‘Early motherhood is a dark season’ says my client.
Flashes of the Dark Mother appear as impressions in my mind. There is truth in these words that were uttered by my client and I know that she is not alone in her musings. In the darkness of this time-new motherhood-there is a profound loneliness that hits. It is as if the mother knows, within her bones, that something is terrible off. Mothering is not supposed to be experienced in isolation; it is a communal beingness. Yet, here we are, in a hyper-techno-connected world utterly disconnected and isolated during a time in which we need community more than ever.
I find it fitting that I am writing about early motherhood as a dark season during the Northern hemisphere’s seasonal time of darkness. It is apropos to be embracing The Dark Mother just before the dawn of new light emerges, as it does with the turn of the seasonal wheel. Each year we are reminded of the birth of light; reminded that after darkness there is light. Many religious and spiritual stories point towards the story of dark and light. In many traditions, however, the light is celebrated. Leaving the dark, the underworld, the mysterious, and the shadow to be feared or rejected all together. When we culturally reject the dark, we reject an aspect of our psyche and thus, are cut off from our wholeness. We become fragmented individually and collectively. And, we are indeed living during a fragmented time in history. Thus, it is not at all surprising that the Mother is feeling this fragmentation with her body, heart, mind, and soul.
Embracing the dark season of motherhood is an act of remembering and weaving oneself back together again. The act of childbirth is a dis-membering and dis-locating event (even if experienced as orgasmic or pleasurable). Pregnancy marks the beginning of this journey of initiation into motherhood during which time, often, the ‘maiden’ or the ‘siren’ (as I recently spoke about with another client) is preparing for her metaphorical death.
Pregnancy reflects to the soon-to-be mother that the body is no longer theirs; it is a shared space. The body is hijacked parasitic-like by the placenta and the developing fetus (placentas have been compared to parasites, and vice versa). The body becomes a host. Hopefully a nurturing host, however, not always. The host can also be toxic. This transitional phase from ‘my’ body to ‘their’ body marks the beginning of the rite of passage. I know that with the collective we there is an attempt at celebrating the pregnant body as an image of beauty that represents the creation of life. And although this is partially true, there exists an inner tension within the body and the psyche of the pregnant woman. This tension is inevitable. There is a dismembering of the image of the self, a dislocation and a dissolving of the old self, not quite ready to embrace the new self, that is unfolding throughout those nine moons. Although celebrated, it is also met with resistance and at times, rejection.
I remember with vivid imagery what it looked and felt like when I realized my body was no longer, my body. I was about four months pregnant and I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. This phase of ‘not recognizing’ is a common theme shared amongst many of the mothers I have spoken with over the past 23 years. The ‘not recognizing’ is the process of dissolution, and represents the beginning of the ending, in which a disunion occurs between the self that once was and the self that is becoming. In a culture that glamourizes the siren, the maiden, the adolescent youth, the powerhouse CEO, the Wonder Woman, and even, the non-woman or the gender-neutral person, is it any wonder why there is no room for the Mother to rise in her power and newly formed beauty? Is it any wonder why women are rejecting their bodies and distancing themselves from what they are feeling during this initiatory phase?
Hence, early motherhood is a dark season.
Where does the Mother belong in our modern curated culture of Western ideals?
She is not centralized, nor valued as an important role in the collective community. Rather, motherhood has become a commodity-as expected within a capitalistic culture. Just take one look at Tik-Tok or IG and the commodity is the ‘put together mom’ or the ‘suffering mom’ or the ‘birth trauma mom’ or ‘the working mom’ or … fill in the blank. It appears that today’s mother is trying to find her worth online. Prostituting her stories of struggle or triumph in exchange for empty monetary likes. Or in a desperate attempt to be seen and validated by strangers, in hopes that the dopamine hit will distract her from the internal emptiness that she might be experiencing.
What has happened to local tea times, potlucks, or park hangouts? Our fear porn culture has driven wedges between human connection and the rising cost of living has forced more mothers to work outside of the home, leaving only a small handful of ‘old school’ style stay-at-home moms even more isolated in their ‘castles’. And, if not forced to work outside of the home, desperate to get back to work, so not to feel the impact of isolation and loneliness.
The first wave of feminism glorified the working mom. I was raised by a Supermom. You know the kind that ‘do it all’ and never stop for a second to feel anything. I am not making anyone wrong for their choice to work outside of the home, or work within the home. Given that the culture values capital and economic growth it makes sense why there was a push to value the working mom as ‘progressive’. Staying home to raise children does not contribute towards economic growth; there is no currency exchange involved in the work of mothering. If the mother is alone, isolated, un-initiated, devalued, ignored, and expected to ‘just’ return to ‘normal’ what are we to expect will happen to the psyche of the mother?
Hence, early motherhood is a dark season.
