i think i had terrible fear as a kid. i spose everyone did. but i only knew my own gut, and could not read its alchemy. 

i think in the past, and some place still, they read viscera.
i thought of a garden of viscera. kind of like a grotto undersea. those incredible anemone. 

before and after i read this just in my inbox:

The Gardener on Evisceration by V. S. M. Wang

What we have         before us, obviously,
is the intestine.         So why, you may wonder,
did I call you         to the operating room
at this ungodly hour?         Was it only to accustom you
to the sight of entrails         piled on a groin
in limp wet folds?         Was it rather
to demonstrate how         to push the guts
back in gently         so that they will simply
fall into place?         Or was it, after all,
to let you who are ready         see for yourselves
the wild flower         bursting the seam?

 yes, it kind of makes me queasy while it fascinates me. how they can open up your body and root around and close you up again and then? and then, and then, you watch your wound become a seam, the ghost of an opening, and you feel your strength returning slowly like spring and winter you remember as but a memory laid on a table breathing deep.