Nursery Magic : A Birth Story

Days had passed of feeling sensations, deep and aching in my body which told me labor was about to arrive. I welcomed these sensations and strove to meet the experience with open arms... little did I know this was the calm before the storm. This was the clouds building up in the sky, the horizon darkening before me, energy gathering in the atmosphere. I came out to meet it and chanted up into the sky, holding my arms up and open, welcoming the experience. And the storm complied with my exuberant greeting. A great rush of wind and sky came swooping down apon me. At first, I was exilarated... my blood pounding, my heart joyful and brave... and then the waves of agony began to pound against me, tearing my armor assunder. All my plans, all my preparation became nothing in the face of the pure power of the storm. I was lifted from myself, lifted from my body and tossed up into the great swirling storm of laborland. Naked and vulnerable I lost myself, and found my inner animal self. I roared, I moaned incoherantly vocalizing and thrashed out my agony while gripped in the unimaginable force of the cosmos. Dissoriented and trembling I arched and strained against the storm, but the storm could not be denied, could not be slowed.. it was a wild glorious ride that I could only open myself to and find a way to dance... yes, to dance with the lightning within me and find my strength, my deep primal strength, a gift from the great powers of the universe. Grinning into the storm I howled with triumph, dancing with the wind. Suddenly I found myself plumetting, tumbling back down to my shaking body with a child clutched in my arms. A child I had given birth to, a child I had touched, stroked and had pushed mightily from my aching womb. Such power and joy can NOT be described... bringing a child forth from your body from the very heart of the storm. His nuzzling form, so intensely wrestled from the storm snuggled up to me seeking my heat, my strength, my power and love. The shock of return was intense and as I returned to myself, I found all had been stripped away. I began to gather the bits and peices of myself up automatically, returning to the normal, the set patterns... and I found myself hesitating. All around me lay the bits and peices of self, but suddenly I realized I was still me without them, I was actually more powerful standing unencumbered by these peices of armor, these peices of self. I began to look at them, to take the time to choose what parts of self to reclaim and which to leave there on the forest floor to rot back into the earths loving embrace. Some I picked up lovingly and adorned myself with, while others I examined a moment and let fall. With a baby in my arms, vigorously sucking at my breast, I could see the sun rising through the trees. The great storm is past and I am whole, aching and trembling in the face of the intensity of the experience, but complete.