1
We were wondering about how best to prepare the child...
Now we can see it's not the child who needs to be prepared.
It is ourselves. It is our eyes that need to open, our blindness that has to stop.
If we used just a little intelligence, how simple things could be.

2
In short, everything begins in paradox.
The child was in prison, and as soon as he's free, he yells!
This, they say, often happens to prisoners. We open the cell doors, and the freedom makes the prisoners disoriented, goes to their heads!
In fact, they begin to behave as if they missed their cells, their jail, and would prefer to be locked up again!
And unconsciously they do everything they can to find themselves once more safely behind bars! In the same way, seeing the newborn baby panic-stricken
by his freedom, you feel like saying:
"Why are you crying? You are absolutely miserable when you should be rejoicing!
Try and understand what's happened, so you can enjoy your new freedom! See how you can stretch yourself' play and move around! What are you crying about?"
At that point everything seems to be in a state of complete confusion, almost impossible to repair. And yet it is all very simple. As we shall see.

To communicate we must speak to the child in a language he can understand, one which doesn't rely on words and yet may be understood by anyone. Love. Speak ... the language of love ... to a newborn! Why, yes, of course! How else do lovers communicate? They don't say anything, they simply touch. Because they are modest and shy, they shun the light, prefer darkness, night. In obscurity, in silence, they reach for each other, wrapping their arms around each other, they re-create the old prison, in which they feel safe, protected from the world outside.
Their hands speak, and it is their bodies that understand.

So this is the way to talk to the newborn:
in silence and darkness, with gentle but loving hands, that reassure and move slowly, and in time with his breathing.

But let us go step by step, sense by sense as it were.

3
Let us begin with sight. Like lovers, let's turn down the lights. Who could make love under a spotlight? Therefore let's keep only the least light - a candle for instance - for the sake of the doctor's vision. How peaceful, how calming this half light is, and so much in keeping with the mother's own inner silence.
 
4
Now hearing. Nothing could be simpler; all we have to do is remain silent.
Simple?
Perhaps it's not as easy as it sounds at first. The mind is so noisy. It is not always easy to stay silent in the company of others. One has a tendency to think of something and feel impelled to say it.
Yet it is only if we pay attention to the other, and to our own depths, that we will experience that something beyond words. But silence is not something that comes spontaneously to us, rather we must search for this and call it up from deep within us. In fact, the first women who experienced silence in childbirth found it so new that they were disturbed, even frightened.  As the end of labour is approaching, there should be very few words spoken in the room. In the quiet you can feel that you are coming very close to something of gravity. The silence will be like the hush that settles over the room of someone who is dying. Perhaps it is the same threshold we cross, whether coming or going.

Such an almost tangible silence has a most powerful effect on the child, although how or why cannot be explained. Yet it dispels the panic, holds back the fear that was waiting to surge up within the child. Of course, at times it is necessary to say something, to give an instruction. This must be whispered, almost inaudible. When we first attempted this, our hushed voices took women so completely by surprise, that they were overtaken by panic. In this intense silence all the mothers could hear . . . was that they couldn't hear anything! The children responded spontaneously to this tranquillity.

But the mothers' eyes, as they darted from one face to another, begging for an answer, told of the women's surprise. Unable to hold back, they burst out:
"Why isn't my baby crying?"
It was agonising. It was astounding. It was heartbreaking.
"Why isn't my baby crying?"
It was like the cry of an inconsolable child whose toy was not what he had been hoping for.

We had not thought it necessary to tell the mothers beforehand that their babies probably would not cry. And because this silence seemed so pleasing to us, it had never occurred to us that it might frighten the mothers. But "My child isn't alive!" would wail the despairing voice.
It was ludicrous.
"Your child is fine!" we would whisper.
The whispering made things worse.

"What are you whispering about? Is my baby dead? Oh, no! My baby is dead!" Dead! Even as the child was wriggling and moving on her belly.
"Stop!" we would say. "Dead people don't move! Can't you feel your child moving; can't you sense how happy he is?"
But our words went unheard.

All this made us realise that we should have explained to the mother what was going to happen. A silent happy newborn is so new and unexpected, it goes completely against accepted ideas. So we tried, although a bit late, to explain the silence: that it was maintained out of respect for the child, out of concern for his ears, that we were quiet because we didn't want to frighten him with our loud voices. We tried to explain to the mothers that it is no more necessary for her child to be born suffering and screaming, than it is that she go through hell in order to give birth. Our explanations came too late. Their eyes remained full of doubt, of regret!

