I caught a baby yesterday for the very first time. I sat under the Tauran full moon with his mother as the freight train of new life coming hurtled through her body and shook the girders. I listened to his heart and felt the urgency of emergence as it slowed. I pressed hard with steady but shaking hands against his little swollen head, trying to aim him true to come through the gate without breaking it. I pulled as gently as I could and harder than I ever imagined on his delicate neck to bring his tiny, coiled, purple body slithering forth into the water where he floated in momentary shock, fingers extended in utter surprise, before we placed him on his mother's breast to mold a new place for him in her heart.
I am realizing that this is the culmination of a dream I began shaping over 20 years ago when I read Monica Furlong's Wise Child and took Juniper to be my lifetime literary mentor. I have finally become a Cailleach, and devotee of Brigid and Ixchel in practice, not just in lip service. What a blessing to be present at the transition into life. I am now who I have always wanted to be. I feel complete.
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