I promise this isn’t one of those posts. You know, the kind that needlessly beats you over the head, stating how all Pagans and all magickal practitioners are bound by the Wiccan Rede (or the sometimes stated, and quite loathsome, Pagan Rede –of which there is no such thing*,) that any action that causes harm damns you to some sort of New Age hell (perhaps as being reincarnated as one who is convinced of such misinformation..?) and that your life must be filled with “love& light” and must radiate such out to all who cross your path. 
 
No, this is not one of those posts.

I often think of polar bears during my pregnancies. The momma polar bear lost to a death like slumber while her young are born and hurriedly crawl to the warmth of belly fur and a warm teat. Does she even notice? Is there a moment when her sleep becomes less deep, if only on a subconscious level, that she may feel her tiny children leave her and the umbilicus sever? Does she sigh in her sleep as each latch on for the first time, content to do her part in the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth? Or does it all escape her, the squirming cubs suckling and crawling on her a springtime surprise, yet as unexpected as the warming temperatures that, bone-deep, she knew would be there when she woke?