The Messy Beauty of Being Human

It’s strange, isn’t it? The sheer audacity of just… handing someone a child and saying, “There you go.” Like a particularly stubborn piece of pottery – beautiful, certainly, but also unsettlingly fragile, prone to shattering if you don't treat it with a kind of reverence bordering on fear. Bernard keeps talking about systems, about efficiency, about the ‘logical’ way things should be. But logic doesn’t account for the particular pull of a face, the instinctive need to soothe and protect that seems to bloom in your chest the moment you look at someone else's little one.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Plato’s idea – those Guardians, raised without parental influence, shielded from the messy business of affection. It sounds…clean, doesn’t it? Ridiculously so. As if justice could be distilled into an algorithm. But then I remember the autumn equinox gathering in my backyard, Phyllis and I sipping tea while discussing these ancient ideas, and I realize how utterly naive that vision is. People aren't equations; they are…complicated.

The Oneida Community’s experiment – taking children away completely – felt even more unsettling when I considered it. A deliberate attempt to eradicate the very thing that makes us human: our attachments. They tried to control “stickiness,” like you’d manage a troublesome weed, and predictably, it didn't work. People always find a way back to what they love, to what feels right in their bones. It’s astonishingly resilient.

And then there are the Orphan Trains. Oh, those trains. A relentless procession of hopeful faces, each carrying a quiet desperation. The reformers meant well, I suppose – trying to save children from poverty and neglect. But their solution was so… blunt. To strip them of their heritage, their connections to their past, as if that were the root of all their problems. It feels almost barbaric, doesn’t it? Like rearranging furniture in a house already on fire.

I find myself circling back to this notion of control. Bernard wants to manage everything – the schedule, the finances, even my reading list! But control is an illusion, isn't it? A desperate grasping at something that always slips away. And perhaps the greatest illusion of all is the belief that we can somehow engineer a perfect child, a perfectly raised child, without acknowledging the inherent chaos and beauty of the process.

It’s funny, this shifting attention to astrology. Before, I viewed it as a quirky hobby, a little bit of shimmering mystery on the edges of my life. Now, it feels… relevant. As if the patterns and cycles hold some kind of key to understanding not just the heavens, but also the complexities of human relationships—the ebb and flow of connection and disconnection. It’s a reminder that things rarely go according to plan, and sometimes, surrender is the wisest course.

I've realized that my own struggle isn't about fixing anything; it’s about accepting the messiness, the imperfections. The china doesn’t have to be perfectly arranged all the time. Some cracks are beautiful – they tell a story. And perhaps, the most important thing is learning to trust, not in systems or philosophies, but in the quiet instinct that guides us towards what truly matters—a warm hand, a gentle word, a shared glance of understanding.

It's a humbling thought, really. That all these grand ideas – Plato’s Republic, the Oneida Community’s experiment - are just attempts to grapple with something profoundly simple and deeply human: love. And that maybe, the best way to raise a child isn’t through careful planning or deliberate design, but through simply…being present.