My son Jeff is 34 today. I slept outside last night to treasure that event with the stars. The moon set early and yet it still seemed light in the night.
A friend placed her daughter at Mt. Holyoke last week, and now her family is three at home, not four. Somehow this morning it hit me how hard that transition is, how each transition requires something of us, and how sometimes we may not pause to recognize we've walked through another door.
I found myself yesterday noticing how when the fog is on approach at the ocean it can look like a solid wall and yet when it arrives, it is soft and liquid and sweet. It is like being kissed all over, being licked by a dog we love.
Maybe life's transitions are like that too, something that may seem formidable on approach and yet we are lit with blessings in its folds.
It was just about this time 34 years ago that I woke and recognized it was time for Jeff to enter the world a little more thoroughly. I was blessed to have encountered Transcendental Meditation when Jeff was newly wombed, and I was told being pregnant I could meditate as much as I wanted not just twice a day, that it was important for the baby. I had an easy birth, and meditation has been a lovely aid for me throughout my days. I believe in bond between mother and child. I believe it begins with conception and I believe it is nourished after birth.
I also believe in choice, and believe each person has a right to their choice. What appalls me about Palin is that she doesn't understand the bond. I believe if one is going to bring a child into the world, they are there for that child, as that child takes their first steps into their own breath, and that is not accomplished with just that first breath. The breathing separation takes time.
I believe the children in Finland do well because both mother and father are given leave from work to be with the child in the first months. What better gift can we give the world than that? Time with our children and that is what Barack Obama speaks to. He says to read to our children. Again, what better gift. May sanity and bonding prevail. May the man who truly speaks to change, may the couple who writes their own speeches, win this election. May the monitor of truth come through.
I also understand that some mothers have to work, have to get back to work. I think running for vice-president hardly qualifies as necessity for putting food on the table, and this baby needs to be held by its own mother, and not by sisters and whoever else is caring for the baby while it is not a photo-op. I read of native societies and how the baby was carried next to the mother until it walked. I think we might return to a time of bonding, to help us with transitions and letting go. I think in some ways our time here is a constant balancing of birthing and dying, and one day, it is the final letting go. Honoring attachment allows us to let go, to adjust with sensitivity and grace.