What Wants to Be Born

"The quieter we are, the more can happen through us in the spiritual world... The artist who cannot wait will not be able to create the highest he is capable of... One who seeks to create according to a schedule will produce only works of inferior quality... we wait quietly, with loving devotion, for the moment of grace." — Rudolf Steiner

"There is no certainty, only adventure." — Roberto Assagioli

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The Pause

Since the beginning of the year, I have been quietly working with three other women on the creation of a new personal and professional training program, uniting two modalities I love and work from in my professional and my personal life: Anthroposophy (Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science) and Psychosynthesis (Roberto Assagioli's psycho-spiritual psychology).

It was our intention to launch our website a couple of days ago, when one of us asked for a pause. Something was not completely authentic and aligned with the original impulse. I had worked all summer on the website, and although I felt relief at her honesty, and admiration for her courage, I simultaneously felt the air go out of the balloon.

I realized later than I should have that I was too rigid in my picture of how things should go. The person who asked for the pause is the one who had the impulse and vision from the beginning. In a way, she is the one pregnant with this project, her child, so to speak. It is my role to support, to help bring the vision into reality, and to find my authentic relationship and contribution to this training. I am actually more like a close relative — every bit as invested, every bit in love with it, but not the one carrying it in my body. Somewhere along the path, without quite noticing, I forgot my role and thought I was the pregnant one!

The moment I became aware of this confusion, I felt my strength come back. I could reorient myself, trusting that, however this birthing process unfolds, it will be just right, without needing it to arrive on time, or perfectly, or exactly as imagined.

Perhaps that is the quiet work of any parent — holding on to our love and care, but releasing our grip on how the story must go.

The Quest

The morning after, I woke up still unsettled. There was a deeper question underneath it all. She is pregnant with her vision — what am I pregnant with? Is there still something that wants to be born through me?

For someone my age — 56 — this is not an uncommon question. I know, from my training as a biography coach, that I am entering a new seven-year cycle. I also just passed my second moon node, and I'm not far from my second Saturn return — all great moments in a person's biography to wake up again to one's true mission.

I recognized instantly this old, familiar pattern: letting my own true work slide, while giving my all to supporting someone else in accomplishing their calling. A humbling moment. Time to go on a quest!

I'm sure many parents recognize this too — the quiet art of drawing forth the best in a child, of building the very ground they need to become themselves. And then, somewhere along the way, the moment of realizing: I am not the child. I am responsible, yes, to a degree. But I too have a life, and a mission, that reaches beyond parenting.

The Mirror

Still half asleep, I scrolled on my phone and found myself landing on a webpage I hadn't gone looking for — one that felt like a quest and an answer at the same time. Without going into all the details, what stood out was a painting of the archetypal mother and wise woman.

It was as if I were looking into a calm body of water — the kind where you can see your own reflection, and at the same time, what lives in the depths: the fish, the water plants, the rocky bottom. I looked into the eyes of Sophia, Mother and Wise Woman in one. She is the Pietà who holds her child through any struggle, illness, and even death, without losing herself, because she is also a teacher who is at ease with death.