Birth

Birth

Birth is not a gentle arrival.

It is a rupture.

From the warm, wordless dark

of the womb.

secure, effortless,

without boundary,

into a world of air,

cold, separation,

and the sudden demand to

survive.

That first gasp

is a shock to the organism.

The beginning of the long

struggle.

The beginning of the ego

learning it is alone.

We treat birth as a celebration

and death as a tragedy.

But they are two faces

of the same coin.

What is born must end.

What ends makes room

for what is born.

Beyond the violence of the body

the tearing, the breathing, the

failing

something remains untouched.

An unchanging observer

watching the whole process.

The indestructible

inside the destructible form.