I took a deep breath and listened to the brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Greetings Dear Ones!

The Spring days are lurch-galloping into their annual rhythm of too-much-many things to do all at once. I probably cannot afford to sleep again until late August at this point. The lambs have been a lot of work and happy distractions and the prom gowns keep coming… “Prom?” say people who care about other things. “Gosh, I forgot all about prom… can you hem a couple pairs of pants for me anyway? They are just easy…simple hems…shouldn’t take too long…”

It’s true NO ONE thinks about prom unless you are going to one, are distraught because you are not going to one, or are the parent or guardian of someone in either of those situations. OR…you are a seamstress. Then “Prom” becomes your entire world. It makes you forget to breathe.

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

I’ve been thinking about Breathing a lot lately, especially as I get to witness what James Herriot called “the miracle that never grows stale” as newborns awaken with their first breaths of raw air in their lungs. As you read this, Right NOW, you are doing an incredible thing, absolutely fundamental to your consciousness and Being. Miraculously, you do it as many as 22,000 times a day without thinking: You are breathing. We are powered by breathing. Our lungs fuel us with oxygen, our body's life-sustaining gas, passing it through our bloodstream, where it's carried off to the tissues, muscles, and organs that allow us to slice off yards of tulle with a rotary cutter, or vacuum up glitter three times a day, or dart around a barn or tailoring shop in total panic, wondering what to do next.

When people are anxious, (like when a mother brings in a suit that is five inches too big for her son in every possible direction and wants it to fit him by next Saturday) they tend to take rapid, shallow breaths that come directly from the chest. This kind of breathing actually heightens anxiety. This causes an upset in the body's oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, resulting in increased heart rate, dizziness, and muscle tension, especially for the seamstress listening to her. Deep breathing helps one avoid acute stress responses to mentally or physically terrifying situations, such as the urge to fight (seam rippers at the ready!), or take flight (jump out the window) when ten people call you in the same morning for help with prom gowns due in less than a week.

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

Breathing creates consciousness. Literally. I was heartened to hear from a dear veterinary friend (Thank You Cynthia!) that when Blossom died, taking her lambs with her, they had not suffered because they had never become conscious. When does the magic of consciousness begin? With our very first breath. Studies reveal that states of sleep-like unconsciousness are likely to be continuously present in lambs until well after birth. In utero, a lamb fetus is actively sedated by the low oxygen pressure, its warm, cushioned environment, and a range of neuroinhibitory and sleep-inducing substances produced both by the placenta and the fetus itself. The lambs are in either of two sleep states—the active state (kicking, swallowing, blinking), or quiet state—kind of like a teenager who does or does not have access to a cell phone. And that’s what they look like as they are born (lambs, that is, not teenagers)—drowsy, stunned creatures just washing ashore from the Land of Nod…small, wet, empty lamb sacks waiting to be filled with air and milk and the sound of tiny, chirping baahs for their mothers. Within the miracle of minutes, body and spirit unite. They become Present through Breath.

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

It’s been a tough year for lambing. I only had four pregnant ewes to start with. In percentage terms, 25% are dead, 25% are wonderful mothers, 25% have yet to lamb, and 25% are total psychos who want to murder their babies.

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

Last Wednesday, just after breaking my ninth needle on a hem studded with sequins, I came home early to check on the sheep. As I got to the barn, I heard a little voice, the size of a thimble, bleating for its mother, who answered with a warm, encouraging nicker. I thought it might have been one of the lambs in the far pen, born last Sunday. But no, it was a NEW lamb! A tiny, mostly dry ewe lamb standing on shaky legs just near her mother. Proud Miss Prim licked her baby then did the sheep equivalent of an angry scowl, fixating on something in the far corner, just near the gate. I entered the pen and looked down behind me. Something small and black was tucked into the crack near the wall. It looked like a plastic bag, a bit of trash. How did that get here? I wondered. Then I realized it was a tiny twin brother! Only the mother was NOT having him.

“Do you breathe, little buddy?” I asked him.

“I do,” was the answer I saw in his soft, shallow gasp. It’s the kind of gasp I have myself when someone brings in a dress with eight layers that takes up the entire dressing room. Something as big as Life had just hit him and knocked him flying. He didn’t move until I touched him. Under my hand, he jerked, struggled to attain consciousness, decided against it. His mouth was cold. I picked up the damp rag of new wool and offered it to his mother. She stamped her foot and charged. He was an Intruder. NOT Welcome.

