When I was a young man I heard a story that resonated with my sensibilities.
The story was about some South Sea islands where newborns were considered holy during their first hundred days out of mother’s womb. During those days the infant was never allowed to touch the ground. Then on the hundredth day a sacred ceremony celebrated this infant joining the human race as it’s feet were lowered to touch sand and sea and Earth for the first time.
It was a beautiful story that was running through my mind as I watched my own daughter being born during a moment that felt like a window opening into Deep Time as I fleetingly touched the generations that came before. Later holding my tiny infant up towards the sky, the story became a living reality, even if her little butt, back and feet would touch the ground long before her 100th day as a person, holy she certainly was.
Last year I was blessed with being caregiver for a grandson, first visit was at two weeks old, with a few more before those hundred days were up. He’s currently around 16 months and a very different entity - today we are the sum total of all our days and experiences.
Consider the person as a reflection of evolution.
The first hundred ‘infant’ days, for caregivers it’s filled with moments of blissful rapture as pure as any we’ll ever experience. For the parents already in love with each other, it’s profound beyond all else.
The human sensuality of skin on skin, the smells, the touch, the falling into blissful sleep, When simple awareness of the moment and love overwhelms our ability to convey. Then the waking and the strüm und drang of life and learning and the day to days that never stop coming at us. But I digress, this was supposed to be about the infant.
The babe laying there helpless, but soaking in everything, while constantly flailing it’s limbs until the flailing takes on definition. Those eyes, at first blurry, become sharp and scanning (and if you are among the fortunate) noises attract the infants attention, which triggers more body motion and sense of direction and increasing awareness of surroundings.
Evolution in action from the infant’s perspective.
Fuzzy images resolving into objects, oh, fingers, my fingers, wow, I can move them, what toes too, feet, legs, kick ‘em high. Then coordination between the parts, yo, I’ve rolled over.
Wow, I can push my head up off the floor, then the butt learns how to use legs to wave that booty. But, I want to get over there and it ain’t working. Head up, butt up, push, bam, nose dive into the rug. But soon the body figures out that arms and hands need a little harmony, so the random flailing steadily finds that harmony. Arms learn when to move as legs push. Head remains held high and it’s off to the races.
Wow, I can get over there. Check it out. I’m fast. Not fast enough, standing is fun, bam, diapers full of, never mind. Then it’s like the body hears the song, these feet are made for walking, and that’s just what they do.
We wake up and that infant is gone, disappeared into a toddler scampering off into every direction, obsessed with discovering the world.
Willfulness, curiosity, sense of self, and of humor, and still always soaking up all he/she can, through senses and body (which of course is also a sense organ) and mind. Boundaries are necessary, but they are so hard to define.
