Dearest Little Chiquita, Goddess Baby, Child of our Souls,

It is full moon right now. The light glows white and blue through our window each night. I lay in the moonbeams, awake most nights at 3am, hand folded over the moon of my belly, feeling your watery, wavy movements inside me.

Next full moon, you will be readying to make your way into the world. You will be born near Easter – the time of new beginnings, of hope, of faith, of miracles and of possibility. You must be here to do big things, little one – whatever that means for you, and however that calls your spirit.

Each moon since you arrived in my belly has been filled with new lessons, medicine, blessings, challenges, awarenesses, awakenings.

I have had to become stronger, more courageous, calmer, less self-centered, more faith-filled and less rigid. I’ve had to give up my usual buffalo abundant energy that helped me get a whole-lot-done. I’ve had to give up that head-ambition of mine that set its compass on a goal, and the rest of my body and energy followed until that goal was obtained. I can’t sit from dawn until midnight pushing for something to be created now.

Instead, I listen deeper to my body and energy cycles now. I need to protect you, and give you the rest and movement that you need.

You are my greatest creative achievement, and my deepest soul journey.

Thank you, beautiful heart.

Since the beginning of the year especially there have been so many huge challenges and lessons come up. I feel like they are slowly coming together, resolving and healing. I am feeling so much stronger, more powerful and clearer.

I keep saying to your daddy:

We must need to be really strong and courageous for Little Mermaid… this time must be preparing us.

And then, in the last two weeks, so many things have happened… each melding into each other to reveal lessons.

My best friend moved across the country, and the night of her going-away party, I felt your elbows in my belly, and strong flip-flops. I knew in a moment, that you had turned breech.

And I felt so anxious, dearest little one. Anxious that somehow I had made you uncomfortable that you needed to move out from the space you had been so happy residing in for months, anxious that if I couldn’t find the keys to help you move back down again that we would need a cesarean to help you into this world.

And I’m okay with the fact that birth is a journey, and that your destiny might be to enter this world that way. I just want to know I’ve helped to make things as beautiful as possible for you.

I know that I have maybe 10% influence over how this journey unfolds for you, but that 10% is mine to own. I’m happy to accept destiny, knowing that I’ve done all that is within my circle of power to give love, light and healing.

So I started on a path of healing and clarity to help you in turning to swim back down into the ocean depths.

What a gift it was…

Sometimes, Little Mermaid… well, quite a lot, if I’m really honest… your mama doesn’t learn her lessons unless they are big ones. I don’t reach for healing unless it is clear there is no other option. So all these things I had been meaning to do – to nurture me, and nurture you – I had no choice but to pursue.

We found a beautiful blue-eyed acupuncturist who specialises in pregnacious-goddess help. Your daddy and I spent hours there, sitting in a room looking out over wide-branched trees, silver needles in my toes, talking and smiling as you did your acupuncture dance inside me.

Each night, we burned charcoal beside my toes {moxabustion} and I would lie in the bathtub, listening to meditations, massaging you, visualising your sweet head pushing back down between my hips again.

Our beautiful doula said to us:

Maybe Little Mermaid has turned upside-down so your world could be turned upside-down as well.

And she was right.

At the same time as you turned breech, my fears over our birth carer choice came up… I was feeling uncertain and unsure that we were in the right place.I wanted to know that when you entered the world, you would be surrounded by supporting, loving, light-filled souls.

Your daddy & I went to another Calm Birth full-weekend workshop, and our teacher was so loving and understanding. She taught me that my fears were coming up so I could feel powerful and strong in birthing you, in whatever choice I made.

And your daddy showed me again why I love him so – his wisdom and compassion shines. In all the birth classes we have been to, I don’t know if I’ve met another father-to-be who is as well-read, thoughtful and learned on birthing and parenting as he is. He wants to be – with all his heart and spirit – the best nurturer he can be for you.

And we went to a wonderful psychotherapist – an elder woman who reminds us so much of Nan – to help me with all my feelings of anxiety around birth carers.

Our Calm Birth teacher, psychotherapist and doula all gave me a wonderful gift… each showed me in different ways how I could treat this part of my journey as sacred also… and that your birth could be the sacred experience I wanted.

It was a big, deep, huge time, Little Mermaid.

And we decided that in order to feel like our carer choice was absolutely the right one for us, we needed to explore the other option that I had been wondering about since we first became pregnant with you… home birth. We met a wonderful homebirth midwife, and the three of us talked for three hours about birth and spirituality. It was so precious to talk to her, and I realised so many things after speaking with her: that sacred birth was my choice and my responsibility in creating, that I could do anything I wanted.

And we still didn’t know just yet which way path of birth-carer choice will be right for the three of us, but I feel calm and clear and powerful. I know everything is going to work out just beautifully.

