THE SECOND MATRIX - NO EXIT
The Perinatal Matrices
—Influences that shape human consciousness from prenatal life through Birth
The Second Matrix, BPM II, or EXPULSION FROM PARADISE pertains to our experiences when contractions begin and before the cervix opens.
Labour is said to come from the Latin word laborare.
Laborare means "to labor, strive, exert oneself, suffer, be in distress, (transitive) to work out".
The word "labour" may also be related to the Latin word lābī which means "to fall".
BPM II is the beginning of that journey. It’s the depression. A time of deep pressure - ‘the dark night of the soul’ and the beginning of the end.
Hanging upside down by one ankle, suspended in time or forced to see things differently. “The Hanged Man” of the Tarot might speak to the infants place in this matrix - among our list of options are surrender, disarmament, sacrifice, a time to pause, reflect, and look at a situation from a new perspective.
Rather than taking immediate action, at this stage; we are letting go of paradise, hung by hook under a kneading pressure before we are born. It’s the first degree of separation, where one is becoming two. Even though we have yet see the exit, we know that the only way out is through - and like a slingshot, skin is stretched, back, loaded strength the cervix is closed and pulling it all together with mighty potential. It's a tightly squeezed contraction but embracing the pull propels the launch. In darkness we actively and patiently contract inward awaiting dilation.
On the other side the objects will divide from the expansive push born from the pull…
When we come across Two in Tarot, it suggests opposing forces at play. The second Major Arcana card in a tarot deck is The High Priestess. Often veiled, between two pillars with a crescent moon at her feet, to where the water breaks. She is in-between the black and white pillars of duality - the veiled and unseen Sidhe between the two making three, making her an ally for BPM III. In the context of birthing or being born, The Priestess will encourage the lunation of your tidal instincts through the darkness. She serves a reminder to embrace the cyclical wet and watery nature of life and to trust the creative process. The pomegranate in her hand is the omen that we are about to descend into a more heated realm and that his descension, has purpose within the creative cycle - fertile grounds. The contractions, closed cervix and the drastic chemical changes combine to create a potentially painful, life threatening environment not unlike ‘the end of days’ from which the fetus may sense a possibility of no escape. This moment in birth is marked amongst traditions from cosmology to mythology. It’s Venus’ journey. It’s Innana’s, Isthar’s journey to be hung on a hook in Erishkakals underworld. She hangs for 3 days and 3 nights. Here heated and unsure as to whether she will make it out alive. We’ll reflect later on this moment and its representation across faiths and the world of art.
The time spent in this self enclosing, no exit situation varies widely from person to person and will impact our relationship to the Second Matrix from then on. For some it might have been minutes, for others many hours.
The old Latin saying expresses the human predicament very succinctly: Mors certa, hora incerta - (Death is certain, the hour is uncertain). Some will surrender and flow, others may be crushed facing great force, others will sail through or battle triumphantly.
“ I have heard women describe it as glass shattering in their backs. My first birth literally floored me. During the first stage of contractions the womb is physically opening a gate and it takes as much strength to open a gate as it does to keep one closed. The womb is the strongest muscle in our body - keeping the cervix shut to safely carry a baby whose average weight will be 3,3 kg + placenta and amniotic fluid, the womb holds another 1,5 kg.
By the end of those nine months, the force with which the womb contracts, creates a dynamic change in the woman herself. She has now become the vessel for the womb.
Some call it true labour, when contractions last up to 90 seconds every four minutes or so. To hold this force of nature, to be a vessel for it, may require all the capacity you can find in yourself.
- Birth as Initiation by Suzanne Schreve
Listening to Suzanne’s recollection from the perspective of the mother, we can only imagine the impact these contractions have on the child. The qualities alive in child and mothers’ physical, emotional and psychological experience throughout this defining experience are what will shape their relationship to BPMII and its core themes.
Was there trust in the journey, did mother and child feel ready to embrace such a charge?
What kind of convergence took place here?
Feeling stuck is a normal occurrence before the cervix is open, but occasionally the birth process can get arrested in later stages and does not proceed as it should. There are any number of reasons for this to happen. The mother’s pelvis might be too narrow, the uterine contractions ineffective, or the placenta can block the uterine opening. On occasion, the child is excessively large or lies in an abnormal position that is not conducive to a smooth birth. Premature or unnecessary epidural can lead to devastating side effects. A variety of unfavourable circumstances can make birth longer and more difficult; resulting in a more traumatic impact on the infant and mother than a smooth pleasurable delivery; traumatic delivery’s or unsavoury convergences here can cultivate imprints of mistrust, disembodiment and unnecessary physiological and psychological suffering in the face of challenges as these patterns repeat. I remind you here that as we look at BPM II we are looking at this perinatal matrix and how it may shape our relationship to the world around us. Chronic feelings of entrapment, fatigue and overwhelm including unresolved victimhood can stem from BPMII.
My bodily sufferings were so intolerable that, though in my life I have endured the severest sufferings of this kind, none of them is of the smallest account by comparison with what I felt then, to say nothing of the know
ledge that they would be endless and never ceasing. And even these are nothing by comparison with the agony of my soul, an oppression, a suffocation, and an affliction so deeply felt, and accompanied by such hopeless and distressing misery, that I cannot too forcibly describe it.
—St. Teresa of Avila, Life
Just as the fetus might experience a shift in the oxygen-CO2 balance during birth due to compression of the umbilical cord or the limited ability to breathe, rhythmic breathing can lead to a temporary low CO2 levels in the blood that mimics a state of oxygen deprivation. This shift may spark somatic memories of suffocation or fear of not being able to breathe. As mentioned at the beginning, engagement with this breathing pattern in the right environment can bring on a rebirthing experience that includes the physiological and emotional symptoms associated with BPMII. During a rebirthing or holotropic session you or your client may feel physical sensations of tightness and constrictions that mirror the sensations of being trapped or experiencing loss of control. Resistance, fear, desire to tap out, dissociate or escape. Resentment, rage, confusion, frustration are prime culprits. Rebirthing is designed to support you in not only meeting these sensations with more trust and ease but by continuing to increase the chargein an optimal environment, with space and freedom to process these feelings we can make way for a more pleasurable convergence. Internally, building the trust between body and breath, contraction and expansion.
Rebirthing shows us how to lend our full attention to these somatic cues and let them pass without judgment, embrace the hanged man and consider a new perspective. However, that can be easier said than done when we feel like we are meeting death in the struggle to be born. Feelings of ‘stuckness’, ‘rejection’, ‘helplessness’ or ‘i’m doing it wrong’ can haunt individuals with perinatal intensity long into the furture. The international Best Seller The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron speaks of unblocking the blocked artist. The blocked artist is a person who may exhibit similar attributes to the more unsavoury second matrix patterns in relation to their creative birthing process. In her book we meet the ‘poisonous playmates’ or ‘crazy makers’ who exhibit artistic constipation and wreak havoc in this phase of the process. Julia Cameron has a simple way of naming things and themes we meet in the Second Matrix out in the world and offers tools and insights as to how to move through them.
