The Girl Babe: Unfurling and Fusing Life on the Cosmic Ocean of Potential
Lifecycle Archetype of February: The Girl Babe, Star forming upon the Sea
Associated Lifecycle Stage: Baby. Full Dependence: Too undeveloped to care for one's self.
Associated Moon Cycle Phase: Waxing Crescent
Associated Season (Sun Cycle): Winter. The days are still dark but growing lighter every day.
Associated Womb Cycle Phase: Follicular Phase at the last days of menstruation.
Associated Phase in Cosmological Cycle: The beginning of the Universe between 400,000 and .1 billion years, during the Cosmic Dark Ages before the creation of the first stars and cosmic reionization.
Associated Gifts: Vast amount of creative potential, alchemy, and transformation. Trust in the Universe: simply being, growing, and exploring without doing or being useful.
“In Big Bang cosmology, shortly after the blazingly bright Big Bang itself, there came a time when the universe was utterly dark. This period, before the first stars were born…is thought to have lasted several hundred million years in our 13.8-billion-year-old universe. Astronomers call it the Cosmic Dark Ages…‘Most of the matter in the cosmos at this stage was dark matter with the scant remaining ordinary matter comprised largely of neutral hydrogen and helium. Over the next few hundred million years, the universe entered a crucial turning point in its evolution, known as the Epoch of Reionization. During this period, the predominant dark matter began to collapse into halo-like structures through its own gravitational attraction. Ordinary matter was also pulled into these halos, eventually forming the first stars and galaxies, which, in turn, released large amounts of ultraviolet light. That light was energetic enough to strip the electrons out of the surrounding neutral matter, a process known as cosmic reionization.’” (Peering Towards the Cosmic Dark Ages).
Enter February, and in the Northern Hemisphere, we are now entering the full expression of winter. The days, though getting lighter, are still dark. And just like the birth of the Universe, they reveal that before the light can come in its full splendor and glory, darkness supports and cultivates the conditions for life. Like deep, dark rich soil, it is the fertilizer of life and light.
The archetype of this season is a humble one that comes in a very tiny and seemingly useless form: the form of a baby.
February Moon: Archetype of the Girl Babe
In much of the literature across cultures, there is a primal focus on the boy babe. We see this presented in myths such as in the birth of Christ and Krishna. These stories detail harrowing events of a boy baby born at a time when the King of the land is hostile to the birth of sons and is actively seeking to kill them. The birth of both Krishna and Christ is a miracle and an act of destiny, as all of nature conspires together to protect their birth and life. Although a gendered concept, these stories reveal to us the dismal place we find ourselves in at the beginning of the Universe: can even a single star be supported? Are the forces of nature out to destroy the glimmers and potential of life because it threatens to outshine the darkness?
Outside of these allegorical ponderings, in drawing attention to the archetype of the girl babe, it can be easy to feel the conflict in our systems with these patriarchal stories dominating our multi-cultural collective consciousness. Instead, we may be reminded that, historically and worldwide, it is sons, not daughters, that are preferred and that also it is girls, not sons, who are in danger of being killed, maimed, or abused. This very fact has been at the forefront of girl and woman fear epigenetically, and so survival adaptations have been formed around it across generations.
Because of this, the archetype of the girl babe comes with hidden, veiled subconscious awareness. Culturally speaking, the girl babe doesn’t hold the same collective power in the minds of people as the boy babe does. But it is precisely because of this and because of the allegorical significance to Cosmological principles that I draw attention to this auspicious archetype.
The girl babe’s gift and talents, and therefore power, exist in several key aspects:
Total Dependence and Hidden Essence/Potency
Total Dependence
What does it feel like to be a girl babe and to fully trust the great Universe as our caretaker? What does it feel like to do nothing and simply be while we continue to grow, expand, and take shape, form, and light? How do we trust the Universe to be benevolent to us as girls and then women?
These questions reveal the utter and sheer dependence that babies have on their caretakers. Babies are at the mercy of their caretakers to handle them gently and tenderly and to tend to their needs with devotion, love, and sensitivity, while the babe does nothing but explore, play, and grow.
In the case of the girl babe, this is even more so, as the collective consciousness holds tension around girl births: Will the parents want her? Will the parents harm her? Will the parents deny her an education? Will the parents oppress her soul and spirit? Will the parents discriminate against her and deny her food and medical care?
All of these questions can leave us feeling tender and perhaps a little apprehensive in the face of this archetype and her wisdom. It is in the face of total dependence that we ourselves are faced with a tremendously uncomfortable position. How do we trust the Universe/God/Nature to care for us as if we are little babies? How do we connect with this great Cosmic Dark Age and trust that as we begin to cultivate the first sparks of light, we can be truly loved and supported? What is our relationship to rebirth when we enter into the world again, new and totally dependent on God to perfectly hold and care for us when we are at our most blind, veiled, and forgotten of self-knowing? Are we holding tension in our bodies around trust and fear? If we are womb bodied, we may be afraid the Universe will cast us aside as if we are nothing, drown us, abuse us, or deny us resources. We may hold the tension and fear around what will happen to us as girl babes.