5
This education, this initiation into silence is just as necessary for all those who attend the woman when she's giving birth: the obstetrician, the midwife, the nurses. People tend to speak loudly in delivery rooms, often shouting their words of encouragement:
"Come on, push! Push!" Which is a complete mistake.
Intended as encouragement, these loud exhortations are instead most disturbing for the mother. For a woman in labour is in what might be called an altered state of consciousness, and hypersensitive to the slightest noise or movement around her.

6
Darkness, or almost, and . . . silence.
A profound peace settles in the room. You can feel the respect which naturally attends the arrival of a baby.
One doesn't shout in a church. One spontaneously lowers one s voice. If there is such a thing as a sanctified place, surely it is the room the child is about to enter.  Subdued light, silence . . . what else is needed?
Patience.
Or rather, the sense that one should slow down and thereby enter into another rhythm; the profound rhythm of life, to which the mother has spontaneously become attuned, and which is also the tempo of the child.  Unless you have re-created this incredible languor in your own body, it is impossible to understand birth. Impossible to meet the newborn on his terms. In order to reach this deep understanding, to arrive at a place where you can meet the child, you have to, as it were, step out of time. Step out of our time. Meaning our strong, familiar sense of how time is flowing, of the apparent speed, with which for us, it seems to flow.
Our sense of time, and the time sense of the newborn baby are practically irreconcilable. The one is a state of near stasis, the other state, ours, is often a frenzied restlessness, close to madness. Besides, we adults are never "here." We are always somewhere else.

In the past, in our memories.
In the future, in our plans.
We're always looking back, at what is gone, or ahead, at what is yet to happen. Never focusing on "here and now!" Yet if we have any hope of rediscovering the newborn baby, we must step outside of our own furiously running time. Which seems impossible.
How can we step out of time?
How can we escape its fast and furious flow?
The only way is by trying to be fully with the present moment.
Yes, to be here and now, as if there were no yesterday, no tomorrow. To allow any thought that the moment will end, that another appointment awaits, is enough to break the spell. As usual, everything is very simple. And apparently impossible. How can we reconcile the irreconcilable?
How can finite combine with infinite?
It can only happen if we open completely to the other, which means completely forgetting oneself

7
Now the stage is set.
The lights are dimmed.
The curtain may rise.
The child can make his entrance.
At last he is here.

8
Head first, and then his shoulders, one after the other.  Either all this happens naturally, or some help is needed at this critical moment. As soon as the head is out the child wants to draw breath, which is impossible for him because his chest is still imprisoned in his mother's body. If the shoulders are stuck, his progress comes to a halt, and help is needed quickly, because anguish is building up furiously in the child.
How can we help?
By sliding a finger under the child's armpit we can help the rotation of his body and liberate the little prisoner. Then, holding him under both arms we hoist him out, as if pulling him from a well, and put him straight onto his mother's belly. Most important of all, we never, never, at any time touch his head.  He's lying on his mother's belly. And where better to receive the child, this belly. It is the exact shape to receive the baby. When he was within, it was rounded and convex, it has now become hollow, and waits like a nest to cradle the child. Soft and supple, it moves with the rhythm of the mother's breathing, and the living warmth of her body makes it the perfect place for the newborn to be.
Finally, and this is most important, because the baby remains so near to her, the umbilical cord can remain intact.

9
Cutting the cord the moment a baby has emerged from his mother's womb is an act of extreme cruelty, and harms the baby to an extent that is hard to believe. Leaving it intact, however, so long as it continues to beat, transforms the whole birth experience. For one thing, it forces the obstetrician to be patient, and leads him, as well as the mother, to respect the rhythm, the sense of time ordained by the child. Besides, leaving the cord intact allows the natural physiological changes to take place within the child's body at their own pace.
We have already described the way air suddenly rushing into the baby's lungs has the same effect on him as a burn.
But there is more.
Before his birth, the child lived in oneness. For him there was no difference between the world and himself, because inside and outside were one. He knew nothing of polarities. He didn't know about being cold, for example, because cold cannot exist without heat. The body temperature of the mother and the baby are exactly the same. How then could he appreciate any contrast?