A recent google search indicated that we are facing a maternal mental health crisis and that birth trauma is on the rise. My response to such statements is no shit, are we surprised? Of course, there is a maternal mental health crisis; there is a human mental health crisis. This is not because there is something wrong with the individual rather, I argue that it is a result of living in a toxic and sick culture. As philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti famously stated, It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
With the increased focus and attention on maternal mental health, one might anticipate a reduction in diagnosis and mental suffering. In other words, awareness equals increase in health. However, the opposite is occurring. More awareness has resulted in more diagnosis, thus, more treatment (and often that treatment is medically managed with psychopharmaceuticals). That means more money lining the already very wealthy pockets of the BigPharma industry. A diagnosis followed by pharmaceutical treatment does not solve the crisis we are collectively experiencing. I understand that pharmacological treatment can be a very effective remedy when faced with a serious mental illness such as postpartum psychosis or suicidality. I am not suggesting pharma is evil. I am however, lifting up the point that medication is not addressing the underlying malaise felt within the soul (psyche) of many mothers.
Hence, early motherhood is a dark season.
Very little public chatter speaks to one of the core problems: A sick and toxic culture in which we have perhaps reached a tipping point and we can no longer adapt in the ways we have in the past.
Rather the verbal ‘finger’ points to the individual, and in this case, the mother as being at fault. At fault for not adapting well, for not bouncing back, for having a ‘chemical imbalance’, for not having prepared enough, for choosing the ‘wrong’ care givers, for snapping at her children, for having a broken body, for not feeling connected or bonded, for having had a medically managed birth, for not producing enough milk, for having a colic baby, for being sleep deprived, for not enjoying motherhood, for wanting to return to work, for being depressed, for feeling anxious, for not handling things well, for impatience, for all of their imperfections… the lens is focused on the mother, as an individual. This places a great deal of internalized pressure on each mother to not only ‘get better’ but ‘fix’ what is wrong with them; and not fix what is wrong within our culture. This is the problem with our Western psychological lens, and one of the reasons I personally veered away from traditional Psychology. I saw the flaw in the individual psychological worldview.
Hence, early motherhood is a dark season.
How is the Mother supposed to digest all of this, within technocratic modernity, on top of the already challenging ancient initiatory experience of birth and the postpartum? If it is not metabolized, where does it go? It being the emotional debris, the soulful material, the dreams and contemplations held silently during the wee hours of the night. It must go into hiding and into the dark woods. Into the shadows and the underworld. While it is there, something is incubating and hibernating. Is it the Great Mother that is hibernating? Waiting for the thaw? Waiting to re-emerge when the season calls forth?
What if embracing the dark season for all that it is, is part of the antidote? What if returning to old ways, old stories of myth and mystery, to re-member that which has been torn to shreds during the decent of Inanna? What if the postpartum and early motherhood is in fact, a dark season and what if my client was correct in naming it as such?
What if we didn’t fear this season, rather acknowledged it for what it is-A season for digesting, churning, stewing, metabolizing, deepening all in support of repairing and gathering all that has been discombobulated through the Mother’s rite of passage. As with all rites of passages and initiatory markings, we go through an ordeal. The ordeal in this regard is the journey from ‘maiden’ to ‘mother’ and all that it encompasses.
In communal cultures, or attachment cultures, the initiate is to be met on the other side of their ordeal, by their community, and is to be celebrated. This is what holds the space for integration and union. But what happens when we have no community left. Who is there to celebrate us when we don’t even know what we are celebrating? If our culture doesn’t celebrate the ordeal of becoming a mother, nor sees value in the role of the Mother, how are we as mothers supposed to respond?
Hence, early motherhood is a dark season.
Some of you might be searching for an ending that points to the light, as a compass to navigate in and out of the darkness. I understand this place. For the longest while I wanted to be the beacon of light that can help mothers find their way out of the darkness. This was hubris of me. That said, I do know something about navigating in the dark and the first rule is to fear not the dark. When we fear the dark, we resist that which is. Thus, we resist growth, potentiality, and the process of maturation.
The dark, the soil (the soul) of the earth, the incubating and generating conditions for new life to emerge, is a necessary cycle of life. Nature reminds us of this through seasonal cycles of death and rebirth. And so, what if early motherhood (for now) is in a collective season of darkness? How might you respond differently? How might you respond knowing that it is not because there is something wrong with you, but rather, something wrong with the collective? What might happen if both the dark and the light of motherhood were embraced and normalized? Not from a place of feeding the wound or lamenting about how awful it is, nor from a place of toxic positivity, but from a place of exploration and navigation. A place of claiming the power within the archetype of the Mother. Not by claiming the wounded mother (we have enough of this going on), but resurrecting the Mother from the darkness. Only you, as a mother, can resurrect the power of the Mother and embody the knowing. Our culture is not going to hand it over to you. If you are waiting for someone or something outside of you to celebrate you, value you, see your worth as a mother, you will suffer. Only you, as the mother, can claim your worth by navigating the inner terrain of the dark season.
If the stories of the Dark Mother resurfaced as part of our folk lore, as meaning making tales, might we spend more time focusing on ways to deepen and enrich our inner world so that we, as mothers, can emerge having claimed our wisdom from having faced the maternal ordeal? And what is the value in claiming our wisdom-empowerment, confidence, and heart.
Perhaps, this is possible.