I am making a public declaration of who I am and what my choices have been as a result. Sometimes this is simple and easy to do, especially when it goes along with the acceptable societal narrative of what is right and wrong. In the history of humanity this code of ethics has changed and evolved, thank God. Each time that we, as a collective, face a new consideration as to what we deem acceptable, a crescendo of resistance arises. The status quo pushes up against the pioneering ethics that offer a new way of believing, being, expressing in the world. The status quo hangs on for dear life to its identity, like the little self, the ego, that has come to believe that this is the way of safety and righteousness.
There has been a litany of previously unacceptables that have been transformed. To the generation born into the new perception of ethical values, the old dogma seems barbaric. And yet as the older generations still inhabit the earth so do their archaic beliefs that cling to a dying truth. How can we transform ourselves with the tides of evolution— the unstoppable wave of ‘progress’? We begin with our own personal inquiry. We ask ourselves to dive deep enough to know what is true for us, beyond time and space and popular opinion. We seek our integrity that supersedes the collective ethics and yet adds to its evolving expression of what is now acceptable to the whole.
We are in a portal of transformation right now. We are being asked to assess who we are, what we believe, what serves us and the whole, and what does not. The paradigm of life has been shaken by the crises of the current moment that has been more dramatically exposed than ever before by the saga of Covid. We are reaching the crescendo of this radical shake-up and it is time to choose. What will you choose? How will you move forward? Will you move forward?
My journey began when I was born, just like yours. We can’t help being who we truly are meant to be, even when life seems to be squashing our natural attempts. Life actually is offering us the sharp edge that hones the tool of evolution. With each encounter with this razor-sharp edge, we define more clearly the desires of our true self-expression. Sometimes this journey takes us on a windy and wild ride into some very dark and lonely places. For the Soul, this is part of the process of alchemy that It has come to experience.
I regress. Back to my journey that led me to this moment of ‘coming out’. When I was 4 or 5 my father wrote about his observations of my ‘independent spirit’, calling me ‘non-conforming Beki’. I read this in some old Christmas letters my dad had written when they were unearthed while my dad was on his death-bed the summer of 2018. It was illuminating and comforting to know that he truly saw me, my essential nature, at such a young age.
Another vivid memory I have was when Dad took us to the doctor. I remember jumping around in the back seat of the car joyfully, Dad pulling me out and taking my hand leading me into the office of Dr. Mock. When I realized they wanted to stick me with the needle, I screamed and pleaded, refusing to pull up my sleeve to bare my arm. With a sneaky and quick move, they pulled down my pants and stuck me in the butt. I felt betrayed and dismayed. How could my wonderful father, that I trusted so much, do such a thing.
Fast forward to my teenage self, visiting my family in Canada during the time I was living with my mother in the Bahamas. Dad suggested I go to the doctor for a check-up. I walked the block or so to the doctor’s office and he told me I needed a shot that I was not up-to-date on. I told him I had a fear, no phobia, of needles. By this point I assumed my fear was irrational, considering that vaccination was a common thing that everyone did. He reassured me it would not hurt and quickly stuck me in my left arm. I said to him that it really wasn’t so bad, and then proceeded to slowly slide off the chair beginning to lose consciousness. The doctor took me into the examination room to lie me down and gave me another injection of adrenaline in my…you guessed it…butt. Funny the things we remember. So much of my childhood I have forgotten. But these two ‘scenes’ are clear as day.
Everyone in my family was aware of my phobia. They also were aware of my low threshold for pain. When I became pregnant at 26 with my first son, we all wondered how I would endure childbirth. I hadn’t had a vaccine since that time I almost passed out. I dreaded the part of prenatal care that would entail getting blood drawn and of course the issue of an epidural was a consideration when thinking about the birthing process. I dove into reading and researching the whole process of being pregnant, wanting to do all I could to ensure a healthy pregnancy and baby and birth. Somehow the blood draws felt less invasive than the idea of an injection of some unknown substance into my body. I was surprised I could handle it although I learned that I needed to be lying down to avoid losing consciousness, literally.
In order to determine who would be my OB, I did a lot of research and ended up deciding on a practice of nurse-midwives. My first appointment to interview the prospective health care practitioner included me asking at least 30 questions to determine if they would fit my criteria! During my pregnancy, I went to a pediatrician to interview her, although I really did not know what I was looking for. I remember reading some forms that I was to sign that would give my consent to vaccinate my newborn. Perhaps most people just sign the forms and do not read the fine print, but after reading the litany of side effects, including brain damage and death, I could not sign it. I figured I would revisit it later and discuss it with my husband. Surely if everyone did this, it must be safe.
It turned out that the woman who taught our childbirth classes was a home-birth midwife and so during these classes, I was exposed to different ways of giving birth, including home birth. This seemed like such a wonderful option, and yet I figured that the responsible thing to do was to at least have my first child in a hospital, even though hospitals were a place I never was comfortable in. When my husband and I went to visit the hospital that I would give birth in, we walked out and I looked over to him and told him that I simply could not do it in there. He sighed and said, ‘Oh Beki, don’t do this to me.’ Remembering that always make me smile. He knew me so well. This realization was not an easy one for either of us to swallow. But in the deepest part of me, I knew this was not the safest place for me to give birth. I knew that in order for me to have the birth I wanted I needed to feel safe.
So, I dove into a whole new process of researching home-birth. I interviewed people that I knew in the community that had chosen this approach. I read statistics and accounts. I gathered the people I wanted to be present at my birth and led an exercise to release our own birth trauma so that no one would bring any unresolved energy into the space during my birthing process. Talking about non-conforming! And this story is just one branch of a very large tree of a life lived outside of the box.
The birth was fast and so beautiful. If I had had to get to the hospital it would have been a very close call. I valiantly breathed, grunted, and screamed through the two hours or so of labor with an amazing team of support holding space for the sacred event to occur. This act of birthing without drugs to numb the pain has been done each moment in all of human history by countless women. Even though I hated pain, something in me knew I could do this. It was the most physically challenging thing my body has ever endured and I felt empowered to know what I was capable of.
As I was healing from the birth we figured we should whisk our beautiful, perfect baby off to the pediatrician. While home-birth was an anomaly, it did not occur to me that we would not go along with the typical medical protocol of well-baby visits. Sherman dressed and bundled up our newborn and took him to his first doctor’s appointment, as I waited at home. When he came home, Sherman’s face was wet with tears. My heart jumped into my throat. What’s wrong?! I exclaimed. He said that the pediatrician was very condescending about our reckless choice to have a home-birth and wanted to admit our son into the hospital because she felt he looked jaundice and was suspicious of some little blisters on the roof of his mouth.
I called our midwife hysterical. She came right over, looked over our baby, and told us he was perfectly healthy. The blisters were from his ravenous nursing that also left painful blisters on my nipples. She also said that his skin color was not unusual for a black baby. She reassured us, but still set up two appointments with other healthcare practitioners who were ‘home-birth-friendly’. A new branch formed on my tree of life, informing a whole new trajectory as to how to tend to the health of my children. We took baby Chaz to his first chiropractic appointment and he got a gentle loving adjustment from Dr. Peter who became our holistic family healthcare provider for the next 25 years. We went to a different pediatrician that treated us all with respect and kindness and reassured us that our son was fine.
I am grateful for this nudge in another direction. I trust in life’s contractions. For this is truly the life force that informs the right and perfect path for each individual. As a result of this redirection, I was brought into a community that took a more holistic approach to health. While I pretty much preferred holistic and alternative approaches versus allopathic methods, I simply had not needed to go to a doctor much in my 26 years of life so I did not know much about my options. When the issue of vaccination came back up and rather than simply going along with the mainstream adherence to the childhood vaccines, I was exposed to a community that offered an alternative perspective on the history, safety, and efficacy of this medical intervention. I was given books and research papers to review so I could make an informed decision. In 1993, when I gave birth to my first son, there was no internet to do research and so finding information that went against the mainstream was not so easily available.
