In the den that is the womb of every woman, there is a bear mother who is deep in hibernation dreaming. She is plump with a season of nuts and berries, and hidden beneath layers of fat and fur there are sparks of life — two little grains of light tucked in darkness, growing. One day a rumbling awakes her. It is her womb — it is opening. Water from another world is pouring through. Groans and pain. Tectonic plates shifting. The parting of the earth to make way for the children born of her dreams. From darkness emerges two new, small things. Full of wanting, full of need, whining and whimpering, suckling and drinking the milk of stars. Time is a tangle of fur and darkness and sticky sweet. They are wrestling now, balls of fur tossing and turning within you — can you feel them? Coming in and out of a tumbling haze of play and hunger and dreams — all of them dreaming, all of them dreaming you.

*I believe this was written during Sylvia Linsteadt’s Into the Motherhouse workshop many moons ago