A wound the size of a dinner plate
29.09.2024 Elila-Rose Mkakanzi
29.09.2024 Elila-Rose Mkakanzi
within
a placenta ripped
torn
moved
from innermost walls
womb
entire being
intrinsically rearranged
to fit the tiniest of life forms
that stretches
grows
moves
a heaviness
a lightness
to carry life itself
something so precious
protected, small
warm inside circular walls
ripped
torn
moved
into the world
onto this earth
and a wound the size of a dinner plate
woman is left to heal from
Grounding the placentas. Placing them within the earth on my grandmother’s land, adorned with flowers and wrapped in soft cloth, to decompose beneath a baby tree and nourish its growing roots.
When I came to do this I kept in my mind that it was an offering. An offering back to the earth–back to my creator–for holding us safely through the passage of birth. Returned to the cycle of life that is inherent in the placentas being. My mother did the same for my sister and I’s placentas at our births, also on my grandmother’s land. I continue the tradition.
The air was winter crisp, my second born snug sleeping on my chest, as the sun set in glowing gold the way it does out in Country. My first born helped with the digging; the collecting of flowers, burying, planting of the tree and watering. At two and half she didn’t quite understand the meaning of our actions, and I know in a way that this ritual was more for myself than anyone else, yet it was lovely to work with her in the quiet of the afternoon on land I trust.
Our way of life as a species has become so fast-paced and ‘throwaway’, and more often than not the placenta is seen as waste and ultimately unimportant. We tend to leave them in the hospitals we birthed within–if a hospital was chosen–forgetting their existence.
For the mother, a gaping wound is left, and in the coming months after birth she heals from the ripping of its presence. How intricate the process is, how embedded in a mother’s being it becomes. From conception to birth; to create, release and heal from its existence.
I pray it is felt in the spirits of my daughters, as a part that had also been theirs was finally laid gently to rest. I didn’t want to leave them forgotten in my freezer for years on end, or thrown away as waste by hands that wouldn’t hold them with reverence. It's time had passed, yes, but that didn’t mean I needed to discard it as though it meant nothing. It meant everything. It nourished my babys’ bodies, kept them alive for the months they spent cocooned in my womb, a lifeline connection.
It left a wound the size of a dinner plate, that I had to learn required gentleness and a slow pace of life to heal. It was the mother tree, and I’m grateful that I was able to sit beside it and return it to be within the earth that we three now walk upon with joy.
I write this for another mama that may feel called to do the same. To honour the cycle, and to close it. To create a space to reflect on the transformation that occurred. To offer gratitude for the immense gift that this livity1 is. To ground, as our feet touch this ground. I hope the mother-baby dyad is one we are able to hold with softness in a world that often wants to rush us by.
When I came to do this I kept in my mind that it was an offering. An offering back to the earth–back to my creator–for holding us safely through the passage of birth. Returned to the cycle of life that is inherent in the placentas being. My mother did the same for my sister and I’s placentas at our births, also on my grandmother’s land. I continue the tradition.
The air was winter crisp, my second born snug sleeping on my chest, as the sun set in glowing gold the way it does out in Country. My first born helped with the digging; the collecting of flowers, burying, planting of the tree and watering. At two and half she didn’t quite understand the meaning of our actions, and I know in a way that this ritual was more for myself than anyone else, yet it was lovely to work with her in the quiet of the afternoon on land I trust.
Our way of life as a species has become so fast-paced and ‘throwaway’, and more often than not the placenta is seen as waste and ultimately unimportant. We tend to leave them in the hospitals we birthed within–if a hospital was chosen–forgetting their existence.
For the mother, a gaping wound is left, and in the coming months after birth she heals from the ripping of its presence. How intricate the process is, how embedded in a mother’s being it becomes. From conception to birth; to create, release and heal from its existence.
I pray it is felt in the spirits of my daughters, as a part that had also been theirs was finally laid gently to rest. I didn’t want to leave them forgotten in my freezer for years on end, or thrown away as waste by hands that wouldn’t hold them with reverence. It's time had passed, yes, but that didn’t mean I needed to discard it as though it meant nothing. It meant everything. It nourished my babys’ bodies, kept them alive for the months they spent cocooned in my womb, a lifeline connection.
It left a wound the size of a dinner plate, that I had to learn required gentleness and a slow pace of life to heal. It was the mother tree, and I’m grateful that I was able to sit beside it and return it to be within the earth that we three now walk upon with joy.
I write this for another mama that may feel called to do the same. To honour the cycle, and to close it. To create a space to reflect on the transformation that occurred. To offer gratitude for the immense gift that this livity1 is. To ground, as our feet touch this ground. I hope the mother-baby dyad is one we are able to hold with softness in a world that often wants to rush us by.
1 Livity is core to the Rastafarian faith. It emphasises the connection between all living things and the divine.
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