Resiliency & Stillbirth

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Image by Shusha Guna from Adobe Stock

A song I’m resonating with right now:

Resiliency & Stillbirth

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” - Chief Seattle

Over the years I’ve enjoyed talking to people from all over the world to broaden my horizon of how people live.

Its expanded my worldview.

There are so many different situations people experience in their lives.

So many untold stories.

Stories that are whispered and not shouted about.

We’re left clueless about the complexity of the world unless we consciously explore outside the little bubble we grow up in. Visiting different countries and talking to people from all walks of life has stretched my heart, opened my mind, and soothed my soul.

There’s one particular situation that’s on my heart right now, but I’ll get to that.

As I was walking in the park earlier this week, I was reflecting on all the beautiful and unexpected ways life has connected me to people from all over the world. Listening to all the stories of the tribulations they’ve endured and the triumphs they’ve achieved.

Authentic human-to-human connection is truly sublime.

I feel each person’s life as a different story of creation—the infinite ways God dances on Earth.

Midway through my walk I looked up and noticed the trees.

They’re so empty, I thought.

Image taken on my iPhone in the park

I noticed how they let go of the leaves, trusting that when the time is right something new will grow in its place. How gracefully they slip off their old identity, ready to embrace a new one. How they effortlessly let go of that which has passed its time.

I notice how similar its branches are to our nervous system. How it represents the placenta inside a woman’s body when a baby is being formed.

It’s all interconnected.

I thought about how many times I’ve changed over the course of my life. How many different identities I’ve moved through.

The question that fascinates me most is, who is the one still present through all of the changes?

That faceless, nameless, eternal soul.

Think of the tree as the human soul. Its leaves are the various identities we take in our lives. The leaves will keep on growing and dying and yet the trunk of the tree remains.

We become so attached to our various identities we forget who we really are.

Let us hold ourselves more loosely so we are not deeply attached, yet fully embrace each identity as it comes and goes.

“Be loose—so in every situation you can flow easily, water-like, as when water is poured into a glass, it takes the shape of the glass. It doesn’t resist, it doesn’t say, “This is not my form.” If the water is poured into a jar, into a jug, it takes the shape of that. It has no resistance. It is loose. Remain loose like water.” - Osho, Tantra

Osho’s message feels apt for the start of the year as we create space to welcome what newness may arrive in the Spring.

Be firmly rooted in your intention, but let go of what you think you need to do, who you need to be, and how it is going to happen.

As I continued to walk between the trees I felt their resiliency.

I sensed a deep strength.

I noticed how they’re firmly rooted in the Earth through all of the seasonal changes.

Humans are resilient too, I thought.

I began thinking about resilient women. How they’ve endured so many major atrocities across generations but also the quiet day-to-day physical and emotional abuse they experience that not many know about.

Note: men also suffer in a variety of ways and it is equally important to acknowledge and respect that but that isn’t where my mind went in that moment.

I let my thoughts continue to carry me.

I thought about mothers who have experienced miscarriages and stillbirths.

This is the issue that’s on my heart right now:

How we so easily take life for granted and yet so many women struggle to get pregnant. Their journey isn’t a Disney movie the way we may imagine growing up. Some of us may be born following multiple miscarriages and stillbirths. We are truly miracles.

Miscarriages and stillbirths are not something that are talked about much, yet it happens all over the world everyday to so many.

My heart started to break as I reflected on all those souls who yearn for children, but have not been able to have them in the flesh at all. All those who have had them but have lost one (or multiple) along the way.

In this lifetime I will never truly know what it is to experience a loss like this, but I did get a glimpse of experiencing the sacredness of the divine feminine during a medicine journey I was blessed to be a part of in the summer of 2023.