Sunday, August 31, 2008

beauty

Oh, little Gemini, you are ever so philosophical, don't you just exhaust yourself? I do, but the lessons never cease! Am I to turn off my head and go on autopilot like most of the world, chasing the next buzz after a long boring day at work? Am I to stick my head in the sand, ignore the beauty that surrounds me and stay where I'm at on the journey, content with mediocrity? Well, if I could I would but I can't so I won't!

This past week the theme running through my head has been birth. Now, I've got experience in this department. To spare you the gory details, I've had 3 beautiful, medication-free birth experiences, partly because my mother told me that going through labor is not pain, it is hard work...it's all perspective. If I realized that my body was going to do this whether I consented or not, and if I relaxed into it and breathed, the process would be a hell of a lot easier. Don't I know it! My first labor was 7 hours long. The second, the doctor approached me during the hardest part of labor and asked me if I wanted drugs to "take the edge off" and wouldn't stop asking until I said through gritted teeth, "No, I'm fine" and that labor lasted only 4 hours. He must have thought I was nuts, but I had heard too many stories of drugged up women, too tired to push, with babies born too lethargic to nurse from the drugs that I knew they weren't for me. The last one was the best..only 3 hours and I made sure no one was going to tempt me with drugs during the process.

The concept of the birthing process has resurfaced as a theme this past week. I know I'm being prepared for something new, perhaps many new things, and unlike my beautiful birth experiences with my children, I've found myself fighting the pain instead of pressing into it and breathing in the lesson God has to offer me. But oddly enough a song was born through this pain, and ultimately, what every song is...beauty. I wrote an email to a very good friend after sharing with her my fears that my heart's unfulfilled desires will never come to fruition, and she encouraged me to listen to those things and ask what they are trying to speak into my life. I went outside on a break from work and the universe opened and spoke to me in a thousand little ways and this is my excited response back to my friend....


We are birthing beauty! All the struggle we go through in life is because the universe is rebirthing itself through us, and we have an innate desire to create more beauty in this world. It is the world we see around us, but it is only beautiful if we recognize it and breathe out our divine energy all over if, infusing it and making it a reality. Beauty cannot exist without us! It's that whole concept of if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? Beauty is there to be recognized. Beauty is waking up next to someone watching me sleep in the morning light with a smile on his face. Beauty is taking the time to feed your baby from your body because those moments are fleeting and do not last forever. Beauty is traveling to a new place just to see it, just to infuse it with more beauty! Beauty is showing that to other people! Damn, it sucks to be at work while epiphanies are happening! Beauty is you taking the kids to the water park today....it goes on and on. This is not about whether what I want works out or not, it is about appreciating what has already taken place, and what was and is truly beautiful. There is no end to the beauty being birthed through us so I need not fear that somehow it will vanish or slip through my fingers again. It is within me....all I have to do is breathe it out into the world and the world smiles back at me.


I'm so grateful for this lesson, and yet I know I'll slip back and be afraid again...but maybe the next time I'll remember the truth a bit more quickly.