I know that it looks like nothing is going on. The field of the future orchard is now full with above waist-high rye, and I don't seem to be doing anything about it. I wrote all summer, but still have not found the voice I'm looking for. Stories that I think are funny came out "sort of sad." Therefore, I'm still searching for just the right heirloom peach trees to plant, and eating peaches now is kind of disappointing to be honest. Where they were sweet and juicy a month and more ago, they now show up in the markets hard as rocks and then turn to meal in your mouth. Therefore, a delay seems to be in order.
Ack! I hate the notion that I may be procrastinating. However, doesn't procrastination require some full-fledged plan that one is avoiding? In writing a person has to have a story to tell, right? A peach grower has to have peach trees to plant. It may be that I have too many, or not enough, but whatever it is, I feel totally stymied.
If you've been reading here, you know that I had surgery a mere three weeks ago to take out an actual organ and bizarre growths from my belly. That should be my ticket to rest, but as it turns out for most moms, as soon as I was well enough to walk around one of my children had a virus. So, I just jumped back into activity-ville and sort of feel like I might as well keep on going. I don't feel like I can excuse myself from forging on because of a little bit of cramping. Sigh.
The purpose of this rye cover crop (writing only for voice) in my imaginary future orchard (writing for production) was to nurture the soil, because I guess it draws some nutrients up through its roots. Then also it is meant to crowd out weeds (which in a writer's mind would be all of the distractions that come along). My rye crop has been sort of anemic on these points. Here is what I nurtured my mind with over the course of months: several short stories, a cosmological essay, reading the Tao te Ching.
Still weeds got into the area. Some of the weeds were terrific nettles with their gorgeous purple flowers protected by sharp, minuscule thorns. Nettles reach even deeper into the earth for nutrition than rye, and so I can't resent their presence because they did get me in touch with concepts I'd forgotten to keep forward in my thinking - namely the Goddess, and her many faces. Having to deal with my feminine health and a hysterectomy took up most of my thoughts for months. It was both a beautiful and thorny focus. The richness it brought back to the surface is rare and will feed my writing for years to come.
I had this super high tech surgery that took a pound of flesh out of me through four holes less than an inch wide. I've been thinking of "The Merchant of Venice" and what Shylock might make of the fact that I survived losing a pound of flesh, so well. I've been thinking what my pound of flesh is paying off, balancing out. In "The Merchant of Venice" Shylock, the Jewish money-lender, is a wounded individual on many levels and he's often played on the most evil of terms, but years ago I saw a sympathetic Shylock at the Barbican in London, and since I'm half Jewish myself I've always sympathized with his character somehow. The only control over the world he has is his Jewish faith and money lending, and in this play he loses control of both. Clearly, he hopes for revenge and the death of his tormentor, Antonio, by making a pound of his flesh the payment of an unmet loan. Meanwhile, meanwhile, the women in this play, who have even less power over their world than a Jew, manage to take things into their own clever plans. Though Antonio and his "team" in the end get everything they want, nothing goes as they planned. This play touches on revenge, betrayal, faith, desperation, love and justice.
In "The Merchant of Venice", Portia must dress like a male law clerk to met out justice and save Antonio's life, but the audience is well aware she is an intelligent woman. I wonder if hidden in this message that Shylock may take the pound of flesh but no blood, is a subtle understanding that women understand the loss of blood better than any man can. Between puberty and menopause a woman loses a lot of blood. I figured out that I had had approximately 400 periods in my life. That's a lot of blood, and yet we live. A man as powerful as Antonio cannot lose blood like that and survive. Yet Portia can slip in and out of his world by simply changing clothes.
I offered my over-abundant womb as a sacrifice to Ereshkigal, the dark, underworld Goddess of Sumeria. Though the pathological lab wouldn't give me the actual remains I trust that intention carried the day. Why would I do this? Ereshkigal is both the underworld itself, and its judge and mistress. The desire by all living beings is to transmute the "unproductive cycle" that we understand as winter, and which is associated with death. So to escape my own death perhaps in part, I dedicated my surgery to Ereshkigal. But, it wasn't physical death I was thinking of, it was the death of what I could create on earth.
