I’m on the ceiling floating along in some mysterious misty ether, when I hear a cry and look down to see my baby self hanging by the ankles, upside down. Dr. King is smacking my back with his other hand and says, “Bobby, it’s a GIRL!” He smacks Bobby’s feet. I see her eyes flutter open on the table. Up here, on the ceiling, a shimmery gossamer presence drifts down to my mom’s body and enters the top of her head.
I sense nothing. Only cold.
I try to float closer to that baby body, but can’t get near. I’m out. Cold. I’m cold. Cold, cold.
A nurse wraps the baby tightly in a rough blanket, after sticking something up her nose and down her throat, and cutting a rope on that baby’s belly. Too late, from my eheric mist, I wonder about jumping into the rope. It’s familiar.
The nurse rubs the baby’s back up and down, up and down. The baby is coughing and crying, her lower lip sticking out. She opens her eyes and closes them tight shut again. Stinging liquid is squirted in each.
I don’t feel a thing up here on the ceiling.
Numb.
The nurse puts the baby next to Bobby’s head. For a moment, the warmth of mama Bobby’s breath on the baby’s face shifts what’s happening up here on the ceiling. I begin to see-saw back and forth between the ceiling and that baby body next to mom’s head. That baby opens her eyes and looks seriously into Bobby’s eyes. They stare into one another’s eyes a full minute before that nurse takes the baby away again and puts her in a box. Bobby’s eyes follow the nurse out the door as she pushes the box on wheels down the hall.
Now, I’m really in a predicament. I’m up here alone, and... oh, here comes mom, back up to the ceiling. Dr. King has given her another shot and she’s out again and floating in the ether mist near me. There is no warm breath in ether. There are no warm arms in ether either. Only misty cold.
Back on the table there is sewing going on at one end of Bobby’s body. At the other end, her eyes are half shut and dull. There is a vague feeling of dread assembling itself in the region of my etheric belly button - like a whole body vomit about to project itself out of my baby mouth. I float to another room and see that sick baby in the box looking blue and the same nurse rubbing and rubbing the baby’s back, then wrapping her tighter and running back into the room where mom is, shouting, “Dr. King, Dr. King, the baby is blue.”
“Too much morphine,” he sizes up the situation, and he smacks my mom’s feet again. And he smacks the baby's back.
Mom stirs and opens her eyes. She reaches for that baby and I float just a little above them. She pulls that baby to her chest and I tuck in from the ceiling through the crown of that baby’s head and let out a terrific cry. Equal parts numbness and pain assault my baby body now integrated with spirit. No wonder mom and I left! It hurts in here! It hurts a lot. I find that crown from the inside again and float out easily enough, but mom is not there on the ceiling. We play peekaboo in and out of our bodies for quite some time. Only when we’re tucked into bed together do both mom and I leave the ceiling and see eye to eye several more times before we both fall into exhausted sleep.
Baby dreams of clamps on her head and whimpers in her sleep. She smells the ether; tastes metallic morphine; sees maroon blood stains. Mom’s strong arm pulls baby closer, calming both. They drift in and out of sleep, in and out of body. Trying their hand at nursing for the first time.
Explosions of sensation happen in that baby body. Sometimes I’m in, sometimes it’s too much to bear, so I float just above or all the way up and out, on the ceiling, watching.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This past weekend, I attended a supervision gathering with five other body therapists. We work on one another - fish-bowl style. Table work. One client on the table, one therapist sitting at her side, one dyad at a time, supporting the resolution of developmental disruption, and attachment kerfuffles, while the remaining three witnesses provide safe container in which to process our stuff - both as clients and as therapists.
I was holding the kidney/adrenal system of one of my colleagues who was on the table, Our faculty supervisor was coaching me. With his guidance, I found my way down from the ceiling and got seated in my body in a way I have not known for sixty six years. That’s a long time to be circling the field. Even as I write this, there’s a menthol feeling just to the left of the crown of my head... where the trap door has always been a reliable exit point.
Coming in, allowed me to hold deep anchor while my colleague / client on the table re-negotiated her birth / death / birth, and re-organized her breathing. I ended the session feeling as if we’d had a two-fer! Her guides, my guides, our strong container of witness consciousness, and, bless his heart, our supervisor with SUPER vision all supported some deep healing this Sunday afternoon.
What an odd feeling to be new-born into a BODY at sixty-six!
What a perfect prelude to el día de acción de Grácias - Thanksgiving Day!
I’m so thankful I got born and that I get to play on this planet with some remarkable folks.
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