I am celebrating my youngest child's birthday today and with Mother's Day this week, I thought it would be fitting to share a little bit of some of the story of my own motherhood journey. Stay tuned later this week for more stories from our community about motherhood.
From the moment we arrived at the hospital,
she gave me cause to worry.
Her heart dipping low with every attempt of my body to bring her forth.
Flesh-on-flesh resistance to being told what to do, and how to do it.
She forced my body to work against itself.
To lie perfectly still, restricted to my side
while all of me knew I needed to find my mother rhythm
walking the floor. rocking with the flow of blood and muscles contracting. the quickening.
She made me draw deep inside myself.
I had to shed what my nature wanted me to do, and in focus what she was telling me to do.
"Come on little bird" is all I could whisper. "Hold tight to my love and let go."
My heart ached. I could not lose her that my soul knew long before my fingers ever stroked the outline of her face.
Or traced the life lines tucked deep inside each tiny palm.
And in her own time, she came.
As dawn settled over the land - My womb yawned wide. Stretching with the rising sun.
She, emerged.
Bearing a flesh necklace wrapped not once, not twice, but four times around her.
A necklace made of the strands that had joined her to me.
This nymph soul, almost strangled by my own bodies attempt to nourish and sustain her.
As she was placed beside me, pain hit my very core.
My previous birthing had left me feeling a warrioress, adrenaline charged and fierce.
She made me ashen, broken, amazed not of my own strength, but of her own.
There was room for only one warrioress now.
I laid myself down, weary. and
called her chosen.
And warrioress she was
with black hair that stood up at every angle.
seven pounds of sheer soul that demanded to be heard. to be attended to.
Baffling even the nurses around me as I asked, crying, what I was doing wrong.
Finally the second lonely night, a nurse ran her cool hand against my forehead,
she told me that some babies just needed to cry. to get out what had been storing up for months.
Not to be discouraged, we would find our way to each other.
And, we have.
In many ways, not only have we found each other, but she has lead me back to myself.
She has been brought into my life to stretch my boundaries. To remind me of all I do not know.
She holds tight to me in ways I've never desired from another human. Seeking my core self.
She lights a fire within me to not just dwell on this earth, but to gather it to me.
To trample down a path so she can run far past me.
She forces me to choose to love well, not just to love in the easy.
She still needs to just cry.
She lives within the heart sewn on her sleeve.
She is the holy reverence of natives dancing with their shadows around open flames.
The way a storm both terrifies and takes your breath away with its strength and beauty.
My little bird, who flies above this place. Touching land only when the spirit moves her.
My burning bush. My gypsy child.
Oh, how my heart needed you.
Happy Birthday, Warrioress.
You've taken nine trips now around the sun, and each time you make that old star burn brighter.
*this piece was re-published from Dreamcatcher with permission.
