A meditation on seeds

As I walk around these days, watching leaves float and seeds tumble and spin, I spin tales. Tell stories of the tough “conquer” (Horse Chestnut) battles of my childhood, the miracle of helicopter seeds….as always I’m taking pictures of mamas feeding their babies at their breast….I am teaching children, I am leaning into and learning daily more about that beautiful entwinement of love and attachment….it is not all loveliness, is it?
There is pain, there is loss.
Our baby is a gift, we have sprouted, there is new life, there is harvest, Thanksgiving! But how do we hold a space for what is lost, what is broken, what hurts?
When we have a child, we are cracked open, we are broken.
Tell that story!
Have you noticed all the armor, all the fuzz and fluff, the wicked fast wings and strong anchors seed pods have!! We women have all that armor, that prickly or soft fuzz, we have those wings and anchors…..until….crack, we give birth, or miscarry, or FAIL to get pregnant, or FAIL to carry a child to term, or FAIL to be lovable.
It cracks us right open, it empties us out.
It breaks right through our armor, it clips our wings, dethorns us, plucks our fuzz, it rips our anchors, like roots in their clinging to the earth.
Huskless we fall to the ground, the wet mud….
Unteathered we fly spinning, terrified, forgotten?
Who am I?
This is giving birth
Or giving death
Or standing barren before the storm
Of judgement
Tell that story!
We generate, we regenerate.
We have incredible power, and yet we feel so broken, so ripped open, so emptied, so exhausted, so alone.
We have incredible power, and yet feel often so powerless, so terrified, so ungrateful, even angry at our child who has torn apart our whole being and left us an empty husk.
We have incredible power, and yet that power is not honoured, not told and retold, not upheld, not painted and hung in spangles for all to see, the incredible power and beauty of the pregnant, the birthing, the breast-feeding, bottle-feeding, the stretch marks, the Caesarian marks, the empty womb, the broken heart, the single mama, the sea mama, the childless longing mama, the sexless marriage, the withered breast, the saggy belly…..all in us that is wholly generative and regenerative, this incredible power….of life and death we hold within these armored, winged husks of ours.
Tell that story.
A child at the breast is attached to the pulse of life.
A child held in the arms with a bottle, a child against your chest mama, papa, uncle, auntie, grandma, grandpa is attached to the pulse of life. In that hold, the heart beats synchronize, the message is exchanged, we belong. We have incredible power, and yet, we are told an image of a mother nurturing her baby is revolting, unseemly. I’m so sorry if the pan sexual, or deeply sensual nature of that connection offends your delicate senses.
Tell that story!
Instead, I will bind my breasts in satin or leather, push them together, bend over, shake it all up for your pleasure. Instead, I will encourage the pre pubescent girls and boys in my community to shake their booty, learn lust, sexualization, commodification….oh why get angry now? Perhaps that’s exactly it…sever that commutation, make sure the message doesn’t get through, make sure we are disconnected from that pulse of life!!
Today, I post two images of my gorgeous, strong, broken, regenerating friend A. as she holds her babe to her breast. The first is so uplifting, so telling, so much of the story of life is there: as a mother we face that over-powering ocean, as our babe at once clings to us and pulls away. The other is the same, only edited, cleaned up, blurred, censored. Because we all know that the nipple is disgusting, right? Because it is sexual, it cannot possibly be linked to nurturing a child, right? It must be reserved for the erotic, the lovers, for the advertisers….not the pulse of life.
Mamas, like the Ocean roar!
Tell that story.