Love: A Doula’s Perspective

When her journey is honored, and her body and spirit revered

When her life is held sacred and her body witnessed as a vessel for the infinite to pour through

When she moans with will and might,

when she trembles in anticipation of new life

When she reaches down to hold the soft, amniotic scented body of her newborn

When her tears overflow,

when her lips become a smile

When sweat and effort trickle down her forehead into her eyes

When her exhalation expands into the new breath of a mother

When love is born

anew

This is birth

.

I bow to the one eternal essence as I witness life being born

Love, it comes as the spaciousness
in every surge
as the moans of vitality
when limit is reached
…and then shattered

Love,
it comes as the push in labor
before life is born
the ecstasy of letting go
as creation takes over
in its signature dance
as the mother of all mothers
is born anew

Love,
It comes as the relief
of warm hands on sweaty skin
stroking up and down
gently, tenderly, slowly

Love comes as the reassurance and the knowing
as the tears
and the wide open smiles
of hopeful beginnings
it comes as the blessed scent of amniotic fluid
trickling down tired and peaceful bodies
as innocence
in the gaze of small wrinkled eyes
looking at the world
for the very first time

Love,
it comes as the sweet
dense creamy milk
from mothers breast
and as every let down
and suckle
from small tender lips

Love,
it comes as first gestures
and first words and little steps
approaching life
it also comes
as the wobble and the bump
as we learn how to navigate this world

and then Love, it comes
as the comforting hands of a woman
seeing us through our journey.