The Baby
By: Timothy O'Neill
Tags: Life Lessons, Spirituality, Memories, Non Fiction, Mental Health

The Baby

How it begins and how it ends

Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay

I used to work at the Kid Stop at the local YMCA where parents would drop off their children while they went to work out. The average age of the children we looked after ranged from 3–11. One time a mother brought in her infant and we put her on a blanket in the corner of the small room. I was a little shocked that someone would trust us with something so delicate, so vulnerable and so utterly dependent. This baby lived at the mercy of the world, at the kindness of strangers, with absolutely no power to influence her environment. Her mother was trusting us with her care, trusting that we could keep the rest of the rambunctious brood from trampling her or bouncing a ball off her head. To me, given the unforgiving brutality of the world, it’s a miracle that any of us survive infancy. But we do. Over and over again. We’re heartier than we appear. And it takes resources to care for an infant, time, energy and willpower that comes from some primal place deep within us, and not everyone has what it takes, but so many of us do. We are all living examples of the conscientious fortitude of the human race. We should be celebrating ourselves and those who nurtured us into being every day of our lives.

They say when you have a spiritual awakening you’re coming back to the beginning. You wipe the slate clean as you enter into your new relationship with yourself and the world. You now realize that you know less than you did yesterday, and that’s a good thing. You have crossed the sunny meadow and entered into the dark forest where the wild things play. You make peace with all that you don’t know and don’t understand and you commit to the second round of apprenticeship. You admit your dependency on an obsolete mental model of the world, and on the people in your life who provide you with emotional support at the expense of your emotional freedom. You have been born again and this time the world is even less hospitable. It may even be inimical to your efforts. You will encounter predators who seek to devour babies in their sleep. You will find yourself turning to your spiritual guides for assistance. Pray, and keep praying.

I never wanted to be the baby. I don’t like to hear stories of how cute I was as a baby and how I learned to climb out of my crib and how once I learned I never stopped, to the great frustration of my exhausted parents. I don’t like to think that I was ever helpless, that I was ever innocent. I’ve done too many bad things in my life to get sentimental about my brief time as a sin-less child. I take responsibility for my care now. I decide what goes in and what comes out of my body. I fight and I defend. I assert my needs. I stand up for myself. If I’m this strong how could I have ever been that weak? And it’s doubly uncomfortable because of my relationship with my parents. I love them, but I don’t want to owe my life to them. I like to think I sprouted up from the grass, fully formed. I like to think that I created myself. When you create something you have claims over that something, in one form or another. No, I wasn’t born and raised. I wrote myself into existence using the tears of fallen stars.

So here I find myself, a true babe in the woods. It’s an odd combination of thoughts and feelings. On one hand, you feel like you are ahead of the pack and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and experience, on the other hand, you feel so small compared to the vast wisdom of the world that is being revealed to you. You’re in-between lives. You still have to function as a 3D person, while at the same time you are learning 4D lessons. When these things brush up against each other the resulting friction can light a raging fire within you.

And I’m dependent once more. I see shadows flitting through the trees. Hungry predators are afoot. If I did not have my spiritual guides I would be lost. Their presence in my life is reassuring, but also breeds resentment. Why do I need to be monitored around the clock? Why is my every thought, feeling, and action worthy of scrutiny? Why am I subject to negative reinforcement when I am just living my life to the best of my ability? Why do I have to obey rules when I was never given the rules? This tastes bitter. I’ll let it go. I’m grateful for all the support and service I receive. Without the ministrations of my guides, I wouldn’t be here typing this. I wouldn’t anywhere. I’d be dead, ten times over.

They knew I was a baby before I had any inkling of what I was getting myself into. I can look back and see the signs. It must be exciting to be able to communicate through time, the future connecting to the past, and then that past in turn connecting to the future. I’ll give you an example. Most of my guides are from the future. Before I understood what any of this meant they sent me the picture of a baby crying. Future to past-present. Only two years later did I understand what that picture meant. Past-present to future-present. Imagine the kind of complexity that would arise from playing chess on this type of board. Imagine the mechanics involved. The possibilities are mind-boggling.

I’ve wanted to be more active these past few years. I’ve felt like I’ve been wasted. I’ve wanted to contribute to the cause if there is a cause. I’ve wanted to be able to express myself. But part of being a baby is just absorbing information and mirroring your environment and that’s what I’ve been doing. Then I think, you have to be patient, we’re in it for the long haul. It may seem like we’re stalling out when in truth we’re waiting for the pieces to fall into place and for a path to open up. It’s in the cracks that we can see the sunlight.