Friday night my husband and I enjoyed a delightful meal out (thank you M and C for the gift card we finally found buried after all this time!).  Our conversation danced around before settling, finally, on thoughts about parenthood.  A friend had asked recently what I was thinking or feeling on the topic, and it confused me to have to answer, “…well…very little.”  As my husband and I talked on Friday, we realized that the natural fears that come with anticipating parenthood were keeping us, at least in part, from thinking too deeply about it.  About parenthood.  We decided we wanted to change that.

So yesterday we did a ritual.

First we spent some time journaling individually – stream-of-consciousness stuff about our baby, about mother and fatherhood, about things in our lives that we imagine will change with baby’s arrival.  We took our pulse.  What’s going on in there? we asked ourselves.  What’s stirring around in these weeks before birth?

Both of us are deeply drawn to eucalyptus trees – their power, their beauty, their smooth-rough elegance.  For us they’re spiritual and richly symbolic.  So after we journalled, we drove to a grove of eucalyptus not far from where we live.  We parked in the shade of one of the older fellows (this fellow pictured here; click on the image to enlarge), rolled down the windows, and watched.

We watched.  We listened.  We breathed deeply.  We noticed how many birds there were, singing and flitting about.  Bees and dragonflies zig-zagging through brush.  We noticed thistles.  And other kinds of vegetation, too.  We stared up into the trees, near and far, and laughed at a ground squirrel foraging for food.  And a long-necked crane, strutting past us on the road.

And we talked about what all of this was saying to us.

We talked about joining, through parenthood, a worldwide pulse toward life.  The pulse of bugs and trees and birds and animals and microorganisms we can’t even see, to procreate.

We talked about being held in the ongoing weave of those who have gone before us and those who will come after, and how comforting it is to feel like we’re part of something so much bigger than ourselves.  We talked about the miracle of this baby that’s inside being a combination of genes that stretch back centuries.  About how the trees surrounding us speak of this in all their stages of birth and life and death and decay, their very bodies becoming the stuff from which future generations grow and get nourished.

And we talked about the thistles.  And the flowers.  And how we feel our arms opening wide to the Whole – to all of it – to the ways that being parents will have painful, gut-wrenching trials and moments when sunshine falls gently and butterflies mark the way.  We said yes to it all, including the thistle stuff.  Including our fears.  

And we blessed our baby boy.  We blessed him to be a boy surrounded by love – one who gives and receives lots of it.  We blessed him to be strong in body and soul.  We blessed him to be soulful and find ways of integrating his deepest spirit with the ways he lives and thinks and acts and feels in the world.

My heart feels deeply nourished by it all.  My soul finds rest.  And my belly, right this minute, is bouncing with this life that’s inside. :)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2005 at 10:37 am and is filed under Motherhood, Mindfulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.