Fertility Goddess
by Meredith Winn
Today I am feeling human. Completely. Entirely. Have you witnessed this? This human strength? It surrounds all that is womanhood, motherhood, life, and birth.
Today it's a woman reaching down inside of herself to conjure up strength. Once she starts reaching for it she realizes it's much deeper than herself. She feels that this strength is actually coming from the very belly of the Earth. She recognizes that she is it, she is that strength. She is all the secrets of the universe. And it is you too. And it is bigger and more beautiful than you ever imagined.
It is you. Rooted. Capable of anything. And everything.
If only everyone could stand before a powerful woman. A woman humbled, broken, sore. Facing down the hardest thing she's most likely ever done in her life. This is the single moment of life that all mothers recall with the most clarity. This is a truly defining moment. Whether shining or stained or heroic or broken.
What I see today is a warrior woman squatting with muscular thighs, and the beauty is that she can't see it. The beauty is that she feels weak, when she is in fact the strongest human spirit. She is tied right now, to all laboring mothers everywhere.
She feels detached and spacey but behind her I see the shadows of all women who have birthed before her. I see them with clarity. And I know that later, much later, she will feel their presence.
The moment of birth is something that never eludes us. The taste, the smell, the truth of it can bring us to tears four decades later. Mother's stories can bring us to tears. Words we hear from sisters, friends, aunts, and strangers. No matter who we are or how we gave birth, our stories are the threads that bind us together as mothers. These stories are what weave us into womanhood.
This power to create is what women are made of. And for a moment I wish the whole human race could let down their armor, their shields, their bayonets; and sit at the foot of a laboring mother. Never again will they feel totally and completely 100% human. It could change the world if everyone shared that humanity.
Mothers know that all life lingers there.
All truth.