the language of blood

every full moon, I dream of blood.

eight months postpartum and still in limbo state, I dream my red moon dreams where I am once again part of that sisterhood of shedding.

it's visceral and heavy as my womb contracts and weeps.

for the last ten years I've always been with the full moon - until that final miscarriage before conceiving my son, the delay and the duration of bleeding that finally shifted me over to the cycle of creation.

for women, blood is a language. the colour red bringing so many different meanings

something is ending

something is beginning

someone is coming

someone is leaving

something is right

something is wrong

duality first existed in the womb and in the language of the blood.

the cycle after ending a relationship where you can feel them leaving your womb.

the relief of a fresh start.

the first show of labour

the scant bleed as an embryo burrows into the womb

for my most recent pregnancy, praying not to see it every day for twenty weeks. my great great grandmother came to me in a vision between waking and sleep and held my baby in my womb firmly with hands that knew what it was to lose a child.

for my most recent birth, the blood was a warning sign. my body telling me in a language she knew I would understand, that I was being asked to make a sacrifice bigger than I understood to bring this life through.

we used to have a word for the menstruation before conception. it meant "the flowers". the bleed a woman had the cycle she conceived her baby was considered the flowers before the fruit. womb consciousness asks us to reorient ourselves to see the bleed as the beginning, not as the end.

for women who have been aching to conceive for a long time, who see blood as a failure, this reinterpretation can change things. flowers are a beginning. how we care for the flowers impacts the later fruit.

my baby's flowers came two days after supporting a hypnotic and otherworldly unassisted birth, my womb taking her cue from the mother just in time for my daughter's seventh birthday party. I made the cake and the food with a pounding head and my husband took over the festivities while I rested in my chair in the corner, eyes closed. I had made a promise long ago I would never miss her birthday for a birth, I was here, but not here.

there is a message I always have within myself, when I get to the root of what is causing an emotional outburst,

"nobody is coming to help you"

it's what has spurred most of my spiritual explorations since becoming a mother. when you are desperate for help you develop a heavy trust in the unseen.

but my husband was here, I could see him, and he was helping. two weeks later we were under an ancient yew as my baby's spirit fluttered down to us, finally coaxed down by our mutual vibration, the ceremony we were witnessing and the love emanating from the group.

likewise, with the blood, you must learn to trust it's unique language. it is not always what you want to see. it can be heartbreaking, devastating, frightening, painful. but it is a wisdom older than we can imagine, a language without words, one that we can learn, if we start to listen.

postpartum in winter

postpartum in winter

body echoing the land.

my womb sleeps

for now

she is like the virgin earth

belonging only to herself

she is barely stirring

the big exhale

this is crone state

this is

the old woman in the mountain.

she knows 

this is the time for the heart.

kindled in the breast

milk flows

like a solstice sunrise

pouring hues of love

flowing over the sky

over the land

as I hold my babe, tired eyes stinging

but if I had been asleep

I would have missed it.

Pregnancy is one long menstrual cycle

This was the pregnancy that became embedded in me, the knowing that this particular cycle of the womb is like every other cycle of the womb and the wild earth.

The first trimester is like the bleeding, the inner winter. The woman walks alone through the bleak inner landscape, her apocalypse concealed from the world. She embodies death and the possibility of death even as life grows in the darkness of the womb. She contemplates. The death of her maiden life, the death of her life as a mother to one, to two, to more. She may be pale, retching, cramping, weak. This is the necessary first death of self she will experience as a mother to this baby.

As we move out of the first trimester and into the second we enter inner spring. Her energy rises, she feels able to emerge from her cocoon as her belly begins to sprout, maybe she even feels her baby move like a butterfly. She is called to share her gift to the world with the world. The promise of what is to come, like the blossom of the springtime. Excitement is building within and without. Anticipation. Joy.

Second to early third trimester we have summer. The ovulation of pregnancy. Radiant and in full bloom. Alive, vital and growing at an exponential rate. Strangers may smile at her as she walks past on the street, for she is a magnetic beacon of light and life, she brings to mind everything that is precious and beautiful. Everywhere she sits becomes a throne.

Late third trimester we move into inner autumn, pre-menstruation. The pregnancy begins to feel more like a burden than a blessing. There is the call to go inward, there is resistance to strangers and those who are considered threatening. Anxieties and irritations arise easily, and she can be overcome by the urge to furiously purge and rearrange the living space in anticipation of her new phase of life. She feels taut like a bow string ready to be released. She hangs heavy on the vine awaiting harvest. The pressure is rising. Each day feels long and drawn out. She is ready to descend.