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.