The Altar

I've been waiting for this release

Since the last one.

I never get tired of the way my body

Lets go

As if you'd never been.

What a miracle it is

To hold somebody in your heart

While bleeding them out of your womb.

And the gurus they chant over and over

They're not the body.

Maybe if you're a man that's the path to salvation.

They say that in the story of Christ

They pierced his side

To imitate the death cycle of woman.

For man, what is initiation?

Like Peter Pan they fly away when faced

With death and life and love.

I've never met one who could meet me

In the depths of the earth

Where I reside.

But I don't lose hope.

My belly aches

I sit like a cup of communion wine that's

Overflowing

My nose picks up the scent of the cup

That was held to my lips as a child

The metallic sweet bitterness

Transports me through time

And for a moment I wonder

If I'm being called back to the altar

If the gurus are right.

Then I realise

That smell is mine.

- Jenny Wren

Birth As Initiation

When I say birth is an initiation I mean...

The woman must let her old self die in order to bring forth the new version of herself in the form of Mother. Even if she has done it before.

So much pain and trauma around childbirth comes from these initiations that were never properly supported, and I believe that in these cases some part of the self is still stuck in the "Death" part of Life/Death/Life, where nobody was there to hold sacred space. This is why subsequent births can be so healing, as we complete the cycle as it was intended.

Part of this surrender of birth means realising that she is at once in the body and yet not of the body, she is part of the universal life force, she is at once herself and every mother there ever was, she faces her own mortality, she lets go of any preconceived ideas about who or what she is and becomes simply her true essence.

In any spiritual experience you would be supported by a guide, somebody who had walked this path before you, and this is what my work is about.

For women who are planning on birthing, surrounded yourself with loving and experienced support. Plan for this initiation gently and with love. Take time to dream, to breathe and be, take time to be in nature, seek pleasure. Find the balance of preparation and surrender. And find your guide

I Fly

I am a woman

Who smells of rust and roses.

I've spent my life remembering what it is

To be made of earth.

Casting off shame daily

Guided by the knowing

In the belly.

I sometimes feel like my body is failing me

When I sweat like a trapped animal

The fear that never managed to escape.

I am a woman

Of prayer and poetry.

And it amazes me that in those moments

When the mind cannot bear any more

The only mantra left

"Hail Mary, full of grace

The lord is with thee."

I am a woman

Of magic and mystery.

Weaving the craft of women

That I've retrieved from the depths

Of my ancestry.

There are those who cannot see

There are those who will never understand.

To be wild and gentle.

Cunning and innocent.

Humbled by the love in the simplest things

Knowing I can be better

Knowing I will be, more and more, a mother

As I am mothered in return

Loving light in all its forms

After so long fighting through the dark.

With each fall, I rise

With each incineration and shaking emancipation

From whatever has been binding

Like a bird

I fly.