Hidden Essence
In the case of hidden essence, there is a deep mystery hidden within the girl babe, for she is the holder of incredible power and potency. Within her tiny body exists over 1,000,000 oocytes, the potential to birth over 1,000,000 babies. Of course, this number will drop drastically as she ages, but the sheer number she contains at birth and into her growth from babe to child is still astounding. It reveals the potency the girl babe holds. It reveals a life full of potential and possibilities. It reveals tremendous creative power. It reveals that power comes in the tiniest of forms, and, like the beginning of the Universe itself, is capable of expanding from the epochs of the microscale to the great, expansive, and glorious macrocosm.
Oocytes are like tiny grains of sand, that, through the natural creative processes of the body, can become pearls. They are like those first atoms that formed from the beginning of the Universe, that as the Universe cooled and became dark, later formed the first stars and galaxies that continue to create beyond infinitum.
The Girl Babe represents the crescent moon phase of the moon cycle. This is when the moon, though still only reflecting the crescents of starlight, is growing assuredly every day as the darkness of space and the gravitational force of the Mother holds her.
For womb keepers, the associated womb phase with the Girl Babe is just at the end of menstruation and is synonymous with the Cosmic Dark Age, just before the first stars form. The Girl Babe is the great sleep that occurs after rebirth when, in order for the Universe to forge life and light within itself, it must enter a state of rest and dormancy. During this phase of the menstrual cycle, we can feel our wombs becoming ready to support life again, though it is still our bleed time.
The girl babe holds within her more creative potential than an adult woman. She is completely dependent on her caretakers for their benevolence and wisdom in raising her to reach and attain her full potential as a creative and alchemical being. For she embodies the golden sands of transformation and life creation that we can relate to from the very beginning of Creation.
When we give ourselves to the Universe, knowing our own potency and essence as the girl babe, our rebirth in the February-winter cycle becomes that much more potent. We can receive from the Girl Babe deep, rich unfurling wisdom and power.
Journey to the Bottom of the Sea with the Girl Babe Archetype
I invite you to sit or lay down in a comfortable space. Check your space for cues of safety by looking around the room. Notice if there is anything you can do to make yourself more comfortable or feel safer. Find an object or image in your space that brings you comfort and connect with it.
Now, enter into The Stillness within your own being. It is important here to drop into a state of total and complete reverence, knowing you are about to embark on a journey into communion with the potency of the Girl Babe.
You are standing at the shoreline within your own energy field and The Great Mother emerges from the waters and beckons you to enter into the ocean of yourself. As you walk into the ocean, a wave sweeps you up and pulls you into the outer seas. There, an undertow sucks you down into the depths of the water and pulls you into the Earth itself, swirling and tumbling down tubes that empty you into a great Inner Earth Ocean.
You fall into the ocean of this Inner Earth and land in the middle of a great expanse of water. Above you, just in front of your face, is a full moon, radiating light upon your face and igniting the dark seas in radiant light. The moon pours its essence into you. From all around you are many rocks, circling down to the bottom of the sea in a spiral, like a staircase.
The waters around the stones begin to swirl and you are sucked beneath these waters too, pulled to the bottom of this inner Earth ocean. All around you appear mermaids circling around your body. As you watch the mermaids in a trance, you realize you are out of breath. The mermaids bolt to the top of the ocean, intake air, and come back down to greet you, and as they do, they place air into your mouth. Many mermaids file in a line, repeating the same action, until all around you is a great air bubble, and you can now breathe.
Then, the mermaids circle around you at lightning speeds until they are circling the bubble so fast and so vast that the energy causes them to catapult outward in all directions. And from the force of this spectacle, a great light burst out all around you. And then, particles of earth and sand scatter the ground, some falling into clam shells, and others simply falling to the bottom of the earth.
You are pulled by a force back to the surface of the ocean and sat upon a stone. In a ponderance, you sit with this journey and its images, realizing the power it takes to form sand, realizing the time and alchemy it takes to form a pearl, and realizing the mystery and grief that not every grain can become a pearl.
Realizing the power it takes to form atoms, realizing the time and alchemy it takes to form a star, realizing the mystery and grief that not every atom becomes a star.
The moon above you greets you, smiling tenderly. From within her being, she pulls out a clamshell and opens it, revealing a beautiful girl babe. She places the glowing girl babe in your arms and asks you to hold her. The girl babe gazes into your soul, filled with trust, love, and adoration for you. The moon points to your womb and shows you that the girl babe is you and you are her and that the ocean surrounding you is the womb of the girl babe.
Now wiggle your toes, legs, hips, and body up to your arms and hands. Move your head from side to side gently and return fully to your body. What was the felt sense of this experience like?
What did you experience in your body in the form of thought, image, sensation, emotion, and movement as you received the symbols of the journey?
You can journal about your experience or simply ponder it. If nothing comes to your mind, that is just fine too. The images and their revelations may come to you more slowly and over time and seasons, even years.