Journal Entry November 2016

While in Australia supporting my daughter alter the birth of her daughter, my love of exploring caves led me to the Jenolan Caves in New South Wales. While exploring these extraordinary underground caverns containing phenomenal crystal formations, I had a strange feeling that I needed a different caving experience. I needed to squeeze my body in and through a small space. I didn’t understand why but I knew it was important. I was in the perfect location to do adventure caving but the timing did not work so I promised myself to return for a guided adventure at a later date.

A few weeks later while hiking in Mount Buffalo National Park in Victoria, I met a woman and her family on one of the trails. She was from Eastern Europe and in her beautiful heavily accented English she told me that I was the “perfect size”. I thought it was very odd that a complete stranger would tell me that I was the “perfect size”. “Perfect size” for what? Even more peculiar was that her statement was incongruent with my story of myself. I had always seen myself as being “too large”. I had spent my life wanting to be the “perfect size”, which in my mind was being slim. I had been told many times that I was slim but that wasn’t how I saw myself. This beautiful woman repeated this absurd statement many times and upon parting, she reminded me to remember that I was the “perfect size”.

That evening back at our campsite we planned out the hikes for the next day. One that was on our list was called the Chalwell Galleries. The description said there were some tight squeezes and some scrambling involved and it sounded like fun. Our first hike in the early morning light was to a waterfall. There we met a young couple from Ireland and they had experienced the Chalwell Galleries the day before. They told us the trail appeared to end at a small hole in the ground. Despite the hole looking small, it was the continuation of the trail, and if we slipped through it feet first we would have an adventure and land on our feet. It required trust! I felt my heart flutter. Self-doubt was creeping in but by the time we reached the trail head I had myself in the head space of “feel the fear and do it anyway”.

I stood looking down at the small hole in the ground. My story of being “too large” was playing out in my mind. How would I fit through that small hole? Then as the word “trust” mentally overpowered my story, I took a deep breath and stuck one foot in the hole. As soon as I did that I could her the woman’s voice from the day before echoing in my ears: “You are the perfect size!” I could hear the young couple saying, “just trust that you will land on your feet.” I lowered my body into the small hole. My head was now below ground level and I could feel the rocky earth pressing against my body. I wiggled my body and I could feel myself descending. My feet were then free and my body continued downward until I landed on my feet on a large flat rock in a spacious cavern. As I looked below me into the narrow gallery, I realized that as my body had slid through the rocky earth, my story of being “too large” was not true. I stood on that rock knowing that I was the “perfect size” and always had been, I just hadn’t been able to see it. As the story of being “too large” dissolved, so did the stories that had been connected to it. In an instant, who I thought I was, was nothing but a shattered illusion. I stood there feeling vulnerable yet surprisingly safe without my stories that had for so long shaped my identity. The birth energy that had been so powerful for the past year was no longer present. It had been the foreshadowing of my birthing into consciousness. As I stood there trying to process all that had just happened, the tears welled in my eyes. While in Hawaii in 2011, I had seen a birthing stone that women traditionally squatted on as they gave birth. I remember thinking how incredible it would be to feel that connection to Mother Earth and her powerful energy while birthing. I had felt a deep sadness for myself and all women who had been birthed and given birth surrounded by fear, separated from the power of Mother Earth’s energy.

As I looked around the cavern and down at my feet planted firmly on the rock, I realized that I was literally contained by Mother Earth. I had been birthed into the safety of her arms; I was at one with her and imbued with her power and her strength, just as women had been traditionally. What I had deeply desired had been made manifest in the most unexpected way.

The only way to move was down through the narrow gallery. I needed to go deeper into Mother Earth to return to her surface. I couldn’t see the way but I was comfortable in the unknown as I felt strong and trusted that I would find my way one step at a time. This was the beginning of a new way of being in the world.

There was no need to return to the Jenolan Caves for a guided caving adventure. My guides had shown up at the perfect time with the guidance I needed to birth.

An Unexpected Birth