Dear Friend,
There is so much to tell you that it is hard to know where to begin. One positive attribute about not keeping up with one’s blog posts isthat there is a great deal to divulge – hopefully making for an interesting read.
The last post I wrote (River Wye?) describes a blissful summer and the sensations and emotions that arose during many a swim in the river. Now that memory floods back to me – a British pastime at its best. Today the spring sunshine pours forth upon the small backs of the lambs in the fields and with the warmth the people in town seem friendlier too.

Since my swims in the river I have become a Mother for the first time. It has been an all- encompassing and transformative eighteen months. On reflection, pregnancy was an event whereupon one’s human biology, via a concoction of chemicals and hormones, produced a series of reactions – a type of performance, whereupon a foetus is pulled out of the hat instead of a rabbit. Personally for me, pregnancy was a weird and wonderful trickery that took over my body in order to procreate.

How can I cement my thoughts better? Have you ever seen footage of a caterpillar munching through leaves, minding its own business, doing a perfectly good job at surviving – and then bang, a metamorphism dominates its tiny body. I was that little caterpillar cruising along and then my pregnancy test said 2-3 weeks pregnant!
Unbeknown to me on that particular day or night (after copulation) a very natural, beautiful, horrifying process began taking place inside my body. I didn’t even have to think about it. In terms of my hypothetical caterpillar self; my body propelled me into an unknown territory.

From the moment of conception a type of chrysalis began. The pregnancy took care of itself with very little input from ‘me’. Once one decides to allow the process to continue, the foetus just keeps growing from within.
It is interesting and amazing watching a time-lapse video of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly and yet for me, the nine months of pregnancy was an experience of being hijacked by Mother Nature. Like many natural wonders of the world, it can at times be cruel and grotesque alongside the sheer beauty and bewilderment of something using your body as a vessel to get to the shores of life.

And did I become a butterfly after giving birth? I will leave that to your own discretion, but I will tell you this; I now know I am stronger than I could have ever imagined possible. As a survivor of postpartum PTSD I have a new regard for women as warriors of ‘life’ and I celebrate our inner lioness – whom deserves to be acknowledged every day.

And though I did not have the ‘fairytale’ hypnobirthing experience I had hoped for, in replacement, I do have the most wonderful human being called Sholto, who by default is forcing me to be the best person I can be daily.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you”
Rumi