Psst, I'm pregnant!

Becoming the northern lights

The night my parents brought me home from the hospital my dad saw the northern lights. He was taking the dog for a walk and they showed up even in the light-polluted skies of Detroit. It was such an odd occurrence that they made the local paper, I still have the clipping stashed somewhere.

Even so, I have never seen the lights myself. Many people in Michigan make it a hobby to stay up all night and chase the auroras from dark sky to dark sky. But honestly, I don’t get out of the woods much and it always seems to be cloudy when the forecast is high.

Until this past weekend when the lights came to me. I stepped out into the backyard and looked up. The sky was crystal clear, but no lights. I was about to go back inside until I looked closer. It looked like the darkness above me was slowly moving, twisting, pulsing. They weren’t the bright colors you see in pictures, rather it was subtle shades of grey tinged with the faintest pinks and greens.

It was only when I took a photo in night mode on my phone that the colors came alive, like a polaroid slowly developing. If you’ve ever tried to take a photo of the moon, you might think it would have the opposite effect since those always end up looking like small blobs of blurry light. But the lights are a totally different phenomena. Apparently cameras are much better at collecting light and color information than our eyes.

Not only was this exciting because it was my first time seeing the lights, but I am also pregnant with my first child. It was just me and this tiny life-force inside me, watching an ancient private show. Thinking back to the day the lights showed up that night I came home from the hospital, I felt in that moment the absolute interconnectedness, the cycle starting again.

To be honest, I was never sure if I even wanted kids. I was perfectly happy with my life and I also carried a good amount of fear around pregnancy and birth. Going through some very unpredictable health issues in my 20’s made me unsure if I could fully trust my body to do this very big thing.

But over the past year or so there have been signs that were telling me this experience was coming, that it was truly something I wanted in my life when I peel away the layers of fear.

When I first found out I was pregnant I felt like a tightly packed little rosebud, tender and uncertain of the world. But now in my second trimester, I’ve found pregnancy has been quite kind to me. It’s allowed me to tap into the feminine side of myself that I haven’t truly been connected to in this way until now.

I’m also finding great joy in slowing down, cleaning crevices of the house I never made time for, making buns from scratch just for the simplicity of it all. Somehow, my fear was instantly replaced with this deep rooted sense of peace that only showed up once we decided to take the leap.

I feel like a rose now beginning to blossom.

I’m sure once I come closer to birth I will feel like a ripe rose hip ready to pop. New anxieties and uncertainties will no doubt come up, but right here, right now, life is good.

Now that pregnancy has been completely different from the horrendous journey I was expecting, I’m allowing all of these new experiences to flow in and out of my life, shifting and transforming like the northern lights.

That may be the best way to describe my experience. This has been no great fiery show, no display to make me stop and catch my breath whether for good or bad. Rather, it’s been slow and silent, rearranging the parts of myself bit by bit. I know not everyone’s experience is like this, but I feel blessed to be able to witness this magic unfold.

I am becoming the northern lights.

I don’t plan on sharing too much in the future about the pregnancy or our baby once they do arrive. Plants, garden, forest, will continue to be my main focus. But, I wanted to let you know as so many of you have been along on this journey with me for years now and this connection we’ve built goes beyond business.

As I continue on this journey, I’m moving forward with no expectations. I’m not sure how my work will change or how it will manifest. There’s an old Slavic belief that the stars are not ethereal entities, but holes, shining light from the other side.

I feel like trying to plan my life for the years to come with this big change is like trying to peek through those holes. It is blinding and overwhelming. Sometimes it’s better to look at the night sky as a whole, veil and all. So instead of trying to make things fit, I’m just taking in the view.

For now, I’m soaking in the lights, feeling my body bloom, and letting this world meet me in whatever way it chooses.

Much love,

Val