The Collective Womb
A pro-choice creation myth for our times and beyond
We find ourselves in November, pre-solstice month of darkening days and chill nights, month of Dia de los Muertos and Veteran’s Day, when we dream of the dead and harvest and store our good gatherings from the warm months, to nourish us through the dark days of the year. In coming weeks, between now and the solstice and The Myth Lab’s seasonal break, we’ll be showcasing some of our and our members’ harvesting from earlier this season as well as planting seeds for the year ahead.
In that spirit, we’re honored to share “The Collective Womb,” artist Alexandra Neuman’s stunning, fresh feminist creation myth, in which the world begins and expands with pleasure and human beings descend from an ecstatic abortion. It was performed earlier this fall on Governor’s Island as well as last year. In it, the audience become members of a matriarchal society that revels in sensuality and the sentient earth. They come together to chant Neuman’s Psalms of Planetary Devotion, featured on The Myth Lab this summer, a ritual opening to a larger performance in which the setting of the natural world becomes character and core. A friend of mine, visiting from Texas, where abortion has been banned since 2022, said how bold and fresh, even a little dangerous, the myth felt. It’s a story that needs to be performed and retold again and again in the years ahead.
And of course, great stories and myths always flow beyond the bounds of their initial vessels and beg to be reimagined and retold. In that spirit, we offer a retelling of Alex’s Creation Myth, drawing on her script and photos from the performance and also telling the story anew, an invitation to your own mythic imagination.
In the beginning, we call back the beginning. The audience chants,
Our bodies emerged out of wombs that emerged out of wombs that emerged out of wombs that emerged out of wombs . . . .
—Ingrid Norton, founder The Myth Lab
In the time before time, the young sentient earth is slick and muddy. The earth makes love to itself. The Moon and earth are also drawn to one another, to make love, make life. Serpents and worms course through the muck and mud. Deep within the earth’s folds lie the minerals, the licks of cells, and the great warmth of life. The serpents sense this, gravitate towards the warmth within the mud. They feel the presence of Mud-Person already within. They murmur to her, seek her, form the mud, draw close—and Mud-Person emerges from the great silty mass, gasping with new life.
She startles the serpents, who draw back at first. But not for long. They find themselves attracted by Mud-Woman’s heat: “What kind of liquids might this new life-form secrete?”
The serpents weave their bodies around, over, and underneath Mud-Woman, whose body responds to theirs, who begins her life in pleasure and affection. The weaving and intermingling grows more intense.
An ocean spills from Mud-Woman’s vulva. The fresh seas lap and flow. The great dark mirror of the sky and silvery light of the moon are reflected by the waters. The orgiastic joy—proliferation, new waters, new life—calls down the Moon Herself. She draws close and shines down on Mud-Person. The moon shines down on Mud-Person, the dirt, the marshes, the salty waters, the snakes. The moon the draws forth Mud-Person’s inner waters. The moon gives her the gift of menstruation.
Mud-Person’s vulva begins to overflow with blood, which the snakes and other wild creatures of the world drink as new nourishment. All the beings and the elements feel it: Mud-Person’s frequency resounds through the Earth and their womb becomes a confluence of death and rebirth. A crocodile emerges from the primeval waters to be her guardian.
All the beings, above and below, harmonize and exult, except one.
The jealous sun, sweeping round the heavens, is furious to find he hasn’t been invited to the party.
What happens next is also part of the story, part of the formation of you and I, of the seas and stars and skies. So you must listen, even if it’s difficult.
The moon withdraws to her monthly underworld place. Mud-Person and the serpents are sleeping in a contented pile. The sun orbits into the scene, feeling disdained, ignored, angry. His light drives the snakes away and awakens Mud-Person with a sear. The sun rapes her. He shines two beams into her womb. Mud-Person screams at the assault.
When the sun orbits away again, she finds herself pregnant, nurturing a force she never chose. The serpents crowd around her. They miss the savor of her menstrual blood and, lacking it, start to shrivel up and die.
The moon and stars, sensing what’s happening, come back. The moon sheds milk down on Mud-Woman, which lets her uterine lining shed. This is the moment of the great Primordial Abortion. The stars whisper a prophecy into Mud-Woman’s ear: “If you abort your solar fetus, your life-force will persevere.”
Mud-Woman plunges into the lake with the crocodile, feeling the blood in her womb continue to loosen. A lightning bolts hits her navel.
She awakes at the water’s glittering edge, back in the mud. The serpents, never really dead, never fully dead, never kill-able, begin to surround her again. She’s flooded with recognition and relief as the snakes help the last bits of iridescent tissue emerge from between her thighs. They spread it around the mud and it began to form roots, to spread in every direction.
Showers of aroused life-force rain down. The fetus, spreading beneath the soils, sprouts into the first flowers and trees. Mud-Woman herself explodes into a plethora of seeds.
This is how the earth begins, with pleasure and strife and release. We are the descendants of Mud-Woman, keepers of the womb planet.
It is time to tell new creation myths.
Find out more about Alexandra Neuman’s work here.
Ingrid Norton will be performing mythic storytelling at Cordelia Wine Bar on December 11th in Brooklyn.
Coming up on The Myth Lab—An exuberant paean to our near future by the wonderful poet Annie Finch, In the Year 2027. And more.
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