Flowers

You want to get on your bike

And ride away.

I want to bury my feet in the soil

Of the place you call home

And grow strong again.

Days spent in the shining jewel

Hidden joy

Of what you mean to me.

This love

Is a masterpiece I treasure

Etched in the cold evenings

Of just two.

As my pen glides across the paper

Of my surrender

As I read to you

Until my eyes go blurry

And I'm soothed

By kisses in the night as between dreams

We find each other.

I am learning the meaning of integrity

Kindness

And devotion

In a way

That makes me feel free.

I never met any man who would just let me

Cry on their shoulder.

Now I think you're going where I can't follow

And I'm going where you do not dare

To venture.

It's not to be,

It came too soon.

But I'll remember when

Loving you

Was flowers in every room.

- Jenny Wren

Go Or Flow?

Is your birth preparation balanced?

When preparing for birth it is so important to find a balance of doing and being, the masculine and the feminine, structure and surrender. We need equal parts of both for a holistic and well-rounded approach to birth.

Are you more in your "go" or in your "flow?"

"Go" activities may be things like writing lists, doing research, antenatal education, formulating a birth plan. Obtaining knowledge and skills is so important.

Being too much in our "go" means we can create anxiety, fear and tension in the body. We can be so focussed on what we don't want we lose the perfect environment for getting what we do want.

"Flow" activities are things like nature walks, dancing, nourishing your body and daydreaming. Coming into our body and pleasure seeking creates a wonderful environment for ourselves and our babies to relax.

Being too much in our "flow" means we don't know our options and we won't have the vital information we need to support the birth we want when engaging with the system.

Are you happy with the balance you have/had during your pregnancy? What could you do/have done more of?

A Mother Who Hears

There are times I can't write

Because I'm trying to create the world I want

Through the power of my speech.

The pressure is building

With collective grief

There are days when I can dance the rage

Through the moving of my body

And there are days

Where I stay stuck and staring.

I've been following the red thread

Back to Asherah

In the sands of the desert

Where the priests tried to hide her

Made us swallow the lie

That we needed to be punished

That our Mother never was

Never loved us.

And their god sounds just like my rapist

When he says

Do as I command

Or I shall shower you with my vengeance.

And now I need you to understand

They don't only lurk in the dark

They are the ones who bought

And bartered for a body

Of a stranger

Or through the marriage ceremony

On the nights she is

Too tired

Too drunk

And he thinks he has the right because

Man

Came

First.

There are buildings in the cities

Where children play with the men who

Violated their mothers

And in our bones we remember

When lineage came

Through the female line

Before we were shut behind doors

And policed

So each man would know which was "mine"

When everybody knows

A seed thrown to

The wind

Buried in the earth of She

Who Births All

Belongs to nobody.

I've been praying to Mary

Because I think she understands

As she holds the broken body

Of the man who said

"There is no sin, just forgetting you are holy."

And it's taken me this long to find the words

Behind a church

Designed to hurt

And I wonder how much more I can take

Of these body tremors and tears

So I pray another time

To a Mother who hears.

- Jenny Wren