So you might say that before birth, there was neither inside nor outside, any more than there was hot or cold. As he enters this world, the newborn baby encounters for the first time a kingdom of opposites in which everything is either good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, agreeable or disagreeable, wet or dry. What is the gate through which he enters this kingdom of opposites? Not through his senses, that comes much later, but through breathing. When he takes his first breath, he crosses a threshold, a border.

He breathes in, and from this action is born its opposite: he breathes out. And then in turn ...

Thus he is launched irrevocably into the eternal cycle, the never-ending oscillation, the very principle of our world, in which everything comes back to this breath, this pulsation. He is in the world where everything, for always, is born of its own opposite: day from night, summer from winter, riches from poverty, strength from weakness, never ending, without beginning.

10
To breathe is to become one with the world outside, to tune to the music of the spheres. Its function is to make the blood take in oxygen, and get rid of wastes, mostly carbon dioxide. But in this simple exchange, two worlds come near each other, try to mix and touch: the world of outside and the world of inside. Two worlds, separated, try to reunite: the interior world of the organism, the little "I," and the exterior world, the vast universe.  It is in the lungs where they meet - the blood mounting from one's own depths, the air coming from above. The blood and air rush to conjoin, anxious to mix and mingle.
Of course they can't, separated as they are by the barrier of the alveoli membrane.
Both sigh for this lost oneness.

The blood arrives in the lungs, depleted of its oxygen, its strength spent, dark with waste: the carbon dioxide which makes it old. Here it is going to rid itself of its old age, gain its energy, rejuvenate.
Transformed by this visit to the fountain of youth, it departs, alive, red and rich! It returns to the depths where it gives forth its riches. Once more lets itself be filled with wastes, and then returns to the lungs. Thus the cycle continues indefinitely. As for the heart, it keeps pumping, pushing the blood, sending it, rich and red towards the thirsty tissues of the organism, and sending it back when it has become old and worn-out, for renewal to the lungs.

How does all this happen in the fetus, where the lungs are not yet working? The blood of the fetus, just like ours, needs to be renewed. The placenta fulfils this role.
Among other things it does, it takes the place of the lungs. The blood comes and goes through the umbilical cord, which contains three conduits, a vein and two arteries, covered by a sheath. So, the blood of the fetus renews itself' not by contact with air, but in the placenta by contact with the blood of the mother, which in her lungs ... and so on.

The mother, in effect, breathes for the baby, just as she eats for him, carries him, protects him, sleeps and dreams .
Yes. The child is completely dependent before his birth.
But then what happens?
A total upheaval: The blood, that until then flowed through the cord, suddenly rushes into the lungs! The child abandons the old route, he leaves the way of the mother. In the act of drawing breath, of oxygenating his own blood with his own lungs, the child becomes himself' in effect saying, "Woman, what do we have in common? I no longer need an intermediary between myself and the world."

Of course it is only a first step, for all the rest he still relies totally on his mother. But it's a step in the right direction. With his first breath, the child sets forth on the road to independence, to autonomy, to freedom.
But practically speaking much depends on the way this transition takes place. Whether this transition is made slowly, progressively, or brutally, in panic and terror, can make the difference between a gentle birth ...or a tragedy.

11
If the changeover comes abruptly it will leave a mark for the rest of life. Any future change will always be perceived as threatening. Of course, the child must not, at all costs, be deprived of oxygen, not even for one moment. Here there is no quarrel with medical science which agrees perfectly with nature's plan. Nature provides oxygen for the child through two sources: the cord continues to beat, even as the lungs begin to function.
The two systems work together, one taking over from the other, like a relay. The first, the cord, continues to oxygenate the child until the new system, the lungs, have taken over completely.  Although the child is out of the womb, he remains dependent on his mother through the umbilical cord, which continues to beat strongly for several minutes, four or five, sometimes even longer. Oxygenated through the cord, and thus protected from anoxia, the child can, without shock or danger, settle down to breathing without being rushed, in his own time.

