Birthday

March is a time for birth. Bursting buds, newborn piglets and little chicken bring youth to Dokmai Garden. Ketsanee gave birth to a baby girl yesterday on March 15th. Her name is Mia, sister of Mika.

Mia, 14 hours old, smiles contentedly after her fourth meal in life. Being old-fashioned we asked not to know the gender in advance, saving the surprise for the emotional moment of birth. That apparently very unusual request caused confusion among the hospital staff, as we were asked to fill in the name of the child even before it was born. That was not the only old-fashioned decision. A few weeks ago I was asked when the baby was expected. I said around the 18th. Stares of surprise and disbelief: “Why didn’t you select a date for Caesarean?”. “Why should we?”. “You should pick a good date for birth according to astrology”. If the positioning of the planets really had an influence on a child, I guess the date of conception or even the entire period of development before and after birth would mean more than the date for just cutting out the baby. As new planets are discovered outside the solar system all the time, I guess all previous astrological predictions have been wrong because they did not take all planets into account, or wrong at least before the discovery of planetoid Pluto (1930) or the larger planetoid Eris (2005). If planetoids do not count then I guess all astrological predictions before the discovery of Neptune were wrong (1846). Being old-fashioned I still believe in the 386 years old conclusion by my home university (Uppsala, Sweden) that astrology is pure nonsense. Better focus on care and education to shape a new life.

Pia is already one month old.

March blossom (Pink shower, Cassia bakeriana, Fabaceae).

Text & Photo: Eric Danell