the Stork

Most of us know or have a fair understanding of where babies have come from but most of us have forgotten, that as well as all that cell division and other mechanical stuff, the rest of the baby is delivered by a Stork. It sounds stupid yet everyone knows this story and I imagine that if I say to our child, when it asks as a two or three year old where it came from, “A stork put you in mama’s tummy”, I should get a response something like “what’s a stork?” and when I say a type of bird, everything will make sense.

Which is the truth in one sense. After all, something animates those dividing cells. It is, in the words of Dylan Thomas, “The fuse that through the green fuse drives the flower.” When I say the stork delivered the baby it is dealing, not with the mechanics of a baby developing, with the emerging soul of a new person. Something creates the personality and uniqueness of our developing child and, to me at least, it makes sense that the soul is brought about by the interaction of two forces, namely the material development of the child, the intermingling of mine and sicily’s X’s and Y’s, and the previous mentioned force that activates it, which we may label as Spirit, or Life Force or even the Orgones of our little monster.

Let us say that what the stork brings is the interaction between these two forces that produces the flower. In Ancient Egypt the Stork was the symbol of the BA, the two words (BA and STORK and everything they signify) are phonetically similar. The BA was (and still is) the individual unique soul of a human. Indeed the BA is represented as a human with a stork head.

Furthermore, the hebrew word for stork, Hasidah, also means ‘kind mother’. This is an idea the Greeks also talked about in their myth of Gerana. So the story goes, Gerana pissed of Hera (or vice versa)and Hera turned Gerana into a Stork. From then on Gerana, as Stork, wanted one thing, her son Mopsos, but the people didn’t want the Stork to take the child and a war erupted. Aside from all the war and stuff this is another basis for the symbolism of a stork carrying a baby. Interestingly this image transformed from the stork taking a baby to a Stork delivering a baby.

a suitcase of baby clothes

To follow on with the analogy, a bit of a swell turned up recently. In saying a bit of a swell I should elaborate and say that a suitcase was given to us (a very nice suitcase it is too) of baby clothes from Sicily’s family. When I say baby clothes I mean baby clothes.

Sicily and I were looking through the clothes and as we did I found myself with a rising sense of, not panic, not anxiety, not fear, but maybe it is best described as, a growing sense of reality. Yes, let’s call it a reality buzz.

Are babies really that small?

We are, of course, very appreciative of the nice suitcase and it’s clothes but I experienced, to continue the previous analogy, the sudden sense, that one gets when surfing, commonly referred to as “caught on the inside”. What this means is that you are inside the point between the shore and where the waves break. What this means is a whole lot of paddling and duck diving (where you duck yr surfboard under the breaking wave) to get out the back of the waves again. Which in itself is not to bad, but it gets bad if a set of waves comes through, which it did, the new swell being set off by this suitcase (and a very good suitcase it is as well) full of appreciated baby clothes.

Funny that such a large swell could be set off by such tiny clothes. Are newborns really that little?

Anyway, thanks for the clothes, and the dose of reality they brought. Probably just what I needed.

time and pregnancy

It is like we have reached an arc in the pregnancy. Somewhere around here it is the second trimester, but, apart from the extensions taking place with Sicily, not much seems to have changed. Indeed, it’s like a lull. I think those waves started by the first trimester are now normal and I keep waiting for a bigger swell, that I have heard forecasted, to turn up. Yet Sicily seems to be maintaining an even keel. Those extremes one hears about in the first trimester didn’t show that much. There was minimal vomiting (tho admittedly a lot of seasickness) and a reasonable about of tiredness. And the baby skipped a week.

Partly because not much seems to be happening I find my concentration lagging. It’s a sort of ‘this is going to take forever’ consciousness. Kinda like sitting in a 2ft Lyall Bay line up wondering when that swell is going to show, or when that winds going to turn (because the forecast said it would).

One change that has occurred is that I am now reading to the baby and Sicily. Our latest book is the Essential Baxter, edited by John Weir. In light of this whole ‘what is time and pregnancy’ lull, here’s an excerpt from ‘Poem by the Clock Tower, Sumner.”

