but that does not diminish, but rather enlarges the sacred space you are given permission to occupy.
Heaven heaves spirit breath beneath the thin veil of the natural world, sending reality floating up as you tenderly hold the edge of the sheet, gasping at what lies beneath.
You glimpse the divine, who weaves numinous tendrils of time, matter, rhythm and grace to draw this new being out of your body and into the world. You are not alone. The Creator is coaching, whispering, caressing your sweaty hair, kneading your tense shoulders, clothing you in the timeless mystery of mothers who have entered this transcendence…
continue reading at SheLoves Magazine