My Birthing Song
I'm taking an art course with Robin Sturis called "Discovering Your Archetypes. It just started today and she had us meditate on our birth and then write about it. I wrote a poem called My Birthing Song. It came out of me easily, nothing like the pain of entering this world.
After we shared what we wrote, we then spent time painting a visual representation of our birth. It took me hours today, but I'm very happy with it. There's much of the symbolism of the poem and the colors are rich. I'm mostly surprised that the baby actually looks like me as a baby. Anyway, here it is:
MY BIRTHING SONG
I leave my father’s house a seed
traveling through the canal of my mother
What to a man is a moment and a cry is
the long race for me, I am his offering
his unexpected gift
bursting through the door, I am
a warrior coming in from the storm
first, foremost, swift and agile
chased by all of those who
will not, cannot, are not
and for nearly nine months
I dance circles ‘round the Great Fire
my armor softening into sleep,
into the tidy sweep of smiles
until the dam breaks under
the weight of the birthing flood
and I am a passenger passing
through another door,
great pain, bright light, discordant sound
I am pushed and pulled, heaved
and cajoled into a new world
a world that is waiting to name me
she, her, female, girl, gentlewoman
wife, mother, grandmother
waiting to teach me
to be silent.
-Lisa Haynes October 1, 2022
