this is where we are.

39 weeks.

"tender and ferocious" as a poem so perfectly explained to me today.

feeling. lots of feeling.

knowing. lots of knowing.

i am wrapped up in the love of some of the most fierce and beautiful women i have ever known.

i feel them as my birth community, although some of them are far and wide away.

their love and energy is swarming...and yet, i know that this is my work, alone.

alone.

this baby will be born from the inside out.

i will reach my depths and crawl inside and sit with the dark and moan out new life.

all from within.

not quite alone, but TOTALLY alone.

i feel like i am bridging the gap, filling the space between ferocity and vulnerability.

i've been dreaming of my relationships.

in my dreams, i have been forming and enforcing thick and evident and unmistakeable boundaries.

i have been the mighty warrior.

setting boundaries and stepping into choice.

on the other hand...

there is no more preparation i need, then to *know* that it will require complete surrender.

surrender to this baby's story.

surrender to this birth.

surrender to the most powerful of intensities that will course through my bones and my blood and my tissue and my being.

surrender. let it be. breathe.

it is a funny thing, to be sitting right on the edge of complete transformation without entirely knowing what all that will require from me.

i just know it will take me to my heights, my depths, my widths, my breaths.

always back to the breath.

breath of life.

breath of birth.

i keep wondering about what this baby will be born into.

what room in the house?

what position will be most comfortable?

whose hands will touch him/her first?

the details will work themselves out.

the only absolute is...

this baby will be born into love.

deep, courageous, unyielding, instense and knowing LOVE.

at 39 weeks, on the cusp of meeting myself at the edge of all things...this is all i need to know.

this is all the preparation i need.