My children came out of me, 8 and 9 lbs of flesh, due to the womb I once had. They are without a doubt my greatest contributions. Since my son was born each year I had lost more and more blood, which turned out to be actually vitality. This surgery was a bargain with my body, to give it more blood, more vitality, to give up the potential of creating another life to go out into the world and make wonders. Since I paid the fee up front, I am hopeful that now I will have the energy to produce smaller, less important works that can somehow, someday sustain me.
I have all fall, which just started a week after my surgery, and early spring in which to plant my peach saplings. I want to fulfill my end of the bargain of giving up my physical fertility in favor of the fertility of my mind. We're still having 80 degree days, and haven't experienced our first frost yet. So, I will be soothed somewhat by acknowledging there is an honest delay, but I haven't forgotten my commitment. Patience is my practice. Cheers to an extended Indian Summer!
The Storyteller's Orchard where organic writing grows.
Showing posts with label hysterectomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hysterectomy. Show all posts
Monday, October 4, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
a sacred sacrifice
Sister was born with me. She lived in the southern region for all of my years so far. In her youth her only job was the same as mine...to grow strong and independent.
One day, about fourteen years into life, Sister woke up to her purpose. Filling with the Moon, she became full of herself. Her moods changed. She demanded attention when darkness fell, and the Moon reflected less light, afraid she would never become full of confidence again. After years of this cycle, she became used to it. She fell into a rhythm like the tides of the ocean. Sister hit her stride. Sweet, tidy and pink she went about her business ignorant that there would be more demanded of her.
As time went on, she found herself reaching out to become more, as we all do. She sought her purpose with a vigor that she demanded be matched by the desire of some puny little fish that swam in one day. She would never make it easy to take her over by anything less than a wish for life. And, sure enough life grew within her. During those 9 months she stretched to her capacity and then stretched further. She became the ocean itself. She became the vessel for all beginnings, the vesica piscis, the perfect one. Creation itself happened upon her shores and she reveled that she should be so lucky as to have this purpose: the Great Creatrix.
Sister was visited somewhere along the way by a muscular stranger. This stranger attached itself to her walls, fed upon her tide pools, and became stronger and invited more. All the while Sister kept to her work of creation and manifestation. Two perfect beings were squeezed out of her sea when the time was right, and though it was taxing beyond belief, Sister felt fulfilled again in yet a more profound way, and she rested.
All the while the muscular strangers became more vigorous and insistent about space. It was like this one day: Sister still felt as beautiful and pink as ever when she went out to the movies. She took her seat half way down the row of seats as she always had, to get the best view of the action. Trailing with her were these big sweaty rednecks who she politely ignored most of the time. But when she was with the Moon, full in her splendor, she found she couldn't take her place quite right, she was in fact right of center, pushed off course. And, when she had to shed her fullness, the strangers got in the way, and she pushed them with all the might she had to push two children into the world, but they would not leave. Sister became exhausted. So there she was at the movies, and these strangers took the seat in front of her, and beside her, and the biggest one sat on the back of his seat and fell backwards on top of her smothering her until she could hardly breath much less watch the creation she'd come to watch as the puny little fish came towards her with a wish for life.
She pushed that stranger out of the way as much as she could and offered the empty corner of what was left of her vast ocean to the life that wanted to be. And, they tried to repeat the miracle. Alas. The little life could only grow for a few weeks before the strangers smothered it with jealousy claiming Sister was THEIR mother, and they would not share her anymore. The little life resigned its light to some other realm, and left Sister bereft for months. She convulsed violently to rid herself of these obnoxious strangers who would never amount to anything but hardened,lost dreams. She pushed and pushed, and bled out more than she could bleed out, and the rest of the month lay there in a pool of self-doubt urging me to help, to take some action that could relieve her misery.
