Preparations

I'm two weeks away from birth-day. The skin of my belly is stretched tight - like a new drum or the full moon herself. Like a thing which is heavy and round, I can no longer walk, but waddle, and i must roll off my side when getting out of bed or the sofa. I am cumbersome and ungracious when i accompany Oisin, who skips and runs with all the energy and expectancy of the five and a half years he is. As i watch the bobbing back of his dark, curly head, i feel a surge of joy and expectancy myself - another son to join the bouncing love parade.

I have never understood the purpose of a blog, but for some reason i felt compelled today to set one up. I think with the thought of months of months of motherhood ahead of me, having some kind of contact with the outside world seemed quite attractive. The last time i became a mother, five years ago, i wasn't really prepared. I think i wanted to document this a bit more, share a bit more, and also to keep friends and family posted about the other goings on life here in Belfast, Derry, Donegal and then a virtual Singapore.

Being in Ireland, having come from Singapore, with my soul scattered and sprinkled in various parts of this beautiful earth, has meant that in some sense the internet is practically a metaphor for the way life is now composed. I am hyperlinked to family, friends and memories across time zones and space; in this way the blog would keep me in touch with those whom i have always meant to keep in touch with

Another thought has also entered my head - over the last four years i have also been doing PR for the RSPB here in Northern Ireland. Whether i would admit it or not, i may have gotten used to this and blogging is another way to keeping in touch with that public persona. It is probable and possible that this was the motivation - or need - as well.

Prep 1: The naming of children
The baby's name, if he is the boy which was been foretold by the oracle of the scan, will be Amhairghin Metta Doran Shen Ahn has does have three names as well. Amhairghin Metta are not names which one would come across on a regular basis, although it has received good reactions from those whom i have shared it with. It incorporates and reflects his heritage - Irish, South East Asian and Chinese.

Amhairghin (meaning 'the birth of song') was the first poet warrior of the Milesians, the mortals who succeeded the De Dannan in Ireland. He wrote the first mortal poem here which planted himself in the land, identifying himself with the land. It was suggested by Brother Anthony from Glenstal who stayed here with us when he took part in a seminar on Ethical Consumption just before Christmas.

The Song of Amhairghin
I am a wind across the sea
I am a flood across the plain
I am the roar of the tides
I am a stag of seven (pair) tines
I am a dewdrop let fall by the sun
I am a boar of valour
I am a hawk, my nest on a cliff
I am a height of poetry
I am the most beautiful among flowers
I am the salmon of wisdom
Who (but I) is both the tree and the lightning which strikes it
Who is the dark secret of the dolmen not yet hewn?
I am the queen of every hive
I am the fire on every hill
I am the shield over every head
I am the spear of battle
I am the ninth wave of eternal return
I am the grave of every vain hope
Who knows the path of the sun, the periods of the moon?
Who gathers the divisions, enthralls the sea, sets in order the mountains, the rivers, the peoples?

Metta means loving kindness in Sanskirt. This is the Metta Sutra.

Bhudda says:
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

Ahn is peace in Chinese.

Prep 2: Streams of unconsciousness...
However...it is still a time of uncertainty and while i have carried the child for nine long months and it would seem that it is almost time it was made real, i still cannot afford to celebrate fully as yet. Birth is a both beautiful and terrible and i will need all the assistance from the goddesses present. I have chosen a home birth, and it feels uncanny - like a step into the known and unknown. Unknown because i have never done this before, known, because somehow my body, this woman's body has done this for eons. Like the moon's phasings. Except that birth is both dark and full moon - a re-entry into the darkness of the birthing canal, to emerge into the light. It is both event and non-event - the blank spot that we cannot schedule it, decree, control. One of the wild things left in this world.

...and of endings?
It occurs to me now that blogging could be very like a stream of consciousness...i could go on and on if i needed to. How does one end a blog? It is not a letter that goes, With love/ Yours sincerely, or a diary entry which is private and can end abruptly, or an essay, press release, article, with a conclusion...it is a new feeling. Writing for myself but for others, whom i'm not sure will be there...a new kind of space...Perhaps it never ends...it disappears, tails off, vanishes - but it does not end, like that bubbling song from the depths of that woman's singing in Woolf's Mrs Dalloway...which reminds me that The Hours has just started. I meant to watch that again. And so this is how this blog, my first tails off, in the dissolution of the hours.