Despite the fact that I want to Vassar College, where you might expect that flew a feminist flag and gladly embraced open discussion about what it is to be female and to be feminine, I would have cringed back in the day to have entered a discussion about the womb. Yet, twenty years later, here I am wanting to talk about the womb. I want to write about the womb – and not just in relation to women. I want people to talk about it because the womb is a symbol of creation. As my mantra goes: Life is a collective creative process and when we want to change how we are living together (aka – social change), we do it through collectively creating different relationships with our selves and one another. Thus, I am increasingly getting the sense that – male or female – we would greatly benefit by giving attention to the womb – which is space that holds a fertilized seed, nurtures and protects it while it grows. What does it symbolize to you? What do you associate with it? In other words – what is your relationship with the creative process/creativity? 

Last month in Guatemala, I was chatting with a female friend about to turn thirty and we talked at length about the womb. About our mother’s wombs, about our experience in the womb (I know, kooky as it may sound…but I’ll maybe come back to that in another post), about earth as a womb – earth as a mother. About the way that the womb isn’t something we talk about openly in society. About violence against women and their wombs. About the need for people generally to reconnect with the womb – with this powerful symbol of creation.

Does this mean dancing naked under the full moon? No. Well, to some people I think it does. But to focus on that would miss the point. To focus on ‘womb-talk’ as something for hippy women would also miss the point – though I can imagine how it easily could happen. I also imagine how talking about the womb – what it symbolizes for men and women – would give rise to important themes such as shame and violence. For half the population the womb is part of bodies, part of a montly cycle of release and re-cycling, as it were. And for all the population the womb is essential – it is where human beings come to life.

Yet, we rarely talk about it.

What does this silence say about our relationship with the act of creating; of incubating fertilized seeds; of gestation; of releasing the old to make way for the new on a regular, cyclical basis; of being/feeling protected and of giving protection?

Do I feel uncomfortable posting about the womb? Sure. I have asked myself “What will some of my more straight-laced professional connections think?” And I have answered “It doesn’t matter what they think of me for bringing up the subject of the womb – what matters is what they think of the topic itself. And if bringing up the subject helps them/us to explore the question of their relationship with the creative process, well, then that is what counts.”

What is your reaction and your response to talking abou the womb? And why do you think ‘womb-talk’ might be relevant to creating a healthier world – be it in relation to the global landscape or in your hometown?