Initiation

Shaira tried to open her eyes to look around, but the pain flashed through her body with severe electricity. Everything around was dull and blurry. The walls of the hospital had a peculiar, desolate, dirty blue color. She hated this particular color since childhood, for it reminded her of all the Soviet hospitals and schools she had left behind.

The gray ceiling of the spacious corridor was nervously throbbing from the iridescence of an old broken lamp. She closed her eyes and wished this would have never happened to her. She envisioned herself dead and transformed into outer space to another planet. 

Shaira wished as a child she had not known all the needless fairy tales written by men about love and marriage, but instead what she craved for was the truth, true stories experienced by the real women. Shaira wished her mother would have talked to her more. But the truth was silenced and hidden. For it was a Gospel. Gospel about womanhood. Gospel about sisterhood. Gospel of the Divine Feminine initiation. For as much as it was a Gospel, as much it was a taboo back then. And still it was what it was – a big dark shameful spot called taboo. 

Shaira thought about it quite often. Why was it shameful to talk about all the womanly things? Menstruation, sex, abortion, childbirth and even childcare. She couldn’t understand why Kyrgyz women never ever shared all of these experiences with their daughters. She had not yet answered this question, but she knew for sure that women have to take their powers back, for the issue of the control over the women’s bodies and lives is the most important political question. No one teaches girls at school how to be a woman. How to grow. How to give birth and to nurture not only a child, but herself. Giving birth is such a powerful and yet traumatic experience for women, causing a lot of emotional and physical trauma. And yet still everyone assumes that women should know how to do it, how to give birth and raise children, because it is a “natural act”. 

“Or, no worries,” Shaira’s aunt Rosa, a big fat experienced woman with two children and two divorces behind her back used to say, whenever Shaira tried to start a meaningful conversation with her about womanhood. 

“It’s all natural, my dear. Giving birth is like swimming. All you need to do is dive deep into the waters and surrender. Just swim and go with the flaw”. Shaira would stare at her intensely: “What if I have no idea how to swim?” And it was true, the girl had no idea how to do it. 

“Not only do I not know, but I am terrified of swimming. Is swimming natural? I do not assume so.  Definitely not for me. A lot of people learn how to swim, but still not all of them are good at it. If I went with the flow in the ocean and surrendered, I would die,” said Shaira as if she was giving a lecture about her disabilities. 

Not willing to deal with childish insecurities, aunt Rosa just laughed at her and said: “Medical doctors will fix you, they will definitely take care of you, darling”. And years later they did of course, leading Shaira to the biggest trauma of her life. 

As a teenager Shaira had no one to talk to about important issues of life and death, motherhood and manhood. Parents, friends, teachers. All were alien not only to Shaira, but to topics like this. Everything she knew about life by her 20s was absorbed from art, books and movies. How to live, how to make love and how to give birth, all that kind of science she has learned from mainstream stories of cinema and literature. But almost all mainstream books and films were created by men. What do men know about women? Some superficial knowledge. They knew nothing, except how to use and abuse women. Sometimes, she thought, the world would have been much better without men’s needless interpretation of  women’s experience on earth. But they have to learn the lesson too. 

Everyone she thought should know, and especially men, how hard it is to give birth. Recently she read an article where one woman from Ukraine said: “If all people knew how difficult it is to give birth, there would be no war”. But unfortunately, today, thousands of women in Ukraine and Syria are giving birth amid the chaos of the war. According to WHO, women across the world face ill-treatment during childbirth. Birth maltreatment is not just a public health problem, but a violent act of human rights. Parental and neonatal abuse during childbirth is often exacerbated by a lack of awareness of patients’ rights, gender discrimination, and lack of empathy skills. 

Today in modern societies people consider childbirth as labor. As if giving birth is the same as to go to work.  As if it is something that needs a little bit of effort, an ordinary day-to-day routine such as regular work in our miserable life. And all you need to do is just push harder, make a little bit of mechanical effort, and all will be done perfectly well. 

“You have to work it baby, work it hard to make it right!”, “Push harder, labor to succeed!”. This technical attitude to childbirth is rooted in modern life. Life, which is too busy and too mechanically technological. There is no space for magic and sacredness of pregnancy and birth. All of which is lost as a passage of spiritual journey. It is no longer practiced and honored, no it is passed from generation to generation.  

