The Original Wound
The baby does not want to be born.
We scream and resist our way into this world. To be created on earth is to be a fragment plunged into terror!
Why should the baby want to become separate? I feel like I remember this in a visceral way: the infant urge to be so close to your mother that you can merge back together. To repair the horrible damage of separation and be 1 again. Maybe we all remember this to some extent. I feel like I never fully got over that! Suddenly 1=2. God. What a shocking and violent process to suddenly become 2.
After birth, the original separation, the deepest wound that splits us apart from all that is, we are a lone fragment forming ourselves against all the other jagged individual shards that run wild on earth. A mad experiment…
Suddenly, we are a life form negotiating this delicate wound of separation that will be trampled upon, exacerbated, tended too, and healed as we run the gamut of life: betrayal, loss, alienation, love, connection, and hopefully, a return to our true nature?
Some of my first conscious memories in life take place in my crib: crying hysterically alone in a dark room gripped by a deep sense of terror. I felt a supernatural force of profound alienation gathering within me. The original wound revealed my deepest fears about reality: I am truly alone here.
Okay I know, dramatic! A zoomed out perspective on the situation simply shows my poor parents doing the “let them cry through the night” method of parenting. It was the 90s, they barely knew a thing back then! Everyone had kids without considering if they even wanted kids.
They were truly not prepared for a child that screamed for hours and broke out of the crib with the strength and stamina of a demon straight from hell. My parents, over worked and exhausted, simply did not have the capacity to understand or tend to the seething wound of alienation that possessed me. They just wanted me to shut it! Understandable (kind of).
Illustrations from “the Book of Hours” 13th century Europe
Many spiritual traditions believe that our souls choose the circumstances and conditions of our lives before we are born in order to best facilitate the learning and growth of consciousness. From there we march on with free will in hand and do our best/worst.
I have always felt connected to this belief. It reminds me of the part of myself that does indeed consent to the pain of life, for reasons that extend beyond my discomfort. It reminds me that the suffering I experience will not ruin me, it was part of the deal! I am actually the one who is meant to face these particular experiences and I have everything I need to turn pain into wisdom if I so diligently choose.
Aries is the individual “1” of the zodiac. Ruled by Mars, Aries is the flaming baby hurled into this cruel world. Forged in fire, the true self is revealed in its most potent form when everything extra is burned away.
Astrological book of Lombard Illustrated by Cristoforo de Predis 1440-1486
I have come to learn there is something beautiful about being separate. Separation is freedom, its discernment. It allows us to distill materials into their greatest potency. Separation is the opposite of enmeshment, space to breathe!
When I was young, in my desperation to escape the profound alienation of the original wound, I ran straight into the arms of self betrayal for the sake of “connection. ” When this felt just as wrong, I booked it in the other direction and learned that in order to experience my true self, I need to be alone. This is simply the price of freedom.
Now I'm not so sure! I have been lucky to learn how to be in deep reciprocal relationships where I can be my true self. I am grateful for these rare connections. At the same time, I am extremely discerning and protective of my energy and freedom. I am proud of myself for learning how to prioritize this.
On my bad days, I worry I am way too guarded, mistrusting, critical, and reclusive. Who knows, probably yes to all of the above to some extent. I give myself grace because the original wound does not resolve overnight.
God shattered us all into 8 billion+ unique pieces for a reason. Maybe even a reason beyond cruelty, lol. If God did not break our hearts, how would we know wholeness?
When I was young in school I was very quickly labelled different than other kids. They put me in “special ed” which, in public school at the time this basically just meant shutting you away in a little room with the other odd ball children and ceasing to teach you anything. At the time this was a deeply alienating experience. I viscerally remember being bullied and mistreated by fellow peers and adult teachers alike. It really messed with my self esteem.
In my current life I have learned to love how I am dyslexic and odd. This is baked into my artistic skills. Dyslexia and other abilities that might be held against children in institutions of early life often prove to be powerful extra sensory perceptions. I experience my dyslexia as blue electricity that runs through everything and makes connections (whether I wish it to continue or not!)
I’m always moved by stories of those who face the full weight of their original wounds and gradually uncover the blessings hidden within what once alienated them, as life continues to unfold. Many of us carry stories like this.
If we were able to awaken to the larger picture of ourselves, we might find that we are here on an integration mission. All of us Frankensteining ourselves back together through life experience. Learning about the wound and the remedy.
In alchemy there is a concept called the “Tria Prima” which represents the 3 substances that make up all matter.
Watercolor illustration from the alchemical manuscript “Clavis Artis” created in Germany in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, attributed to the Persian Zoroaster (Zarathustra).
Salt: the body, the physical vehicle
Mercury: the spirit, the animal, collective consciousness
Sulfur: the soul, the angel, unique consciousness
In the middle where all these primary materials meet is the heart. The heart is the seat of the soul, where we do the great work of life. The heart is where all alchemy occurs because it is where we experience ourselves as the body, the animal, and the angel simultaneously.
The mystical heart diagrams of Paul Kaym 17th century
If we can learn to exist in the space of the heart, we are washed in awareness, truth, and integration. One could argue the heart and the original wound are synonymous.
So the baby is probably absolutely fine being born, or not being born…
If you would like to get writing like this delivered to your inbox: