Episode Summary

Jennifer Berit Wilson is an author, writing coach and activist. In Episode #15 we journey with Jen into the difficult realities in parenting. Relaying the consuming blend of demands from sleep deprivation, work pressures, raising very young children in the absence of village and desire to commitment to be emotionally present, we can taste the bittersweet flavors that are part of modern life and contemporary motherhood.

Jen then takes show host Jef Szi and all of us with her into the indescribably intense encounter that labor and birth were for her. Recalling the hours of work and psychedelic like visions therein, we learn that in the monumental effort in labor there is the possibility for dramatic encounter with the profound forces of both beauty and terror.

Taken far beyond her edge and into the muddy underworld, Jen wakes us up to what dwells between the thoughts she had prior to birth and how it actually was experienced. From it she draws teaching on how birthing holds guidance for our difficult global times. They also explore the essential connection between birthing and the initiation needs and practices for men from ceremonies like The Sun Dance and others.

Gradually they wind their way into another passage in Jen’s life, where Jen found herself willingly walking toward a dark night of the soul. As she freed herself out of her persona and privilege she thought here life was suppose to be, a more genuine and satisfying self followed, slowly and assuredly. We hear not just the value of those hard times, we hear the poetry that came from it.

Throughout The Moon Dance of Motherhood we find that the intrinsic wisdom of life is alive and at work, moving Jen toward a fuller sense of self. From her transformations we can garner inspiration knowing that in life’s most potent passages, we too shall become more authentic in ourselves… even as we encounter sacrifice, surrender and the touch of death on the way.

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