what are these images?  

Garden Island-South; 

by my husband on Sea-and-Land

Olivia

The room is dim; a small desk lamp gold-lights one corner. Midsummer in subtropical Brisbane, it's now about 2.00am. My daughter breathes. And sounds of courage, endurance, and utter in-the-void emerge from her. She's on the floor, on all fours; a lioness. The space is silent, bar her sounds. We have all been here.

Feet come under bulging belly, ancient aching effort; she rises. I bear witness to her. Our eyes meet. And in that moment I see the transformation of girl to Mother. Something seismic shifts. Our eyes one, I nod. Later she will recall this moment, recall my nod, and wonder aloud what I was witnessing. 

An hour and half passes. She's on the floor again, her husband at her head, myself and midwife at her feet. She expands. The sounds are different now. As is the energy in the room. Unfurl and re-furl, the head-crown of this being travels down. Nothing else exists in these moments. Spiral pathway etching into pelvic bones. 

Suddenly the wondrous face emerges, a puzzle wet and slippery. My breath has gone. Then a starfish; the body. And a new sound joins us. Turned and swirled and passed between my daughter's legs to her arms.

My granddaughter. My daughter's daughter. Olivia.

This post is part of Tara Mohr’s Grandmother Power blogging campaign

resonant stories

resonant stories

A few lines from Cordoba, Spain...

She walks with the authority of centuries, carrying  history in her body. Each footfall;  an echo across all time. The leader of the night tour – Luz – Light - of the Mezquita; El Alma de Cordoba – the soul of Cordoba, the tour is named.

The place is truly vast. Row upon row upon row of arches striped rust red and cream on columns. Such space! Additions added on layer by extensive layer as each ruler expanded this place-until 40 thousand worshippers could pray together. Imagine: forty thousand, one in spirit.

We begin in an outdoor alcove with ancient timbers in rows above, carved in Arabic(?); a little film. Then we rise and enter the massive courtyard; the full moon rises, birds fly across the lit palms and splendiferous gold-lit mosque domes. My god. I am breathless. We stand at the massive dark doors of the mosque. And remember this history of this place, layer upon layer. It’s Halloween.

The doors swing open and enter the cavernous space. As we move about, each area slowly illuminates. It is atmospheric. I have had the privilege of seeing many mosques and ancient places; The Blue Mosque and St Sophia in Istanbul, the grand mosque in Cairo, and Karnak in Luxor with Abu Simbel south of Aswan at the border of Egypt and the Sudan; I have been inside many churches and cathedrals with glorious architecture and art throughout Europe; from the north of Finland to the Vatican city, most recently the gorgeous glowing stained glass by Chagall in Zurich. All to name a very few. But this place, a UNESCO world heritage site, speaks to me. Its dignity. Its constant changes through so many, many centuries as men fought over it, conquered from Christians by Arabs, to be conquered yet again eventually by Christians. (The Inquisition tower, by the way, is a few hundred meters away. More on this later).

As always, when I visit these sites, the vibration of the place ripples through my body. And I weep. Always. It is not merely the splendour and the manifestation of vision and effort, rather, it is as if my own body knows these places, remembers them. Remembers our collective history. My human history. This place. This planet. Where, in an untold swirling aeon, I will recall and long to touch again; yes, I was here. On this planet. In time. Part of humanity, with all our strivings and squabbles and foibles and errors. I was here.

in the cave of gestation

SPA Gmachl, Bergheim. October 2012.

Sitting in the “Ruhe Raum”, in a massive circle cave chair, facing two huge arched floor to ceiling windows in the corner.....overlooking the Alps a mere handspan away....and we’ve had SNOW overnight!!! I am in a postcard. My life, this moment, is a postcard. Water trickling in the background from the indoor pool (all pearlescent tiles with aqua and deep blue lights with starry LEDS overhead. 30 deg. The outdoor pool...meters away.....steams to 8 feet high at 32 deg. Im pinching myself. Yep-ouch; Im really here. The first day brilliant sunshine, the second all mist and light rain; today snow and sun zusammen. Sunlight on the snow  in the cracks where the day before was bare rock.....I can see the firs all icing-coated on the low and middle slopes.....clouds waft half way up....and birds fly between heaven and earth. Time to take a dip.............

“Ohhhh, you are joking”, I say it again and again, grin all over my face.....I swim in the outdoor pool, out through the little covered canal that takes me from the Spa proper to the expanse of steam, water.....and Alps: directly in front of me. I laugh out loud at the sheer ridiculous splendour. A handsome cat-man comes running up, dives in, and emerges beside me laughing. Nope, still not dreaming. “Hallo” he says, grin on his face, then swims off, through the canal into the Spa. And Im not joking.

