Dear Steele: I am pregnant. Good news is you don’t have to worry about all the hormonal imbalances I am going through: not because you’re not here, I know you would not appreciate being forced to be an absentee father, but because the child is not yours. One of my girlfriends said I should have talked to you about freezing your sperm. That would have been very freaky. Based on your state of mind, I’m not sure if you would have laughed until you cried, or taken me seriously and sent me to do research. But none of that to worry about; it was an immaculate conception.
I never thought about the fact that we are all mothers waiting to become, as women that is. Every month our bodies prepare themselves to conceive a child. The uterus walls build up soft tissue layers to cushion the newly fertilized ovum as it embeds itself on the path to maturation. Every month, the uterus waits patiently for that moment of conception, and when it fails to come, it sheds tears of blood from the outer walls, creating a flow of menstruation, only to rebuild itself once again in constant flow with creative life-force energy.
My pregnancy is different than others. My child is developing in my mind. It is formless now; in fact, its nature is formless. It is developing the capacity to transform itself into infinite forms based on internal stimuli. It is a shy child, uncertain of itself, but still developing. My friends say they see a child full of energy, light and ideas. I think she will have a great capacity for love.
When I give birth to myself will I still be me? The Toaists believe you attain enlightenment by developing your spirit energy, your Shen, or giving birth to yourself. They believe it is: “awakening the part of oneself that perceives and acts free of the boundaries of environmental education and karmic condition.” That sounds heavenly to me.