When I compare my two pregnancies, I see a difference like comparing the sun with the moon. Both luminaries are synonymous with us humans for different reasons. One teaches us humility and awareness of ourselves; the other points out to draw on the unlimited and surrenders to life as if there were no tomorrow. Both love the drama and the fortune and know how powerful Mother Nature is that the atomic part of us in this universe is only a blink of an eye.
The sun.
She makes us sweat when we stand in her rays. She overruns us with emotions that reach heights we could not have imagined before. She warms us. We feel ourselves growing into infinity; she lets us fall when she sets. Nevertheless, we continue to feel her warmth for a long time, which makes us endure the darkness as we hope for the next day.
The advantage of being young means not wanting to control things.
It’s also a naive excitement and conviction that lets you wander through everything, always with a guardian angel at your side. The body is bursting with vitality; your own limits are far from being explored. You don’t even want to know all of that yet. You are blooming and living your brightest life, nourishing yourself with grand visions of motherhood. You have no clue, and that’s simply perfect—the ideal state of mind to bring children into this world … free new souls. My first pregnancy was something like a beautiful late summer afternoon.
My body was changing, but I wasn’t afraid. I was still abounded with energy, but some unbalanced traits left me, and I became a little calmer. After initially holding onto common rituals that had to do with people and attractions, I gradually decided to withdraw more into my cave to open myself up to this new adventure. During the birth, I was the navel point of the world; all energies flowed through me and strengthened and supported me in my intention of having a child. I felt the elemental forces of my ancestors and all women who have given life to humanity since the beginning.
It happened that I couldn’t give birth to my son naturally, and thanks to modern medicine, I was not affected by natural selection. Until that moment, however, I believed in my body, in its strength, and in the maternal happiness that was to come. How my son was born in the end, I understood afterwards, didn’t matter at all. What mattered was his presence and how he made us into the proudest parents, although we didn’t even know that at the time.
The moon.
The moon is a little more modest. He has seen a lot, almost as much as the sun, but he doesn’t care much about shimmer and shine.
He trusts in knowledge, in foresight, in rituals. He sends us trials.
Understood lessons have to be revised again and again, as well as your own emotional flexibility when it comes to reality shifts—the short, direct path to humility when there is a thin line between life and death; admitting that the summer vitality is becoming brittle … what a thought! I was so afraid of seeing myself like that. How demonized this thought is in society—that the strong female body can do anything. I know fear, many of her faces too. And I have taken her by the hand for the last few years and made her my friend, giving her permission to stay, but as a silent participant in my life. But what I have seen in this pregnancy was a new form of her. More powerful, more archaic, from a depth like I have never felt before. She brought me to my knees, took away my steely strength. She has forced me into even more humility and taught me gratitude.
They exist, the coincidences in the universe, and we shouldn’t question them too much. Wanting to know, “why me?” didn’t help. The only thing that saved me was the escape into bright hope. There I found shelter in repetition, repetition, repetition. My body became a stranger to me; my skin got thin, and my cheeks often wet. But there was so much beauty in the dark; I felt pure gratitude for everything I already had in life and all that had shaped me until now. I have never been so close to life, where life and death were facing each other.
It is losing the will of controlling everything, going along with the tides and letting it happen. Time becomes relative and certainly heals wounds.
We only like to see the bright side of the moon; the dark remains hidden. Many experiences are only guessed at, only a few are discussed. We are more used to taking a bath in the beautiful moonlight, and we are reluctant instead of asking ourselves further questions. But these questions precisely allow us to understand how much power we actually have and what we are capable of. No matter how vulnerable we are.
This means your capacity can be limited sometimes, and that’s okay. Why must this be seen as a weakness when it is just human?
MOTHER MUSE 