Despite the Spa being “full”, I seem to be alone, bar the staff and the handsome cat-man. Oh, and a curled-up woman the salt grotto. I don’t see her at first in the quarter-light; she’s tightly woven herself into the watery corner. I wonder if she’s somehow grown there overnight; an embryo. Ah; she emerges. And leaves. Alone again. Magnificent solitude in the swirling salt genesis. Everytime I immerse in here it is another ephiphany. Awarenesses arise. Processes float to the surface, not always comfortable. I watch them, don’t grapple. Let the waters rinse me clean; through my body tissues, through my history. Sounds emerge from my mouth, my whole being. I Sound like a whale. Release. Let go. Rinse. Forgiveness. Carry-on baggage finally put down. This is what I came here for.

I wander the corridors in my cream uber thick dressing gown. Ever on my way to the Spaaaa. The water. Waters. I could be in a mental asylum. 

Perhaps I am.

The Salt Grotto

Before I am;

       Embryonic.

Suspended

        In Time......

             there is no Time. 

Drift. Turning. Tilt, axis-swivel,

   and yield-push-reach-pull recover. 

Space. 

Kelp. 

   Along the water songlines of my body, streaming tissue-through;

        Mermaid-Dugong. 

Primal. Song. 

Sung into existence. Gestation.

           Bubble-up. Arise, disperse.

Emergent, bubbles, Sound.

History.

      My history.

              Whispers..........

Developmental.

Aeon.

    Waiting. 

            Patience. 

Press.

  Subside.

    Shuddering.

Under snow shriven Alps; This Womb.

          Re-membering.

Plop.

Chordate.

Blow. Blaow. Blaooooooh. B-b-bl-blo-bloooooh. 

Ohhhhh....   !

Narelle Carter-Quinlan October  15, 2012. Gmachl, Bergheim bei Salzburg

enter the Cathedral of the Body

The first cut

God, this is tough...is my scalpel meant to d-r-a-g so...? Shit!! Too deeeep. That’s the skin, superficial facia, deep fascia and beginning of muscle all in one. In a  loooonng incision all the way up the anterior thigh. Oooops!! So much for “layer by layer”. Unwrapping the present.  F****.

We enter the lab, the formalin a strong olfactory memory. A strange smell; kind of like plastic. White full body shower caps cover the forms. On metal trolleys distributed around the room. Lights above each one; a bunch of flowers. You can feel them. Most of us have stopped breathing along with these gifts. You can feel it. Shock. Disbelief. Stark. Reverence. Awe. Apprehension. Terror. Excitement. Tredidation. Profound appreciation. Real.

We form a circle, say who we are. Why we are here. And later, when we include the gifts, the Teachers, in the circle, there is the sacred. The holy. The Gratitude. One of the 4 seems to call to me, still covered, and I know it is this One I will work on. I guess it to be male. Incorrectly as it will later turn out as the forms are revealed, one by one.  We uncover, we observe. We notice. The line of an open heart surgery with long leg incisions for the grafts, other scars, haematomas, markings. What do we see? What don’t we notice? We touch, these feet that once walked the earth, my first contact, flesh of the leg....one by one they are revealed. 

Then we choose and go to the One who will be our Teacher. I gravitate to the first call; a female, with much superficial fascia. I want to touch, to caress, to Know this fleece of adipose tissue. We have to own why we have chosen this form. And I do. I want to explore this round womanly grandmother; this Female. To learn about this much maligned tissue which surrounds my own form, which nurtures and nourishes me. And which I am afraid of and resist in my own body: Fat.

We Name the forms; a new Creation in our hands. I christen our Teacher Bella. She is beautiful.

Next comes something shocking. I don’t believe we are going to do this. We stand the forms up. Each group, handles the body to upright, so we can properly meet. Who greets me? This beautiful yoda-wise-woman stands before me and I can feel the echoes of love and humour, humanity. I weep. And love her. This woman whose gift of form I will cut, to learn more of what it is to be human.

What do I see? What do I feel? By the end of the day her form is exposed as yellow fleece covering; rich. Exquisite tendons in hands of parchment thin skin. I cannot believe their pearlescent nacreous luminosity; a treasure revealed. I hold her hand in mine, and wonder, who else held this hand? What did she touch, caress? 

I work on the front thigh, the belly, the waiste. Creating separation between skin and underlying superficial fascia, where once there was one world. It is time consuming, and at times tedious. My gloves grease up. My scalpel dulls; change. I cut and strip too deep, I cut holes. My glasses fog up, my nose drips in my mask; I sweat rivers down my back  in the cool lab. I walk around, view the marvellous worlds of difference in the emerging other forms. I return to the wrist and back-hand. And later, I embark on the vast plain of her back, different in skin texture and different below the skin to the front. I feel her spine, hard and bony, yet to be excavated and reached.

At the end of the day I am full. My own body tired, I return to my room and roll on the floor. Have a hot shower. Eat, Skype. Go to bed........

Breath

Australian Skin ..... what do you see?