Something
conceived last week.
Typically, one would say “was conceived,” in passive
voice, but I know that to be untrue. The conception required a stringent
attention to my own voice, my own agency, while immersed in a 5-day teaching
with a charismatic-journey teacher. It did not just happen to me but was
brought into awareness as a labor of love, shared by many. Even so, I had no expectation or
anticipation that the fruits of these monies and efforts would be as they are.
The event advertisements said nothing about tectonic renewal and release. “New
form” too, because as I reflect on the significant events of these last couple
years, I do sense a familiar, companionable generativity that has been
deepening and blossoming for a long time. Last week did not birth a new thing
as much as accentuate a long-coming and continually-deepening awareness of…what?
Or Who? I'm listening to find out...
A new-old
spirit-friend befuddled me several times throughout the week with who she saw—sees—me
to be, for instance. She asked whether my primary sense of myself was “here,
and maybe here,” gesturing to her head and a bit of her heart/chest area. “Of
course,” I said, wondering aloud where else one’s sense of articulate being would
be. “I experience you much more here, and maybe a little bit here,” she said,
sweeping her hands around her lower abdomen, stomach, and a bit of heart
height. Up here,” gesturing to her head, “serves you where you are,” returning
her hands to her belly, womb. Those may not be precisely her words, but
roughly, that’s what I heard, understood. There was something in her gaze that
I knew to trust, that I was willing to “try on” a bit for clarity, but I found
myself wondering whether she knew someone in me I had not really met yet.
As I leaned
into the trust for the week, I learned unexpected things that will take me a
long time to distill into articulation. One is that I have a vast capacity to
hold space for others, to balance light/dark energies when quietly surrendered
to Her I know now as "Mom." But what does that mean, “to hold space
for”? I learned to relinquish an attachment to the eternal quest for the One
Teacher, which has roots going way back in my family, to Grandpa Ben and
Grandma Ruth, even earlier. Being the "favorite" has a huge history
in my family, as it probably does in many families. Placing this in a longer
view, I was able to re-receive a past teacher in a new way, in healthy
past-tense without attachment or aversion, yearning or anger. I learned that I
come from a long line of embodied intuitives. I may even be "a
healer," whatever that means.
Most
importantly, though, I learned that I have an invitation to explore and name a
"psychic representation of my reproductive body", whatever that may
mean. If my intellect is to serve my core-body-awareness, then I need to learn
more about what I will call this “subtle reproductive body.” Subtle seems apt,
as this is not a “play pregnancy” or some unconscious desire because my beloved
and I chose not to have children. I still love my life and my husband too much
to want to alter either with the tasks of mothering and nurture of a young one
or two. I’ve never had much desire for or facility with children anyway. Better for them and
for me to remain as is! But I still have a reproductive body, as a woman. I
have an entire area of my own body that I’ve not really known, except in
restriction (i.e. birth control). Ah...here's how to say it: my womb is entirely unconscious.
Doesn't help much, does it?
The phrase, “a
psychic representation of a reproductive body” comes from the work of Nancy
Chodorow (in True Confessions: Feminist
Professors Tell Stories Out of School, edited by Susan Gubar). I understand
her to be saying, at root, that female wholeness and a healthy sense of self
come with integration of all parts of a woman's being, whether actualized in a
biological pregnancy or not. A woman cannot be truly whole unless she has, at
the very least, a psychic representation of her reproductive body. If it is
denied, neglected, hidden, or even evicted, a woman’s sense of herself is
incomplete…unless she does the deeper, psychological work to honor all parts of
herself, un-realized but active reproductive body included.
So I guess
an early question arises for me here. A reproductive body can be active in ways
other than pregnancy, or so my prose above suggests. Active how? I wonder.
At the very
least, I accept the invitation I have heard. Being the contemplative-empiricist
that I am (scholarly jargon for disciplinary cover in my work), I propose a
listening project beginning with body-practices and intuitive avenues to identify
and then explore. Seems logical that this new listening “spell” should take
about 9 months, whatever else it involves. I’ve wanted to listen to my life
outside of the regular presence of alcohol for a while, so a spell without the
booze also seems logical. Interestingly enough, I suspect that will create some
real dissonance at home. My beloved enjoys a glass of wine or bourbon regularly
and is leery of enjoying it alone. I doubt he’ll want to join me in my “project”
to that degree, but who knows? It’s also clear to me that because I am in
covenantal relationship with him, his contribution to this new listening is
crucial. We’ve already begun conversations that have suggested some really neat
generative energies about what we might write and/share with a larger public
about “choosing childlessness in the Midwest.” At the very least, he’s a
marvelous partner to share a willingness to participate in something neither of
us knows in any precise detail. Last night, I learned that there is such a
thing as a belly-womb massage to be had as well. Hey, why not? What might that teach me?
I wonder if
other women plan mid-life crises in such detail? J Said with a smile, mostly because if this is
what mid-life crises feel like, more of us would be having them, planning them,
exploring them. I’m fascinated even as I’m befuddled about what this could
possibly teach me. The impulse and passion to pursue it is unmistakable,
however, so…blessed be. Here we go.
