A Spiritual Birth

[Benny's Mom]

I really enjoyed the recent threads where I and a number of women shared the spiritual signifigance of their birth and the way in which they felt deeply connected to their child and or children.

I so enjoyed this discussion that I want to create a new thread on Spiritual Birthing.

So, my question goes, which anyone reading this is free to modify or add to, is: Do you see your birth/births as a way in which you connected to your spirituality or with God in a deeper and more meaningful way? If so, how did the experience transform you?

I'm so looking foward to reading about what people may have to share so I want to keep this conversation moving. How many more people have stories to share. Thank you.

[hedra]

Do you see your birth/births as a way in which you connected to your spirituality or with God in a deeper and more meaningful way? If so, how did the experience transform you?

Being fairly agnostic, and waaaaay too intellectual, the stuff that came up around birth (and pregnancy) really struck me hard.

I know that I met those kids before they were born. That's a given. But connection to the Divine (however you name it)... that's harder. The acceptance of there being something beyond, something more... very hard for us super-intellectual types. Sometimes it takes a really BIG hammer, or a burning bush, to give us faith. (though I'll argue that it takes little 'faith' to believe when you're standing in front of a burning bush! I give more credit to those who don't have a burning bush handy, but still have faith.)

I *wish* my pregnancies were more spiritual. I hunger for them to be, actually. But they tend (so far) to be predominantly physical experiences, with loads of psychological impact, and a great deal more business and everyday life than I'd prefer. I get only the odd WHACK here and there of something more. Big whacks, and often not even to MY head - my friends get hit more than I do, with MY pregnancies! Go figure.

Birth, however...

Well, labor is pretty much a physical exercise for me, too. But both the preparation for birth and the actual birth, the transition point between external and internal, those are major pivotal things. I connected to many things in that process, and came to 'understand' what my intellect will not always accept. I just shrug, and take the meaning as it comes, and try not to worry about proving it, or having it have to be the same as anyone else's life or meaning or experience. It is mine, and that's all it needs to be.

So, here it is, my spiritual journey through childbirth, in a nutshell:

I had a number of pretty nasty experiences as a child, which left me feeling abnormal, not usual, not 'like other people'. Less, worse, not whole, not 'right', in many ways. I had a lot of healing to do. One thing that birth taught me was that I was whole, regardless of my experiences. The impression that I was not whole was false. Being there, present, active, and focussed in Gabe's birth clarified my being, wiped away the surface gunk, showed me that at the core, I was who I was, and nobody else's actions could ever change that. I simply had to claim it.

And yes, claiming it takes work, and changing habits of thought takes work, but who I was, underneath, was me. Just me. Purely me.

It was like someone had rung me like a bell. I was one tone, a vast and loud and enduring peal, with that crystaline purity that you sometimes sense in arctic air - like there is nothing there, but it is just so pure it seems not to exist. Hard to explain.

I found that I was ONE. I was the union of me, whole and complete.

I also found that I had help in that labor, that was outside of me. Gabe's labor was 80 hours long. Most of that time I was at home, with my DH and my mother and my two best friends (who were my doulas). These people were my supports, but every time I closed my eyes, I felt - and saw - someone else there.

When I was working through back labor, I could look inside my body and see these transparent hands, outlined with the intense glitter of blue-white stars, pressing against my pelvis from the inside, providing counter-pressure where I needed it most, and providing a measure of relief. And when I needed rest, and cushioning, and gentle support, cascades of soft white feathers showered down inside my mind's eye, buffering me from what could have been rather a bad experience.

I am not a believer in angels. But there this being was. We hadn't chosen the final names yet - we didn't know the gender 'for sure' (that is, science hadn't confirmed what I knew), and we wanted to meet the child before picking the name. Still, during labor, I told DH that I thought that Gabriel would be the right name, because I had an angel helping me through labor. And when he was born, no other name fit.

So, in labor, I found that there was more than just me. I was ONE, but I was not ALONE.

And then there was the turning-inside-out of awareness in the transition into motherhood. When I was pushing Gabe into the world, I glanced up and literally saw echoes of my foremothers standing in the room, in transparent shades of warm brown, sepia, gold, cream, and ivory. I could not capture details, but I also didn't try - it wasn't important who they were or what they looked like or what they were wearing, but that they were there. They were the riverbanks of life, through which the generations before had flowed. And now, I was transforming, moving from river-in-flood to becoming the riverbanks myself. Through me, another life flowed into being. Through me, another generation took to the stream of life. I could feel the presence of the banks and layers and echoes of women who had come before me. And I could sense those yet to come.

