mama shrugged

“If we learn to see problems in terms of a general problem of energy metabolism, we will begin to solve them”

-Ray Peat

”Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb

It stayeth the young man’s courting

It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth

between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis

Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.”

-Ezra Pound

To carry a baby and give birth requires vitality.

To give the child milk through infancy requires strength.

To ensure the child is reasonably safe, nourished, and educated requires money.

Money is derived most commonly by labor.

To labor requires vitality.

And sometimes, simple days of labor is not enough to secure the needs of the child.

One would assume, the brutally poor would lack vitality. But, replacement fertility mostly exists among them.

Perhaps at this level of poverty, the global poor can exist on charity.

Which would mean, their vitality is derived from a host which strengthens them.

But, it could also be the case the global deep poors are more vital.

When I was pregnant, I noticed I was not struck with immediate overwhelming feelings of love for my much desired child. For one, I couldn't anticipate how much I would love her.

At the time, under a fog of constant fatigue, I felt more the sense that something was extracting from me. Energy, life force, vital things. Beauty, mental power, fortitude.

Often, feelings of powerlessness and doom lingered in my body. I understood this to mean, I did not have the metabolic energy to be filled with positive emotions.

Nothing perfectly worked to clear this drain. Under the strain of forming her, a sense of bleakness sometimes engulfed me.

Anemia is depletion.

In this state, birth itself is subsumed in adrenaline and panic, without relaxation and trust, oxytocin doesn't flow to facilitate this simple process.

After, a child is nursed through infancy, which is a further strain on the storehouse of strength (though peak cozy hours).

Mothers are hosts for unknown beings, and less and less women have the vitality to offer this hospitality.

It brings up questions, for one, I was shocked to be handed a beautiful healthy child after I delivered. But, without vitality, or at least sufficient vitality, one's offspring will be impaired.

Perhaps I'm a bit orthorexic, or Weston A Price pilled, but I just didn't believe I downed enough steak, oysters, orange juice, or liver to bring forth a healthy and symmetrical child.

That's because the baby can take what it needs from the host. Which is a wonderful and welcomed relief. But how many more babies could take enough nutrients from my body to be vital?

Our soils are depleted of nutrients. Topsoils are eroded, some estimate fruits and vegetable varieties today contain 30% less vitamins than they did 100 years ago. You'll often hear older people lament how a tomato just doesn't taste as good these days, the grapes have lost their flavor.

One wonders, is the soil of humanity, the womb of the woman, likewise depleted?

It's not just that global infertility is rising, perhaps due to toxic overload, in the water, foods, walls, and pills. Or that age of marriage is delayed, perhaps because exchanging vitality for inflated currency doesn't get you as far as it used to.

It's not just that young people stay in more giving their attention (life force) to screens (sometimes literal life force through acts of onanism) rather than going out and say… dancing, an expression of an over abundance of vitality.

It's not just that abortion exists, and you can kill the life growing in you in exchange for retaining a bounded and uninhibited life charge.

It's also that there's not much left to give. It's never the right time, there's never enough time. Not enough money, not the right person. “I don't feel ready”.

Most anyone can have a baby. You could very possibly make a baby right now if you are reading this. It isn't hard. There isn't a test. You need a bit of vitality, and the will to do it. That is all.

But you see, humanity is tired. And not so much tired of spilling it's vital life energy, but tired of expansion. The expansion of a faceless other inside the shadow of the womb. Tired of the screaming sucking of humanity in the still of the night latching onto you to survive. Tired of taking double shifts to make the ends meet. Tired of putting on our shoes and leaving bed to dance poorly and prolly be rejected by women. Humanity is tired even of sex itself. Humanity would prefer to spend some fakecoins on screen boobs. Humanity is tired of bringing a child to term, and tired of travailing. Humanity has had her seventeen diaper day, dammit!

Humanity is taking a break. Mother is tired, mother is resting. Mama shrugged.

As in agriculture, we are even trying to undo those ancient words of Genesis- and not “be fruitful and multiply”.

Rather, we are inverting “who's seed is in itself”. Most farmers buy new seed every crop cycle. Yes, it is illegal to keep some seeds from the harvest. Yes, there are patents on seeds.

There's some attempt to do this now for people. Rather than heal and grow and rebound and thrive, we could always hope the answer to humanity's future lies in the labs, the embryo testing, the egg freezers, the frozen semen. You freaks. You bugmen, you nerds.

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Because why shouldn't we drain every living human, for every dollar, and mineral, every light in the eye, every hour, while merely pausing to save a handful of human seed for a rainy day?

You can try to tell people, even if parts of becoming a mother suck, you just can't understand the swell of love and joy you will feel in perpetuity after. In fact, they may suppose you are coping, and they'd rather seethe.

You will want to do it again. The child gives off some kind of symbiotic energy, back. I'm not sure yet what it is. Almost like a plant purifying the air. Or like, how living with an animal can make you less prone to diseases and allergies. But it's very powerful, and likely to do with breath.

And as there are less children born, less of this vital perfume graces the air. Which makes humanity weaker.

But, to become a mother is to lose freedom. Your body is not your own. And it will stay that way for a long time.

In times past, the peasant woman, the hunter gatherer, the tenet farmer's wife perhaps had the strength, in her muscle, and mind, and blood, to wrap the child up and carry her through the fields, nursing while she worked, cooked over open fire, thrashed wheat, gathered berries. Ran, even, lifted. Some women still live so today.

She may have not even found this strength from her food. Perhaps, she found the energy in the very strength of her will. Perhaps she just had to. But energy begats energy.

Today mom's are looking for answers to why things have become so hard. The village is missing, hubby has headphones on, and the thought of carrying the baby all day, becoming pregnant again, it's enough to keep you glued to the rocking chair.

So many different realms require focused energy, initiation. To have a village requires service and hosting. To get a husband off of Tarkov may require sledge hammering his computer.

Today's women are looking for answers. Why should they give more of themselves? Why should they give when there's so little left to give?

When discussing the population collapse, consider humanity has been treated like economic units, as human resources to be exploited, and extracted. Humanity is not being stewarded by a responsible King, but by rootless cosmopolitan elites renting our lands, and renting them for cheap.

It's often been said, animals don't breed in captivity. But I ask you to consider, can the branch bring forth fruit in a desert?

Maybe when Odysseus returns home, and slaughters the parasitic guests leaching off his home, Penelope will no longer be compelled to weave the burial shroud of civilization.