Unburdening

I've previously written about the mother scorpion I found in my closet, and her brood of babies, scuttling out of my black slipper. So I was surprised when she appeared in this poem again. And yet I also wasn't. What a generous teacher, this scorpion.

This poem was written during a writer's group where we explored the theme of listening. Listening, I discovered, like motherhood, like life, is a communal act, not an individual one. What a relief.

A mother scorpion can carry as many as one hundred babies on her back, carrying her young until their exoskeletons harden. (You can see a photo of a mother scorpion here.) I do enter my closet with caution these days, and also with awe for the wonder of the scorpion.

When I shared this poem with my writing group I sang them the lines below from Maria Sangiolo's beautiful song, First Best Friend. I hear this song and I weep. I encourage you to give her a listen.

Unburdening

"We are born to just one mother/but as we grow there are so many others." - Maria Sangiolo, First Best Friend

Sharing poems, you listen as each person shares the spark
that ignited their inner flame, light opening light.
Like passing a candle from hand to hand, you light the flame
of each other's medicine with the call and response of listening
and sharing, the heart's do-si-do. You sigh as you feel the tell
tale dawn of awakening, the fireworks as you're opened, again
and again, past your confusion and fatigue, past the sorrow you
carried with you this morning. You're awed as you realize that listening
isn't something you do alone: you can't hear all the invisible mystery
of the world with your own ears. It will take all of you to complete
the whole. Listening is not a burden you carry but a generous anvil,
cracking open the belief that it's all on you, revealing the truth:
listening is a communal act, not an individual one.
You remember the time you opened to this truth as a mother –
when you invited in your gaps instead of hiding them, when you
surrendered your attempt to be the entire village in one body.
You remember the mother scorpion you found in your closet,
dozens of pearlescent newborns scrambling off her back,
your marvel at how much she carried. You've tried to be
that scorpion mother, adding more and more onto your back
until you bowed under the weight. It was a relief to shed the belief
that somehow you should be everything for your children, even though
a part of you wants to feel that competent. Oh, the grace in letting
others mother, to allow them to fill out your rough edges, to be content
with being a single cell in the body of the world, not its grand
master, to join as one great mother body, one mother scorpion,
the weight shared across many backs.

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With a grateful heart, Karly