We Sing Down Galaxies
We didn’t know it at the time, but fifteen years ago, on the very same day, we tapped into the same primal unseen visceral strength joining in an ancient song, one that's been sung billions of times before us, one that left us howling and wild, contracting and expanding with the pulse of the Universe. In the early hours of the morning and thousands of miles apart, bone-tired and flooded with a love like none we’d ever known, we held our sons for the first time.
On that day, we became mothers to our sons, but it would be years before we’d become mothers to ourselves and to each other, stepping over the threshold from the archetypal Maiden where our lives happen to us and into the archetypal Mother where we begin happening to our lives. The patriarchal version of motherhood is a small box designed to keep women+ pitted against each other, but the archetypal Mother is an invitation into action. Embracing Mother as creator, as advocate, as fierce protector, and as one holding ground.
Not every Mother among us has children because Mother is expansive and inclusive, a cosmic reflection of the universe, shimmering and chaotic and swirling and spilling over, connecting women+ across the globe.
We stretch our backs and lift our necks and reach down deep, bellowing the same anthem of deep belief in our collective power to bring new life to every. single. fucking. thing. we. touch.
And if we’re honest, it’s never that simple. New life always comes from death, and rarely does that happen in three days. We are grieving loss, all the time. We are seeds being buried, all the time. And we are bringing ourselves back to life, all the time. Everything everywhere all at once. This is the power of women telling the truth about their lives to themselves and each other. We walk the longest roads alongside one another and sit graveside together after burying the parts of our lives that had to die so that our free-est selves could live. We sit vigil and let our candles burn low in the waiting. We tear in two any system that separates us from our own sacredness. We watch each other walk out of empty tombs with nothing but burial rags meant to keep us neat and tidy and small and dead left trailing behind.
Blinding light cracks through the surface of our skin, ripping the seams of our soul, new life bursting as we sing down the galaxies of our own resurrection.
THE HYPE
celebrating the work of women who inspire us.
Austin Channing Brown, bestselling author, public speaker, and producer
Austin Channing Brown is a speaker, writer, and media producer providing inspired leadership on racial justice in America. We love Austin for a myriad of reasons, such as her deep commitment to Black Joy as a necessary and revolutionary part of racial justice work. Her emphasis on elevating joy is apparent in all she does, as is her insistence that Black communities, and women especially, are worthy of joyful dignity. Austin offers a disarming sense of humor and deep honesty to emphasize personal stories of both the bitter and the sweet while inviting readers to look within, consider how we can confront our biases, and grow as fellow racial justice advocates.
Austin is the author of I’M STILL HERE: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, a powerful New York Times bestselling account of growing up Black and female in America, and the newly released I’M STILL HERE (Adapted For Young Readers): Loving Myself in a World Not Made For Me. She is also the executive producer of the web series The Next Question.
You can find Austin on her website, Substack, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon.
Yuuuuup. All of this.