The shattering

& the clarity of deep silence

To become deeply silent is not to become still, but to become tidal and seasonal, a coming and going that has its own inimitable, essential character, a story not fully told, like the background of the sea, or the rain falling or the river going on, out of sight, out of our lives.

~ David Whyte, taken from the latest Hedge Mystic newsletter

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It’s like a womb in here. The lamps are dim and warm. Heat radiates and crackles from the wood stove, the heart of this walled body. The humidifier spreads a soft stream of lavender scented moisture around the room. Everything is…quiet, peaceful. The days swirl and spiral together languidly like amniotic fluid buoying a baby. My own womb is empty, but my home has taken on the task and wrapped the three of us up in a protective cradle.

It’s cold and rainy on the outside. Still, we make time each day to breathe in the fresh air. I marvel at all of the times I walked up and down this driveway with him growing heavy in my stomach, now we do the same, except here he is flesh and blood out in the world.

I’m raw and tender in the best ways. There are also small waves of anxiety that lap at my ankles. I worry over if he’s having enough bowel movements and the small bit of redness that appeared on his eyelid. But these feelings recede with the tide when I look into those stardust eyes. I wonder how far he’s traveled to get here, or if he’s a new soul all together.

I didn’t know what this “after” would look like. Towards the end of my pregnancy it felt like I was standing at the edge of a cliff looking over into some unknown abyss. I wasn’t sure I would be ready to write any newsletters so soon after birth, but I wanted to get these feelings about that pivotal night down while everything is still so fresh and vulnerable.

After all, it’s the deepest part of the night right now as I write this, a time for lovers and new parents.

I read something a few weeks back that said pregnancy forces you to stretch, birth forces you to shatter, and postpartum forces you to rebuild those pieces that broke. November 12 was a day of shattering as baby Asher Alcorn arrived earth side under a Scorpio sun and Aries moon.

The word “shatter” means to break something suddenly and violently into pieces. Some things shatter in destruction, others in exponential creation. Just as the yawning darkness of the universe shattered, exploding into light and stars and life. Like the land shattered, creating seven continents from one. Or as the dying star shatters to birth a pulsing supernova that can be sensed from galaxies away.

This is what it felt like as the monotonous work of labor crescendoed into birth. But there is one image in my mind from that night in the most liminal hour that will always stay with me.

A few weeks before the end of my pregnancy I tried a little “birth art”, which is basically just manifesting any conscious or subconscious feelings you have towards your impending birth onto paper. What came through as I was working on that practice was the sense of being surrounded by grandmothers, a theme you may know has been consistently showing up throughout my pregnancy. I sensed their hands on me, channeling their strength into me and siphoning the intensity away from me. There was also a vaguely male figure in the group.

After this exercise, I thought maybe this was my own lineage of grandmothers that would surround me on that shattering day. But my most clarifying memory from that night was not that.

I vividly remember being present in my body as I pushed a baby into existence with hands surrounding me on all sides, just like in the exercise. But the hands that strengthened me were the hands of the nurse on my left who grasped my own hand when I needed to tether myself to the world. It was the hands of the midwife at my feet who gently held my stomach to make sure I was pushing with the right muscles, and who would eventually deliver my baby. It was the hands of my doula on my right who placed them firmly on my chest to calm my nerves when I thought I couldn’t push anymore. It was Evan’s hands, squeezing my shoulder, letting me know how proud and confident he was in my own abilities to do this impossible thing.

I was the conduit and they were skilled conductors.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to think back to that moment without getting emotional. It was so powerful, so painful, the hardest work I’ll ever do, just as my doula told me when things were at the tipping point.

But this moment of clarity in the midst of it all, with hands on all sides directing the energy of the shattering, is what I’ll remember most. I didn’t feel my grandmothers in the room with me that night.

I felt the wisdom and strength of all grandmothers from so many centuries of the calling of birth work in those hands. Even Evan, who was now obviously the male figure in my drawing, stepped into the role that night as he rigorously pressed down on my hips contraction after contraction to ebb the intensity.

The figures that came through in my birth art exercise were always going to be people of flesh and blood. In that portal of birth where it feels like worlds are slipping in and out of each other, it wasn’t difficult to believe that there are people who walk around in our everyday world who have an innate wisdom and presence that are much older than they are. I’m sure you can think of a few of those people who’ve stepped in and out of your life throughout the years.

What a concept it was to me then to know I have not just my own lineage to lean on, but the lineage of so many others as well. Because the thing about grandmothers is they transcend time, culture, place. They are threads weaving all of our personal histories together.

There is a spiraling swirl of blonde hair just below my son’s ear. I stare at it every time he lulls off into newborn sleep land. It is a small reminder of that night, of this miracle that was born from the shattering, the melding swirl of time and space, and all of the grandmothers that arrived to hold my world together as everything else fell away.

As I begin the rebuilding process, I look at what’s left. The silence and deep stillness of November, a period of time in between the abundance of fall and the festivity of December. This new life that challenges me to meet myself again and again. The ebb and flow of seasons, emotions, life. And under it all, the simple desire to some day be a good grandmother.

Much love,

Val

Tired, bedraggled and in love.

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