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My wife Margaret asked that I post some of my writings on our first pregnancy here online. They are two long and I don't want to serialize it, so I will just present some excerpts. This was written in the 1960s and early 1970s. The whole book is a free download, "Astrology of the Heart" here:

http://dharmagrooves.com/#&panel1-1

"The birth of our first child was heralded by a spectacular series of visions and revelations. It was like waking up repeatedly from dream within dream. The finale at the fireworks display is stunning!

"I had accepted our pregnancy in the traditional way: I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. It never occurred to me that childbirth was a sign of deep change in my spiritual nature, or that it meant anything more than the physical act of learning to care for a child. What did I know about kids?

"I knew nothing of children. I avoided them, like I avoided every other part of my life that commanded my attention, and whose attention I could not command. I had seen children around, in the outskirts of my life, but never where they could get at me, never where I had no choice. I guess in my accustomed style, I prepared myself for the worst, and yet hoped for the best. I just didn't know.

"As a matter of fact, childbirth has changed me in deep and real ways, changed me beyond recognition. It IS change. I now understand why the world has a population problem. I was not (perhaps) married when I married, but I did become a father when I had a child.

"As if my life were not hectic enough, I had no job. My wife and I knew little better to do with our time than to fight with one another. Our dog was pregnant again, and again, against our will. And now a child. I guess I had all of the typical thoughts about children of the cynical variety that guys back then might have, that this was the living end of our freedom, that we had really done it this time, had finally done something that we couldn't easily wriggle out of. Along with this programmed variety of thought came others of a more uplifting nature, basically an acceptance of the fact as a sign of its necessity. As I like to tell myself: it was permitted.

"And there was an ever growing joy (at first hard to feel) that this was really the most important thing that had ever happened to us in our married life. This last idea grew, shattering the shells of all the others before it, and progressively overcame us with the steadiness of love.

"Our child was conceived in a rare moment of deep tenderness and openness between us. As the pregnancy moved along, it drew us together and gave us something more substantial to relate to than our own endless differences. This pregnancy was a very happy time for both my wife and I, a time during which we enjoyed each other more than we had ever before. And time after time would find us sitting - during those last days - like high birds looking out the window at: absolutely nothing at all.

INNER EFFECTS

[And the inner effects of this time were many and deep. Here are just a few notes from back then to give you an idea of how visionary that time was. And Margaret and I saw this as one, together.]

"One morning, after a particularly unsatisfying long night of conversation with an occult scholar, I awoke feeling as if my head were encased in cement. Then something very different occurred. I found myself (without thinking) dropping to the floor and going through quite automatically some very odd contortion-like exercise.

"And as I worked, my body began to shake and nauseate me, and slowly I worked over my head - like pulling off a sock inside out - and cast off the heavy sickness of feeling that had occurred from the night before. I was shedding my mental skin just like a snake. With this experience came a symbol to my mind that expressed this process and it has become the symbol we are using in our work here, the symbol of the Heart Center [still going 41 years later].

VISIONS

"The weeks before our daughter's birth were one continuous waking vision. Together, my wife and I consciously walked into and through what scriptures call the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Not death itself, for there is no death, but the shadow or shade we fear and call death. Anyway, this great cleft opened, like the Red Sea once opened, parted, and, arm in arm (together) we walked through this valley and into the light beyond and behind all appearances. The entire world of wincing pain and personal suffering was laid open in our vision.

"Up to that point in my life, whenever a painful thought or "bad" feeling had occurred, I always turned inward and experienced that thought alone - took it personally. Now my eyes were open and, as I watched people in their daily exchanges, I saw that all experienced these painful thoughts at the same time. They were like waves that swept through a room – just energy.

"And that, as a hard thought arose, everybody winced and turned inward, each taking this thought in his or her way, each taking it personally, as if it were their own fault or problem. All turned inward until the thought was absorbed and then all opened out again as might some plant or animal that had stopped to digest or absorb a piece of food. All opened out again at once, like flowers, and conversation went on as if nothing had ever happened. But it did happen.

"No one seemed to be aware that this had been a common experience. Each thought it was their separate problem and sorrow. And in those moments of pain (or whatever we can agree to call them), I looked on through the experience into life itself. It was simply a moment of truth or growth, like a plant might shoot forward suddenly in a spurt of energy. What we call psychological pain is, for the most part, simply the fear to share the thought - the loneliness of not sharing the experience.

"The experience I witnessed was not intrinsically painful in itself. It simply was exactly what it was. The experience of pain was the fear to share the thought or feeling in common and to acknowledge a common life. Fear itself was the pain. Each took privately what they feared to recognize together. We all agree to forget what we find so hard to remember.

"The growth process of life itself is like some great amoebae growing, separating into two, and flowing together once again. The pain of separation was simply the process of knowing the Self, splitting into one - endlessly dividing to join again. We could call the pressures of this process not pain, but tone - feeling our self. It was simply the process of physical growth, separation, and greater union endlessly going on.

"What astounded me was that practically all the pain and suffering was self-made. It was the pain of being alone, of taking these changes inwardly or personally. The pain came from ignorance of the common life and communion, not from the life process itself. Needless to say, this was a revelation for someone who had come to consider pain as a necessary evil.

"This endless life process was the trumpets of the Lord of Creation forever blowing our mind. It was the tree of life set in paradise, and although my mind is not conscious of this revelation most of the time, I have never been as afraid of life since.

[The symbol on the book's cover shown here is the symbol that came during the visions we had around the time of our first daughter's birth. It is has served us well all these years, and is the symbol of our center the "Heart Center."]