Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice

I never did plan to have children. I think that I have always been ambivalent about being female. I lived much of my childhood as a tomboy, was in a lesbian relationship throughout graduate school, and didn't think much about the physicality of womanhood (except when I was suffering miserably with menstrual cramps and fibroids, as I did every month). Gender codes and mores elude me, and the male archetype is non-problematic to me, although I find myself consistently at odds with the assumptions of patriarchy and privilege that society seems to engender in its men.

Sex remains a mystery to me, and I shun much of the discourse involving the erotics of spirituality, sex and religion, divine sexuality, sacred sex, tantra, spirituality and sex, sexual energy, etc etc and so on. I also believe that there is nuance and magical power in celibacy that is often overlooked in our culture.

So how did I wind up with three daughters?

Well, there are many traditions that say that we choose the bodies into which we incarnate, that the details of our physical existence here are worked out with exquisite perfection prior to our embodiment, that we are all here because we chose to be here, and not only that but we have a huge say in the matter of our birth. Theoretically, I like that perspective. However, it did not really ring true to me until I delivered my last child, Kiana.

All three of my pregnancies were surprises. Only my second child was planned. After my husband and I tried for nearly eight years to conceive after our first, I was declared by the doctors to be infertile. Whose fault was it? The Vodou priestess told me that my husband was impotent; the Israeli fertility specialist said that my eggs were old and useless; my own gynecologist said that I had extensive damage to my fallopian tubes due to something called hydrosalpinx. With the magic of scientific intervention (and lots of cash) I was able to force the issue, and after a single cycle, had a successful embryo transfer with in-vitro fertilization. This led to the birth of my second child, Mya.

Joy and pain. One day I will detail what it is like to go through a typical IVF cycle. It is actually an occult system, with secret and challenging ordeals, fixated practices of prayer and meditation, the bringing of a kind of "death" to the ego, and most of all, the giving of one's body over to powerful high priests who dabble in mysteries without the benefit of divination. Suffice to say that after this experience I was exhausted, sick, mentally tired, physically ill, but ultimately victorious. And like any victor from a long war, I was battle-scarred and weary.

No way was I ready for another tour of duty.

Remarkably, exactly 568 days later daughter number three was born. And even though I do not know how or when she was conceived it would become clear to me that her birth was a planned, intentional, even cosmic event.

My daughter Kiana is autistic. She looks very much like a small version of me. Legba says she has exactly the same Met Tet as me, Ossange the magician-priest of the Nago nation. He calls her "little Ossange."

Suzy Miller says that children with autism typically come to us straight from the upper dimensions, with all that implies.

Kiana possesses what might be called paranormal gifts and powers. Mostly, she likes to draw animals and other fantastic creatures for hours at a time.

She is, apparently, Someone that I probably knew in another Life. Or a twin soul.

...I no longer spend much time wondering about these things.