Starfish and Snowflakes

December 4, 2011

I think I've been suffering from writer's block. I spend the day fighting the urge to pull the blanket over myself and curl up on the couch. I have ideas about doing things, writing things, but I only think about doing them. With all this thinking about and not thinking in I have become immobile; this is writer's block at its best. Or is it the pregnancy that is making immobile, still sick...this leads to thinking about doing and not doing because I can't do. This is when those little thought needles poke at me: what are you going to do if your babies are sick? What about the publisher that's deciding on your book? Cerebral palsy, MS, down syndrome. My brain grapples with protection; how do I protect myself from tragedy and disappointment? What can I do? How do I condition myself? I can't.

I have read that the Buddha said enlightenment always accompanies you, no matter how stuck you are. I sit on the mat and call God's name like a baby bird calling to its mother for food. Is God the sheer radiance of the sun that parts the leaves of the trees and hits my third eye? My third eye conjures up a starfish, or is it a snowflake? Five pronged, delicate, with ornate design. Intricate. Unique. And I sit here wondering why this image has popped into my head. In the winter when it is cold and dark, it is easy to see the hardship. And yet, if you look closely at the snowflake that has fallen on your glove you can see the beauty and design behind winter. It may appear to be only barren and cold, like an artist's drought, but it isn't. You just need to observe more closely. This is enlightenment.  

Pregnancy has brought its own kind of winter and hardship, but one could argue my body is being artistic by creating these unique, fragile forms inside me. I have tapped into another side of my creativity. Body creativity.

The starfish, on the other hand, is something I am not entirely familiar with. I have never found one walking these north shore New England beaches. I can only surmise it lives at the bottom of the sea, just offshore. It clings to things.  But it is hidden. So starfish are abstract to me, and the babies are too. I know they exist, but they are hidden under water, clinging to me. I see them in ultrasound pixels, but these pixels are separate from me. I try to connect with the babies, ring my Tibetan bowl, meditate by holding my belly. My desire is to put these little abstractions at ease. Josie falls into a deeper sleep when I ring the bowl; her doggie eyelids droop and her tail gives a sudden wave. I have to believe this sound is universally soothing, even to abstract forms.

Tomorrow we do the fetal survey. I'm nervous.