After three weeks of dancing with some annoying blend of virus and flu, Shiloh and I are once again taking our evening walk along the Santa Maria trail. Recent rains have brought forth so many flowers, it’s like walking in a bouquet. Shiloh is prancing. I am smiling. Night has fallen on another Earth Day, the twenty-fifth anniversary of realizing a dream I’d had since I was three years old:
On Earth Day 1992, at 3:07 a.m., in a horse trough converted into a birthing tub, five feet from where we consciously conceived her, Ember Morgaine Knight made her first appearance, and I became a mother.
“Go ahead; catch your baby!” my midwife, Lani, exclaimed.
I can still feel the slippery weight of those eight-pounds as I, though physically and emotionally exhausted, pulled my daughter up out of the warm water and drew her to my breast. Later, looking at the video, she appeared a bit gray, but this made no sense. I was there, and I can tell you: Ember glowed golden light. I had never seen anything or anyone more beautiful. Like Venus on the half shell, or more like the sun at dawn, my daughter rose out of the water heralding a new beginning—for her and for me.
This year I spent the morning of my “birthing-day” anniversary with a group of friends immersed in spiritual study. As members of the circle spoke about what they believed in as a power greater than ourselves, I listened, then began to weep. I was not sad; I wept the kind of tears that come after a narrow brush with danger or upon seeing the ocean for the first time—tears of relief, release, and joy. When it was my turn, I shared a story:
One morning, during my first pregnancy, while driving in the canyon, I had a realization. I knew—not thought, not believed, not sensed—I knew something that would change my life forever. From Zen, metaphysics, meditation, Christianity, Paganism and mystical Judaism to Plato, astronomy, mythology and Native American teachings, I’d previously looked to religions, philosophy and science to understand the world and my place in it. But there was something no teaching could give me: life itself. And here it was, growing inside my belly. I felt like God.
However commonplace birth may be, it is no small feat. With all of our technological advances, birth is still a life-and-death adventure for mother and child, and the primal, animal function of bringing a baby into the world is beautiful beyond measure. When I gave birth, I added a leaf on the tree of life. Nothing I’d learned from books or teachers, faith-based or scientific, could have prepared me for the depth of power, peace and belonging I experienced in that moment.
Twenty-five years later, my body carries the visceral memory of holding my sleeping daughter, wrapped in a thin cotton baby blanket, feeling her infant warmth in my arms. This memory roots me in what I know: There is nothing greater than the eternal beauty and harmony of life, and I am that. We all are. The natural harmony of the gorgeous Topanga ecosystem is a reflection of your body’s innate harmony. “As above so below; as within, so without.”
When I walk on the trails or sit and gaze at a sunset or a dragonfly or a fire, my mind quiets, my heart is soothed, and I am fully present in the moment—my body relaxes into its own true nature. It is like giving birth to myself a moment at a time. There is no past or future, no teachings, no dogma, no opinion, no right, no wrong. There is nothing to believe or to disbelieve, to fight or to prove. There is only what is so: life itself.
We are living in interesting times, but there is nothing on the news more interesting than the swarm of crane flies on the trail, the superabundance of blooms almost blocking the path, moths the size of hummingbirds fluttering around my neck at twilight, or the movement of the clouds as I lay back on the park bench and gaze up, grateful for the dreams of a three year old and allowing the day’s dust to settle back into Mama Earth’s lap.
Be careful what you call real and what you listen to. The worldly events are a reflection of the collective human psyche. Practice dominion over your attention and be sure to pay some to what is happening in your own skin. When all else fails, take a walk and call your mother! The earth will prevail. We will as well if we listen to her wisdom and our own. I have faith in both.
Sage Knight is a ghostwriter, speaker, author, and Living Well coach. For more information: www.sageknight.com; (818) 264-6163.
