The postpartum of rebirthing.
Rebirthing is not a flip of a light switch. You don’t let go of the old and immediately become the new. Sometimes it’s slow and grueling. Uncomfortable, confusing, and unclear. Other times, it’s ecstatic and surreal. The process moves in waves. Sometimes the entirety of the whole cycle is faster than others, more painful or joyful, but it’s always a process.
When rebirthing begins, you sense the first inkling of death upon you. Things start to get uncomfortable, change is calling. You begin to realize what is, is either no longer working, or that something big is changing - whether you want it to or not. Depending on how much you resist, the discomfort will vary. If you don’t surrender, you may be forced a bit more harshly into the dark, uncomfortable, and constricted birth canal. Either way, there is only one way out - it’s through.
This is what I think we forget most when it comes to rebirthing -
When you come out the other side, it can be somewhat of a shock. Things are different. They are definitely different, but there may be a morning mist of confusion or that gangly feeling of a newborn animal struggling to walk or stand up for the first time. It’s in their DNA, but it’s hard.
This renewal doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not A to B. It’s a faded transition. It takes practice to rewire, to nourish the new neural pathways. There is a postpartum period. So much rest, reflection, and integration is needed to fully embody the new.
Sometimes we are forced to stop. We were forced to look, question, reflect and awaken. Sometimes we are forced into that birth canal. Rebirthing so often feels like failure or death until we come out the other side and can see the whole picture. We are losing touch with all that we know, all that’s comfortable. Just like a newborn leaving the waters of the womb.
Once we are out the other side we are fragile in a sense. Our beings are in a state of shock, recalibration, and a bit of confusion. Maybe grief, maybe excitement. Everything may feel different but somewhat look the same. We are different, but we are still moving with certain aspects of what was. We dance back and forth being able to see the beauty of the new and then feel like we have taken three steps back - this is the recalibration.
I want to offer this perspective because if we can remember this, and start to more easily recognize the moments, and these thresholds we cross through life we can ease the process tremendously. We can much more easily find gratitude, patience, and soak up the beauty instead of being destabilized by the unknown.
We always rise from the ashes, and we will inevitably turn to dust again. If we don’t recognize the dance, we may endure a lot more suffering than necessary. We have the potential to embrace the confusion, seek excitement when we feel a sense of panic, and we can do everything in our power to choose trust over fear.
In the postpartum period of rebirthing, we may feel like what we released or left behind, comes back to haunt us at times, but this is the swinging of the pendulum that happens as we recalibrate. It's usually slower than we think.
When you find yourself in this place, in these transitions, and transmutations make a point, and muster the discipline to up your self-care and assure you’re receiving pleasure whatever that looks to you - hot baths, art, sex, wearing bright colors, singing at the top of your lungs in the car, anything.
Remind yourself of what you're grateful to yourself for, what your proud of, what changes have been made inside. Reflect on what insights have come. Make sure you see your growth and remind yourself, it’s okay to be fumbling with the old, as we grasp to embody the new.
We are always walking forward blindly in life, unsure of what will come next. The most suffering in life comes from when we try and deny this truth. This is the medicine of rebirthing.
Rebirthing is not clear cut. It’s a process. It takes time to adjust. And we are always at one point in the cycle between death and birth. Always.
We are constantly growing, we constantly learning, we are constantly moving forward in time with the rest of the collective. Even though this is true, our wheel of death and rebirth may keep spinning the same cycle if we don’t pay attention to what needs to be released. If we refuse to let go, and we cling to what’s shedding, we will keep cycling this same death over and over again until we surrender. You’ll always shed something, you’ll always gain something, but the more we can surrender to death, the more we can live.
This is the medicine of the Marigold flower. The Marigold teaches us to surrender and to let go of what’s dying. It teaches us the importance to not fight the inevitable. It teaches us the beauty of death as it grants life, and it teaches us to celebrate the life that’s lost.
Everything is forever changing, everything is forever birthing, and everything is forever dying. Change is the only constant. And if we can celebrate this change, and celebrate death and life, we can find so much more joy and we can live so much more fully.
The wisdom at the roots of rebirthing is remembering that it’s so easy to forget the postpartum period. It’s so easy to see this when you are in your greatest heights of joy on the other side of the struggle, and you are viscerally experiencing the high of life that death has granted you. The Marigold tries to teach us to remember this when we are in the dark. When we are in the underworld, when we are in the birth canal and can’t see, or move, or breathe.
When we are feeling the heights of death, it’s Marigold that reminds you the veils are thin between life and death.
Rebirthing is the medicine the Marigold. The marigold teaches us of the full cycle that makes it whole. The Marigold teaches us to not deny any of it.
Just like the wheel of life, if you can stay in the center, as opposed to the edges, you’ll be in your strength and clarity. You’ll be in your power. It’s remembering the postpartum, and knowing if you care for yourself properly the journey the chrysalis, and the becoming of the butterlfy - the journey between death and birth is a beautiful, beautiful thing to be engulfed by.
With Marigold love sweet one,
Abby
