So much bigger...she set us free!

2010 - That tribal tattoo. That tribal tattoo...it's the first clear and crisp image in my mind when I recall that birth. The candle light danced on the water that hugged her skin beading and dancing in tiny tidal waves over her back. Maybe this is when my own hormones kicked, in, something primal like flight or fight kicked in and burned this moment into my mind. I knew even then that this was big. It was bigger than me, her, or this moment in time. I was bearing witness to the depths of unbridled magic. Protected. Validated. Witnessed. That little head emerged and I saw. I saw her cross the bridge. She was nevermore a woman. She was forevermore a mother. And I fell in madly and even more deeply in love with the whole thing. All of it. This...thing...all wrapped up in the single word "Midwife" was already printed on my soul and I finally could read the words there. I knew what I was really meant to be. I also knew it was so much bigger than Midwifery. It was all the subtle, unspoken, things that you can only know when you speak the language of energy. Of soul. And so my soul sister was born to me, birthed into a mother, starting the fire in my own soul that would in turn move through so many others. So it began.

2018 - This was so much bigger...

Her tattoo faded. 

So much happened between that day 10 years ago and now. So much I could never capture the depth of in one post, from one angle. It's so big. 

So much bigger. 

Her and I, we came from a strange place, raised to be good little girls, gentle, sweet and kind, yet tough, resilient and determined. We came from homes where each of our parents gave us different messages, fighting their own battles. We did our utmost best to be what we were supposed to be, while they were still trying to figure out their own paths and how to be the best they could be. We grew up to be rejected by the very concepts that raised us, successful in one or the other but never the both. Time left us torn. Broken. Disappointed. Inauthentic. Dim. We never fit in anywhere that felt right. Everything was just a little off and each step that seemed to go in the right direction stumble-crumbled away under our feet.  

And then we met. 3 hours on the phone and we spoke in languages not understood by common man. Energies. Love. We knew each other as if we were raised side by side. And with her birth came our sisterly love for one another. 

This was so much bigger...

We came, we went. We stumbled down the road of deep friendship for which there is no guide. When we thought and planned too much, it didn't work. We realized our spirits had to meet in the place that has no words, for nothing else felt right. We met in the authentic place where we all truly reside and connect. That's where we found happiness. Hours of conversation. Midnight oil stood no chance when we called one another after tucking in our little star babies. We would talk and cry and laugh and pray and manifest and wish and dream for hours upon hours...and one day the world seemed to come to a halt and it really didn't matter what came before with us or with our parents or with our partners. What mattered was right now. Something mattered with urgency. Something...a tiny possibility made of star dust nestled deep in love. 

Somewhere inside that place that mothers live before they are born, something else came to be. Something roaring and bold and screaming for freedom. Something light...so bright it burned like fire. Something that outshouted any words possible to even explain it. It awoke with this child. Do better. Give them what we always wanted. Tear down the walls. Make the new path. Be the change. 

Set free what is locked away.

And so.

They gathered.

The little ones.

For this tiny baby prayed for and brought down from star dust. A crowd of them gathered. Almost all of them. 

Star babies. Star siblings. Stair-stepper stories of love and magic. They've been raised on the new trails. Raised from the ashes of broken relationships, heartache and wishes for more. 

They gathered with magic that only children can bring. They danced, they jumped, the whispered, and giggled and plotted. 

They murmured sweet prayers that only fairies and gnomes could interpret and they welcomed her they way they do. 

They stroked her head as she emerged. They dove, fearlessly into the water to wisp their fingers over the softest floating baby hairs, fresh emerged and in between worlds. They touched this tiny soul that would soon join their fold. 

I can't help but think going home surely must happen like this. There's nothing more pure and perfect. Fearlessly they reached into the pool, they cooed, and called for their sister to come forth. And so she did. The door opened and she finally came like a lightning bolt. Alive. Pink. Wet. Smooshed. Here. Safe. Tucked into the fold. Home. At last.

Her first inhales were the exhales of her guardians, her star dust siblings, her tribe, celebrating in victory with much whooping, for she was finally-finally-really here and welcomed like a long lost love, waited a lifetime for. 

"I prayed for you my whole life" whispered her sister. 

This was a whole lifetime of wishes...scooped up into one tiny soul.

It was a whole tribe who wanted and wished. She was their baby too. All one. Forever bound. 

Eriah - Always remember where you came from. 

Remember where you started. 

You were wanted, prayed for, called down from the stardust to join this tribe. 

Don't you ever forget the light in your own soul. 

Don't forget the possibility of forever written in code on your own insides. Don't forget you know how to interpret that language. 

You are perfect and whole, unbroken and wanted. Rejoiced in. Loved. May you hold that truth in your heart always. 

You are pure stardust. 

You are light. 

You are the result of wishes and prayers. 

And you, sweet girl, have a trail blazed opened in front of you, and guarded by your tribe, holding space, always, for something so much bigger...

For with your very arrival you set free the magic we all had inside all along...

Photos by Kathleen Galloway