This is a visual and written exploration, following on from the She Oak contemplation, of deep and sometimes uncomfortable truths and the choice to accept the invitation to look and consider. It is an invitation to heal ourselves and our ancestors, and create a sacred container of love and welcome for new souls coming in. With awareness, love, compassion and whatever other allies we engage in this process, the implications for this could be profound.
Sometimes when we feel the urge to create art, the vision that comes to our mind is not that which flows on to the page, or the canvas. When this happens, and perhaps it depends on the subject matter, the muse has stirred something deeper and the soul itself speaks of long hidden secrets, cobweb-covered remnants of things not so pretty. And oftentimes, this is uncomfortable. It confronts us and affronts us, and we might in response rationalise that we’ve made a mistake, that we’ve made bad art. But we haven’t. Here is a communication, an invitation to be curious about the discomfort. Where does it come from? Where in my body do I feel this sensation, of discomfort, pain, disgust, repulsion, or sorrow? Where is the wound that has bled onto my canvas, or into these words?
I am met with this as I step back and look at the image that has emerged in an attempt to represent Conscious Conception. Conscious conception might be defined by three relatively succinct points:
· It is the recognition by both parents that sentience begins in a new life long before we ever imagined (or were conditioned) to believe possible. It is the understanding that both ovum and sperm are sentient – that is, being receptive to, in communication with, and informed by the environment in which they are formed and nourished, as are all living cells. As well as the awareness that consciousness exists before the brain, heart, nervous system, and mind emerge, and under hypnosis some people have recalled their time pre-conception, whilst parents have felt a child’s presence long before they have conceived.[1] [2](Menzam-Sills. 2021) (McCarty & McCarty, 2012)
· Parents not only consider their own physical health and readiness to make and grow and nurture and nourish a baby, they also consciously consider and address their own imprints around the primal period, and how they were received and treated by their parents, ideally before conceiving.[3] [4] (Thompson Hitt. 2012) (Baker et al., 1986)
· With this awareness of a new incoming consciousness and the environment that is crucial to its development into manifest form, parenting and the formation of the family and its strong foundations therefore begins at or before conception, where parents consciously co-create an environment of love, respect, gratitude and celebration in which to welcome in this new soul. Marcy Axness phD also refers to this as ‘attuned conception’. It is a team effort. [5][6][7](Melton.2015) (Axness.2012) (Axness.2017)
Symbolically I have endeavoured to encapsulate this consciousness within the Vesica Pisces with the Mother and Father encompassing, protecting, separate yet coming into union as the yin and yang, or the meeting of the divine feminine and the divine masculine. Both have brought the story of their own growth and their own ability to produce, as symbolised by each stylised tree. The roots may be seen to be growing, reaching toward each other as if with Fallopian/placental like fimbriae, whilst their unified potential is the joint production of the Star Flower, which will then form the fruit of their union, the vehicle for the new soul.
When I stepped back from this image, I felt repulsed by the roots. They were not how I imagined. I am forced to sit with these roots and the rawness they convey. There is a bloody, raw yearning to connect, to reconnect. I feel into it. What is this about? How was my conception? How was my implantation? How was I discovered?
One of the joys of my childhood was listening to the way my Dad would begin his stories of before I was born. He would begin with “When you were just a twinkle in your mother’s eye..” To me this was magical. It implied that I had always been here, and I had always been welcomed. Why then was I feeling this way, delving into this subject of Conscious Conception and letting my soul make its uncomfortable art? My parents told me that I had been conceived not long after their honeymoon. My mother at the time, however, was taking the Pill. I shouldn’t have happened. As an adult, I discovered that this imprinted my ‘pre-pollinated’ ovum with a deep feeling of not being wanted. This is after all the essence and the purpose of the Pill itself. Was this the reason for my revulsion at these roots? Perhaps my attempt to ‘nest’ or implant was then further met with hostility as a result of the Pill’s effects on my mother’s endometrium. Or perhaps I was feeling into something deeper. My mother was an adopted child, and the trauma of that severance, both on her own discovery in her mother’s womb and at birth would also account for the rawness and vulnerability in these roots. Most conceptions are not consciously sought, many are not welcomed, and so these roots then for many of us also represent the struggles we face as incoming souls to even get as far as being able to nest in our mother’s womb. The fact is that when we are conceived, consciously or not, we have already arrived.
When confronted with this, I am compelled then to ask, how do we conceive of ourselves? How do we welcome our own presence, our own growth and formation? With this deep exploration, might we choose compassion and love? How does that feel in our body?
When we seek to make art, and surrender to the process, we allow the muse or inspiration to direct our flow in giving it a vessel. So too is to conceive a child. I don’t believe that we are simply just compelled by an ironically mechanical, biological clock. If we are sensitively attuned, we become aware of an ‘Other’, another intelligence gently nudging us to co-create. Conscious conception is not just creating sacred, loving space within our parental union to welcome in a new little one, it is also the awareness of what we as parents bring to the creation. To conceive consciously, whether it be a child, or art, or even ourselves, it behoves us then to uncover those deep roots and let the soul speak its secrets. To hold it and hear it and give it compassion. No matter how uncomfortable, for with awareness and compassion we can heal the generations both passed and to come.
Blessings,
Michelle
[1] Menzam-Sills, C. (2021). Spirit into Form: Exploring embyrological potential & Prenatal Psychology. CosmoAnelixis.
[2] McCarty, W. A., & McCarty, P. R. (2012). Welcoming Consciousness: Supporting Babies’ Wholeness from the Beginning of Life-An Integrated Model of Early Development.
[3] Thompson Hitt, R. (2012). Creating Connection: Essential tools for growing families through conception, birth and beyond. (Vol. 2). The Consciously Parenting Project. Ch.1.
[4] Baker, J. P., Baker, F., & Slayton, T. (1986). Conscious conception: Elemental Journey Through the Labryinth of Sexuality. North Atlantic Books.
[5] Melton.K. (2015). The 9 Principles of Conscious Early Parenting. www.karenmelton.com
[6] Axness, M. (2012). Parenting for Peace: Raising the Next Generation of Peacemakers. Sentient Publications.
[7] Axness,M. (2017). Attuned Conception ~Secret gateway to humanity? https://newearth.media/attuned-conception-secret-gateway-new-humanity/