In ancient times of her ancestors,  giving birth was considered to be a sacred ritual of womanly initiation, a spiritual art and science, but today giving birth is a medical, robotic conveyor. The sacred feminine is annihilated and buried by patriarchy. Women goddesses that helped women in childbirth and childcare are no longer worshiped. For a long period of history, the cult of the Goddess has almost disappeared from consciousness. And in Europe, only through the studies and research of Carl Jung in Depth Psychology, the well forgotten Goddesses have been finaly resurrected.  During the Soviet period it was almost forbidden to talk about ancient Kyrgyz belief of Tengriism, not to mention the cult of the Divine Feminine Goddess – Divine Mother Umai who for centuries has helped Kyrgyz women of all ages to live, love, give birth, heal and raise children. 

In Tengrian traditional societies birth was a tribal ritual, pregnancy was regarded as a sacred time for a woman — a time when a woman expecting a child should be treated with special care by the other wise women.  As the carrier of a new life, she embodied the miracle of creation in her very essence, linking the generations with her every breath to the Goddess Umai and the God Tengri. In ancient rituals babies came into earth with much more care and support, support from the older and stronger women: midwives, aunts, grandmothers, mothers and sisters. All guiding and supporting the one who was giving birth to the new life. 

Women need more than medical care, they need encouragement. Modern medicine culture, together with patriarchal neglect towards the needs of women, have created detachment of women from their bodies, from sisterhood and from the Divine Feminine. It is essential that the bravery and sacredness of pregnancy and childbirth be valued again. Every woman should be honored for the act of bravery and devotion. Every woman should be celebrated and honored. Not only that, women after childbirth should be celebrated as soldiers. You never know who will and who will not come back. Who is going to survive, and who will be defeated by childbirth trauma or even killed. 

Our ancestors were much more clever than us. In ancient Tengrian societies, people paid precise attention to the sacred practice of pregnancy and childbirth. Tengrains would compare childbirth to the battlefield or the war itself. Men confront the anguish of death in the chaotic battlefield of the war, and women confront death in the bloody field of childbirth. That is what Shaira really understood from the inner, conscious and spiritual journey she’s been through after giving birth to all of her children.

In ancient Tengrian tradition, the midwife greeted the mother of the newly delivered child with praise and honor for her warrior courage, as if she had just returned from the major battle. In contrast, when Shaira was giving birth for the first time, she was surrounded with deaf and cold medical stuff. There was no greeting, no encouragement and delight. Maybe her first time wouldn’t be that traumatic and painful if she was surrounded with the tribal attitude?

Later on, when she was pregnant for the second and the third time, she would watch non-stop YouTube videos of real women giving birth before the camera on their own or with tribal support, without medical help. Those videos were enchanting, they have opened her heart and the mind to the simple truth that women are warriors. She was so happy to see all of these strong women across the world shamelessly sharing their experiences with the world on social media. All these amateur videos were exceptionally empowering and educational. Shaira even made a wish to open one day a holistic school of childbirth for women. And of course she was dreaming about such a school, just because she herself was in extreme need of the one. After all these years, after giving birth to her six healthy children,  she still had no idea how she managed to do it and survive after all. 

Her heart was full of admiration towards those women with the glittering femininity, strong and proud of their womanhood. Restless in their service and worship for their household with their man and children. They were the cradle and the solid rock. For those women, womanhood came naturally, they were the green tall trees in the forest, rising high up to the sky. That definitely was not true for Shaira. She was different. She was a willow tree, gentle and unstable, the one that hangs around the river, always thirsty for another book or two, for a meaningful contemplation or conversation about unearthly matters. 

Shaira remembers the nipples of her aunt Rosa, the day after she gave birth to her first child. Her breasts were so full of themselves, they did not want to hide from her T-shirt. They stood proudly, dark and strong, hard, thick and meaty, compared to hers, flat as the Sahara desert,  and pale as a peony rose in May.   

