Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Birth Thoughts

Birth is a very special event in the sexual life as a woman. It is a time when you are transformed: you become a mother; you give birth to another human being. This great opening of the womb happens only once or a few times in your lifeYour womb is the seat of your deepest feelings.

Janet Balaskas
Active Birth

Opening is hard. Uncertainty is our companion. Fear is understandable. And yet, the call of Life asks that we allow ourselves to experience the fullness of birth. In this great opening of the womb, we are raw. Our animal nature will prevail if we let it. We squat, we howl, we rut. We are fully in the moment and wholly consumed by the force of Life that takes over our bodies, our souls, our minds. In birth our power as creators is made manifest.

We participate in a profound transformation. We are giving birth, but we are also being born. Our cries in labor herald another birth – that of a new mother coming forth into the world. We, too, emerge from the fleshy folds of the Great Womb. We are wet with her juices and breathless in this new land.

Once we arrive at this moment, there is no turning back.

Giving

A woman is a vehicle of life – life has overtaken her – a woman is what it’s all about: the giving of birth and the giving of nourishment. She is identical with the earth goddess in her powers and she has got to realize that about herself.

Joseph Campbell
Power of Myth

Giving birth. Giving nourishment. Before our children were born did we have any idea how much we would give? It’s hard to feel akin to the goddess when covered in spit-up and branded with dark circles under our sleepless eyes. The constant clamoring for every ounce of our attention is exhausting. At times we question whether this is really giving at all or rather the taking of our very being. It’s precisely the tug between giving and taking, being and doing, laughing and crying that cultivates a fruitful growing place. Our most painful and challenging moments are just as important as the tender and joyous ones in making us fertile ground for our children. We are not asked to dictate the shape, color or texture of their flower, but to be the soil from which they can take root and grow. Understanding the dualities inherent in motherhood and embracing the many forms they take in our lives is an important step in honoring ourselves and the goddess power we possess.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Max's dream

Max came running into our bedroom yesterday. It was 6am and still dark outside. He squealed with joy - "Mommy I had a dream!" Now for the past three years he has told me when he has a dream, but whenever I inquired he never could remember any details of his nocturnal journey. Yesterday was different. Some psychic shift must have occured because he couldn't wait to tell me that "Daddy was a fireman and he let me do the water on the fire. I came running inside and Nani and Popi and Uncle Ryan were all there. I told them to "Come! Come!" This was my son's first conscious dream. I am not surprised that even in his dreams his dad is the hero wrestling with the elemental forces of nature: fire and water.

This early morning conversation has me wondering why we first remember our dreams. And what does it mean? Is it a shift into consciousness about our deeper selves? Or do we begin to remember only because we have started to forget about who we are. Our dreams are then the thread by which we make our way back to ourselves.

Does Max realize that he is the hero of his dream? And if he doesn't, how will I help him to know it?

Friday, March 24, 2006

Cultivating Hopelessness

Pregnancy is a time of waiting and hope. No one ever tells us it is an opportunity to be hopeless. But it is a good time to practice cultivating hopelessness.

There are so many unknowns in pregnancy. Will the baby be a boy or a girl? Will he be healthy? Will she be strong? Will I be a good mother? In confronting the mystery of what is unknown we instinctively tack on our hopes to this child growing within us. Sometimes it’s hoping for what we didn’t have as a child. At other times it's for what we did.

The hope gives makes the fundamental uncertainty less frightening. There’s nothing “bad” about it. It’s natural and understandable. And yet, Pema Chodron, the gifted writer and Tibetan Abbot, challenges us by saying that “Hope robs us of the present moment.” It’s an interesting exercise to ask ourselves – what does it feel like to bring fewer hopes to our pregnancy? What does it mean to stay in this moment just as it is? Nothing more and nothing less.

Darkness of Waiting

For the darkness of waiting of not knowing what is to come
of staying ready, quiet and attentive,
we praise you O God

for the darkness and light are both alike to you.

Janet Morley
All Desires Known: Inclusive Prayers for Worship and Meditation

My Annunciation

After hanging up the phone with the nurse at the doctor’s office, I burst into tears. I sobbed with a vengeance. Bob wrapped me in his arms, all smiles and excitement about this new life that was beginning within me. I just felt terrified and alone and unprepared having always imagined that the news of pregnancy would be delivered in a more joyous and controlled context. You know one where I was prepared, ready and waiting. Instead I was totally caught off-guard.

Bob held me as I wept and he laughed through much of it. (This is when the father of four children can provide assurance and support.) I just knew that nothing would ever be the same in my life. I had always thought I would become a mom when I was ready and when I "had it more together." Hmmm...Guess no one ever has it together enough to be a parent.


In the painting by Botticelli of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel kneels before a blue and salmon robed Mary. Her body is contorted and twisted - seeming to move both to and away from the messenger and his message. When I pointed out my reading of the painting at work, the woman who brought the book in said "But Sister Wendy describes it as Mary swaying in awe of this great event."

I think there is less wonder and more dread in Mary's response. Sister Wendy has obviously never found out that she is pregnant and unmarried...in a loving and committed relationship, yes... but still aware of the possibility of being stoned. That figure of Mary was full of ambivalence. How could someone not see it? It seemed like an honest response to me. I mean how could anyone approach pregnancy without feeling some ambivalence?

Mary was swaying to the reality of a new vision she was not strong enough to embody. Before a seed roots and begins to take form there must be moments of chaos.

Maybe Mary had difficulty seeing herself as a mother also.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Darkness and Light

Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.
May Sarton

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

On the other side

As my son turns six, I am aware that I appear to be clearly "on the other side" of my transition into motherhood. Although I continually face new challenges, I am no longer unsure about my identity as mother. Oh, but I vividly remember those early days, which for me stretched into years, when I no longer knew who I was and had no idea about who I was becoming.

Looking back I can see clearly that I was in the midst of an awesome rite of passage, but at the time I just thought I was inadequate and not adjusting well to being a mom. Once Max turned three, I knew that my very being had undergone a complete shift in identity...and eventually I felt at home again. For some time (three years I think) I occupied what the anthropologists call the "liminal space." It is the period of time in a traditional rite of passage when the inductee has been separated from his/her community and has not yet been reintegrated with his/her new identity. Liminality is the in-between space of "no more" and "not yet."

Many of us, as new mothers, feel this tenuousness. We know somewhere deep within us that it is much more than sleep deprivation. We whisper about this feeling to other moms on the playgrounds, we search on the internet late at night to look for answers, we read books, we cry and sometimes we completely fall apart for awhile. We have this sense, even as the joys of being a mother are being revealed, that a part of us is dying. We live in this dual reality of dying and being born at the same time. We hunger to be known, heard and held.

It is my deepest intention that these words and the community that will eventually form around them will be a sacred place for all of us to honor this profound journey we have undertaken.

Birth is just the beginning

It is not until our baby is born that we truly understand that the birth is just the beginning.

-Myla Kabat-Zinn
Everyday Blessings

Womb Wisdom


Grounded in the belief that motherhood is a sacred rite of passage, Womb Wisdom invites mothers everywhere to be in conversation about the journey. Just as we bring our children to maturity, so too does becoming a mother offer us special opportunities to grow as individuals.

This process – giving birth to ourselves as mothers – unfolds over days, months and years. Womb Wisdom holds that sharing these experiences in all their variety and nuance more fully engages us in the rhythm of life.

Womb Wisdom is committed to offering encouragement as we name and embrace this unique, yet universal, path