I’ve been stewing about maternal power of creation, and the way the powers-that-be relentlessly co-opt it. I want to speak to the depth of creative maternal power without flinching.
Perhaps the most profound facet of motherhood is the utter magic through which we women create life out of our soft, breathing bodies. At first, it is quiet, internal, a secret we can barely feel. A tingling force field about the nipples, over the skin of the breast. Then the psychic, moody, nauseous stage descends, a shift of our whole organism that only we can feel. With time, as the baby grows, the magic grows more conspicuous to the outside world, until, ripe and ready, it culminates in strength, blood, and raw, animal sensation of birth: body yawning wide the portal from dark, internal mystery to bright and wild Planet Earth.
The other side of this magic is much less celebrated: the creation of death in the womb. There is nothing unnatural about it except for our unwillingness to engage with it. Womb-death happens over and over again, in miscarriage, stillbirth, and in abortion. We live in a culture that only loves light and laughter and life. The darkness, tears, and death that are yolked to them go willfully ignored. We are missing a necessary balance for harmony to this life creation. Not all birth is new life, but each and every birth is a death, sooner or later. Love is grief and grief is love and it’s all tied up in the profound shadow magic of the womb. This is the motherhood I hold space for. You all know this about me. But life or death, it is magic. Mother-magic.
I will not distract from the beauty of this magic simply because not all women experience it. That wouldn’t be respectful of the depth of pain of infertility. If magic weren’t profoundly special, infertility would be no-big-deal — but it’s a big deal. Infertility is a deep, worthy grief. Infertility is like blossoming into adolescence, receiving your invitation into a world of glorious magical powers only to discover you’re a squib. It hurts because it’s magic, a vast, wild magic that we do not understand and can not quite control, despite all the money and research and science we throw at this mystery. Some have all their desires met by the magic and can get smug in the heady good fortune of it. Others try and try, month after month, and it feels like a curse of relentless, cyclical grief. Whatever your relation to this magic, I see you, and I honor the magical facets of your motherhood journey.
I will not downplay the vast power of this magic. Money is one kind of power. Brute strength is another. But magic is greater than both. Money can not buy THIS power, and brute force can not ultimately deny us our magic. Rape can get us pregnant but it can not keep us pregnant. Women have been honing the power of our magic with all the tools at our disposal forever: moon, herbs, abortion, hormones, IVF. Part of the power to create life is the equally vast and worthy power to create death in our womb. Gluttonous priests and politicians turn it hard against us. First, they shackle us in the magic itself: make sexuality wrong, but only if you’re a woman. Make pregnancy wrong in all but the narrowest of situations: make sure there’s a man of the house for pregnancy to be allowed. Convince women that we are less than men, and far, far, far less than babies. Create a trap between love and fertility. Make punishing laws to imprison anyone who escapes the body-trap behind concrete and iron.
I will not neuter the life-giving, death-giving power of the womb it and call it parenthood. I am talking about motherhood. With respect to my wonderful husband: he can’t do this. If the magic were neutral, it wouldn’t be the target that it is. In less patriarchal religion and mythic history, there are both gods and goddesses — the line between the two is not so solid. We are all made of femininity and masculinity both, and one’s balance does not have to match one’s body. The great receptive, mystical, creative power of the womb, this is mother-magic. It is feminine power. That is why patriarchy seeks to punish and control it. This is not to say that all who need abortion or create life in the womb must be feminine in all ways (goodness knows I’m not), and it is not to say that if you are infertile you are any less a woman. This is just to say that there’s something disempowering about banishing feminine power, feminine magic, and feminine language from this discussion as is the fad on the left these days. They’re after us all, you know (if you are gender-queer, I know you know.) Women and anyone who doesn’t conform to gender expectations get caught up in the same insidious power-struggle. The traps are set together: abortion with gender-reassignment and gay marriage is not so far behind. So as I talk about motherhood, as I talk about womb-magic, please know that I am fighting for all of us.
If you are mothering today, in any way, whether in life or death, light or shadow, with or without the support of science, from the generative magic of your body, or of somebody else’s through adoption or surrogacy, I see you. I feel you. I honor you.