Where is the white stone that shall transmute
Our average day to gold?
The green lane that leads to the wishing well
The secret house the fertile wilderness
Where grief and memory are reconciled.
Angels of fire and ice guard well that garden.

Cosmobiological thoughts

By now, readers may have guessed that this whole missing week has given me some difficulty. The other day I was talking to a friend who has two teenage kids and he said, much like the midwives, babies arn’t a predictable science. I replied “no, but astrology is.”

Benjamin Walker writes:

“Why a child is born at one time and not another is a mystery, but it has been suggested that cosmobiological factors play a decisive part in it. To start with, conception itself appears to be linked with cosmic and planetary influences and these may well determine the child’s exit from the womb nine months later.” (Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man, Routledge, Kegan and Paul:1977)

While a change of a week doesn’t make too much difference, the most noticeable change is the position of the moon in the natal chart. My mother has often remarked that a full moon is a hectic time to be a midwife and while she may patiently listen to my esoteric ramblings she wouldn’t go out a buy a box of it.

Now the moon has often been called “the great midwife” and with this change in due date the moon has changed and so has, shall we say, the potential structure of our child’s subconscious.

The two charts show the difference. The bottom one being the newer due date.
(For some reason, perhaps some ghost in the machine, the charts I want keep going warped and arn't the ones I downloaded. So I give up, if you want to see the charts just google "free birth chart" and then fill in appropriate details. Or, likewise, get a piece of paper a compass a protracter a Ephemeris, then on the piece of paper draw a circle, divide that into twelve houses of 36 degrees each and so forth and so on....) (I have left what ever chart for whoever it is up here. The chart here is not the right one I simply leave it here so those who may never have seen a astrological chart know what one looks like.)
One interesting change is that the new birth date places the moon in my Sun sign of Aquarius. Also with the change there is a five pointed upright Star formed from five of the planets.

this stage of the game

OK, now we don’t really know exactly what week we are but there are still things that, in general, are happening to the little monster.

The baby is growing hair. Not just on it’s head but all over it’s body, a fine hair called “Lanugo” which should disappear later on in the pregnancy. So I suspect we have some sort of wolfy-bearded
Hermit-like character sitting in it’s vessel of primordial dreams.



Sicily’s hair’s doing quite fine too and my own beard is doing alright as well, but that has more to do with having lent out my clippers.

Regarding the baby having Downs Syndrome, happy to report that it’s not that. Or at least happy to report no report as Bridget was going to ring us if there was any possibility/probability (if you were trying out for the All blacks would you rather be a Probable or a Possible...? hmmm... makes you think....) and we haven't heard from her.

Most interesting of all is that Sicily has a puku. It’s noticable, and Sicily tells me that if she pokes her belly the baby does a little dance.

yes well hmmm...

If you poke me I do a little dance as well so we try not to encourage that.

scientifico-mysterio babio processio

I’ve experienced that kind of feeling, maybe others know it, of entering a waiting room wondering if yr appointment was for this week or last.

This baby thing is not a science, but still needs a scientific understanding. A friend recently told me about the birth of her son who was a month overdue, apparently. When he was born he looked the doctor in the eye and the doctor remarked “He’s been around.”

Several people I told about the missing week asked me what could cause it (interestingly enough all without kids) and because I like to bluff my answers and appear knowledgeable I said something about the perfect vessel and the secret fire that speeds up the process. I also followed that up with a few samples of stories I have thus far collected, including the one above, and then concluded by citing one of the several midwives with ‘it’s just babies’.

But maybe it’s not just babies but a miniature allegory of revolution. I was reading a Zamayatin essay and he states:

“The law of revolution is red, fiery, deadly; but this death means the birth of a new life, a new star. And the law of entropy is cold, ice blue, like the icy interplanetary infinities.”

Which is similar to the way the country is currently showing it’s colours as the special votes are counted and how that balance between Red and blue has gone (which is probably a good reason to go Green).

It’s interesting if one thinks about colour combinations. At the moment our little monster is probably seeing red and black. The Red being light filtering through the blackness. Which leads to the question of when does a child become conscious of the sky? I also like the question at what age children learn to use the word “and”, which facilitates placing things together, or making connections.

With this whole missing week thing, I think the way to read it is that science has shown us a mystery.

Good enough for me.