My Womb Dance

My Womb Dance

This is going to sound weird, but bear with me for a few sentences, OK?

At Devora’s Dance Journey workshop this morning, we closed ourselves up in these cool black sleeping bag things that Devora had sewn up, and pretended we were back in the womb.

It was truly wow.

Closed up in my womb sleeping-bag, for the first time in my life, I imagined the clock turned back 46 years, to December 29, 1971, Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. In Gladys Freedman’s womb, as she struggled for 22 hours to bring me out into the world.

I imagined the love and wonder and excitement Mom and Dad felt when they first saw me. The first daughter born into the extended Freedman family in over 50 years. And I realized that when they look at me today, I can still feel that love from them for me.

And then, within my womb sleeping bag, I revisited my first birth, 20 years ago next week. the 8th of Shvat, Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem.

The tumult and wonder of that night! Having our first child, Hadas Eliana, becoming a mother.

And then my mind floated to Shvat– this new month we enter today. When the trees’ sap begins its annual awakening. And it’s not only the tree’s sap that’s awakening. On the way to this morning’s class, I passed by the first blossoming flowers–a tulip and 4 cyclamen–in our garden, an almond tree blossoming pink and white by the park.

My birth, my birthing, and the rebirth of the world. In this month of rebirth for everything and all of us–Shvat.

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