Listen sisters,
I’ve dreamed a dream.

I dreamed I was my tribal self—a tall woman with long dark hair, with strong rough hands and fierce eyes, and you were my sister-warriors.  I dreamed that I grew a child inside, and the time was coming to give birth.   

In my dream, you came to my home, a hut I shared with my mate and children.  You all gathered around me and brushed my hair, unbraiding the long plaits I wore.  You washed me, bathed me, and painted my skin with scented oils.  You sang songs, the same songs you sang when I became a woman, when I searched for my spirit, when I took a mate, when I grieved and when I celebrated my babies.  You sang songs of courage and doubt, fear and love.  Mostly I remember the sounds of your voices, rich and full, marking time as I walked with you.   

You led me to the sacred place, where drums were playing, and we began to dance.  We danced and danced.  I don’t know for how long I danced with my sisters around me, rubbing my belly, bringing me drinks, rubbing my back as the power began to surge in my womb.  The drums sounded in my ears, like the sound of my heart, pounding.   

I went to sit, but you encouraged me to keep dancing. 

“Why not dance,” you said, a sweet one of you, “dance so the baby will come, and your birth will be easy.”  And I kept dancing.  The night grew dark and still we danced.

“It hurts,” I complained. 

Four arms wrapped around me, and two of you, pale-haired twins said, “But you are strong.  Keep dancing!”  And you danced with me, wrapped around me as I found my strength. 

“But I want to stop,” I moaned.  My legs and belly and back all ached.

A small dark one of you, with eyes like the dark side of the moon, said, “You could stop.  But what else could you do?”  I nodded and kept dancing. 

“I’m tired,” I cried, as the power surged up inside me.  It was too much, like a wave threatening to overcome me.

The drums beat louder and many voices sang to me, “Remember our mothers, who walked many miles for their visions, and had their babies cut out with knives.  You are as strong as they were.  Keep dancing!”  And the singing and the drums and the memory held me up, and I kept dancing, watching the stars in the sky and my own hair fly like drops of water.

“I’m afraid!”  I screamed.  And you gathered around me, like a mother to her nursling. 

“Yes, yes.” You whispered, a gentle hum like grasshoppers in the fields.  “You are afraid.  You are brave.  You are love.  You are birth.  Keep dancing.” Stroking my hair and my cheek, you took my tears into yourselves, and swaying, began to walk me home. 

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We came to my door, and my skin began to prickle with the cool of the night and the sweat of so many hours of dancing.  My mate gathered me, his beloved, into our home.  The fire was stoked high, and it was warm.  As I walked across the threshold, the water released inside me, and I smiled.  He wrapped a blanket around me that my mother had made.  My young ones were sleeping by the fire, curled against each other like puppies do.  My beloved brought me the fruit he had gathered, and had been saving for the night of this birth.  It was delicious, and the juice dribbled down my chin as I heard you singing outside my house.  “You are brave, you are strong.  Keep dancing.” 

I danced inside my womb, and met my child, taking him by the hand and guiding him down and out into the world.  I breathed deep, and sang a long, low note, and he danced down the great river and into the air.  And he sang too, clear and bright into the night.  And I spoke for him because he could not, “I am alive!  I am dancing!”