Divine Timing

On birth and being in tune with the rhythms of nature.

This post was inspired by the nature prompts for August by

Kelley Murphy

and

Rhiannon Lynn

My awareness of my own natural rhythms has evolved greatly in recent years. In the years before our children arrived, I tried to learn to connect with a femininity I had so long rejected and seen as weakness in order to become pregnant. The children arrived in their own divine timing. Two little souls did not make it earthside. The impact on me and my husband was profound. There is a temptation here to write that they were early pregnancies, one very much so, the other at 3 months, as if that takes away the pain of losing them. It does not. They were their own spirits and I thank them for blessing me with their presence however briefly.

When we reached a point where we thought it would be the two of us for life, my daughter (whom doctors said would also not make it) then joined us soon afterwards. This was the end of a long journey and the beginning of something that I was totally unprepared for. Motherhood.

Never have I felt more part of nature, more primal, more powerfully feminine than on the night of my daughter’s birth. My labour had been long and peaceful, until the point where I no longer felt safe and held. There was a change of shifts in staff at the hospital and that combined with the growing realisation that my daughter was stuck led me to being wheeled downstairs in the lift, naked apart from a skewed and open gown, fluids escaping me all along the corridor, to a room full of people and me either being told to shush or being completely ignored. 

My husband and I spoke of the following events afterwards, he thought I could not remember, but there is no memory more enduring. I screamed. The wild keen of Brigid. But I was not about to lose my child if I could help it. I was listened to, mostly out of fear for me and the baby if I was not calmer. I was helped. I was tended to by a kind midwife and my husband. Many of the events of the birth were not perfect. But the kindness I received in those dark hours of resting, monitoring and waiting was beautiful.

It became apparent to me that we are so deeply disconnected from nature as a society. The medicalisation and capitalist approaches to birth and infancy still sting. I hope that if this is a part of their journey then I can guide my children in their own turn. 

All I had ever been told was that it would hurt. Nothing of the visceral screaming to save her, the instinct to feed her and of her own instinct to feed that neither of us had been taught or could have known. The very essence of nature and magic.

Nature has taught me that things happen in their own time. One tree bears fruit in the first year, another takes three. One child is born after two and a half years, the other conceived within the first month of trying. Nature knows when it is time. I breastfed my daughter until she was fourteen months old. My period had just returned and she had stopped breastfeeding suddenly. Turns out the milk had changed as I was pregnant again. She knew before I did. 

There is a comfort I find in the cycles of nature and time. I now look forward to the different stages of my cycle as I look forward to change in the seasons. Things are never exactly the same, but there are always constants, winter is followed by spring. 

I have always been an autumn person. Not in a ‘spooky season’ way - no judgement, I love Samhain and pumpkins, I just mean in a crunching leaves kind of way. The cool breeze, getting cozy indoors whilst it rains outside, harvesting and eating the aforementioned pumpkins. I love it. I love the preparation for winter. 

Winter and summer however, being the extremes, I have found more difficult. My fabulous brain does not care for winter’s darkness as much as it enjoys the coziness of the season. I have sensory troubles with temperature so in summer being too hot, sticky, sandy was never my thing. I have become more inclined to embrace each season as it presents itself since discovering I am autistic, 18 months ago. I can now advocate for myself better, place clearer boundaries, encourage myself to try things I would really like to and have systems in place to support myself. Summer is going well. Winter tbc. I will try this year not to jump immediately from Yule to Imbolc and instead have winter take me in their arms and just be. 

There is a deep joy and quietude to be found in becoming aligned with the rhythms of nature. Noticing the arrival of the rosehips on a walk can be a mindful touchstone to help you out of your thoughts and back to a heart centred approach. Greeting a new source of wild bullaces helps mourn a friend who lives fondly in the memory of Christmas jam whilst providing hope for the darker months to come as you can refill your stores. 

Nature has taught me that we are all interconnected. We are more dependent on nature than she is on us to ‘save’ her. The elemental forces are powerful and to be respected. Mostly she has taught me that humans are a part of nature and no amount of building and earning and running from it can change that. On days when things get a bit much and I have dissociated so much to get through, I like to remember this quote from my son,

“Trees are nature” and it brings me right back.