There are few, if any, greater transitions of identity than that of becoming a parent, and in particular, a biological mother. This is a physical fact. The changes of pregnancy are immense, both the obvious shifts as the body moves to accommodate and nurture another life, but also many less visible neurological changes that are both profound and permanent. But the change is not only physical. It is existential. Pregnancy and childbearing cements this change, but for many mothers, the first tiny shifts in gravity appear on their own in the months or years preceding a first child. They appear as a premonition of change or a sense of conviction. Some know what they shall become.
I do not know what defines the boundary. Perhaps it is like the changing phases of the moon, with some liminal, penumbral zone between one state of being and another in which we possess the qualities of both and neither. Perhaps, also, there is some element of cocooning during pregnancy, in which we retreat into the protective chrysalis of ourselves and, like the caterpillar, dissolve into an “imaginal soup” from which our next form is created. This certainly seems possible. I feel as though my component parts, while still recognizable, were rearranged during that time according to some mysterious Imago and now exist within a different energetic architecture.
The birth of a child is also the birth of a mother.
I painted this image of my beloved friend, fellow artist, and favorite model, Alla Bartoshchuk, just months before she, too, found herself in the midst of this transition.