12
What should we do during these critical few minutes of the transition of the blood from the old route through the placenta to the newly working lungs?
We must understand that Nature herself doesn't take sudden leaps and has her own pace. She has left this time, these few minutes, so that this change over from one world to another can be made with ease. She has made it so that the baby is oxygenated from two sources for several minutes as, at the same time, an orifice in the heart closes, and the baby is then safely on his own.
For a few minutes the baby straddles two worlds, as it were. Then slowly, slowly he can cross the threshold from one to the other peacefully and easily, and with all safety, as long as we don't rush in, interfere, and can manage to quell our old reflexes, our nervousness, born, in fact, out of the anxiety of our own birth. The effect on the well-being of the child will be immeasurable.  We are all so quick to blame Nature, when actually she's so full of love and wisdom, and it is only we who are too blind to see.

Whether the cord is cut abruptly or allowed to stop beating of its own accord completely changes, even determines the way in which a child perceives his entry into the world, and, consequently, the way he will react to the continuous change which is life. You might say that his perception of this moment will colour the rest of his life .

If we cut the cord immediately, we create a situation which is the opposite of the one nature intended. By clamping the cord before the lungs are fully operative we deprive the child's brain of oxygen. The organism cannot but react violently to our aggression, and then a whole system of stress comes into play. Not only will we have done something absurd and uncalled for, but we will have set up what Pavlov called a conditioned reflex which will recur throughout life.
What have we linked together?
Life and breath, breath and the fear of impending death.

What geniuses we are!

13
You might then ask how is it that even when the transition has been allowed to take place in its own time the child may still give a cry or two? The answer is simple. The thoracic cage, now that nothing is compressing it, suddenly expands, thus creating a void. The air rushes in and it burns. Naturally the child tries furiously to expel the air.

This is the first cry.
Then, often, everything stops.
The child pauses, as if dumbfounded by his own suffering. It can happen that he might repeat the cry two or three times before this pause. Then when this pause comes, it is we who panic. And usually ... a slap on the bottom follows. But now that we know better and can control our impulses, our fears, and trusting the strong beat of the cord, we can keep our hands to ourselves.
Soon we will see ... breathing beginning again of its own accord. Hesitant at first, timid, careful, it will still pause from time to time, marking little breaks. The child, oxygenated as he is by the cord, is pacing himself and taking in only as much of the burning element as he can put up with, then pausing, only to start again. As he gets used to it, he begins to breathe more deeply.

14
Soon he learns to enjoy what, in the beginning, was so very painful.
Very soon, his breathing, which was at first so hesitant and doubtful, becomes joyous. In all, the child has given only one or two cries. All we hear now is a deeply peaceful breathing, punctuated by short cries, exclamations of surprise, or even sighs of pleasure. Mixed with this breath are the sounds the baby is making with his lips, his nose, his throat. A language all its own. And never, never, those screams of terror, those wails of despair, those hysterical shrieks.
Maybe a child has to give one or two cries when he's being born, but must they be cries of anguish? Because the child is pleased with this new experience, tasting it in all its newness, he can easily forget the world he has left behind. No regrets, not a backward glance. Coming into life is like waking from a long and pleasurable sleep, and not from a nightmare. When the present is so delightful, why cling to the past?  Now that the cord has stopped beating, we can cut it. Not a sound, no crying, no cause for alarm, not even a tremor; it has simply become obsolete, and so can be removed.
An old bond has been left behind. We have not wrenched the child from his mother, they have simply parted, and will go their separate ways. Why would the young traveller yearn for the past when his voyage ends so happily and he has found the other bank, so tranquilly, so surely? 
How intelligent, what a blessing such a birth is. Because we left the cord beating it is as if his mother had accompanied him across the border, and led him gently into this formidable and forbidding world. Just as later, when he learns to walk, she will be there offering him her hand to hold.  An open hand that the child can grasp and let go of as he takes his first tentative steps. What a poor mother it would be who suddenly withdrew her hand the moment her child began to trust his own strength.  

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Learn to respect this sacred moment of birth, as fragile, as fleeting, as elusive as dawn.
The child is there, hesitant, tentative, unsure which way he's about to go. He stands between two worlds.  For heaven's sake don't touch him, don't push him, unless you want him to fall. Let him wait until he feels the time is right.

Have you ever watched a bird take flight?
As he's still walking, he's heavy, awkward, his wings drag, and then suddenly he's flying, graceful, elegant and free. He was the son of earth, now he's the child of the skies.

Can you say when he left one kingdom for the other?
It is so subtle, the eye can hardly catch it. As subtle as stepping in, or out, of time, to be born, or to die.

What of the tide, which imperceptibly, irresistibly rises, only to fall. At what moment did it turn? Is your ear sharp enough to hear the ocean breathe? 

Yes, this birth, this wave parted from wave, born from the sea without ever leaving her. Don't ever touch it with your rough hands. You understand nothing of its mysteries. But the child, the drop from this ocean, knows.

A wave pushes him towards the shore, another pulls him back, only to push him higher still. One more, and he's out of the flood. He's parted from water, and come to the land. He's frightened, terrified.
Let him be.
Just wait.
This child is awakening for the very first time.

This is his first dawn.
Allow him its grandeur, its majesty. Don't even stir until he leaves behind the night and its kingdom of dreams.

16
The rest, you might say, is detail. Once breathing is well-established, everything is accomplished. All has either succeeded or failed. But details, as always, are not without importance.
For example, in what way should we put the baby on his mother's belly? Should we lie him on his side, on his stomach, or flat on his back? Never flat on his back. That would cause the spinal column, which has been curved for so long, to straighten all at once. It would suddenly let loose all the dormant energy locked in there and the shock would be too much. It would be like an explosion. Let the child unfold his back when he feels ready himself.
Don't forget that each child comes equipped with his own character, his own temperament, his own pace.
There are some, who are no sooner born, than they lift their heads proudly, draw themselves up, and stretch out their arms as if to say: "I'm here!" These are the strong ones, who settle into their new kingdom as if they were kings. Their spines straighten with the force of a tightly strung bow releasing its arrow. But sometimes, the very same children will then withdraw, pull back, frightened by their own audacity, their own bravery.
There are others, who start off curled up in a little ball, and only open up little by little, making their discoveries cautiously. Because we cannot anticipate what's to come, the best thing to do is to put the child flat on his belly, with his arms and legs tucked under him. This is a familiar posture, the one that best allows the abdomen to breathe freely and the baby to work his way, at his own speed, towards the final unbending.  Then, because the child is on his front, we can keep an eye on his back, and see how he is breathing. In fact, the bending of the spine, of the back, and the beginning of breathing are all one. We can watch how breathing takes over the whole of the baby's body. Not only the chest but also the belly, and especially the sides. 
Very soon the baby is nothing but breath, which passes like a wave from the top of his head to the small of his back. This wave is like the shadow of the contractions which, like waves themselves, pushed the baby to the shore. At the same time it is like watching a tree start to grow.
Out comes an arm, usually the right, stretching like the branch of a tree. Then the other. Both seem surprised that nothing stops them any more, that space can be so limitless, so vast. It's like watching branches grow out of the power of the breath. The breath is to the child as the sap is to the tree.
Now the legs. One after the other, like roots which will one day stabilise this tree. But not yet. For the time being they are still very tentative, for they have had to fight their way out of the enchanted cave. In order to allay their panic, all that is needed is to offer them some limit: an open hand the baby's feet can meet, offering gentle resistance but able to be pushed away. 
Otherwise, the baby will feel completely disoriented. So, little by little, everything settles down, or rather, everything comes together harmoniously. Soon, just as if he is waking from his first sleep, the baby stretches out with a complete sense of his own well-being. Since, while all this has been happening, the cord has stopped beating, we are now ready for the next step.

But let us go slowly, pausing often.  

17
Haven't we come a long, long way?
We are out of the water, we have touched dry land.
We've left behind the ever-moving, changing, treacherous kingdom of the fishes. Now it is the earth that carries us.
Earth which is steady, tranquil, sound and true. Earth we can trust.
For the very first time, nothing moves. What a surprise. But since there is a price for everything, we now know for the first time how it feels to be heavy. We'll have to crawl. And yet the skies are there, above our heads. It is their light, their divine light that gave us the courage to emerge. And they will give us the courage to stand and walk.
What a long, long road, this path from mineral to man. The path each must tread again when he's come to taste the joy that is life.

What else are we doing when we pray? Nothing but returning to the source, the source of all life, as if going through the whole adventure again. Wanting to pay homage to Earth, our mother, we kneel.
With folded arms and a humble heart we bow to the ground. Our forehead touching the dust we say I obey for I know that, in your wisdom and love you know better.
There we remain, folded up, empty, as empty of that precious breath as the child not yet born who hasn't yet tasted that pleasure of life.
Having paid our respects, expressed our gratitude to the one who carries us, to whom we owe everything, into whose womb we will return at the end of our days, we arise.
Like a bow that has let go its arrow, how vibrant we feel when, unfolding, we let the air and its joy fill us full - as vibrant as we were the day we tasted our very first dawn.

