Many women are birthing and parenting alone without a partner to love and support them or share in the joys and sorrows. Many are without wise and loving grandmothers to guide them and without a community to hold them. Many of our children are being raised alone, without knowing their place in the world, without a place to call home and without a purpose for their life. They turn to drugs, excessive television or computers, violence, etc., medicating the emptiness within and around them. How do we rediscover our place in the fabric of life?

Not only have we moved away from our villages and extended family, we have very few elders to hold the space for authentic rituals that connect us with the wisdom and guidance of ancestors that open up a doorway to Divine. Whatever you call this mysterious force from which life comes and goes, our relationship with it has gone astray. Contained in the seed of corn is the architecture and song for its life. It does not worry about which direction to grow. It simply responds through its relationship with the elements: the sun, the moon, the soil, the wind, the insects, the water and the care and prayers of the farmers. We also have this capacity. Our ancestors knew this. We too can know this. I call this birthing from home, which may look very different from having a home birth.

Years ago, I prayed and asked for Divine to come into my life. I was humbled by the invitation for me to come into the Life of Divine. Giving birth and becoming a parent has been a life-changing spiritual awakening for my family and me. I first became pregnant in April 1991 at the age of 28. I was in the middle of my internship in family medicine in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Everyone, including me, assumed that I would give birth in the hospital and probably with some complication due to ‘Murphy’s Law’ about pregnant doctors. I would then take the usual six weeks maternity leave after my baby was born and begin my next rotation in the medical intensive care unit. My baby would be in childcare during the day, while my husband worked and I continued my “training." We would justify our behavior with the motto: “it’s the quality not the quantity of time." Well, sometimes it takes just the right dose of adversity to wake up.

In June 1991, when I was ten weeks pregnant, a surgeon accidentally stuck me with a needle of a patient with AIDS. My life changed. No, I did not contract HIV, but the possibility of my baby or me having AIDS fueled an awakening in me that had been slowly emerging in the years prior to my pregnancy. This awakening has continued to bless our family’s life today and has helped us to put in to practice many of the spiritual values that we read about and strive for: compassion, loving-kindness, humility, forgiveness, patience, presence, humor and acceptance.

I left the operating room, washed my hands in bleach, and was rushed into the infectious disease specialist’s office to discuss my options with him and the surgeon. I was offered two choices; terminate the pregnancy or take AZT (a very potent antiviral medication whose side effects were unknown at the time). If I were to take AZT, I needed to take the initial dose within the next six hours. Needless to say, I felt just a bit bullied and surrounded by a roomful of fear. I asked the worried, guilt-ridden physicians to excuse themselves and called for my husband.

While I had been practicing mindfulness meditation for a number of years, the true benefits were found in this very moment. Holding hands, we quieted our fear-filled minds and asked for guidance from our hearts. At that moment, we understood both the preciousness and impermanence of life. Quiet enough to feel and hear the web of spirit that embraces us all, we knew that everything would be all right. That did not mean, however, that we were convinced that neither of us would contract HIV or if I took the medication there wouldn’t be side effects. This wasn’t reassurance fueled by naivety or denial. We just knew we would all be all right with whatever occurred, whatever the outcome. We also realized that we could make choices that would honor the life force in each of us, rather than make choices that seemed to make sense on an intellectual level or out of fear. Imagine being held in such peace.

What ensued were a myriad of steps that supported this new awareness. I began seeing a homebirth midwife for prenatal care, exploring through birth art, healing childhood wounds, connecting with community, learning about life from plants, the desert and elders. I was not given permission for more than six weeks maternity leave, so I left residency after completing my internship to stay at home with my baby and work part-time as a general practitioner. The decision was not out of anger; it simply made sense to embrace this new place as a mother more fully. Needless to say, my supervising physicians and mother thought that going astray from the conventional path was both foolish and ruining my career. Yet that seemingly foolish decision was the beginning of my heart path; a path I still embrace today.

During pregnancy, we often prepare to go to a place we can’t even imagine, but somehow the preparation helps us go there. This place of birth may look and feel very different from what we hoped or prepared for. Women go through a doorway (in some traditions it is called a Nierica) when they birth. Often during life, we may pass through many doorways, yet there is one Nierica that is common to women birthing. It is the Doorway of becoming the Doorway. A pregnant woman goes through it alone. As she begins letting her cervix and body open up, she is also letting go of her life as a maiden and at the same time letting go of this precious being that has grown within her. In order to birth, in some way, we must also let go of this life, our life and the baby’s life. To give birth is to know that this precious being we are bringing forth must also die someday. It is a realization that we can’t control either birth or death; we are merely the vessel, the doorway that passes through the doorway of Nierica.

The profound mystery of birth, which in many ways is a very ordinary process, cannot be understood with the mind; it is known only through the heart. Trying to control the birthing process with our mind is very dangerous and can perpetuate a life out of balance. Becoming a vessel for the creation of life, letting go of the illusion of control and listening with the heart propels us to begin to understand the fabric of life and our unique place within it.

Dr. Lisa is a board certified family physician and mother of two boys, Wilkin (14) and Devin (12). She midwives women, babies and their families. She can be reached at Family to Family in Asheville, North Carolina, 828-251-2700, www.familytofamily.org

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