Motherhood - a three part initiation
Motherhood as a rite of passage for modern women is fragmented. What is offered to us is an attempt at recreation, a poor imitation of what the soul truly desires. For so many women passing through it feels that something significant is missing, a fundamental need has gone unmet.
Initiations are three-part.
First we have separation. We must leave what is comfortable and known, and go off into the unknown. For the hero in a fantasy novel this means a quest. For a woman initiated through the blood mysteries, this is an inner journey. Her loved ones gather to bid her farewell. She packs her precious items, gifts, talismans that may be useful.
She becomes The Fool in the Tarot, her womb-bag containing all she needs within her. She is not truly alone, for she has her faithful friend by her side.
Then we have the ordeal. For the fantasy hero? Slaying a dragon, rescuing a princess. For the mother? She must surrender to the pangs of her body and her womb as the child makes it's way into the world. Some believe the mother must travel to bring the soul of her baby to earth.
I believe that labour is the process of the ego surrendering to the new soul, and any resistance in the mother must collapse over and over to make way for this life coming through. She must reach deep within herself, her darkest wells and oldest shadows, to emerge victorious as Mother.
Then we have the return. Our hero is lauded by the villagers who can't quite believe they have returned - the same and yet not the same. The new mother is massaged, sung to, rocked and wrapped. She is given everything the baby is given. Then she emerges from her cocoon reborn, integrated and whole.
In the Mother Blessing we honour the separation. In Closing the Bones we honour the return. Mind, body and soul ache for this story, this integration. I have held these spaces for many years now, and one of the hardest things I had to surrender was the idea of leaving this work for a time to reinitiate myself in the Mystery.
And yet even now writing this, I understand that this embodiment is also the work.
To my third child
They say that in the beginning of pregnancy
The soul moves in and out of the womb
Dancing between body and formlessness
And then fully entering
Incarnation.
Heavy with child I inch into the womb of the sea mother
Going deeper and then retreating
As the shock of her chill transfixes my skin
A mixture of pleasure and pain.
Some days I have been braver than this,
Plunging belly and breasts under with abandon
And laughing at those with more trepidation.
Some days I am the trepidatious one
Needing the encouragement of those who have gone before.
I think for souls it is the same.
My first two children - thrusting themselves into reality
From formlessness to form
And now this one
Who made the long journey to the womb like I have made into the sea.
Come closer, my love, let your courage be stronger than your fear.
Now we are both here
Incarnate in the vastness of ocean and time
Two souls
Within a body within a womb
Within a body
Within a womb
Words written by myself as I swam in the sea in West Wales a few weeks ago
Photographs by the incredibly talented @sarahbeatricephotography
The woman I used to be
The woman I used to be in 2017 - haunted and dead behind the eyes after a year and a half of domestic abuse, that reached it's peak in the postpartum period. This woman was about to become so terrified of what she was experiencing she would pack as much as she could in the space of an hour and leave her home, collect her eldest child early from school, and begin a journey of homelessness (that lasted six months) and family court (that lasted three years).
This would also be the beginning of my conscious womb healing journey. I say conscious because I believe we are always on a healing journey, always seeking resolution and revisiting the same circumstances in the hopes that things will be different this time. I needed answers as to why I had ended up in this situation.
The womb gave me the answer - and it completely blew my mind.
Despite two powerful births, there was still so much more to discover in the womb.
When you connect to the voice of the womb you realise she was always there. Womb healing is about unravelling the layers of conditioning that stifled her voice. Meeting the primal voice within that always knows what is going on. We can be afraid to venture there, because maybe we don't want to hear what she has to say. But like a loving grandmother, the medicine the womb has to offer is both bitter and sweet. Unconditional love isn't flowery and "nice". Sometimes it's tearing it all down and starting again.
Coming to the last two months of this beautiful healing pregnancy with the most gentle man by my side ❤️