This, in truth, is prayer. Since to pray is to be born anew to the fullness of life.

But then, can one pray in a hurry? Can it be rushed? As with the child who's just arrived, who's joined us, can't we grant him a moment of time?

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A few words about the hands which will hold the newborn baby. These hands are the first thing that the child will encounter. The language they speak is the primal language, the language of touch. This is how mother and child were communicating. It was through the child's back that he received her messages. Now that he's born, naked and disoriented, the way we touch him is crucial. Most of the time, the hands of the doctors, the midwives, and the nurses are not gentle enough.
Simply because they have not realised what it means to the child. Because these hands are so unaware, and move much too quickly, they terrify the child.
Let them be gentle but firm.  Most of all, let them move very, very slowly. Everything we do for the newborn baby is too rushed, too hurried for one who is only just entering time. At this moment, what the child needs is to be massaged, just as newborn animals need to be licked by their mothers - the act without which they often die.

It is most important that the hands that will massage the baby's back can rediscover the rhythm he knows, the rhythm of the contractions, the rhythm that moves with the outward breath.
What the child wants to feel again is not the wild fury, the storm of labour, but the embracing waves that told him of his mother's love. Our hands should travel along his back, one following the other, like wave after wave breaking onto the seashore. The rhythm of dancers, of lovers.
Love ... and the child!
Yet what is it lovers are looking for, if not to heal the rift, return to the primal sea, rediscover its infinite pulse. A return to paradise, a pilgrimage back to the source.

19
So much for rhythm, for movement.
But there is something else that can be transmitted through hands, even hands that are not moving. The child is still so sensitive that he will know by the feel of the hands resting on him, whether he is loved or refused, accepted or simply being carelessly handled. Under caring hands, the child opens up and lets go. Whereas, under stiff mechanical hands, he feels he's being clutched by claws, and of course he closes up, withdraws in panic, as if to escape to within himself for protection.

20
Naturally, it's the mother's hands that should hold the child.
But often she's still overcome by her own emotions, her own fears, which she's hardly had time to leave behind.
Her hands are not yet steady and sure. If someone else, such as a loving midwife, is there, calm, and able to transmit her inner peace, her hands would be better in the beginning, until the mother has had time to catch her breath. It's not that we want to take the child away from his mother, but the intensity of what she's just lived through can still be affecting her so strongly that it overwhelms the child.
In these crucial moments, the child needs peace, quiet and calm.
Often mothers don't know how to touch their babies.
Or maybe they just don't dare.
Some deep inhibition seems to hold them back, stop them. Why? Possibly because the child has just come from a part of the body we don't want to, don't dare to mention. Perhaps it's our education that makes us step back, as if this part of us does not exist, or at the very least, is not something we talk about. So the mother finds herself in a troubling, conflict-filled situation, torn between her natural urge, and her inhibitions, product of her repressive education.

21
Now let's come back to the child.
The fullness of his breath tells us that all is well. The cord has been cut. It is as if centuries have passed and yet it has only actually been a matter of a few minutes.

What comes next?
However blissful this time has been for mother and baby, it must come to an end. The child cannot stay on his mother's belly all his life.  Just as the child had to depart from the womb, now he will have to leave his mother's body.

To meet with what?
This first step in life cannot be but terrifying.

How can we ease it and pacify this terror?
n the same way that giving a new toy to a child makes it easier for him to part with the one he's been playing with, so we must find a way to make him enjoy his first moment of separation and thus gladly accept that he's on his own. Of course we're not going to put him on ice-cold weighing scales, and even the softest towel cannot compare with his mother's body.

