Divination and Birth
Meeting myself as who I am
My being, in conscious mothering, has been shaped by lived experience, discernment, and devotion to thriving life. I birthed both children at home. I chose to align with desires for autonomy and self-directed care: to listen and respond the years of deep tending, to activate intuitive technologies steeped in devotional observation1, to restore my relationship to the natural world.
Birth stories could possibly be one of the most diverse reflections of times and places. There are many ways, many outcomes. I share these tender moments to widen the diversity of birth paths. I dream of a world where we share stories to expand the reality of possibilities and access time in different dimensions.
There were no photos taken of the birth. Unlike a foggy memory of childhood, I don’t and won’t need physical images to remember the details of this particular morning.
Splashes of birth blood still accent our room. They gently remind me of the a time I truly witnessed myself.
During pregnancy, I felt neither here nor there—a space traveler. I held the door open for a little soul to arrive. I am initiated to hold awareness in multiple realms.
If ever there is a time to amass intuition jewels, pregnancy would be that for me. There’s a heightened sensitivity for tuning with creation of light, living inside the womb. This light emits a magnetism for deep knowing.
I predicted the speed and date of her birth—fast and Pisces baby around the March full moon, and not during the eclipse. A week before she arrived, I wrote her name on Sirius’ cardboard fort. It was the only name that stuck with Joseph or I. (We had no scans or bloodwork to confirm.)
This journey opened me to the realization that love is one of the few things that does not need to be divided to be shared. AND that surrendering builds strength2.
The night after the full moon (eclipse), I went into labor shortly before 4:44am. I did the nightly pregnant mama ritual: empty the increasingly compressed bladder. This time I felt unbroken drops of water. I crawled back in bed and laid next to our son and tried to fall back asleep, but the newly beginning abdominal sensations were rhythmatic and continuous, “and intense enough to only be able to focus on them at times”, I messaged our midwives.
By 5:08, I had been trying, for 15 minutes, to learn how to use the stopwatch function on the phone and concluded that I was indeed in active labor with 45 (ish) second long contractions. It’s really quite unclear for me to know when they always start and end, but a patterning did exist.
The midwives replied, “Sounds wonderful. Just let us know when you’re feeling like you’d like more support.”
I didn’t ask them to come then. I wanted a little time to myself, alone in the dark, cool-floor home. I needed some time alone to accept the idea that this soul was ready too. I used to wake up around this time for rowing practice in college. A Morning shift at the bakery also frequented these hours. It’s so peaceful when everyone and the birds, too, are sleeping. I know this time very well. It’s familiarity, comforting.
I started laundry, thinking I would have time to put it in the dryer. I put away the dishes from dinner. I heated bone broth in a pot. I made myself an electrolyte drink. I lit an incense for the house. I cleansed the home with copal. The home—ready. I am still warming up—endurance is my specialty, blazing speed is not. (In a distance race, I’m the negative split-er, the last lap faster than the first.)
By 5:20, I texted, “Probably soon. It’s getting intense quickly.” I have been awake now for 40 minutes.
I knew this intensity. I had been there before.
I texted a thread of three friends with the possibility of one of them to be available to care for Sirius when he woke up. I thought he would be awake by 7/7:30 at the earliest. And also, could or would he hear me?!?
I lit a candle so I had something to focus my eyes on. I did hip circles on the big bouncy ball and the smell of beeswax helped me stay with the body. Carolina sent me a few Tara mantra songs a few days prior—that became the birth music. With the family still sleeping, I wanted Joseph to get as much rest as possible. He seemed not ready to wake: I noticed that he snoozed his 5 am alarm.
I looked forward to our midwives being in our quiet space. Our family really loves their presence, humor, and groundedness. And, because multiple things can be true, it was also so nice to be in labor, “by myself”, (famous toddler’s words) in the darkness, smelling sweet incense.
Some time between 5:24 and 5:54, I knew this baby was coming before or as the sun peeked3. (I had this thought as I started labor with Sirius too. He was born at 05:20) Having the awareness of sun-time, my mind filled with thoughts about missing being deeply in the different brainwave states of labor and feeling rushed. Time—moving slow, moving fast—so much happening to get me to meet up with the smallest moments of time. (There is real, lived time and there is clock-time.) The surges, intense—tuning every fiber of my being to immortal surrender. Maybe this is how it feels to time-travel.
I grabbed a pad to put under me. (Looking back, this was probably the moment I knew the baby was going to be born without our complete birth team.)
I had years of arduous swimming and rowing practices to prep me for being coherent when physically taken to what I perceived as a maximum. And yet, I am aware that parts of my body are starting to leave my control.
I am unaware of the coolness of the home. Spring had not yet arrived yet in our part of the universe. Spring has come early a year later. Alkemii shall have a warm, first solar return.
