My burden clings to me like the shell of a caddis fly nymph, protecting the tender beginnings of the immature creature within.  I’m floating through space toward the light like a slow moving comet, trailing a tail of debris. Seemingly at once I detach and watch the shell, the accumulation of life’s conclusions, continue on without me, into the light, and is consumed. I remain: naked, vulnerable, free, a newborn.