Midwives of the First Light
What if the work before us is not to fix the world, but to tend what is being born? Via Creativa at the First Quarter Moon devotional.
Opening the Circle
We can hear the cries of the land as injustice is done, but if we listen deeper, those cries are not just in anguish but in childbirth; something longs to be born. The land is with child, a new dawn that will come and bring justice, peace, and understanding to it. We can hear the cries. We can feel the urgency of birth. We cannot rush it. We are merely the midwives, here to ensure that everything is ready, that the space is cleared and to aid the child in coming into being. Though our actions may be small, we see the light. We have the courage to see the process through. As the land travails in childbirth, we stand by her side and make sure that she is safe, strong, and that the world is ready to receive what she bears.
The Sacred Moment
Today, the first quarter moon cuts a bold curve through the night, a bright edge of becoming against the sky. May we feel the call to create, to explore, to dance with the holy spark that stirs within us. In the generative tension of the First Quarter Moon, we walk the path of the Via Creativa: the way of inspiration, of sacred imagination, of shaping what has never been before. Our souls reach not for certainty, but for expression: for the joy of making, of playing, of sketching the unseen into form.
This is a moon to imagine, to risk, to begin.
Path Illumination
The Via Creativia is always a collaborative process. It is impossible to be creative, to make something new, without cooperating with the giants on whose shoulders we stand, with the great lineage of creative work that came before us, and all of the imaginative minds that brought the modern world into the state it exists in today.
We can all see the turmoil around us as the dark, greedy, fearful, and power-hungry try to instill fear, terror, and control in the land. Our land does not shake before them. She cries out, as what she has incubated for all this time is coming. something new is about to be born.
We can see it in the multitude who are acting for their fellow people, the people whose hearts are being moved, the people whose eyes have been opened, and the scales have fallen away. The passive world that resigned itself to the whims of petty leaders and despots is slipping through their fingers as this newness is being born.
Our job in times like these is to midwife it into being, to take actions that will clear the way and receive the child when it is born. We have to imagine a new way of living, a new way of being, a new way to exist. This way is beyond the control of others. It is a way forged in consent and mutual care. It is a way built of love and mutual aid. It is a way built arm in arm and hand in hand as we provide mutual support, one for another, to build that great and glorious day. No work is too small so long as we keep our eyes open and we tend to the birth, removing anything that could cause harm to the mother and child, and preparing to receive the gift of new life as it breaks into the world.
The Sacred Question
As a midwife to this new creation, what needs do you see that you can attend to? Is there a hunger or thirst, clutter that needs to be removed, comfort that needs to be offered, or strength that needs to be shared?
Embodied Practice
Let us take a moment to sit with the land and help the new creation be born. This practice invites us to breathe with the land as it labors toward new creation.
As we inhale, we open ourselves to the ache, grief, and tension of the land in childbirth, not to take it on as burden, but to accompany it as midwives of becoming.
As we exhale, we release courage, tenderness, and blessing back into the body of creation, trusting that love knows how to move where it is needed. We are not rescuers or martyrs. We are witnesses and participants, breathing with the world as something new struggles toward birth.
Continue to breathe in that ache, grief, and tension, and to breathe out courage, tenderness, and blessing until you feel something change within you. It may be subtle at first. You might notice your shoulders relax or your pulse calm down. Sit with the land and breathe in and out. Feel the wells of courage, tenderness, and blessing arising within you from that great sea of compassion and mindfulness within.
When you are ready, return to your breath, return to your body, open your eyes.
Blessing of Becoming
Blessed midwives of creation, let our hearts be filled with love and our actions with devotion. May we give aid, care, and support so the new creation may rise and the new life be fulfilled among us. May we return to the wells of compassion and mindfulness, and from their healing waters, breathe repair, protection, and hope into the world.