And maybe that is what we needed to do… maybe you were teaching us to be courageous and powerful in our choices. Because as soon as we decided we were open to learning about our other carer options, you  moved back head-down, preparing to enter the world easily again.

Even when a midwife told me you were still breech, I knew you weren’t. I found two more midwives, and insisted they check me. I was right. You were right. My instinct was right. May I always know this.

And just in the middle of all these big choices and energy shifts,
your daddy’s grandmother passed away. Your great-grandmother.

Just as you prepare to enter the world, creating a new generation, an older generation leaves, making room for you.

It feels holy, profound and symbolic all at once.

So you, me and your daddy drove across the countryside… to return to your daddy’s birth land, to the river that runs through the land he was born, to meet with his tribe {and your tribe too}, and to take part in that sacred ceremony of funeral. You and me lay down in the back of the car, helping you stay comfortable between my hips.

In the early morning light, before the ceremony, your daddy takes me down to his birth~river. We stand in Mama Murray’s waters, bathing our feet and hands, washing my belly, so that you would know this was the water of your father’s land. And the river shone blue and gold at dawn, and there were fish and cockatoos and crows and ibises. And there was you, me and your daddy. And a holy river that brings life.

Your daddy takes us up to the hill that looks out over the town, and we find a white stone pillar where he had sat with his grandmother as a newborn. And we photographed you and he there, in that exact same place, generation meeting generation, meeting generation.

And then at the burial grounds, standing there with my full moon belly filled with you, watching as one generation returns back into the earth, just as you ready yourself to enter. An old priest performs the ceremony, and in his words, I find the truth of not just one religion, but the truth of Spirit. The sun glows over all of us, and he pours water and earth over the tree that holds your great-grandmother.

Over and over, I think of his words:

The Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall not want for anything.

Great Spirit is my guide, and I have all that I need.

At the end, we pour fresh flowers over the casket, and I give over a white flower to her from you. And my eyes are filled with tears of joy, my lips smile, as I know that is all is well, that this world is surrounded by angels, that there is so much love in this world. Each flower carries a blessing ~ of love, of peace, of forgiveness, of wishes for a journey ahead filled with light.

And your daddy pours earth over his grandmother’s casket with love, acceptance and ritual.

And I stare at him ~ giving thanks to his grandmother for bringing him into the world… this most beautiful man I have ever known.

This woman we celebrate gave birth to your grandmother, and she gave birth to your father… the most perfect constellation of cells and spirit and blue eyes and wisdom.

I give thanks.

And you dance in my womb, as you are a part of the ceremony honouring your great-grandmother.

You come from that constellation too.

We drive home across the land quiet and soft.

And I tell your daddy:

I know who I want at my birth now. I know who I want to be. I know I can do this. This birth will be sacred, too.

Because your birth is as holy as any beginning, and any ending. All of this is sacred. All this precious life.

This has been the week of endings and beginnings… energy shifts as souls choose to leave, and souls choose to enter.

An elder leaving. Two more souls I know return back to the earth in the same week.

And there is sadness, and confusion, but when I return to the truth of it, and the light of it,
I am filled with this absolute hope
and knowing
that everything is perfect and as it needs to be.

That there is a bigger story, song and journey at play here… bigger and deeper and wider and lovelier than we can know right now.

That we are being held, guided, taught, gifted and loved… even when we don’t feel like it. Especially when we don’t feel like it.

Life and death have taught me this over and over again… that it does not have to be a tragedy. It can be the next hue of the rainbow, the gift that brings us back again, to ourselves, to each other, and to the precious blessing that is this earth and this journey.

We are all returning to love, and to light,
every single step of the way.

I write this as I feel your toes pressed deeply into the inside of my belly. My daughter’s toes, in an inside-ocean world, as much a part of this world as any other soul.

It is my responsibility, over and over, to return to my own truth, to the light and loveliness that sings in my own soul, and to trust that wisdom over and over again. To give in to love… a deep, revered, profound love of this world… of this life… and of all that is possible.

My greatest hope for you is for you to be happy. And I know that will get to be your soul’s choosing ~ you will have the freedom over and over to decide what it is your spirit needs, what it wants to receive, and what it wants to create.

I also hope that you will find a love like the love I have found with your father. I hope you will find someone who amazes you, in small and in big ways. I want you to know that love won’t be perfect, and you will probably argue, and that you’ll both be human in it… but that both love, and your partner, will be your teacher, and you will be theirs.

And may life itself be your love, teacher and guide… the thing that gives you over and over, exactly what you need. That gives you the medicine, courage, laughter and light to help you give birth to all the wisdom and beauty inside your soul.

I have faith, Little Mermaid.

Whenever I lose it, it comes back three times as strong.

I have faith in you, and faith in me, and faith in your father… and faith in this winding, precious journey of life.

We are loved, we are held, everything is perfect.

You have helped me become who I am.

love,
Mama