I felt that if I didn’t wake Joseph up now, I may be birthing this baby sola. I woke Joseph, told him the midwives were on their way, and to take his time washing up. I tried to slow down time.4 A part of me hadn’t yet surrendered to the reality that this baby had an agreement to arrive at the earth-side portal at their time. It was my job to trust the merging of clock-time and reality-time.
As Joseph brushed his teeth, he heard a frequency that indicated we were much farther along than he expected. As he checked on me, I croaked, “water.” I asked him to turn on the bath as I dreamed of having some warmth to balance the intensity of the contractions. As soon as he returned to the birth space, I told him to turn the water off—the baby was coming.
The air in the room shifted, the music—was it even playing at all? I had a few bits of surrendering left to do. I asked our baby to slow down, to take their time, that they didn’t need to rush into this world. In altered time, everything arrives quick—like mountain rains do. I have one mantra that meets me in great times: SATA
Surrender
Allow
Trust
Accept
This mantra was shared to me in 2019. Its essence coats the air.
“I’m not ready,” I said.
I had predicted a fast labor, but I wanted it to be long enough to have a cup of lemon honey water, long enough too watch my birth team sitting in the corner of the room, long enough to wish for something else. Labor is a thirsty experience. Don’t drink too fast, and don’t drink too slow.
Like a good labor partner, he replied with what I already knew and was waiting to catch up to me, “You are.”
At 5:54, I told the midwives I had the first urge to push. This would be our last text message. (70 minutes of cell phone time stamps.) I had planned for their physical witness, knowing that they would hold space for me in this tender field.
How can I redefine physical? So many constructs broken into simple ideas, leaving me to reconstruct myself, but after the arrival of this precious being.
The lemon honey ice cube must have already melted in the water. It waits on the kitchen counter.
I sync’d up with the grand spiral of time and caught up to what I already knew—I am ready. I had, have, and am being witnessed. The space had been held so tenderly my entire pregnancy—by Joseph, by our midwives, by a maternal lineage, by the being we were about to meet.
Ultimately, I was being asked to witness myself. In that moment, I found all the times I didn’t see myself and truly saw her. In the threshold of openess and SATA, there accompanied me: stillness in intensity.
An ultimate meditation. A true single-pointed awareness.
At 6:07, Joseph facetimed our midwives.
At 6:09, Alkemii Kwan completed her spiral and arrived to us all.
I didn’t need to contract or bear down. I held myself in a state of trust so that she could come earthside. We both did nothing and we both did everything, 無為5. In my effort to do nothing, I asked myself: who does the pushing? I became one with all pulsations and pauses. The dissolving of separation. It is I and it is not I.
I am awareness.
Alkemii Kwan arrived during ‘Astronomical Twilight’, between the definitions of night and sunrise.
Joseph passed me our baby girl. Her face was the face I imagined before I saw her. Buddha-like. Calm. In deep meditation. She had a cord around her neck and with full certainty in his voice, Joseph said, “You know what to do.” And I did.
Our midwives arrived minutes after and in time for the birth of the placenta. I still remember their arrival. It felt like a homecoming, like being showered in the completeness of quiet witness, where we each sit on our own thrones, Joseph included. I felt safe. I could rest in their care.
I had glimpses into this day over the course of my pregnancy. When does knowing translate into reality, a lived experience? I believe I knew when I accepted that I knew. At our last prenatal, one of our midwives said, “See you for the placenta.” Divination happens when we listen.
I might be the goddess with a new baby at the nipple, but we are all equal.
Remember to go at natural speed: to listen, to remember our blueprint, to tend to each other, to offer space for the unfolding of sacred time.
For those wanting to read Joseph’s account of Alkemii’s birth, transport yourself here.
A phrase used by Maria Jose Maldonado Leon (Aya Maria). You can learn more about her work in Seed to Body Care. Her offerings include Guardians of Birth, Elemental Monitrice Training, and organwise.
無極: Wuji posture in qigong is like this for me as well. How can I stand, firmly, yet softly, allowing the maximum flow within my being, while letting go of all the thoughts that ran into my physical being.
During astronomical twilight, the center of the Sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon, the earliest stage of dawn
One of Sirius’ favorite stories is from The Sneetches and Other Stories, by Dr. Seuss.
What was I Scared of:
“I said, “I do not fear those pants
With nobody inside them.
I said, and said, and said those words.
I said them. But I lied them.”
I knew Alkemii was coming fast, and yet, I told Joseph to take his time.
無為: Wuwei, “non-action” or “effortless action,” a state of inner stillness where actions align perfectly with the natural, spontaneous flow of the universe (the Tao)
If I am none of these, then who am I?
After negating all of the above mentioned as ‘not this’, ‘not’ this’, that Awareness which alone remains —that I am.
page 6 of Who am I? by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi