The Birth of a Venus
The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli - Image from Canva
Give Birth to a New Life
I have been thinking a lot about the energy of spring. It is a time of year when many people start to feel excitement as they shake off the dormancy of winter and prepare for life to start to sprout up again. Personally, this spring feels more like a time of renewal than ever before as I leave to find a home in another country and prepare to give birth to a new life.
Spring and birth are 2 words that always seem so compatible, so inextricable, so promising. In combining those two words and energies, I can not help but conjure up the image of the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. A lifetime ago, I was introduced to this marvelous painting in an art history class. Years later, I was fortunate enough to see it in person at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Even though it has been reproduced on everything from stamps to coffee mugs, I still find it one of the most beautiful paintings, not merely because of the lovely subject but because of what I now see of myself in this newly arrived woman.
The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli - Image from Canva
Constant Rebirth
When I was a younger woman, Venus struck me as a beautiful, empty vessel waiting to be filled with all of the ways of the world that would bring her to life. Now, I see something totally different through the lens of many more years and life experiences. It’s not lost on me that the figure birthed is not an infant but a fully realized woman. She stands at the center of the composition in an unblemished clam shell that did not deliver her battered and broken.
There is a sense of calm as if the hand of the divine has landed her safely and gently to exactly where she is meant to be. On one side, an attendant is eager to cloak her in finery, yet she stands there, comfortable in her nakedness, wearing an authentic sense of self that no garment could ever bring. The other two angelic-like figures seem as if their job is to fill her with knowledge or guidance. But her distant stare and sense of calm say that she may already have come with her own internal sense of self and wisdom.
Now, I see so clearly a woman who does not have to be covered and programmed or told who she will be. She already knows… because she has birthed herself.
Whether we realize it or not, we are always in the process of birthing ourselves. The cycles of planning, gestation, contractions, and arrival do not happen in a mere nine months. It is not a one-time event but something that happens over the course of a lifetime. When we arrive as infants, we have no say in what our environment will be. We’re born to parents, cultures, religions, customs, and beliefs that are not of our choosing. When these external factors are accepted as the givens in our lives, we start wearing the cloaks we are handed and believing what others tell us is our truth.
Newborns can’t discern if what is handed to them works or not, but we adults do. If we grow up and feel that our authentic selves align with what we have come to know and believe about ourselves and the world, then we have fairly happy and contented lives. But when the alignment is so out of whack that we don’t feel like we’re really living life on our terms, or we’re going through the motions, or living for someone else, then it might be time to consider birthing a more authentic version of ourselves.
One Life Must Die to Birth Another
I will tell you firsthand that it is not easy to prepare for re-birth because it requires the death of one life so a new one can come into being. But if living feels like death, what option do we have? If we’re brave enough to euthanize the version of self that is spiritually dead, then the planning, gestating, and contractions must begin in earnest! Both men and women (of any age) can give birth and experience the miracle of life.
Like Botticelli’s Venus, we are born fully formed, content with our own sense of self, and delivered safely to the place where we were meant to land.
Happy pushing!
Get Aligned in Your Space and Life
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