She always looked at her aunt with amusement. Rosa has accepted her body, her breasts, her femininity with ease and fullness. But Shaira was the opposite. She was struggling. Frankly, she looked at everything womanly with disgust, unconsciously practicing the art of inner misogyny. To her the whole process of sex, impregnation, the period of pregnancy was a true torture and shame. It felt to her as something artificial, robotic, animal-like, and nonhuman. Even alien. Stranger thing.  Was she an alien herself to feel that way? She wouldn’t mind if people in future would have their communication turned into total psychic transmission of thoughts and energy: communicating, speaking, exchanging energies and even making love through telepathic frequencies and vibes. But to her, words, poetry, prose, music and art was enough. There was no need for physical interaction at all.

But there is no poetry in giving birth. In pregnancy, maybe. Yes, there was a moment when pregnancy felt like a bliss to her. There was a special time, even a spiritual one, when she was almost withdrawn from the world, drawn to the core, to the deep down rivers and valleys of herself and the baby within. All her attention went inward. It was a charming moment of time when she lived from a happy, almost meditative state. Shaira never practiced yoga, but during her pregnancy it seemed as if she was turning more and more to her higher consciousness. Before pregnancy she was a meat lover, but the chemistry of the baby within has changed her completely, for she couldn’t stand the scent of meat and onions anymore. What she enjoyed the most was the smell of mandarins and oranges. They felt like heaven to her. So she would embrace the scent of the oranges with all of her senses. And the rest was humid.

But still, giving birth to her was more than a miracle, it was a miraculous disaster. This part of her life contains so much pain and trauma that she would prefer to erase it from her memory completely. To the very end,  to the zero point. But the memories, they have their own agendas, they come and go unexpectedly and bleed on their own way.  

Bloody sheets 

Shaira always had this bold idea that she was strong. But in her twenties little did she know. She mistakenly assumed that it is not a big deal to give birth. That she will make it. All women do it. It’s natural. She is a survivor and warrior after all. 

“You can do it!” That’s what her father used to say. 

“You are a fighter, Shaira!” Her mothers’ voice was soft and strong.  

And she believed them, those voices in her head. But Shaira’s first childbirth proved her wrong. It showed the other side of her, soft and fragile. 

Right after birth, she hasn’t turned into a strong woman, but into a broken, abandoned little girl. 

She was lying on the old medical bed, with her eyes wide open. She just gave birth to her first beloved child. No one would give him to her to hold. Her baby was taken away, while the post soviet doctor would sew her genitals without any anesthesia. It was as painful as a torture amidst the World War II. 

When it was all over, she was naked and broken. There was no encouragement. There was no bliss, no glory. It felt like abuse in the abyss. She was all alone, swollen by the darkness of the cold and empty corridor. The agony of childbirth had pushed her gentle soul out of her body. 

The body and soul of hers had a dilemma of their own. Shaira’s soul never wanted to have sex, to marry, and to have children. Her soul’s mission was obvious. Her mission was higher than all the earthly things. She was always flying in the heavenly realms. And she just loved words and books. But this body. This body would always drag her down to the earthly realms and mischievous endeavors: to do sports, to take adventures, to fall in love, to reproduce. This time, her soul was ready to sneak away to the heavenly domains. And body, body was just passing over. It was covered with a gray flannel blanket as old as the Shroud of Turin, turned dark purple from the old stained blood of dozens of women who gave birth to their children before her. The blood was all over Shaira’s hips, underneath her legs and chest. Everything was covered with blood. The blood was alive and moving as a floating river going up and down, out and through her body. What else does she remember? It was freezing cold, even though it was a warm summer night. Sometimes she still feels the cold wind howling all over her broken and naked body. 

“They just left you to die here,” the soul whispered  to the body. “Poor you, I always knew, it was a bad, bad idea to fall in love, to marry and to have children. We came here for a different reason, remember. But you, you always forget, and never listen to me. I was speaking, almost screaming to you. And you? You have ignored me for years. You wanted to live and to know it all. And now, see?! Look at you, you are not a human anymore, they have treated you as a piece of “sh…t”,  like  meat.” 

And it was true. At this very moment during and after birth, Shaira felt as meat, not human. Through pain she lost her soul, her intellect. She was something else. She was It. They say. She was just a biological thing that men call women. A thing with the womb. But it felt even worse. It felt as if ground meat smeared across the medical bed.

