Threshold

From the voice of the one indoors, watching from the kitchen window as Greg tends to and cares for our little .17 acre and that which is nourished from it... I have been absent from our goats and garden ever since our own human baby was born, and that has been intentional. I have much less room in my consciousness for others' young. And I have been wary of this preparation for the goats' kidding, keeping a distance from it this year, having some small idea that bad things can happen (to other people's goats, of course).

I can't help but think about our child's birth since Mabel's early kidding and death. How forceful and sometimes violent entrance into this world can be, and how dangerous. How my child is such a miracle, as is each of us, who comes through that threshold safely.

Think of this: each one of us is here because a woman sacrificed her body's safety and comfort. There are no exceptions. And we are, each of us, before we are able to become anything else and from the moment of our first breath, evidence of astounding sacredness.