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Chapter 1
Birth
Goa, India, 1976.
After living in Europe for a few years, I decided to travel overland
to Goa. A friend told me there were dancing girls on the beach
and in
Goa
there existed an alternative free society where the normal social rules
were not adhered to. Upon arrival,after three months of travel, I
found this all to be true and
even
beyond
my expectations.
There were beautiful girls dancing naked on the beach and I could be
exactly as I felt I wanted to be.
I built a bamboo hut on Anjuna beach and settled in with my girlfriend.
We went to innumerable parties and met many crazy and outrageous people
doing their best to be crazy and outrageous. I never felt so free. i
could let go of my inhibitons and allow myself among other things to
wear exotic clothes and use make-up.
After a while, though, I lost interest in parties and being
in the scene. I became quiet and stayed mostly around my hut
cooking and watching the most glorious sunsets every evening.
There lived in the hut next to us a couple, who were
different from people we usually met in Goa. The man was Swiss and had
been living
in India for seven years. Everyday I watched him do exercises and move
his body into crazy postures, sometimes remaining for hours in the
same position. Somebody told me he was practicing something called Yoga.
His American girlfriend was about eight or nine months pregnant. She
told me one day she planned to have the baby in her hut without a doctor.
, ‘I am trusting in existence’,she explained. It was
the first time ever I heard this expression. I found it hard to
believe; growing up in New York City, it was
almost
inconceivable. I thought she was either crazy or really stupid .
Finally the day arrived . It was a beautiful and sunny afternoon. There
was a slight breeze from the sea and it soothed our hot skins. Four
of us were present in the hut preparing for the baby’s arrival.
I did not suspect or imagine that on this day I would meet with truth.
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Split Second 1
There was a childbirth one day. It was in an unusual location by the sea.
There within a bamboo hut,
I became immersed in a sharing
that brought to light the luminosity,
which had always been but was as yet unseen, unfelt.
We were there helping, watching in awe,
this mystery of childbearing. All the more so
since nobody really knew what to do.
Time seemed to stop.
The air stood still... heavy... and thick.
We were lost in the contractions,
the rise and fall of her breath,
as if nothing else seemed to exist.
Slowly, slowly, the baby appeared,
first the head and finally the feet
until at last he was out and free.
In that moment or some moment I did not know which,
as if a hurricane wind swept through the hut,
a Presence, an Energy, an Intelligence or God if you will,
was there knocking us off our feet.
We weeped,
we rejoiced,
we held each other dear,
for so magnificent was its presence, so absolute was its feeling.
In this moment of Birth, of truth, of beauty,
a conscious determination to know arose.
