*The Shine of the One Sun*

I knew I was pregnant when the bus pulled into the depot in Cardiff, Wales, though I'm certain Gramma D., a seasoned homebirther, shared this knowing by the way her wisened and spirited eyes looked far and deep into my own when we first met days earlier. I'd like to believe that with her generous offering of herbal tea in the comfort of her country bed and the quiet warmth of her welcoming and knowing smiles that she was secretly feeling the presence of her first great-grandchild so newly gestating within my depths. I knew I was pregnant by the way my sense of smell was intensely heightened toward detecting noxious scents so I would vehemently avoid them, knew by the way my breasts had a tenderly full and hyper-sensitive feel I had not experienced before, by the way my tummy churned on those meandering Welsh roads. When my knowing was suffused with my unwavering and primal certainty, I declared it openly to my son's father in Cardiff and wept into my open hands. The tears were an alchemical mix of overwhelm and excitement for the powerful unknown mystery my body was already confidently navigating by nature's divine design, even though my head and my heart had yet to fully synchronize and align. When I gave myself over to the big *YES!* already reverberating through the worlds, the Universe conspired to creatively sculpt me into a wild mama, a conscious mother who would again and again choose the path of intuitively-guided knowing as my primary compass. Led by an independent inner trust I was compelled to preserve and protect, I practiced saying no to some of the unnecessary interventions and tracking procedures during my normal, healthy pregnancy and postpartum phase, such as ultrasound and the GTT. Rather that read a stack of books, I read my body. Rather than attend the pre-natal classes, I redirected the inquiry within. My child was conceived in mutual awareness of the lucid dream I had experienced a week prior, a medicine dream of being inside a womb-like, primordial darkness without dimension where there appeared an enormous baby's face smiling light all through my intricate fibres, infusing me with so much pure love, radiant joy and affection that my heart expanded in a magnitude of euphoria beyond all linear comprehension. Suddenly I was free-falling into my own fertile dream-depths in complete and utter surrender to an eternal soul-connection that was beyond all known edges of selfhood. This is only some of how I came to know what I know. Because I listened intimately, curiously and trustingly, and because I was (and still am) acutely attuned to hearing my own inner depths and rhythms as truth, my listening informed all the embodied knowing I needed to naturally birth my beloved *sun* at home in the quiet harmony of a single burning candle. 95% of my active labour was undisturbed and solo, as my mother and partner slept peacefully through the transition stage and the initial crowning. I would not have it any other way. In the transcendent altered state of my spiritual birth reverie, I experienced the euphoria of rhythmic collaboration between myself and my baby. There was no pain, drama or interference, only the indwelling power and flow of powerful sensation, a deeply connected, unified dyadic presence of unity. It was a quiet, peaceful labour where I could blossom open to the gentle swells of bliss accompanying each persistent yet tolerable power-surge. There was no active pushing stage for us, only the spontaneous relief of the fetal ejection reflex. There was no perineal tearing as my 9.6oz *sun* gracefully emerged from the invigorating ring of fire, eyes wide open in a state of reverent, soulful calm, only the potent oxytonic swell of expansive wonder and fulfillment.

I was 23. If I had been educated and guided by a holistic birth keeper rather than the unregistered midwife who was trained to be closely invested in her role at my birth, I would have confidently brought my sun earthside with my own bare hands, freebirth style. Instead, I tensed briefly in an unnatural holding pattern with my baby ready on the edge of the perineum "waiting" for the midwife to arrive in the wee hours, all while feeling somewhat distracted by others in their discombobulated states who were trying to figure out what to "do" for a fully empowered woman already doing it. These are the truths one comes to know in retrospect, when naïveté ripens into rooted wisdom with the passage of time. Twenty eight years later, at 51, I'm now a sovereign birthkeeper and wild pregnancy coach so I can be the wise woman I wish I had known back then. Birth in sovereignty is an empowered option being reclaimed by hundreds of women globally each and every day. As a legal choice protected by the right of bodily autonomy, a mother may birth her baby anywhere she so chooses, free of the outside authority of any medical professional or midwife/medwife, with as many witnesses as the mother personally invites into her sanctified, private space. Generally, the baby is born instinctively in the comfort and safety of the home-hub as a few intimate, trusted space-holders strongly protect the best interest of the birthing mama and her baby in a calm and reassuring manner. Nature works brilliant wonders when it is revered and guarded by conscious collaborators and guardians. Some women choose to birth in a place of special significance and meaning while others choose to birth alone. Freebirth is inherently safe and natural when a woman is healthy, confident and well-informed to undergo the psycho-spiritual-physical initiation of birth, to bravely face all the honest risks of having a powerful biological event roar through her. When she trusts her primal physiological blueprint in to unfold spontaneously in birth, uninterrupted, without complication or the unnecessary cascade of intervention which blocks access to the organic, hormonal and quantum levels of natural support, the birth outcome is optimized, the template of motherhood firmly instilled and ushered in with noble grace. Birth is inherently, by divine design, a peaceful and harmonious experience which can be free from unnecessary anxiety and unbearable pain. It was for me. And it can be for you, too. As Elder Sister MorningStar says, *What one womyn can do, ALL wimyn can do!* Choose wisely.......you will only birth this precious child of yours once in a lifetime.