Wild Mama

In a circle of sisters, I wrapped a thin red thread around my left wrist thrice. One for my Grandmother, one for my Mother, and one for me. The circle would be completed months later when I birthed my second daughter in an ancient and unconventional way. 

Every woman at that gathering wrapped the thread around her wrist in honor of the generations of mothers who came before her, and in honor of herself; for our mothers make us, and we, too, make our mothers. And because these women were all natural birthkeepers, such as doulas and traditional midwives, and I was the only pregnant one of us, they vowed to wear their bracelets until the birth of my child. 

Such is the power of community among women. Such is the Divine Feminine outpouring that piques during pregnancy--when the birth portal is open wide. And this power in numbers, gathered together as the gatherers of our human race, was all the more important, because I was preparing to do something my Grammy could not have predicted.

When a woman is born, we actually have all of the eggs we will ever make. So in that sense, each woman is not just in the womb of her mother but also (when her grandma is pregnant with her mother) in the womb of her grandma. All three generations exist simultaneously when a girl is expected. And I believe that strengthens the potency of connection; the birth portal is beaming with mothers' light, which increases the transformative nature of birth. It is a rite of passage and a wondrous opportunity for women to teach and learn.

And that brings me to the reason I am writing this now: to honor my Grandma by honoring myself, as my way diverged from her way in form, but she was with me every step of the way in spirit. I changed the path of our family by making a new way, like the oldest way, which in turn brought us full circle.

My Grammy, a real Audrey Hepburn, devoted her life to the care of others, which showed in her arthritic fingers and the crease between her eyes. She worked hard and put herself last in line. Her pregnancies were rote at the time, which means horrendous--even more so than they are for most women these days. Apparently, she went to the hospital and almost died each time. It was a gruesome legacy to leave (which does not bear repeating here), so I changed it for my girls. Not the first time, but the second.

I pioneered a novel and ancient way of birth for my daughters. 

I gave birth unassisted, at home. I freebirthed.

And here is where I revert to my journal entries from the last weeks of my pregnancy, to paint the portrait of a birth portal from the portal itself: 

In mainstream birth, women are drugged, their children dragged from their wombs by secondary agents, when all along the very woman has the capability to birthe on her own--and for the presence of that experience in and of herself to transform her into her true self. Getting in the way of that and then stalling and halting that transformation is like tearing a chrysalis away from the caterpillar before the wings are formed. It is wrong and fills me with a primal rage and recommitment to showing through trust in the body and the baby that naturally, organically, the process of birth unfolds like the petals of a flower opening. Every necessary knowing is being granted at the right time. And speculation is wholly unnecessary in 95% of birth experiences. The dependence on the will, want and intrusion of other non-central family members is but another form of out picturing--of addiction--a dissolution of Divine connection and prioritizing the mind's conjectures over the actual, lived experience of the central presence and so the presence of the Divine within the mother. We Trust the baby to be formed by God--ten fingers and toes, seeing eyes, smelling nose--and then when it comes to the simple act of the mother releasing the baby into the world, we go to man as authority? And I do mean man, as it is the toxic masculine presence that takes authority over such a sacred and meant to be secret Act. Not to be confused with the awakened masculine which is not only equally valid and beautiful as the feminine but extraordinarily helpful when left to his own devices.

What's more is that it all happens in surrender, but something more than the release of a form from within a creative form is happening. A spirit is imbuing into a form in the most complete Integrity it has had and becoming a new lifetime that's the birth of this child. That is something the Incorporated birthing machine of man neither heeds nor in so much as acknowledges. And at what cost? The only way to know is to hear with open ears, heart, and mind the account of the unhindered woman, the woman agent who has holy birth to her children in the presence of God with no other authority raised higher. To replace the addiction of a birth machine with her diction of truly accounting the empowering nature of nature itself, when trusted and cultivated. The children born of these women are special, too, as they do not need to spend their lives attending to and releasing the primary ancestral traumas of the generations before, as their mothers have already done that work.

What bar will they accomplish after that, to Usher this new light of inherent knowing into a world still hidden for its gems? We shall see, and listen and hear new diction--new(and ancient) Truths coming to Light, when the Presence is welcomed. 

Gwendolyn came into this world at 44 weeks. She came quickly, within a couple hours of labor. I caught her and cut the cord. I used herbal tinctures of Angelica and then Wombstringe to release the placenta and induce contractions to stop any bleeding. And I healed without any intervention whatsoever. I was with my daughter and have stayed with her for her whole life. And having had a hospital birth with my first and this freebirth now, I can tell you, something magical happens when a mother's connection with her daughter is left intact from the time of womb life to birth and thereafter. I feel such an enlivening connection with Gwendolyn, and to be honest, through her, to my Grammy, the angels, and God. It feels like holding hands with God all the time. By the commodified fear state we have women riled into with the hospital structure of birth, we deprive women and society of this life-giving magic. Might we all, instead, tune into the Divine and wild side of life sometimes, and at these most important of times, if only to remind us of who we truly are. 

In Truth, we need an integrated birth system, wherein a woman's intuition, her body and baby, are an integral part of the process. We are best served when we are heard. And herbs need to be included to give everybody more of a chance of avoiding manual interference. Because our bodies are genius, and nature is intelligent, and the Divine is the only Thing in the world keeping our heart beating and our lungs breathing, and can't we all just see that and go from there?

I doubt my Grammy was ever given the knowledge to realize her body was capable of so much. She did everything for her family, but what did society do for her in hiding from her her own inner strength? This baby, my child whom science did not tell me was a girl but I knew was a girl intuitively, was named before she was born. Her name, just like her birth, brought us full circle to heal the wounds wrought upon our family by a misled, misguided, technologically advanced, yet intuitively lagging society. Gwendolyn was named after her Great Grandmother, my Grammy, Gwendolyn, whose spiritual presence stayed with me the whole time and surrounds me now like a warm hug of angelic tingles. And she is smiling, with tears in her eyes, like me. 

I am still wearing that thin red string wrapped thrice in promise. And I see now that my bracelet came out with four strands. Perhaps the fourth layer is for my daughters, too, who mother me as I am reborn with them, my flower blooming to great new depths and new expanses with the birth of the second mother, this Gwendolyn, who connects my family line, who closes the circuit and opens the flow of creative force that moves through us now, as one. One family of women, pulsating with Divine mothers' light as one. 

And I breathe deep and sleep easy. Such is the power of community among women.