January felt like a conceptual month, reflection on the past and present while wishing certain things of the future. I went to three births in December, three more in January. There's this strange melodic rhythm to birthwork that appears on the surface to contain no sense of logic until it reveals itself, like a lunar ebb and flow. The full moon does invite more labors to start, and my menstrual cycle orients itself around the births I attend. I've been considering the idea that birth is like this spiritual practice I engage in several times a month, an intuitive and physical experience. I watched people have contractions, watch the way they feel baby move down through the body with different pains and sensations, and I wonder at the whole process with awe and often adoration. There was this creative and contemplative part of growing up in the church that I'll sometimes miss, being transported to a different mental place through prayer or worship or scripture. I don't believe in those things now, they don't hold value for me anymore, but when I go to a birth I go to church again. It's not always mystical, often it's the opposite. Medical, clinical, a physiological thing. But always that potential for something unexplainable to occur is there in the room.