Oh, shit…

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

I knew better than to dry him off. Instead, I tied Prim to the wall and smeared him with the afterbirth hanging from beneath her tail while congratulating myself yet again for having the gorgeous, LUCKY true-love kind of life that enables me to handle sequins and placentas all within the same hour. I rubbed him all over his sister too so they would smell the same. Still, the mother would not have him. She re-cleaned only the female. I forced the unwanted baby to her teat to get his share of the colostrum (that precious first milk full of antibodies that means “live” or “die” for lambs). He drank lustily and gratefully and cheered up instantly. He could stand and walk. There was nothing obviously “wrong” with him. In fact, he appeared to be quite healthy and strong. He gave a little cry, tottered towards me and hid behind my legs for protection. He was imprinting on me, thinking I was his mother. Prim was incensed.

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

“What the hell is the problem, Primrose? You’ve always been the sweetest!” I asked his mother. The change in her personality wrought by motherhood was astonishing. She was in a fury to smash him again. I had to keep her tied up while we came up with a plan. The same exact thing had happened two years ago with another first-time mom, Blossom, the mother of this Primrose. Prim had been accepted, but the little male, “Chip” was not. Chip moved into the house that night and was bottle-fed all summer. I had thought that another sheep had cleaned him off before his mother realized he was hers. That was the story we told ourselves and it made a lot of sense at the time. Sheep have about a 30-minute window in which to bond with their newborns and claim them as dependents they will defend. Otherwise, they are abandoned, or worse, attacked. This time, each mother was alone in her own birthing pen. No one had cleaned him up. What happened?

“Does this sort of maternal savagery simply run in your family?” I asked Prim. “Is it what you saw your own mother do to your brother? Or is it that your line of females simply cannot count to two? Much as I love your babies, I really DON’T want to raise one as my own.”

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

Prim, still tied up and anxious, sucked down half a bucket of warm water with molasses while I dipped the lambs’ navels in iodine, gave them each a blast of nutradrench (a mineral supplement), and completed my health inspections. Things got a little calmer. I didn’t know what to do next. I kept forgetting to breathe. I DON’T want to bottle feed another lamb unless there is no other option. I want him to have a proper mother and sister and be welcomed (and feel at home in) his own herd. How to make that happen?

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

The Internet and our beloved Hermit from Hermit Hollow came to the rescue. He helped me build a wooden stanchion out of pallets. We cut the boards off the pallets in places so that the lambs could walk in and out of the box and have access to her udder for nursing. It was clear that both could nurse unassisted and would figure out quickly how the system worked. We put Prim’s head between two boards with room for her to get up or lie down. We piled hay in front of her put a bucket within reach so she could drink whenever she wanted. She got a lot of corn chips and explanations and calmed down immediately. She actually seemed relieved to be confined and to have that vile imposter out of sight.

As she munched, I laid out the plan to her. I tried to be positive, though we were both still a little wild-eyed.

“According to the internet,” I panted, “you will take your baby back if he drinks your milk and his poop begins to smell like ‘you.’ You will sniff his wooly bum and know you shouldn’t kill him. Hopefully, you will decide to adopt your own damn son within 24 hours. If not, you might have to stay in this penalty box for a week or two. With this method, you have a shot at an 85 percent success rate to become a decent mother. And I have a shot at NOT spending four hundred dollars on powdered milk only to wind up with a problem child with attachment issues.”

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

The best mother of the bunch is little black Mollie, the orphan who a few years ago spent most of her early days in my bathtub (without water in it, of course!) and riding to work each day in my car so that she could get noon-time bottles on schedule. She lived in the house, hopped all over the furniture, and was terrified of other sheep at first. Though adored by her adoptive mother (me), I have to admit that she had a rather twisted upbringing that left her with poor “sheeping” skills. I was worried that she, having never had a proper mother herself, would have no idea how to mother her lambs. Well, she’s a star! Her babies are clean and fed and marvelous creatures with springs for legs. They go sproing-ing about the pen and play wonderful games of dash and chase and bounce. They are totally healthy and vibrant. She is warmly attached.

Breathe in…Breathe out… Something Sacred is arriving.

It just goes to show that our past experiences do not determine our potential. We can come back from hard things. Hard boundaries, responsibility, and discipline are actually our path to sanity in some situations. As of this writing, a full week later, the stanchion box solution seems to have worked. Allowed to go free, Prim is tolerating her son with bland indifference and she does let him nurse. They don’t call to each other or share special vocalizations, but he’s bonded to his twin and they cuddle nicely and keep each other company. Both lambs are thriving. It’s time to Breathe a huge sigh of relief!

Life hands us all our own stories of blood and glitter, Dear One. Breathing vastly increases our chances of survival! May your breath inhabit your body with the full sureness with which your precious body belongs in this world. May you know your value. May the creative companionships around you inspire you continually to learn, to grow, to adapt, to Mend…and most of all…

Breathe in…Breathe out…

Something Sacred is arriving.

Now… Back to the Glitter!

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy