Happy Birthday to Willow born at 5pm, weighing in just under 8lbs.
I should say: Happy Birthday to Will…
He’s going by the shortened version of his wonder middle name. I love it.
On Monday I was asking, for his mama (my niece, Grace), the Yi Jing about the duration of her pregnancy. I got hexagram 44, fifth line changing…
“A melon covered with willow leaves.
Hidden lines.
Then it drops down to one from heaven.”
I could cry “Barnum Effect!” But the parts of me that resonate to the message can only laugh with appreciation at the images of willow leaves and melons. “Drop” from heaven…indeed. I like how the Yi Jing gives convoluted references to daily realities. It’s not the first time a seemingly flawed message has come through loud and clear with real-time accuracy.
She also got the first line changing. She’d been considering inducing labor. “…It must be checked with a brake of bronze….” I read that: Stop, don’t do this. Be patient.
Then…it…drops…
That’s not wholly accurate. A woman, with much effort to both push and surrender, facilitates the emergence of a person from her womb…but drop will suffice in this case. A laborious drop beautiful.
Life is beautiful, whether you’re squinting at the circus of meaning and finding shape where others don’t or…staring at the stark lines of experience.
J. Ruth Kelly 
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