I’m going back through old blog posts, and as I reread one from the day before I started midwifery school, I was struck by a dream that I had:
“I had another dream, as I was waking from a brief but deep nap, that I was sitting in the middle of a circle, surrounded by all of the dozens and hundreds of people who have supported me and loved me and helped me to get to this place of beginning this journey. Everyone was wishing me well and sending me their love and prayers and blessings for a safe and wonderful traveling experience. It shifted from being in the center of a circle to being alone, in a garden. I held a single seed in the palm of my cupped hands and placed it into a hole in the rich soil. As I planted the seed, I suddenly turned into the seed myself, and was planting myself in the ground. I felt the anticipation of being inside my seed covering but also longing to sprout, to push down roots and send up stalks and leaves, to soak in the rain and sun and energy of life, and to grow into what I was intended to become.”
My eyes flooded with tears remembering who I was as I set out to become even more myself, and how I could still today say that the combination of feeling myself held and loved in community, plus the importance of being alone and doing the work of planting myself in a place I can put down roots, of tending to my own needs, is what sustains me as a person and allows me to continue the intense work of being a midwife. So much love to each of you who has stood in my circle, and richest blessings to the seed, and the soil, and the sun, and the rain, and the coming fruit.
Here’s to all that will begin anew and all that will come to an end this year. Here’s to moving beyond beginnings and endings and to finding what lies underneath. Here’s to belonging to the whole, and to remembering the vitality I find in being alone with myself. Here’s to the wild courage of planting ourselves in the fertile soil of the present moment.
