I was swimming, swirling, dancing, turning,
in my mama’s womb,
the night before I came to be.

Thank you mum, for holding me inside you, and for loving me with all you have.
Thank you dad, for co-creating me, and for loving me with all you have.
Thank you my ancestors.

And thank you life, for breathing through me. For all the lessons, for all the love, for all the finding, discovering and crazy beautiful days.

I want to honour and recognise also the parts that feel less beautiful and more just plain crazy: the fears, the pain, the gnawing worries. Today a dear friend said to me as we dropped jewelled tears on a rock: “You always look to the light, Leonie, even when there is a deep darkness inside you.”

So I acknowledge that darkness, and I acknowledge that light.
I acknowledge all the journeying, all the moments lost in translation, the not-knowing and the sharp, clear moments of knowing.

All of the rough tango, the glory, the loss, the mastery. And Goddess, the moments Earth feels like heaven:
when the sunlight glances through the clouds and casts embers through your hair;
when the wind roars through the trees on the mountain rim;
when a white bird skirts through white eucalypts;
when the air smells so sweet and mossy I want to bathe in it and smell like it always;
when the kookaburras laugh and make you want to draw your head back and join them;
when the rocks are damp from the rain and are kissable.
I wonder what this all felt like the first time I experienced these miracles.
Today, I feel them as though they are the first time.

I have a vision of who you might be, Leonie, and I strive to find my way to you, to honour who you are, and become you.

I love you Leonie.
Happy birthing day, my precious, precious self.