New Years Day 2001: The birth of my surrender to life.

My intuition told me that I was having a girl.

I was so sure of it. Truth be told, I wasn’t really in touch with my intuition 22 years ago.

I was wrong about the sex of my child, and I got a jolt of shock when my friend Wendy lifted a baby boy out of the water of the birth pool and placed him on my chest.

I was completely stunned, surrendered and born again at that moment, not because my baby had a penis, but because that night, Life had completely taken over and shattered the illusion that I had any control over it whatsoever.

The time was 1:01 a.m. on 01/01/01, the new Millennium had just begun, the fireworks were over (but I’d have had a great view if I’d cared to look) and I’d lost my voice from screaming so much.

The homebirth midwife arrived 20 minutes AFTER the birth of my first child to find three adults and a baby in a small dark living room, in and around a birth pool, completely lost in silent awe and wonder.

The choice to birth my baby at home was my first radical step out of the conventional mindset and belief systems that I’d grown up with. I’d followed my inner knowing that this was the right path for me, despite the fear it brought up for me and those close to me. My mother was terrified. Lots of folks thought I was crazy.

I felt guided to have a home birth but I didn’t have a clue as to where this guidance was coming from.

I didn’t understand at that time that I was being intuitively guided by the same Life Force or Universal Consciousness that carried me screaming through the powerful and painful process of birthing my first child. I was still deeply identified with the ego-mind. I thought that the thoughts in my head were all mine. I hadn’t woken up to the reality of consciousness beyond thoughts, emotions or beliefs.

That birth was the beginning of the end for the dominance of my ego-mind. The timing, power and awe-inducing wonder of birth was a radical challenge to the materialist, atheist, control-freak belief systems of the ego. No thought process, birth plan or learning had any impact on that event. Surrender to Life wasn’t a rational choice; it was a demand.

The ego fought back, of course, trying to think its way through so many of the problems that followed, but my spiritual journey had been well and truly launched and there was no going back to the old, tight box that I’d been living in.

Intuitive guidance, or what many call “following the heart” has since led me through 22 years of conscious parenting, radical unschooling and spiritual awakening. My first son has continued to be an inspiring soul companion and catalyst in my journey, pushing me to question countless beliefs and busting open the Pandora’s box of my repressed emotion.

Now, 22 years later he’s off following his heart into adventures in art, music, poetry and travel and I’m surrendering deeper than ever into the magic vastness of Life.

Hands off the steering wheel! It’s going to be a wild ride in 2023.