Passage

I talked the other day about "signs." Those things that happened in the past which might have pointed to my loss of a child at some time in my life. And then I remembered my Masters thesis.

Before I became a doula and birth photographer and childbirth educator, I got my degree in counseling psychology, and my thesis title was The Archetypal Midwife. I've always been interested in childbirth, since my first baby was born in 1990 - probably even before. It was a natural subject for me to explore, and the journey to the completion of my thesis was long but fruitful. 

In the midst of exploring my thesis topic, a classmate became interested in my theme, and he passed me a note, asking me a question: How does the archetype of the midwife respond to the loss of a child, to a miscarriage or stillbirth? 

I wrote out a very thoughtful response to his question that night and gave it to him the next day - part of which ended up in my thesis. And later, when he tearfully told me his wife had had a stillbirth a few years earlier (I hadn't known, before I wrote my response) we hugged, and I told him how sorry I was. But, of course, I couldn't know. I couldn't have really known.

But I remembered him, and how much what I'd said somehow touched him, and so I went back and read that part of my thesis recently, and I was both humbled and awed by my own words. It was as if they had come through me, instead of from me: 

It is difficult for human beings to accept, but from a larger perspective the value of a human is not based on chronological age or time spent.  What the heroic medical profession refuses to accept, and what the midwife honors in her practice, is that the promise of birth is only dying, not life.  In birth, shape and form are given to something that will die, and midwives understand that mothers grieve at birth the dying of their child whether the child takes only one breath or if the child lives long after the mother.

Birth is a way into the world, but in its very nature leads to the way out of the world. Life, death and fate are interrelated, and childbirth is a passage, a transition of maiden into mother, a transition of birth into life, or into death, if fate so decrees.  The archetypal midwife honors this transition and understands that human beings are on a continuum, a small part of a whole.  Human beings are first and foremost in relation to the mysteries of birth and death and life.  Unlike the medical world and the heroic masculine, the archetype of the midwife does not see these as puzzles to be solved but mysteries and enigmas never to be answered, only honored, respected and participated in.

Human concerns are fragile, humble, profound and precious, but when seen in a greater context, with an archetypal backdrop, human suffering is seen on a continuum, with meaning and context.  Western culture has reduced suffering to only the individual, human, and personal level, and as such, it becomes unbearable in its singularity.  The pain of a laboring woman is too much for her and for those around her to bear if it is not seen in the context of something greater.  The archetypal midwife understands a woman’s suffering as a connection to a larger mystery, and does not reduce birth to “stages.”  Birth is greater than the sum of its parts, and women come into connection with something deeper and grander than themselves during childbirth.

Women have been both honored and feared for having such power, but women themselves have understood throughout history that their honoring of something greater than they are is what keeps them grounded through the process.  There is an aspect of surrender that the archetypal midwife demands.  Women must ultimately give into the elemental forces surging through their bodies, and it has traditionally been women who have been able to help other women understand this.

The archetypal midwife guards women during the birth process, but also the boundary between life and death.  She is not a warden, and is not guarding against, or acting as a protector.  She is rather truly a gatekeeper, witnessing the passage through a gate, watching the movement of women from maidens into mothers, seeing the passage of life as it moves between worlds.  The archetypal midwife exists in this liminal space, and while humans look to her for protection, they certainly can only offer only as much reassurance as fate allows.  She has a respect for the uncertain transition from birth into life, but also honors the process as natural, fundamental, and indelible in human existence.  The archetypal midwife serves as a witness to birth as a soulful process and process of soul. 

I have been witness to countless births through that gate - and all of those souls moved from birth into life, until my own birth with William. He passed straight from birth to death, and for the first time, I was a witness to that part of the process. In my grief, it was hard to honor his passing through, but my own words come back to me: the value of a human is not based on chronological age or time spent. 

How did I know? How did I know to say that, to tell that father - your baby mattered. Your baby had value, no matter how long he spent, no matter whether or not he took his first breath. He was honored, someone was there to witness his passing through the veil - the archetype of the midwife was present. She held the door for that soul as it passed from birth to death. She held it for my William, too.

I didn't know then, what I know now. But somehow... I did know. Somehow, the archetypal midwife, the great feminine, spoke to me, through me, from the place of the soul. Those words are mine, but they didn't come from me. They came to me, and they were meant for me, although I didn't know it at the time... and I'm reading them years later in grateful, humbled tears.