How can one say good-bye to a twin, a sister who is so much more impressive than one admittedly is or may ever be? My Sister within gave life to my greatest joys, and to just abandon her to some surgical solution seemed overwhelming and disrespectful. But, when I got a load of those strangers suckling greedily upon her, I realized that something had to be done. And, I did hope we could just get rid of the strangers and continue on our journey of Creation on the physical plane together. That was possible for a time perhaps, but it went on so long that the strangers were having a party now at both our expense, embedding themselves deeply into the vascular streams that fed the ocean. Two ways presented themselves. Let the strangers have their party until Sister or I died, whichever came first, or make a sacrifice of death befitting a Goddess.
Sister showed me what it was like with that vision of having a stranger suffocate her at the movies. I couldn't believe I'd let that go on so long, but I was unaware of her problems as I nursed her creations in life. Now that we understood each other we could find a way to make it beautiful together. Understanding that an initiation is the process of transmutation, giving up one thing to take on another, sacrificing a part of oneself, that another might blossom, Sister offered her existence to me to consider an unexpected appeasement to Creation.
When we initiated together in the cause of the physical plane, we were an amazing and smashing success until the invasion of the strangers. I mean we fulfilled our purpose together perfectly. We sacrificed our time, our energy, our appearance, our everything to participate in giving new life, and we hummed. It was an easy sacrifice. It should be noted and celebrated that we can hardly call ourselves a failure in that respect. The fact that the strangers couldn't be shed is perhaps a genetic lesson passed down from grandmother to mother, mother to daughter until finally one of us makes a conscious effort to comprehend it.
I was told by wise woman, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, that the masters of old believed that a body part lost in this realm is believed to continue to exist in the spirit realm, perfect, whole and complete and ready to work on a different level. The uterus, my Sister, is the vessel of creation, the embracer of magik, the great manifester, and she's been really awesome in every regard. I thank her for her partnership, and her innate wisdom as my teacher in listening to the rhythms of life Hirself. But this final physical act may be her most glorious.
Willingly, she leaves this body because we both know that the strangers cannot follow her there as long as we make this sacrifice a conscious one. We sacrifice the physical life of this womb as an act of initiation into the Creation and Manifestation of that which will best Serve Love. In the Spirit Realm Sister will hold open the space for new ideas to take hold, and she will help me to nurture them and keep them in the oven of manifestation until they are ready to be pushed through the birth canal and into the World here and beyond. I make no apologies for sounding off for the love of wombs gone everywhere. We do not hate you when we let you go with this fullness of intention. This is not an easy sacrifice, but finally a necessary one and I am with you, Sister.
One day, about fourteen years into life, Sister woke up to her purpose. Filling with the Moon, she became full of herself. Her moods changed. She demanded attention when darkness fell, and the Moon reflected less light, afraid she would never become full of confidence again. After years of this cycle, she became used to it. She fell into a rhythm like the tides of the ocean. Sister hit her stride. Sweet, tidy and pink she went about her business ignorant that there would be more demanded of her.
As time went on, she found herself reaching out to become more, as we all do. She sought her purpose with a vigor that she demanded be matched by the desire of some puny little fish that swam in one day. She would never make it easy to take her over by anything less than a wish for life. And, sure enough life grew within her. During those 9 months she stretched to her capacity and then stretched further. She became the ocean itself. She became the vessel for all beginnings, the vesica piscis, the perfect one. Creation itself happened upon her shores and she reveled that she should be so lucky as to have this purpose: the Great Creatrix.
Sister was visited somewhere along the way by a muscular stranger. This stranger attached itself to her walls, fed upon her tide pools, and became stronger and invited more. All the while Sister kept to her work of creation and manifestation. Two perfect beings were squeezed out of her sea when the time was right, and though it was taxing beyond belief, Sister felt fulfilled again in yet a more profound way, and she rested.
