A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. November's Theme: "Birthing"
Volume 5 Issue 1 ISSN# 1708-3265

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Illuminations Aleesha Stephenson About the Cover Victoria Christian Birth of Love Alegria Imperial Birthing of Night's Sky Dj Brown Birthing Creativity Toria Betson Rebirth - Apples, Daffodils, and YOU! Rev. Cheryl Jewett First Time Mama Mandy Furney My Miracle Babies Kerri Paquette Homebirth Grandmother Beverley Viljakainen Purring Humans Georgia Lister A Story of Planning Blindness Robert Schwartz Designer Ecosystems David Suzuki PhD The Envelope Please… An Interview with Jacqueline Kramer Aleesha Stephenson Pet-sense Jean Hofve DVM Walk Your Talk Aleesha Stephenson Wyrd Lynx John Sacelli Lifetalks Dawn Baumann Brunke Being Mindful Janet Alston Jackson Meditate a Moment Featuring: Aleesha Stephenson Becoming Buddha The Story of Siddhartha Whitney Stewart and Sally Rippin Karma Naturals Soapworks Falkland, BC, Canada Golden Dawn Magical Tarot Sandra and Chic Cicero Goddess Moons Environmentally Responsible Menstrual Products Suzanne Rouse Attunements For Dawn and Dusk Music to Enhance Morning and Evening Meditation Harish Johari

The universe was born in silence and space. It came as a dot from the tip of God's finger. Then it whirled from his breath but no one saw it spinning. When it burst as all birthing does—when the moment ripens for revelation—eyes that opened to it could not close to the wonder again. Swept in the mystery, they failed to see the wonder was once a pinhole in the darkness.

All birthing happens the same way: deep in the ground, a seed invisibly breaks; in the darkness of an egg, an embryo forms; in the heart of a womb, a life begins from a dot like the universe. It is as if the mystery must be kept, shielded from prying eyes and hands. It is as if fear or the threat to abort it has always lurked alongside creation. The threat indeed is real. It creeps on.

Except for humans, birthing is painless. Some animals like dogs or cats moan or twitch, which humans interpret as pain like theirs. But for most living things, birthing happens as if by magic—a bud-burst, for one and a star, blinking from billions of years away, for another.

The birthing of a child is not only painful—it comes with a rush flood of blood—since a bit of dying happens in the womb which nurtured it. But celebration couples a baby's cry, announcing both new life and its first complaint.

But another kind of birthing is perhaps the most painful of all—that of love. Romantics point to the heart as its womb but scientists say its seat is in the hypothalamus. Psychologists go back to the joy at first sight exchanged between mother and child as its beginnings. Yet, poets speak of absence as its food. But bliss the loved and beloved exude is the blossom borne of the mystery and the magic.

Unlike all birthing in nature, love never stops being born. The universe does not spin on light or air. Love, as all sacred writings unpeel, caused the universe to happen and to keep on. This love manifests itself in the beauty of each creation—even horrid, slimy creatures betray some spark that brings on awe. Except for humans, all creatures exist on and are nurtured by this love. They have no hand in it—they simply are loved.

Among humans, love involves their whole being. Thus, love denied means death as to them love and life mean one and the same thing. This feeling is not unfounded: as all creatures, love caused their birth. But where finality for other creatures is absolute, for humans it isn't. Here lies the pain, which their birth foretold, as that something in them which faces constant threat and struggles to sustain love does not die. That something is the spirit.

Perhaps constraints, which the body imposes on the spirit, translate as pain at birthing. Known to be pure at birth, the spirit gets sullied by the million guises of love the body and its senses must filter through a substance called the self. The problem with the 'self' is that it is constantly torn between perversity and virtue—to love beyond its inclinations, to give and not to expect to receive, to embrace outside of the arm's perimeter or the heart's reach, as its true reach is the infinite.

Each moment is thus, a struggle: if the spirit triumphs, a rebirth takes place; if it doesn't, each moment regresses instead of releases the spirit to regain its pure and virtuous nature. An unreleased spirit stays imprisoned even after the body frees it, eternally pained. A spirit reborn is also freed, caused to soar—back where it came from, back to its birthing.

A seeker of truth and peace after tangled pathways, I have also found a voice in my search. A retired journalist, I have since focused on poetry and fiction. I launched my first book in Manila before migrating to Vancouver last year and recently received two honourable mentions for poetry.

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