After much consideration, we decided to not vaccinate, with an open mind to consider changing our decision if new information convinced us it was safe and necessary. We also decided not to circumcise our three sons. I left this decision to my husband who read the book I offered him, and he came to this clear decision on his own. I was relieved. I often have thought that I was guided on this path because I might have had one of the children that would have been a casualty of vaccine injury. I did not feel the need to warn anyone else but trusted that they would be led by their personal divine guidance to the journey that their Soul yearned to experience.
I share this journey with you as I come ‘out of the closet’ to disclose to a critical public, my choice not to vaccinate my children then and now not to vaccinate myself, because I wanted to illustrate the intricate nature of each person’s choices. To truly have integrity I feel it is critical that I follow my inner knowing regardless of popular opinion —whether it be that you follow the impulse to love someone who is not considered appropriate to the society you live in or to express as a gender that is not the one you were born in, or to reject a tradition or ritual within your culture that does not resonate with your own inner knowing of what is right for you. My inner knowing is my path to being, expressing, and experiencing my True Self.
I married a man at a young age that I am still with after 35 years, which seems like a pretty traditional choice. But that is not why I chose this lifestyle. It is because it resonated with me and my inner guidance kept me on this path. It is easier to be a heterosexual, monogamous woman than the many alternatives. Yet many of my choices have not been so easy, or mainstream. What is important is not what you choose, it is that you choose what resonates with your deepest values. It is critical that we do not go against ourselves. This is the source of our suffering, or malaise, or disconnection. No one but you knows what is right for you. No one!
Yet, we live in a society that trains us out of our own inner knowing. It trains us to rely on an outside authority to tell us what to do to be safe, healthy, go to heaven, have enough, be accepted, loved, and lovable. We did not come here to be the same as anyone else. We came to express and experience our own unique self. We came to create not observe or adhere to a reality already created by others. We came to experience what it is to be both human and divine.
Each Soul is doing this in their own way. It is not my business to inform you of how to walk your life path and which branches you will sprout out into. Only you can sense into that guidance that will allow you to realize the life you came to live. So as we sit in the portal of collective and individual transformation, be mindful to tend to your own sacred womb of creation, even as you sense the Infinite Womb of life that holds us All. Listen carefully with your heart, your mind, and body for the impulses that awaken the spirit of love and light in you. When you feel this spark and sense the light at the end of the birth canal, even with closed eyes, move in that direction. Move towards your light, and you will enter the path that brings you to the ocean of Love where we will all meet in harmony and Oneness.
Yet know this, the path will not be the same or even similar to others. This is how it must be. For just as my winding path brought me to the knowing that informed my choice to not vaccinate myself or the children that came through my body, you have your own unique journey. I will not judge you for the choices that you hold that do not resonate with mine, even if I believe they threaten my way of life. For this too is the way of LIfe.
My spiritual practice is not to be against anything, but to open to that which I desire to see and experience in my life and in the world. So, while I am choosing not to receive these injections, it is my intention to be no more against vaccines than I am against the viruses that circulate our planet and live in our bodies. What I am for is health, wellbeing, wholeness. I am for choice, freedom and self-empowerment. I am for connection, intimacy, love. I am for clean air, soil and water. I am for peace and harmony in our relationships with each other and with our beloved planet. I am for expanded consciousness, evolution and awakening to our soulful essence that knows we are unlimited, infinite, eternal and free regardless of the conditions we encounter in form.
Energy goes where our attention flows, and energy creates all matter. Therefore what we give our attention to matters. As we witness a massive upheaval of the life we have come to expect, we are each facing many choices on how to proceed, and what really matters to us.
So, let us consider this. May we allow the choices of others to unfold without resistance. As you follow your inner light and honor others to follow theirs, I trust in the evolution of the Infinite Soul of Life to hold us all within this massive, endless, infinite womb of creation. I choose above all else to remember that I am free, that I am Infinite Love and that I am always at cause and choice of the life that unfolds before me. I choose unity consciousness, beauty, and wholeness. I choose to sense this part of you that chooses this too and ride the celestial waves of possibility and creativity in the vastness of the unified field with you, my beloved soul family, my beloved humanity.
Yes, I am indeed PRO-CHOICE!
And so it is!
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