In this brave and devastatingly beautiful anthology, the illustrious poet and editor Aracelis Girmay gathers complex and intimate pieces that illuminate the nuances of personal and collective histories, analyses, practices, and choices surrounding pregnancy.

Embrace ritual with simple yet powerful practices that slow us down to honor and mark the real moments in our lives - from the loss of a parent to the birth of a child, from grieving a pet to celebrating coming out of the closet.

Nearly 200 selections of prose, poems, blessings and readings gathered to welcome and honor children.

Later, poets would tell of stars, shepherds, and seers, songs of angels…

We come into consciousness in the middle of the story...

There in the deep sack of night, a tiny Hope was born. 

Let us open all our senses and let our synapses spark one connection after another.

Kansas organizers succeed through inclusive leadership and seeking dialogue with potential opponents.

Before I birthed my baby, he was a possibility, a kick against my insides. With that first cry, first breath, he became a person in the world.

We are grateful to mark time with seasons, to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, or to gather as family to remember our loved ones. In all these seasons, may we give thanks for the breath of life, ever mindful of the fragile nature of existence. May we live fully in each moment....

Spirit of Life On this night, may we bear witness to the guiding lights: the lights in the sky That call us to gather, and to give of ourselves To celebrate new life....

And so I bury my cauldron today I fill it full of salt and place it in the warm earth. Cradle it Persephone! Hold and rock and heal this womb. Take my woes and transform them. I was supposed to be this perfect gateway, and hold the balance of life and death. Well I held life, for a brief moment.

[for 2-3 voices, alternating] On this eve of mystery and magic, let us enter into the Christmas story as if we were there on the holy night. What part will we play this year? Are you the mother, trusting your body to know what to do when the time of birth comes?...

Tell me the story of my birth, and help me understand how you were changed the day I entered the world. Help me know love, deep in my bones.

Gracious God, the week was filled with moments when words escaped me. They would not come. Forgive me, Holy One —I know it is the preacher’s job, but there were moments when I just did not know how to pray. First, at the hospital, labor and delivery, to see the new parents. The overnight bag sat...

Holy One, Emmanuel, You are with us and we with You, now on the eve of a birth like no other, and a birth exactly like all others. We ponder the dreams and foretelling—royalty, savior, the light of the world. Revolution and possibility wrapped in helplessness and vulnerability.…

We come together tonight to remember the history, or the myth, that says hope was born in the form of a baby named Jesus. What is so compelling about the story of Jesus’s birth, his life, his love? Why has this story reached across the ages to us while so many others have faded into history?...

They say a story can carry a truth far greater than the literal truth. We Unitarians* know the value of stories. We know they carry truth. We know they carry more truth than just the plain truth ever can. Maybe we can’t believe a virgin gave birth to the son of God: but we can believe that all...

Share a story about a significant moment in your life.

I am always in a bit of a shock when December 1st arrives on the calendar. I always feel like there should be at least another week beyond Thanksgiving before I can even contemplate the next holiday....