I was ONE, I was not ALONE, and I was not ALL.

Over time, things have happened, images have appeared unbidden in my waking eye, and my older son has said things that I cannot explain. When he fell out of a tall bed, I awoke at that moment, heart pounding - even though I was across the ocean from him. I have dreamed his dreams, and he has known when I was pregnant, and when I was beginning to miscarry. The dreams I had as a child, where I played with him, he has in this life described to me. He remembers the dreams I had of him decades before he was born. And once, he told me what his 'job' in this life was. It was to take care of his sisters. When told that he had no sisters, he protested that he did. And he named my long-deceased oldest brother's sisters as his own. My mother had already come to the conclusion that he was the same soul as her firstborn, come back around again. I find I can't disagree.

I was ONE, I was not ALONE, I was not ALL, and this life is not the END.

That's what I learned from just one pregnancy, one birth, one child.

My second child is teaching me that knowing all that doesn't mean that you get what you want, when you want it, how you'd like it... I don't get to choose. I get to participate. And I get to enjoy. And struggle, and wonder, and doubt, and be kicked in the head again by that strangely enduring faith. I had no meeting with this child, and while I saw him in my dreams, I did not see him when I was awake. I had no cosmic helper in his labor, and no visions before, during, or after his birth. All that I'd hoped to learn, experience once more... not there. At all.

I guess I'd say preparing for his birth, and the experience of his birth taught me that it isn't even about ME at all.

What it IS about, I have yet to discover. But even that it is about something is important, I think. But I could be wrong. Certainly, I have no idea why other people don't always get these things, or get different experiences, or one part or another part.

Guess I'm still agnostic - I don't 'know' what it means, why it is, what it is there for, why me, why my kids. But I know that there is something more, and I've felt it, and I feel both humility and awe that I've been so graced.

[Benny's Mom]

Hello Hedra,

Once again, I see parallels between us...Not quite the same, but, similar.

I specifically wanted my birth to be transforming. I quit working halfway through my pregnancy to focus on creating a peaceful space for Benny. I also wanted to take good care of myself and remain as stress free as possible so I could experience the changes in my body.

I didn't know how I would find it connective to spirit but I wanted to find the connection through being in my body, feeling everything and trusting the process.

I had had experiences similar to the ones you describe through the course of my social work practice...Having dreams about my clients that then came true, feeling the presence and guidance of the dead father of a child I was helping, feeling "not alone" when making an important contribution in to a meeting or to a family...I had been open to those feelings and learned not to question them or "make a big deal" of them...But, to just use them to help myself or someone else...

As I talked about in other posts, Benny's birth was not gentle (for me) or peaceful, nor was it at all as I planned, but I see the hand of God, if I may be so bold, or the hand of the organizing spirit of life, behind our ultimate safety and in how I still now, feel it reverberate in the people I meet, the lessons I encounter and the coincidences that mark my life.

I guess what i'm saying is something similar to what you described about your second child's birth. There was no feeling of God being seen but instead a feeling of God being unseen... And, it was safe to just Be, I didn't have to see, to be safe, in the moment, in awareness, in the care of the "spiritual organizer". I guess also that this lesson isn't about me or you or anyone else. At a certain point, if you've seen "proof" of another place or another realm, the lesson becomes, can you trust me or do you want to act like you're all alone and just trust yourself?

Hedra, by the way, what is the difference between an agnostic and an atheist?

[hedra]

Agnostic - does not know whether or not God exists, or the particulars, and often doesn't think we CAN know.
Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable.
: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god.

Athiest - knows that God does NOT exist.
: one who denies the existence of God.

[hedra]

(For me, I'm on the 'unknowable' side of the group - I think that there is a Divine something-more, but what, how, etc., I don't think are knowable to us, not accurately. But that also leaves it open to others - specific religions could be 100% right, and that's fine with me. I just don't know.)

[ubertulip]

Wow, Hedra, thanks for sharing your experience with us! It made me wonder. I have not given birth yet, so I don't know what will happen, but I had a dream about my children, two of them, before the first one was conceived in July. I feel very much like I know who they are. It was like a very clear snapshot of all of us about 10 years down the road; they told me their names and it was wonderful. I didn't even question it; I just knew it was real information. I thought, "Great! Can't wait to meet you!"

And here's a weird thing; whenever I meditate on my child's spirit, their nature and why they're coming into the world, I get a strong taste like a lemonade frost popsicle in my mouth. It's very strange, and it makes me laugh.


:)

[hedra]

Melissa, sounds like your child has a sense of humor. :D