Enwombed
By Niall Twohig
I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings. – Genesis 9:13-16
Blessed are those who, from their inner wombs, birth mercy; they shall feel its warm arms embrace them. – Matthew 5:7 (a translation from Aramaic by Neil Douglass-Klotz)
The appearance of the rainbow after the flood – the moment when God shifts from wrath to mercy, from a Being higher and separate from to being equal and bound to us.
* * *
The root of mercy is womb. This would be a better image for God than a warrior’s bow: the rainbow as Mother’s womb, encircling and cradling her children through the storm of death and rebirth.
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A revision – I reveal my womb in the clouds as a visible covenant between me and all my children. When I bring clouds over earth, and my womb appears, I will recall this covenant. May you, my child, remember it too.
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Mother have Mercy on us. You have the right to be mad at your children for we have damaged the garden of You. Your desolated body, in defense, send fires and floods that our strongest structures cannot withstand. But remember Your covenant, Ma, for we are bound to you. We are you. To destroy us is to destroy yourself. To save us is to save yourself.
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Lianne says it makes sense that mercy originates from womb. To be a mother, she says, is to be at the mercy of one’s child.
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The mercy of a mother, at the mercy of her child, is pure Mercy.
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The appearance of the rainbow after the flood – the moment when God turns from a Wrathful Father who doesn’t realize he damages himself by hurting his children, to a Merciful Mother who senses the reciprocal bond.
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Wrathful Father & Merciful Mother. Every parent contains the two. I’ve seen the two faces in Ma. I’ve seen them in Da. I’ve seen them in myself.
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May every parent realize they encircle their child in an everlasting womb. The wrath extended to the child in this womb ripples outward poisoning us, our line, and all lines that intersect. The love extended to that child ripples outward healing us, our line, and all lines that intersect.
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Mother have mercy on my nephew, Lohgan. When he was still in the womb, his mama went, in all her fullness, to a sound healing. She said it felt like being in the womb, amber and aqueous.
Two years after his birth, they drove by that same yoga studio. He said, Mama, I remember being there with you; I was dancing in there. How could he possibly remember? The memory of being in a womb within a womb runs deep, it seems.
Ten years old now, his soft edges have been sharpened not by neutral time, but by time made oppressive by a father’s wrath. Wrath came upon them like a storm cloud that hid the color of life. Wrath came upon them like a flood that swept away joy and laughter.
But the memory of a womb within a womb runs deep.
Mother, may your womb encircle Lohgan. May he remember that womb just as he did when he was two, that amber aqueous light familiar to every cell. May your womb encircle his mother too. May your womb encircle his father too. Enwombed, may sharp edges soften. Enwombed, may closed hearts open. Enwombed, may wrath-wrought wounds heal.
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Dear Aislynn,
Before I begin, I must tell you that Guns n’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” is playing, loud, from a nearby apartment. Another sign that my pen writes these words at the right time.
My sweet child, Aislynn. These past years, I have felt so full of wrath. I don’t blame myself. These were hard years. Before you were born, I had to father my Da, your granddad. It brought out an ugly side in me that’s in us all. Then there was the time of cancer. It aged me and your Ma.
But lately I feel the wrath slipping away. I feel another side of me flowering.
It’s growing from the roots. I feel them: deep Celtic roots that connect us to a land we left but that never left us. These roots are changing me. They’re pumping something into me, a magic draught, that soothes the wrathful father. These roots pull me back to the warm amber Now. I move through life now, rooted, and the world takes on a whiskey glow. Rooted, I sense the signs: smell of peat in the air, tobacco-leaf pattern on the floor, hummingbird rests atop a branch as I sit each morn, hungry crows who now know me as food-giver to feathered friend.
The other day was our birthday, not plural because I was born again with you. And on this birthday, 9 February 2024, roots slowed me enough to see another sign: the rainbow.
The rainbow brought me to the year before your birth, to the little pearl that never came to be but who resides in your middle name. They call a baby after a miscarriage rainbow baby. That’s what you are: our rainbow baby.
Rainbow baby, I remember the moment they drew you from your mother’s womb: lifeless and blue. Lifeless and blue, they pumped your lungs and heart. Have mercy on us, my whole being prayed as I looked upon you lifeless and blue. Lifeless and blue, you took your first little breath, your heart fluttered its first, and light shone within you. You became rainbow.
Five years on, the rainbow appears. Slowed by my roots, reading the signs, I rush inside to grab you so we can share this gift. We encircle ourselves in it, two giddy leprechauns, as I take this shot (looking at it now, I see this gift unwrapped us).
Sweet child – sweet rainbow baby – whenever you see a rainbow, remember this prayer:
Here is God’s womb made visible.
Here is God’s womb encircling us.
I am born to God in this moment and She born to me.
May Her mercy shine upon me and all her children
May we reflect Her mercy through the fragile puddle of our being.
With love,
Dada
* * *
There are no rainbows over Gaza.
Man has turned it into a tomb,
hidden from all light.
Entombed, the people cry.
Entombed, the people cry.
Entombed,
the people.
Entombed,
their cry.
And then,
their breathlessness.
Lifeless and blue,
no resuscitation,
no resurrection,
no medicine even,
no bandage even.
Those
who sell bombs,
who drop bombs,
who block food,
who poison water,
know only the wrathful father.
In knowing only him
they entomb God,
they become
antithesis:
Tomb Builder,
Corpse Harvester,
Angel of Death.
One day,
after their
ungodly
flood of fire,
may we see
a rainbow
extending
from the river
to the sea.
May it enwomb
and enrapture
another world
awaiting to be born.
Quickening now
Quickening now
Quickening now
I feel that world
gestating.