All in the Family

As I write this, I think I'm in pre-labor. Not early labor--I'm not actually feeling contractions--but there are other signs and my lower back is aching and aching in waves. So I'm running a bath, listening to the Relaxing birth playlist as opposed to the Energizing one--I made both--and knowing this could go on for a few days or I could go into labor tonight.

A few days ago I was meditating on the baby---I meditate in the baby's room because it's light and bright and peaceful and a space that I love being in. It's the room Sky and I have done yoga in, the room I journal and read in. It nourishes me, and I like knowing I'm maybe contributing to serenity in there by attempting to seek it in myself, for better or for worse. So I was imagining the spirit that it will be living in our home outside of me soon, and I had a flash of all the history that went into the making of this baby: all the ancestors that have made this person possible, and felt such respect and love for them. Flashed on the generations of my family, and the generations of Sky's. Saw the faces of our parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, grandparents, great-aunts, imagined people I've never known but who I know are in the family tree. I believe our baby is a soul unto themselves, but that soul is coming into our family, so they are connected to all the people that have made Sky and me who we are, and perhaps share traits and qualities with some of them. We're the narrow neck of the funnel, but there is a wide wide mouth of family above us. As Nina in The Seagull says, "My heart is full of you"--that's how I felt towards everyone in our families--the people I or we have easy relationships with and the ones we don't; the ones we know well, the ones we never met. This lineage of people being focused and directed at this moment into our baby. It felt right and really good, to honor and acknowledge everyone that has come before us, without whom Sky and I wouldn't be here, wouldn't be living our lives, wouldn't be getting ready to experience the birth of our hummingbird. Who I believe is coming very very very soon....

all photos by Sally Mann

this one from here

here

and here