There is an intelligence

the project is live

I am five months pregnant. There’s no burying the lede. It’s not that I’ve been uninspired to write about it - it’s quite the opposite. I have felt fiercely protective of my first journey through pregnancy. That, and when a soul started to develop inside of me, continued to travel up my abdomen, and reached my heart, it became incomprehensibly difficult to separate feelings of this very specific transformation from what it means to be existing and changing as my own individual being. I have grown a brain. And I wasn’t ready to write about that publicly yet. So, I have been writing - extensively - privately. I have been quietly embracing these past months and holding them closely to my chest. Our baby is healthy. My own little gift, my own little mirror to my existence already. I can picture holding him in my arms, and watching Matt hold him in his.

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For 32 years of my life, I never knew if I wanted to be a parent. I realize some people do. I left it up to the chance that one day, I might feel a draw to the role. What seems like a flippant perception of such a decision ended up being how it all panned out. It was not a plan, but a subtle noticing of an idea starting to emerge. Like one day the idea started floating around us, a little glimmer of light showing up every day, and one day we reached out to pluck it down to earth. I’ve written about my impulsivity here before - we all know what happens when something (a feeling, a thought, a dream) comes to me. I act on it. That’s how we ended up in the desert in the first place.

Experiencing pregnancy in the desert is the biggest gift I could have given to myself and our future child. I revel in the excess space to expand (physically, emotionally), the way nature has always healed and inspired me, and how the months pass quickly but the days are slow. And how I am experiencing this pregnancy during winter instead of summer (as was my hope). So maybe there was a path laid out for us all along - I just hadn’t realized it yet. Or didn’t realize when exactly it would all start to unfold, each event from our lives aligning in the right order and at the right time. Everything has led up to this moment. He is our kismet.

the day of the news

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I ask my acupuncturist when she believes consciousness starts to develop in the womb. For some clients, she’s been able to tie trauma back to in utero times - something is there. But she sees it as an intelligence. “How do cells know how to divide and specify? How do they know to become eyelashes and, already, somehow, adult teeth in there?” I plead with her, then with my ultrasound technician a few days later. We don’t know and never will. Or maybe I just don’t need to and can appreciate the mystery.

I tell her I’ve been working on my throat chakra throughout the pregnancy. I am in a new chapter of embodying not only how I express myself outwards, but how I speak to myself. My wants, needs, how I articulate my experiences like my own childhood back to myself. We talk about what we want, need, and how we understand our roles as shepherds of this being we’ve invited to join us here. We wonder what he’ll be like. We don’t have any expectations. I only asked for a teacher.

She places a needle directly in the front of my throat and sits beside the bed to make sure the energy that surrounds it instantaneously calms down, eventually moving down into my heart. “Is that where we want the energy to go?” I ask her. “Yes, that’s where all starts and ends up.”

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I am astutely observing the mothers in my life, even if the word “mother” still does not yet resonate with me as it hadn’t for so long.

I walk into my yoga studio, some days more slowly than others, and see the women who have supported my journey from the chance I could be pregnant, to talking with me the day it became official, to deeply looking out for and caring for my body. They share their confidence in me. On a hike, I watch my friend delicately, deliberately, pulling thorns out of her dog’s ginormous paws to take away his pain. We debate the difference between being a mother and a friend, and how taking care of someone else mandates a caretaking of yourself, even if it seems counterintuitive.

I think through how I will show up in the world as a mother and what I’ll model for our child by restudying the yoga sutras and Light on Life by B.K.S Iyengar. I connect with my own mother on a new level. I look forward to each day where I continuously glean an understanding of her experience in this life that I never had before.

In the quiet solitary moments, I mother myself. I tend to my own wounds. I fill any available gaps in my growing belly with music. I throw up and think about what I’m simultaneously digesting and purging in preparation. I talk to my ancestors and ask for their wisdom. Sometimes they send us signs that they are listening. I lay on the floor and let myself wail, completely cracking open and creating more space internally for everything heading my way. And celebrating everything that’s already changing.

brothers

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I don’t know how this portion of my life will transpire in my newsletters - how much I’ll share, how much to focus on it. We’ll see how it all unfolds together. I plan to continue reflecting on my life here in the desert and how I consistently change and grow - new life included. As exciting as it is, I recognize this whole experience is happening to me - I ultimately have no control aside from my own perception and interpretation of this, and I have maintained appreciation for that throughout. That’s where the yoga comes in. For now, I will admire the changing season. I will continue to eat a lot of cheese. Listen to a lot of Wilco. Move my body in old and new ways. Journal to my heart’s content. And love, love, love.

Love and light,
Lily + 1