All the while the muscular strangers became more vigorous and insistent about space. It was like this one day: Sister still felt as beautiful and pink as ever when she went out to the movies. She took her seat half way down the row of seats as she always had, to get the best view of the action. Trailing with her were these big sweaty rednecks who she politely ignored most of the time. But when she was with the Moon, full in her splendor, she found she couldn't take her place quite right, she was in fact right of center, pushed off course. And, when she had to shed her fullness, the strangers got in the way, and she pushed them with all the might she had to push two children into the world, but they would not leave. Sister became exhausted. So there she was at the movies, and these strangers took the seat in front of her, and beside her, and the biggest one sat on the back of his seat and fell backwards on top of her smothering her until she could hardly breath much less watch the creation she'd come to watch as the puny little fish came towards her with a wish for life.
She pushed that stranger out of the way as much as she could and offered the empty corner of what was left of her vast ocean to the life that wanted to be. And, they tried to repeat the miracle. Alas. The little life could only grow for a few weeks before the strangers smothered it with jealousy claiming Sister was THEIR mother, and they would not share her anymore. The little life resigned its light to some other realm, and left Sister bereft for months. She convulsed violently to rid herself of these obnoxious strangers who would never amount to anything but hardened,lost dreams. She pushed and pushed, and bled out more than she could bleed out, and the rest of the month lay there in a pool of self-doubt urging me to help, to take some action that could relieve her misery.
How can one say good-bye to a twin, a sister who is so much more impressive than one admittedly is or may ever be? My Sister within gave life to my greatest joys, and to just abandon her to some surgical solution seemed overwhelming and disrespectful. But, when I got a load of those strangers suckling greedily upon her, I realized that something had to be done. And, I did hope we could just get rid of the strangers and continue on our journey of Creation on the physical plane together. That was possible for a time perhaps, but it went on so long that the strangers were having a party now at both our expense, embedding themselves deeply into the vascular streams that fed the ocean. Two ways presented themselves. Let the strangers have their party until Sister or I died, whichever came first, or make a sacrifice of death befitting a Goddess.
Sister showed me what it was like with that vision of having a stranger suffocate her at the movies. I couldn't believe I'd let that go on so long, but I was unaware of her problems as I nursed her creations in life. Now that we understood each other we could find a way to make it beautiful together. Understanding that an initiation is the process of transmutation, giving up one thing to take on another, sacrificing a part of oneself, that another might blossom, Sister offered her existence to me to consider an unexpected appeasement to Creation.
When we initiated together in the cause of the physical plane, we were an amazing and smashing success until the invasion of the strangers. I mean we fulfilled our purpose together perfectly. We sacrificed our time, our energy, our appearance, our everything to participate in giving new life, and we hummed. It was an easy sacrifice. It should be noted and celebrated that we can hardly call ourselves a failure in that respect. The fact that the strangers couldn't be shed is perhaps a genetic lesson passed down from grandmother to mother, mother to daughter until finally one of us makes a conscious effort to comprehend it.
I was told by wise woman, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, that the masters of old believed that a body part lost in this realm is believed to continue to exist in the spirit realm, perfect, whole and complete and ready to work on a different level. The uterus, my Sister, is the vessel of creation, the embracer of magik, the great manifester, and she's been really awesome in every regard. I thank her for her partnership, and her innate wisdom as my teacher in listening to the rhythms of life Hirself. But this final physical act may be her most glorious.
Willingly, she leaves this body because we both know that the strangers cannot follow her there as long as we make this sacrifice a conscious one. We sacrifice the physical life of this womb as an act of initiation into the Creation and Manifestation of that which will best Serve Love. In the Spirit Realm Sister will hold open the space for new ideas to take hold, and she will help me to nurture them and keep them in the oven of manifestation until they are ready to be pushed through the birth canal and into the World here and beyond. I make no apologies for sounding off for the love of wombs gone everywhere. We do not hate you when we let you go with this fullness of intention. This is not an easy sacrifice, but finally a necessary one and I am with you, Sister.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)