Milk Your Destiny

THE GOLDEN CHILD - #2

It seriously wasn't till I started looking into the archives of the old Rosicrucian Digest, issues from the 1920s into the '50s, that I started realizing the prevalence of mysticism within the medical profession. There's "Doctor" this and "Doctor" that, a closer study of their backgrounds revealing a predominance of men (at that time) in the baby-making profession, i.e., obstetrics!

This is a great subject for consideration, why that should be. I'd like to know if there are already studies on it, although I haven't come across one. Somehow they've eluded the radar, since nothing automatically leaps out signaling the need or importance of higher things to obstetrics. Recruitment of wise babies to the Order? Hope for a fulfilled life in conferring with babies? It's only a specialist in arcane things like me, who has had incantations and prophecies uttered over him in infancy, who might care.

I think the immediate reason for the connection would be the concept of destiny common to the Rosicrucians. It's no stretch for me to imagine myself, given the skills and position to deliver babies, at least starting out the profession in wonder and awe. Given enough time at it, like most things I've done, I'm sure it would've become rote. Even the thrill of partial nudity wouldn't be enough to sustain me; I'm very easily jaded by routine. Of course the wonder and awe would be connected to the well-being and destiny of the youngsters making their way into the world, having come from where?

Speaking of jaded, it looks to me that we've reduced the excitement of childbirth today to just another thing that happens. Like pouring a cup of coffee or taking the dog for a walk; you've seen it once, you've seen it all. You're checking your watch, which itself gets old. The dog's business is like a birth, but in that case I scoop it in a shovel and throw it into the bramble. I'm sure there are jaded obstetricians who look on the funnier side of life. They're with their fellow doctors later in the shower going, "[Rude comment conflating childbirth and defecation excised.]" Wild, huh!?

Regardless of any of that, and assuming the obstetrician attending me knew at least the generalities of mysticism -- whether he was a Rosicrucian or not -- I have enough hints about him to know that words of that spirit were spoken. Like Simeon in the Bible, "This child is destined for X, Y, or Z, whatever..." The fact that he said anything except, "Congratulations, ma'am, I'm hitting the showers," seems significant. Had he meditated that day? Had something been imparted into his spirit, something akin to the Gospel of Thomas logion 4, "The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child ... about the place of life."

It'd be great to be a mystic obstetrician, now that I think of it. If you continually sent the mother to the bathroom while you whispered words of wisdom into the little one's ear, you could change the world, transform life and existence! It's as good and true as mother's milk, but a reorientation in destiny: Milk your destiny for all it's worth! Milk it!

Pardon me as I pause and dance around the room. "The Golden Child's got it goin' on, uh huh, uh huh."

Wrong Sex Corrigan

OK, folks, it's official! I'm now 60 years old, having been born some time in the first three months of the year. And as people go, I'm definitely one who's getting "more bang for his buck" for being 60, since I've had a million thoughts, happy, sad, and in between, about this milestone. It sounds very aged, and yet I don't feel completely different; I just can't quit thinking about it. It's given me a lot of opportunities to reflect back on my life.

One of the facts of my life that I can't help thinking of, for some reason, is that I was proclaimed a girl when I was born! And I'm a guy! That sounds weird, and I know it is, but it was actually fairly common here in my town in the early 1950s. And my parents probably should have questioned the situation, being familiar with the problem, but in the excitement of the birth of their "little girl" they forgot. One thing to note: This was back when babies were immediately whisked out of the room away from the mother, to be tended by professionals. It wasn't like now, where the mother and father's care is seen as primary. So, being absent from them, they just had to take their word for what I was.

I said it was common for babies to be misidentified as to their gender back then, but it was only in our town, because the town's main obstetrician had problems seeing. In fact, he made so many mistakes, he was nicknamed "Dr. Wrong Sex Corrigan," a play on the famed aviator who ended up somewhere he wasn't going. Our "Dr. Corrigan," not his real name, had problems in making the right call, presumably when a baby was moving too much. I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking he just didn't want to second-guess himself, or seem less than professional, so the way he called it was the way it was. It took my parents a lot of money, time, and trouble to get the official birth certificate finally changed! Not to mention the embarrassing exams I was subjected to...

So here's the way it went down. I was born, I must have moved too much when "Corrigan" was making the identification, and he declared to my mother, "Madam, you have just given live birth to a female baby, a real doll, who will someday truly make the boys' heads turn!" She was like, "Thank you, doctor, for a successful delivery and the exceedingly good news! A girl in my own image!" Then I was whisked out of the room, not to be seen by her again till sometime early the next morning, when they allowed her to watch the nurse feed me.

In the years since, of course, I've heard many tales of Dr. Wrong Sex Corrigan, that in delivering girls he was proclaiming, "You have given birth to a fine, strong, bouncing man child," and the like. Sometimes he was right, but thanks to movement, he was more often wrong. This is one of the dangers of having poor eyesight, being cross-eyed or whatever, and trying to be an obstetrician. You give people big problems, and the child him- or herself can develop all kinds of complexes. To this day I like the color pink and hate jockstraps.

After a while, "Dr. Corrigan" either died or retired. Which was good, because people didn't like him, thanks to this whole gender business. I remember my grandpa -- I remember this clearly -- saying if he ever saw the SOB in the crosswalk he would run over him. Grandpa used words like "son of a bitch" all the time, and probably would've run over him, indeed, had he ever seen him in the crosswalk. But "Corrigan" was spared this fate by the fact that you never see a doctor in public, apart from the office. This is true: The only doctor I've ever seen in public was a doctor people liked.