This is one of my favourite poems to contemplate at the Seasonal Moment of Winter Solstice: it expresses so much for me of the journey into new being, and continues to at this time. Birthing is a shamanic act – it is frought with challenge and often takes one to the limits, yet eventually the joy of the new being overtakes the pain required to bring the new one forth, and all is well again … we hope that we will step into the power of being. As Starhawk says in Truth or Dare[1]:
We tell ourselves
the cries we hear may be those of labor
the pain we feel may yet be that of birth
REFRACTIONS
camped on the frontier
of my life, pregnant with the future
I am comforted by you
star fixed in my sky
think of your courage
a knife being born in your belly
you fear a painful birth
for the world does not yet contain
the contours of our sharp new selves
we had known this behind our minds
for years when over coffee one quiet dawn
we discussed the journeys that we must make
each to create a world that can receive us
thru new birth canals that will not strangle
the erupting self, nor rupture the body in birth
I have come past outposts warning
not to forsake a history written
in advance – into light that scrapes
my eyes clear of learned cataracts
seeking fresh eyes that can see new
bone forming in flesh
but never suspending my gravity
for another’s, for tho clumsy
with my weight, I must trust it
always watching for those who thrust
into the light
at the same deep angle
their refractions echoing
in the well of the future
forming constellations
to chart our depth by
Cynthia Cook
New York City
(published in WOMANSPIRIT March 1980)
NOTES:
[1] Starhawk. Truth or Dare. SF: Harper and Row, 1990, p. 3.
[2] image: the work of the late Carol Hiltner, found online at http://altaimir.org/gallerystore.htm
