My Mother, She Ate Me

There is a fairy tale older than memory.

A mother who devours her own child. A bone buried beneath a juniper tree. A bird that rises from the ashes singing.

We have been telling this story for thousands of years because we know it in our bodies. The mother who consumed too much. The love that left no room to breathe. The grief, the rage, the hunger that swallowed everything in its path. The version of yourself that had to die so another could be born.

The Devouring Mother is one of the oldest archetypes in human myth, and she lives in every one of our stories.

She is Kali, dancing on the corpse of what must die, clearing the way for new life to enter.

She is Baba Yaga, the wild witch of the dark forest, who devours those who come without their inner light, and gifts fire to…