Awakenings

I was sitting there today, in Whole Foods, eating my sandwich and watching the crowds.  I felt you move against my abdomen wall as my sandwich became food for you and me.  I’ve been sensing your wild nature from the beginning, even before I could feel you move.  I am aware of your warrior-ness, your tenacity, your fight for survival and to become life in this world we inhabit and call home.

And yet I worry.  As I touch my belly and feel your beautiful life form growing, I know the world that you as a female will enter into.  I am well-acquainted with the fingers that will try to choke out your individuality.  I cringe at the misogynistic world that awaits to devour your humanity and unique feminine war-like strength.  I shutter as I think of how religion will try to put its foot on your neck and gently scream of who you are as a woman and what you can and cannot be.  I abhor the thought of anyone who would turn you into a mere object to lust over, and what if you feel you must succumb to their eyes and wants, and you trade in your wildness to become the object rather than the creation.  I want to strip all magazine isles of the images that will shout out to you of what beauty is – so that you may find and discover the beauty that is already within you, and wear it fearlessly to the world.  I know the well-meaning voices that will advise you and scold you and insult you for simply being you.  I fear for the self-hatred that may try to creep into your soul, where you will try to bury your gifts and your beauty – that you would compare yourself with others and try to trade your uniqueness for theirs.  I already feel angry at the bully who may attempt to squelch your fight, your joy, your you-ness.

I haven’t met you, but I already know you are so much more than the shell of the body you will be born into.  Your body, which I know will be beautiful, is not what defines you.  As you are being knit inside me, your personality and character is there within you.  You are wild.  You are beautiful.  You are undefinable.  You are woman.  You are warrior.  You are more than fashion statements and mascara.  You are more than the boys who will chase you, or reject you.  You are beyond the opinions of mere people who will try to control you and morph you into their insecure status.  You are here for such a time as this.  Never let yourself be whittled down to a grade, or how many likes you get on Facebook. Never let yourself become consumed with your waist-size or if you’re wearing the right clothing brand. Instead, find your strength in the old oak trees.  Find your passion in the moving waters of river and sea.  Find your joy in soaking in the sun, playing with caterpillars, or laying in the grass barefoot, staring at the never-ending sky.  For you were created from beyond this substance we call our world.  You came from the unknown mystery of Love – a place that cannot be defined, or boxed, or placed in a cage.

So when others try to handcuff your soul, remember that it is impossible, unless you give them the keys to do it.  And why would you?  You are a warrior woman from beyond the farthest star in the universe!  You cannot be chained!  Yes, this world will test you to your very core.  Yes, magazine isles will scream lies of what beauty is.  Yes, misogyny will continue to exist, and there will be those who will try to objectify you.  Yes, religion will attempt to crush your talents and skills, especially if they see your wild-woman nature.  Yes, you will be tempted to contain your beauty only in hair, clothes and makeup.  Yes, you will feel your heart being ripped out of your chest as it is broken for the first time when you lose your first love.  But – you are still wild warrior woman!  You were wild warrior woman before these things existed, therefore these things cannot change what you already are!  You are undefinable.

So as I finished my sandwich, and stood to leave, I felt the eyes of those around me glance at my belly – at you.  Already you are doing it!  Your presence is already causing others to pause in the madness of their day.  Already you are reminding others of their true beauty and the miracle of being alive.

As I walk out of Whole Foods and carry you these next 7 weeks, and as your body completes the finishing touches of the rise and fall of legs, arms, toes, fingers, nose and ears.  As you finish becoming before you enter our world, I realize that every person I come in contact with is exactly what I have described you to be.  We are all undefinable.  We are all already beautiful.  We are in the presence of sacredness all the time when we are surrounded with other human beings.  Yeah, we all have the same sorts of body parts – arms, legs, heads, eyes, ears, mouths, etc.  But we are all completely undefinable in that there has and never will be anyone like you, like me.  Ever.  Ever!  So why do we hurt each other?  Why are there things like misogyny?  Why is there pornagraphy?  Why do we slaughter each other as if we’re replaceable?  Why do we use religion to cage the sacred, beautiful, warrior-like beings we are? Why do we let hate morph us into non-human creatures who will kill with our words, if not with our hands. When will it stop?  Perhaps when we believe that we are as sacred as we see our children to be.  Perhaps then we will realize that we are all, individually, sacred miraculous creations, sent from beyond the farthest star.  Perhaps when we see Love encapsulated within the flesh and blood walls of the population, a population that we are a part of.  Perhaps when we realize that we all hold the keys to stopping the misogynistic, lust-ridden, wounded, hate-absorbed, blood-drenched society we call our normal world.

So little one, thank you.  Thank you for reminding me of my wildness, of my nature that cannot be caged.  Thank you for opening my eyes to remember that all humanity is a beautiful, unique creation that should be cradled with utmost care.  Thank you for your jabs and kicks – a preview of the way you’re going to rock this world!  And may you know, that through all the highs and lows of what growing up will mean, with all the stereotypes screaming at you, that you are beautiful, mighty, strong and undefinable.  Because you are the only human being EVER to be you!  You are my warrior woman!