Stretch Marks
– ‘Prosetry’ by Lorelei Hillman (March 29, 2011)
Giving birth makes goddesses of us women – whether it is giving birth in sweat and pain, or through love and the color of the imagination; whether it results in congratulations or the ripping of our own souls from our dreams; whether the birth fills our arms or gives new life to another.
Every woman bears within her the body and breath of creation, but we have been taught that it has no value if it comes out of intercourse. Some- one ‘better’ than us must lay the seed or the womb cannot give rise to its bread, but only ferments in sin.
This is history’s trap, not God’s. It was Mary’s egg that gave Christ his dark hair and sparkling eyes. It was the heat of her body which taught him to love; her uterus and breast which filled him with compassion; her heart and hands that gave him the courage to die and face resurrection.
Just so, all women have the capacity and power to give birth, to become the goddess within. Through birth, they will become mothers, whether the child whom they teach to stand and walk ever stretched their bellies or tore their flesh at all.