What could be the answer?
Water.
This is where he has come from, and what he's known all his life. It's gentle, it's familiar. It is this very familiarity that in the end will completely calm him. It will be like meeting an old friend when one is far from home. This feeling of something familiar saves the child who is lost in an overwhelming world of new sensations. A bath has been prepared in a small tub, filled with water at body temperature, or slightly higher since it's going to cool down quickly. With the permission of the mother, who must be willing, we take the child, and slowly, slowly we ease him into the water, feet first of course. A sensitive eye can catch how intense the experience is for the child.
As soon as he finds himself back in water, he becomes weightless again. Water has, as it were, once again taken the load of his body. His joy and feeling of relief are hard to describe. We have nearly accomplished a miracle, we have turned this first separation, which is always loaded with anguish, and which shadows us all our life, into a joy. One can feel any remaining tensions in the baby melt away, vanish under our hands.

And as these tensions melt away, and what is left of his fear disappears, and the child feels so safe, he even dares to open his eyes. No words can describe the depths of this first look. It is as if he is asking one and all the questions of man in that single moment. Then it becomes so clear that life does not start now, at this point, but that the child was aware long before he came to us, and has merely crossed a threshold.
In disagreement with all classical psychology, anyone who has witnessed such a birth cannot but exclaim:
"But this child is looking!....
Whether he "sees" in the way we do is another issue.
Maybe we have to accept that there are many ways of seeing, of knowing.

22
Completely free from fear, and his first surprise over, he begins to explore his kingdom. His head turns to the left, to the right, as if enjoying its new freedom. Out comes one hand from under the water, it opens and reaches towards the sky. Then the other. His hands move in such harmony you'd think you were watching a ballet. They meet, clasp, and part, moving with all the grace of an underwater plant. As for the legs, a little hesitant at first, soon they too begin to stretch and play.
And here it is important to say that the feet of the baby should always be able to find the edge of the bath, to find a limit, as it were. Otherwise, if they meet with nothing, the child will experience the same panic as a swimmer out of his depth.  Because his first experience has been so rich and so pleasant, this baby will always be an adventurer.

Life, for him, will always be a challenge, which he will meet with confidence and courage, and an eagerness to try and taste everything new that might cross his path. Is not the constant newness of life, its continual change and variety, the thing we find most difficult?

23
Now that fear has subsided, and been left behind once and for all, let us try to be free of the past and its fascination.
Let's try to take the step out of the sea, to land, and meet with the earth.  Fourth step. Fourth station of this Calvary which is birth, where there is neither sin or punishment. It is truly an odyssey, and the hero, the newborn, has accomplished something so difficult.

So little by little we begin to take the child out of the water.
If he doesn't like this idea, and protests, because once again he's feeling all his own weight, we don't force him, but lower him back in again, only to try to take him out a moment later.
Once again he protests, goes back to the water, and comes out again, and what at first seemed unpleasant, now becomes a game. This game we play with him, lifting him out and lowering him back in the water, is a way of playing with weight and weightlessness. Isn't it true that no matter the culture, children all over the world love to swing, which makes them, in turn, heavy as a stone, and light as a bird?

Eventually we lift him out completely, dry him gently, and swaddle him in something warm, letting him experience for the first time this feeling that nothing is moving. Another new and extraordinary feeling for him.  Remember that all those months he spent inside his mother, everything was moving, whether his mother was walking or simply breathing quietly in her sleep.

24
But now, for the first time ... and how strange. Nothing is moving at all!
This is the majesty of Earth.
For all those children who have been rushed into the world, who haven't been led gently from water to land, from movement to stillness, with so much love, intelligence and patience, waking up on their own will always frighten them.
This immobility will always terrify them. But for the child whose birth has been such a blessing, these fears will not exist. He'll be free forever from nightmares and guilt.

25
How impressive it is to watch this child open his eyes wide, begin to feel his way around, explore all that surrounds him.
All with no panic, no tears.
On the contrary, with a seriousness, a gravity that's hard to believe.
Yes, this child is truly like a wise man, an old soul, because whatever he does, it is with complete awareness.
But also it seems as if something is emanating from this child. He seems to radiate a peace, a serenity, that he's brought from somewhere far beyond.

The words of Lao Tzu come to mind:
"One who possesses virtue in abundance, the Holy one,
is like a newborn babe."

But what is this "virtue"? It has nothing to do with morality, being virtuous.
"Virtus" in Latin means courage, vitality, virility. What Japan and China call Chi, and India Shakti. It is the secret, silent power of a Zen Master, a true Master of Martial Arts, or a saint. 

For one who is sensitive enough to feel it, sense it, it is this "virtue," this grace, this Chi, this Shakti that silently flows, shines like a blessing from the newborn.