Healing the Womb, Part 4 ~ Womb Visions
It’s been six months since a dozen women gathered in a cozy room on the Upper West Side to embark on a journey of Healing the Womb. That first evening, we each shared our personal experiences with wounds of the womb, each story a conscious reconstruction of thoughts, feelings, memories, struggles—things that are not always easy to put into words but that had to be in order to communicate what we had been through. And even though the translation would never be perfect, we knew that this process was powerful, that words have power and the sound of our voices expressing our truth created a deeper resonance between us. We told our stories. We listened.
Then we learned to listen to ourselves, to our bodies, which spoke not with words, but with sensations and feelings. We delved deep into our bodies, opening a channel of dialogue, learning to trust our intuition, to trust in the truth of that nonverbal internal process. Thus did we begin to reclaim and cultivate safety—and realize that we knew exactly what that felt like in the womb, before birth, before we had a language to consciously understand and translate it.
We enveloped ourselves in that feeling of safety, clearing the clutter and setting the boundaries of our safe space. There was “my space” and “your space” and we asserted that distinction both with and without words—discovering the underlying energetic pattern, rediscovering that the power of invitation was ours alone. We practiced holding that safe space for ourselves, then holding space for others—another mode of nonverbal communication that allows expression & healing to happen.
And then we opened to the flow of creativity to make the invisible womb visible. On the last day of our journey as a group, we ventured within to see what our wombs looked like. Using simple tools (crayons, markers, glitter, stickers, and paper), we visualized our wombs through artistic expression.
Visualization has never been easy for me—my dreams are rarely very vivid and I mostly tend towards words rather than images in my waking life. But when I stopped trying to see and allowed my body to show me, the feelings and sensations then manifested into colors, forms, and textures, and continued to manifest throughout the process of drawing, flowing through my hands rather than my eyes.
It is said that the hands are extensions of the heart. We indeed had to look at our wombs through the lens of the heart, with compassion and curiosity, just as a child would—and using art absolutely speaks to that younger, imaginative, freer aspect of ourselves.
At the Healing the Womb benefit workshop held on February 8th, Kiana had guided participants in a meditation that visualized the heart and womb as roses. We were to take notice of all the different qualities of our roses—color, size, shape, whether they were in bloom or wilting, what kind of environment they were in, etc. My womb rose had been blue and crumpled. On that final day of the Healing the Womb program, though, my womb was no longer sad and withdrawn.
I saw a vibrant red flower
that wanted to rise, rise, rise
snugly held
in a nest of grass
and this flower was also a cup
in which lied a pool of clear blue water
nourishing
and there was room
in that cup for more water still
and surrounding that flower-cup was a
halo of golden light
some of which poured right down into the cup
illuminating any dark spaces
and just within that halo
smaller whorls of silver light were floating
around my womb like fairies
sparks of wisdom
My womb was alive, had seen the light of day, had tasted sweetness, had felt the support of a women’s healing circle, and wanted more than ever to grow!
Today, I still look back upon my Healing the Womb experience with fondness—for all the women who shared their stories, for the tools and support I received for my healing, for being able to hold space for others’ healing, for the relationship I’ve reclaimed with my own body & emotions, and for the opportunity to help launch and make this program available to women in NYC & beyond.
Too many of us are hurting and have been convinced, in one way or another, that we simply have to endure the pain. This is not true! Our bodies know how to heal and they are constantly telling us just what they need. It’s time for us to be present, to listen, to truly take care of ourselves, and then extend that to our families, communities, and environment.