"Go for a walk!" she said, not yelling, but with urgency in her voice. "I need to concentrate."

It was toward the end of the July heat wave. My partner, and cofounder of this magazine, Amara, was in labor. After some efforts at timing we determined that the contractions were coming every two or three minutes.

Our older son, Asher, almost 21 months, had missed his nap. He was irritable and craving the attention of his mother, who was busy focusing on the very internal experience of her body preparing to give birth. So I helped him climb into his stroller and started walking.

Suddenly in a new environment I felt the intense emotions that were present but hidden by the circumstances. I was very fully awake, keenly aware of the feeling of the air on my skin, wind blowing the trees. I was surprised to acknowledge that I could see every leaf on a tree waving individually. I felt an intense inner pressure that I knew was a sympathetic experience with Amara's.

Until that moment I hadn't accepted that the birth was imminent. Asher's had taken almost 18 hours, while this labor had been in process very undramatically for just a few. But as Asher and I walked I reflected on the previous birth and recent months of pregnancy.

The first birth had shown me that the experience is much more than a physical or medical event. I felt that it was an ordeal of the highest order, a doorway through which to pass into a new phase of life—the life of parenthood and family. I had known theoretically that we, as parents-to-be, were stepping into a wholly new state of responsibility, but at the moment of Asher's birth I felt a palpable shift, as though a new piece of my being was being born with him.

And I could see that for Amara the birth had been a deep initiation. It was preparing her for the being-disposition of motherhood; for an as-yet unrealized level of selflessness and self-sacrifice. The birth was an explosive beginning to a new life. And since every beginning contains the germ of what follows, very much depended on the way she faced the event. Participating in the process I saw it as akin to the process of meditation—or perhaps it was itself the height of meditation—in that she was required to face and absorb every aspect of the experience; to feel every iota of pain, to work through her own avoidance and fear of discomfort; to see these things and yet stand apart from them, allowing the experience to unfold and herself inhabit the position of she-who-watches.

At a pivotal moment in Asher's birth I could see that she was struggling and said "Remember: Don't work against yourself, do only what is necessary." This was the seed of what the next birth would be.

In reflection on the previous experience Amara had gradually come to the determination that she wanted to allow herself to experience this birth fully, with a minimum of interference. When she introduced me to the idea of having the birth without the assistance of a doctor or midwife I was nervous initially, but then I realized that I was myself considering the issue from within the paradigm we were trying to leave behind. I thought that if a doctor or midwife weren't responsible, I would be, and I knew I was wholly unqualified.

But the essence of what Amara wanted was to cooperate with and rely on her own body to do what the body knows how to do—give birth. I could hear in her voice that she was connected with the intelligence of her organism. There was an unalterable confidence that is not the opposite of fear. It was simply a knowledge that she could trust her body to have a baby; that it was not a medical event, not an emergency, but a natural process like many other bodily functions, and one that could be depended upon to succeed.1

Amara had taken the opportunity of the pregnancy to become deeply aware of her body. She meditated on every sensation and discovered unpleasant memories that caused constriction and pain. Releasing them, the pain dissipated. It was as though she labored continuously for the last trimester of the pregnancy. Hence, it was understandable that the labor was anticlimactic. It had been going on for months.

Asher and I walked down our road in the oppressive heat talking about the birds and deer, having the type of intuitive conversation one can have with a not-quite-two-year-old. He wanted to get out of the stroller and push it himself, thrusting it ahead and then running after it. After awhile I felt a strong pull to return. Arriving on our porch I heard Amara's voice from the bedroom.

"Jason, Asher!" she yelled, "Come see the baby!"

We arrived, and awestruck, watched Amara deliver her child into her own hands.2

—Jason Stern