The Sacred OBGYN Office in Trump's America
on peacocks and bodies of wonder
A few days after Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States for a second time, I find myself at my OBGYN’s office for a checkup.
This was a long overdue visit, and I’d considered postponing. I was overwhelmed, I was busy, but I was also someone who needed care, living in a body that was asking me to listen to the ongoing symptoms of something that wasn’t going away any time soon.
I’d been experimenting lately, wondering if it’s possible to encounter the sacred everywhere, anywhere. Is it possible to enter into an eternal, imaginal space, whether anyone else notices or not? Is it possible to stay tethered to a goodness we cannot understand, no matter our circumstances?
I take John Philip Newell’s book, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul with me to the appointment, cuddling up in a chair in the corner of the room, a journal splayed open in my lap. I read these words, thinking about what it means to be someone who identifies as a woman, to be a human:
“How we touch and care for the stuff of the body of the earth and the body of humanity…is how we touch and care for the divine.”
An older woman shows up to get another injection in her back, and it’s clear that the women who work here know her, and she knows them. They laugh and are at ease, and I try to ease myself as she loudly smacks her gum in the small waiting room.
How we touch and care for the stuff of the body is how we touch and care for the divine.
Another woman is leaving, and it’s clear that she is about to embark and an important fertility journey with the women who work here and with her doctor. I could feel the excitement and emotion as she left, the fingers of the heart crossing in hopes for something beautiful to happen.
Another woman is here for her checkup, sitting anxiously while scrolling her phone, doomscrolling, no doubt, because it’s often hard to do anything else. And I write in my journal:
When our policies police our bodies and confuse rhetoric with reality, we are essentially losing sight of our own belovedness.
When I finally enter the room where I’ll meet with the doctor to talk about things like hormone imbalances and life stress, I’m wondering about the sacred spaces that these rooms hold for so many. In these rooms we receive diagnoses; in these rooms we treat our doctors like a therapist and talk about how it’s all connected, the health issues and the stress, what we eat with how we feel and show up to our lives. We pray they will listen to us, to all the bits and pieces, hoping to get answers to all the difficult questions swirling around in us all the damn time.
It all happens in these rooms.
I’ve been placed in the peacock room, clearly. On every space of the wall I can see them, the bright blue feathers laced with sparkling purples, shimmering gold, vibrant greens that you cannot look away from.
And, being the writer and seeker that I am, I think to myself, what does a peacock represent? Strength, power, and often, divinity.
How we touch and care for the stuff of the body is how we touch and care for the divine.
When our policies police our bodies and confuse rhetoric with reality, we are essentially losing sight of our own belovedness.
I wonder if the women working in this office feel it, that sacred space that they are creating for others to come and consider their beloved bodies. I wonder if they know what incredible power they hold in creating a space that offers care, advice, wisdom, answers to difficult questions, space to ask questions that might not have answers.
We may live in a nation and a world in which the rights of women are not just quieted, but suppressed. We may live in a place where we fight for the rights of many, for the rights to be seen and known as beloved.
And we live in a world that echoes back to us, constantly, our own divinity, our own sacred connection to the divine no matter where we are, no matter who is around.
And it is up to us to create those spaces for others.
Peacocks speak of divinity, and I think of geese, the ones that fly above us, that bring their young to the warmth when things get cold, the community of geese who carried Sky Woman when she came through a hole in the heavens. The geese cradled her safely down to the turtle’s back, just like the community of women in that doctor’s office cradle one another through loss, through transformation, through new ways of caring for their own sacredly created bodies.
What we have seen the last few weeks since Trump’s presidency began is enough to make us afraid. It’s enough to cause us to run to our sacred places, to make sure we create more of them, to put our hands over our own bodies and say you are beloved, you are beloved, you are beloved.
Trump will continue to target the poor, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ folks, women, religious minorities, folks with disabilities, Native Americans, Black folks, and more. He will keep trying to erase our histories and stealing the names of sacred places from our lips, and we will refuse.
This is why sacred spaces will keep popping up, and we need to show up to them, with all that we are, our sacred bodies and minds and hearts attached.
We touch the divine in ourselves and in one another. We fight for the rights of those around us and for the rights of Earth, our Mother. We write and we show up because we must.
The peacock knows of divinity.
The geese know of community.
The body knows of sacred belonging.
And we know of kinship.
Lean in and never forget.
Friends, if you are new here, thank you so much for showing up. There is so much going on in the world, and this space is for us to pause, to check in on our own souls, to lean in to the power and healing of words, care, and community.
Most of my posts are free, but if you’d like to become a paid subscriber, I’d really appreciate the support. In the paid subscriber community, we meet monthly for writing sessions, and soon I’ll be sharing a new series of writing straight from my own journals. Please join us if you’re able and interested.
I’ll be in New York at the end of the month, and I’d love for you to join me for this incredible interfaith event at NYU!
How should faith and doubt coexist in our lives? What is the role of practice in our spirituality? And what do these ideas have to teach us about our civic commitments?
Join the Center for Global Spiritual Life for a dynamic conversation between Rabbi Joshua Stanton, Kaitlin Cutrice, and Dr. Sheikh Faiyaz Jaffer, moderated by Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, on the role of faith and doubt in civic life.
Please register at this link to join us on February 26th!
Very well said. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless in these times. Remembering the sacred in out bodies and the body of the earth and all her beings is not just important but essential. Thank you for your wisdom.
Oh My. This is beautifully said. I am so grateful for this reflection. Reading your post is an experience of settling and finding safety within my own body. Hear you about the sacred spaces within healthcare - like your doctor's office. I am an integrative psychotherapist - somatic experiencing etc, and have been holding such sacred space for over 20 years. Even after all this time, I still see every session as sacred. It's in these sessions that so much is revealed, held, embodied, witnessed, and "healed." You asked if the healthcare practitioners knew that they are holding sacred space. I have met so many - doctors, psychotherapists like me, nurses, OTs, PTs, body workers - who do. I believe your poetry and words do the same thing.