The night was dark and empty. Shaira was lying under the open window and the corridor was long and gloaming. She closed  her eyes and was ready to surrender. The time passed by, as an old woman driving an old camel in the ocean of the silky desert. Shaira’s soulless body was flying in this very desert between life and the otherside. Ready to cross over to the border of the unknown. Her body was thirsty, but it could not move. 

In her dream or passing out, Shaira saw the bright light coming from up above, and the big white dove was flying next to her. The dove came closer and turned into a beautiful woman with long curly silver hair. She smiled and embraced Shaira with the most warm hug. She felt so much love shining from the radiant divine presence of the angel-woman. 

“Shaira, take a sip,” she heard a voice from a distance. Shaira opened her eyes. Her mother was standing right above her. She gave her water, and it felt like heaven. And her mother was a Goddess or an angel, except for her hair was not silver, but black with hazel strands. 

Shaira was always fond of her mother for she was full of stamina and grace. And at that moment her voice was even heavenly. It soothed the pain and called her back. Shaira’s soul surrendered the second time. But this time not to death, but to life. 

The moment she woke up, Shaira thought her hardships were over. Little did she know, it was just the beginning. 

Enlightenment  

The next day, the nurse brought her the baby. Shaira’s son was sent from heaven. The sacrament of a new life was so nurturing, she even sensed the shift in the room, as if the whole Universe was moving and greeting her and the firstborn. Within a moment, lightning struck, and the room was filled with the radiant light. Her boy rolled his big dark eyes, staring at her, and love was growing as the shimmering light within her body and soul, reanimating the blood she just had lost. Within a second she understood the meaning of the Universe and all the writings of the holy scriptures. Ever present, omnipotent unconditional love was radiating through Shaira and her baby. 

That was the kind of love that the Universe spreads to all of her children. Every newborn child is a living God, Christ and Buddha, Krishna, each and every mother is a Lakshmi, Saraswati and Mother Mary. 

That was the very day when Shaira had found God and experienced the lightning of enlightenment. It was a moment of bliss and calmness. This grace was given to her only for a moment, to be precisely for a day. Only a day. And what came after… 

Those women, who shared the same afterbirth room with Shaira, warned her, but she could not understand. They said: “Hey, you, baby with the baby, take care of your boobs, shall ya. Be careful”. 

Bleeding Breasts of Endurance

Shaira’s breasts transformed.  Within two days, her small breasts turned into two big white onions filled with watermelons. At first, she thought it was so much fun. She always had such small breasts, and now she had big and strong ones. But within a day, her breasts hardened. And the angel baby had turned into a villain. All he wanted to do is to eat.  He was always thirsty and hungry. The days and the nights were the same. The baby demanded more. Her nipples were so tiny and gentle that the baby was unable to grab them. They both struggled. So he chewed them up, as if they were not human flesh, but some old bubble gum from the supermarket. The blood and the pain were back again. Shaira was pumping and expressing milk mixed with blood for hours, but the pain from the broken nipples was so strong that she would cry her eyes out. 

Shaira’s mother-in-law was a post-soviet huckster, strict and bossy. She had white pale skin, tiny-narrow eyes and a thin ugly mouth.  She was not much of the help, but rather a distruction with an abusive,  unapologetic attitude: “You are such a pussy, Shaira! Endure! Do not cry, dubious girl!”

Shaira mumbled and endured, feeding her baby through unbearable pain and blood. Infection spread was instantaneous, and Shaira’s body turned on fire with severe fever. Within two days her body began to rot with numerous abscesses.  Mother-in-law doubled the torture with ravish sadism filled with disgust: “Kyrgyz women endure everything! They are stable and durable, but you, look at you! You are weak and shabby! Endure, and the pus will come out by itself through the nipples. No worries. You are such a pussy, dubious girl!”

Shaira endured, slightly passing out to the other side for the second time. And then again, her mother came, just like an angel, she took her away from the hands of the devil, and passed her to the medical doctors. 

Shaira has survived two operations. Her beautiful breasts had turned into a rally of five new roads built by five ugly scars.  The doctor said to her mother that Shaira will never ever be able to feed her babies with breast milk again. Moreover, he said: “One more day of endurance, and your daughter would have been dead”.