This is a beautiful birth story and I asked whether I could share so here it is, please read about the amazing birth…..
This was a shamanic journey, my medicine not plants, but pain.
I was ignited within, as I lit each candle in my blackened cave. The iccoros singing through me, guiding my labour, my body moving the waves of pain with its rhythm.
Time disappeared, as the intensity of the energy began purging everything from my body. Every belief and every idea that I held of myself, gone. Till all that was left was something primitive, forgotten…but not lost.
The wild woman….
the purging did not cease, until you made your descent, reminding me that there was no escape, no going back to the maiden self, gentle and so naive.
Not capable of facing her fears without transformation, the emergence of the fierce jaguar within.
As the jaguar roared I felt her slip away, a tear rolling down my face… I was forever changed.
All fears must be faced.
I was experiencing death, and the shift from resistance to acceptance pulled me into the underworld. Separated from my body, as she bent my understanding of reality, my mind; bending to the pain. Together we sank into the earth.
Through the mothers soil, past her molten rock, until there I was; an echo in the deep, deep, dark.
Nothing and everything, all at once.
The centre point of a black hole.
Though I was not lost, I was not scared, the perceived promise of you always calling me forward. But the ever increasing pain engulfed me for what felt like an eternity.
A distant voice always repeating “you are stronger than you know”.
Your soul may have come from the stars baby, but your body was born of fire. A fire that I would walk through again and again to bring you back with me.
You were Forged by an ancient power that runs through us all; it is Creation itself.
The golden ratio, a vortex of energy, gaining momentum as my hips spiralled themselves. The water surrounding me transformed into liquid love and became my only relief.
It is true, that the darkest hour is right before the dawn, because as first light broke, I found you.
With the Opening of the gate of bones, you began your descent.
I felt the true meaning of expansion, in awe of my bodies wisdom.
The shamans drums now singing the song of the earth, great mother pulled you down as my body pushed you out.
Yin and yang.
But this was not my journey alone, your journey was all your own.
With respect and trust I moved, as you moved through me. You shifted and turned your body with knowing.
At the last moment, thoughts from my ego self held you in. A belief that you were to be born into my hands held you fast, as three waves passed us by.
Finally I let go of my final piece of held control. With that change in my mind and the changing of my form; you emerged. My body tearing with my attempt at forcing the rivers flow.
But perhaps that is just the surface of the water, in the depths the truth revealed.
Birth, she has a grand design for us all, my tissues tore simply because they had to, to reveal the lesson beneath.
To show the raw power of that shift, In mind, body and soul. In birth as in life, sometimes it is all that is needed to change our world.
Without sight, on hands and knees I reached back, feeling you.
Your journey had brought you into the world feet first, your body on earth but your head still in the clouds.
The final wave came, carrying you through calming waters into your daddies arms.
A drop into the ocean of humanity.
You washed over him as a tide of love, and he passed you to me.
Still deep in the journey I took you into my arms, kissed you and blew air as a light breeze across your face. Daddy spoke to you by name, calling in your spirit that was slightly behind. He had tears in his eyes with the fear that comes with being entrusted the most precious gift one can be given; wondering if this tender new life would be alright.
Not once did doubt enter my mind as I rubbed your back, with every part of me I knew you were where you were meant to be.
Soon enough you let out the sweetest cry, a sound that still rings in my ears.
And there you were, born of fire, carried through water, here on earth, and one with the air as her breath of life filled you.
The enormity of the experience overtook me, exhausted but relieved. A journey like nothing else, broken open and yet to be put back together.
Never again I thought to myself….
But as the days passed, so too did the all encompassing memory of the pain, piece by piece I was being reassembled, and I felt just how much a human can possibly love.
caring for you was bringing clarity to all the lessons I had learnt, and why the journey was what it was.
The pain had its purpose.
I had to become the fierce jaguar to awaken the wild woman, who would mold me into the mother that you deserve, and the person I am meant to be.
I will forever remember that burning radiance of your first rising sun, so to me you will forever be known; as Ryzer James, my first born Son.
The ritual of birthing free is not a journey all choose to take. But those who have, can never forget, as the world is seen different through their eyes.
Their experience of being a woman in all her wild power, will not only stay with her forever, it is imprinted on her child.
She will share her story as wise women do and slowly our sisters will remember.
In their hearts; the burning embers fanned into flames, by the whispering of our ancestors calling us home.
(Artwork by Alfredo Zagaceta)