We come into this world at once tethered by spirit to the genesis of all this was and is and all that will ever be, while grounded by umbilical cord to the literal seed from which we sprout.

Forced headlong through or perhaps lifted from a womb by sterile hands under insulting fluorescence, we arrive whole in being, though not necessarily in form, each Child of Mystery a balanced, wise holder of all things ever held, keeper of all things ever kept. Clear eyes receive life without reservation, without fear.

In this moment, we are fully spiritual beings bound by human flesh. It is the second to last time we will rest wholly in both worlds, all-encompassing spirit inhabiting uncorrupted humanness. And at the first breath of air mixed with amniotic fluid and a quick slap on the backside, we begin the process of forgetting.

Wrapped tightly in soft pink or blue packaging and displayed with our cohort in orderly rows, we’re viewed through glass by earthly keepers – parents, adopters, case workers, medical staff, strangers. The mechanical flip of hospital nursery blinds allows the viewer a brief reminder of the innocence of Before. Before the unlearning. Before hurt. Before doubt. Before the deceit of our own entangled thoughts.

When it is time, we are carried or wheeled by our respective keepers into the experiential world, blue eyes wide open, where we must lose and then regain all eternal knowledge so that we might one day go home, broken yet healed with scars stronger than injured psyche, bones, or flesh they replace.

Life’s learning comes by way of hardness. Our mistakes and stories repeat like broken records on old phonograph machines. We hum along, then trip or fall, repeating old injuries in the same or similar places, deepening fault lines in our souls. What is not learned the first or third time is offered again a seventh or twelfth, until we get it right. It’s for our own good, our own growing, but these words are hollow against metaphorical scuffed knees dabbed with iodine.

As days extend, the memory of Before is lost to the mundane, the real yet inconsequential. We live, love, laugh, dance, cry, wish, sing, scream, rhyme, smile, pause, rest, repeat. Much of our humanness is wasted to running – running from, toward, around. Distraction becomes comfort becomes habit becomes addiction and denial of true self. Until.

Until every so often at pastel sunset. Until a midnight walk on a shore of stilled waves under half-moon. Until the Grand Canyon’s south rim at sunset where eternal wind whips upward from the canyon floor through one’s very soul. Until the birth of our own offspring, or the death of another. In these moments, the veil between worlds is lifted. We are again complete, understood, of purpose and belonging. Instantaneous all-knowing peace pervades. Memory ignites.

With a baby toe once again in the Before, we vow, again, to remember our worth, our source, our inherent place. Until ordinary life resumes. And forgetfulness again prevails, and the cycle repeats.

If we are blessed with years, wisdom and white hair are earned with aching joints and tired limbs. They are of a piece, life’s curse and life’s blessing. All that changes in the balance of wisdom and failure is the ratio. Decades bring more peace, less pain.

The second half of life brings spiritual gifts and slowing bodies that give us space and time for the experience. Almost without awareness, our unlearning ceases, replaced by gradual awakening – not to the learning of something new but the return of something we already had but let slip behind a shelf, or under a chair. It’s not so much that it was lost as that it was misplaced; it was always there somewhere.

The deepest knowing is the most personal. It’s the long walk we must take alone, whether through years of suffering or mere moments of surrender. It happens by mystery or magic. It isn’t meant to be understood, taken, or owned.

One day our thin, wrinkled fingers rest loosely on a cocoon of pastel crocheted blanket. We may be organized in a neat row with a small cohort of patients or wheeled or carried to our last bed by an earthly keeper – a son or daughter, nurse, neighbor, kind friend or stranger.

The flip of the blinds in the hospice room lets enter golden moonlight we have so many times shut out. Soft light imbues our softening physical form as worlds again intertwine.

Clear eyes fix intently on and through the final viewers as if to join the souls from Before in reunion, resolution, and sacred restoration.

A slight smile arises on thin lips framed in brittle hair as shallow breath releases, and clear blue eyes, once again wide open, fully remember.