Ancestors In My Cells
Excerpt from An Ode to the Memory of My Womb -
The following are the closing stanzas from behind the paywall of my last post, An Ode to the Memory of My Womb. Hundreds of words are still omitted here for privacy, but this part I wanted folks to experience. Enjoy.
…continued from An Ode to the Memory of my Womb…
My cells spoke to me two days ago and told me they remember. They started with my womb, reminding me that everything is everything and that in this holographic universe all is one.
My cells and DNA hold space for my physical uterus in absentia. They spoke of her inextinguishable power. They reminded me that my wholeness is never incomplete and that my femininity and woman-ness is not defined by nor tethered to an organ.
Strange for my cells to tell of sex and gender when nonbinary is my choice of labels for ease of communication. Perhaps I’m lucky not to be dissociated from any aspect of gender identification. Mine happens to be expansive, and expensive and I glide between gender lines in expression and action undaunted.
Why are wardrobes gendered anyway? How about clothes and accessories for all shame-filled and non-shame filled humans with a legal obligation to cover their sexy bits and an aesthetic obligation to adorn themselves as they see fit?
My cells showed me the violence against thousands of wombs across time, my ancestors, both perpetrators and victims. I felt the crimes against my people in every violent form I will not fully enumerate here, but no gender or sex was spared. No familial bond sacred enough to be safe from the harms of men, steel, lash, law, lust, race, place, greed, or cruelty.
So no, I do not miss my uterus. I honor her and what she did for me, with me, as me. She was likely boggy and dysfunctional, like many of us, she had her good days and her bad. Her greatest achievements include an unbroken line of mitochondrial material ensuring Black feminine legacy that is the indisputable origin of humankind.
My womb may have expired, but my legacy as Black Elder Crone is just beginning.
Radiance