Placenta O'clock | Jenny Wren
It was placenta o'clock in the Wren household and not a creature was stirring, just maybe Autumn-Violet once or twice!
I ensure my children are nowhere around when doing placenta work, which often means I am working late into the night. There are physiological benefits to placenta consumption but for me it's as much that as it is energy work and exchange.
This time is my time to serve you.
I put on the music I birthed my daughter to, I sanitise the entire area with hospital-grade products, I excitedly open the box to see what I'm going to be working with tonight.
And then I put all my loving energy and attention into the miraculous organ in front of me.
All unique and all beautiful.
Mary Magdalene | Jenny Wren
I feel stripped raw.
These times come cyclically and I in my discomfort I wear my hair around my face, a shielding and a feminine cloak.
Masking the darkness and the deep.
Allowing me to slip by unseen. To pretend, for a time.
Unrest hums within my soul.
The feast day of Mary Magdalene - she, the misjudged, the whore and the Holy Grail.
Feeling imperfect, feeling exposed.
How hard to be a woman when your sexuality is turned and used against you.
The gift of life made violent.
Like birth, perverted, turned against us and using fear and shame to keep us downtrodden.
How to be a good lover.
How to be a good mother.
I have walked these paths in different ways. Refusing to be a victim in birth, the other I don't dare speak of.
I bite my tongue and force a smile instead. Good girl.
Whether I do what I want with my body or not, I'm wrong.
Walking the impossible line. Do as you're told, or be forever condemned.
Mary Magdalene.
My Summer Body | Jenny Wren
I have a summer body.
My body darkens under the summer sun as I share an ice cream with my daughter.
She has sprinkles around her mouth and she eats intently.
Later, she starts to pull at my halterneck and whine and I feed her from my summer body.
Her hat is askew on her head like a wilting dandelion. Or a flowerpot man.
And when she sleeps, my breast is a cushion for her sweaty head. She is perfection - rosy cheeks and puppy snores.
When she wakes, I tie her to my back, my underarms dark and fluffy on my summer body.
The legs that prickle and brush together under flowing skirts.
There is work still to do, to undo shame.
My body is not a dirty secret that I must sanitise.
My summer body digs its feet in sandy beaches, my hair curls up from the breeze and my eyes turn green.
My summer body carries my daughter on strong shoulders and dips her in the sea with loving hands.
My summer body feeds my babies and I nourish myself with good food in turn.
My summer body sweats and bleeds.
My summer body
Is
Me.