“I feel it, Greg,” I said the other day with significance. He took a moment to try and guess what I was referencing as my words were out of context, seemingly falling out of a clear blue sky. He looked up as if checking for rain or a thunderhead. “Huh?” he said, ever eloquent. “I feel it. I feel the chasm opening.”
How can a person describe this experience that a psychologist might name an altered state of consciousness, what a mystic might call a vision, this sensation that a person might feel only once in their lifetime right before they die if they are lucky? The only other times a person would probably feel this are when overcoming an intense illness or injury or when entering the final stages of pregnancy. I speak of the meshing of the past, present and future, the lifting of the veil between worlds, the opening of the third eye.
I know I probably sound crazy. Except to those who know, those who have experienced it and have recognized what I’m describing. What is this feeling like? What is it that makes me say this? Simply put: my feet are starting to leave the floor. I feel less attached to my physical reality and my mind is traveling to strange places. Every spare moment I seem to have is filled with sensory memories from my past, so vivid that they’re real. I’m looking less with my eyes and more with my sight, the part of me that sees more than objects before me, but their deeper significance. Time is taking on a less concrete quality: minutes, hours and days are losing their meaning and all I feel is a steady movement forward towards my time of birthing. I feel myself mentally and physically building my protective nest around this event, starting to shut out the noises of the world, to go inside, to nestle down within myself.
Why do I write about this? Because I think the deep spiritual significance of birth to a woman is all but lost in translation in modern day medicine/obstetrics (I hate that paternalistic word). No one talks about the holiness and transcendence of bringing forth life, of our bodies and minds as the perfect instruments of evolution to carry and bear the next generation.
“Feminism is about courage and strength and celebration of feminine power.” -Ina May Gaskin, CPM (certified professional midwife)
notes from the hood (parenthood) 