Born With A Caul
I was interested to read that only one in 80,000 babies are born with this mystical sign, though I don't think any
scientific studies have been done on the topic. Doctors delivering babies state that they see this caul birth rarely,
so that might mean that it is more common than 1 in 80,000 births.
I was a caul birth baby.
I
began well on Planet Earth.
My mother loved to tell me the story of how shortly after giving
birth to me, a Breakfast Baby, born at 8.
30 am
in Montreal, Canada, the nurses rushed in to tell her that I had had a mystical birth.
A caul birth baby is known as fey,
or psychic, in Scotland. The famous novel David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, begins with the caul birth of David
Copperfield.
These cauls are an extra layer of flesh membrance born over the face and body of a newborn child.
In
ancient Egypt, a baby born like this was seen as being selected for the Goddess Isis and the Mystery Schools.
These
are all interesting stories, and I love the drama of it all, yet, in truth, I am a modest and realistic person, and see no
benefits or practical advantages to this mythology.
Yet.
I
was the First Baby born to an Air Canada flight dispatcher, who received free airline tickets.
My father did not care at all for spiritual signs, and stayed up the entire
night before I was born, gambling and playing poker with his French and Italian friends, smoking cigars and drinking Canadian
beers, passig out Havana cigars when the hospital phoned him.
Our friends and relatives in California, Ontario, and British Columbia mailed 33 baby cards, and 33 is another mystical
sign, the number of years that Jesus Christ lived, and also a key number to the Freemasons.
The nurses also told my happy and tired mother that the Caul Baby was intended to travel the world over all her life.
My mother laughed to herself, knowing that I received 4 free airline tickets
every year, because the government of Canada was generous to Air Canada employees.
My earliest travel memory is being carried up the steps of a huge airplane, safe in the arms of my father. a feeling
of safety and security that would later vanish, through the vicissitudes of adult life.
When the great mystic Cheiro died, the famous Victorian palmist, the scent of roses filled his mansion, and doors
blew gently to and forth.
If our lives are a circle,
may my arduous journey on this cruel and beautiful pathway be likeways blessed with a spiritual completion. equal to my birth.
Arielle Gabriel, Tung Chung, June 20, 5.53 PM,
one
hour before the Summer Equinox.