moon child sun child

and becoming a fallow field

my eldest is my moon child — my dark initiation into motherhood, my route into exhaustion, sleepless nights, my dark-milk feeding routine by the light of the moon. the rage, the overwhelm, the animal.

this was all other and based on another. no one but myself to hold my darkness, to find the truth there.

my youngest is my sun child — mothering him brought me back into the light, out the other side, into his glow.

this balance of dark and light in my mothering is more to do with me than them: my responses to circumstances of transformation and metamorphosis, my manner of coping with being flung into the unknown.

i search for patterns so i can understand my joy and suffering. are the patterns really there? or is it only through me noticing them that they exist?

my mothering has taught me the necessity of balance, although i’m still often unbalanced, overwhelmed. now, i am quite good at noticing my overwhelm, and reminding myself that it usually means my needs are not being met, or that i’m trying to meet too many needs at once.

remember to put your own life jacket on first.

but what if this can’t be done? sometimes you can only reach your life jacket once your baby is asleep, wearing theirs. at those times, i refuse to believe anything else is possible.

or maybe with help, maybe with community, it is. maybe if someone else fastens the buckles, checks you’re not drowning.

but i have very little help in this motherwork*, and i have drowned many times. my friends and family are scattered across different soil, like seeds, and they grow further and further away from me, as i lean in towards my children’s light and find the dark gets darker.

i am trying to remember what it is to rest, to feel held, to slow into being, and stay there.

imagine:

you strip everything bare for a time

you shift into recovery, rehydration, the restoring of matter

your body-borne creatures are temporarily removed

cycles are disrupted

the soil of you

is left to rest, regenerate

you become fallow ground