La madre o-scura

by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum

prologue
premises and methodologies

preface by
Nadia Gambilongo

I have edited the adaptation to the italian edition of this interesting book, in a very special and intense moment of my life. My daughter was born, after some years of anxious and ansure wait.
Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum sent to me her dark mother when Gaia was only three months.
A concomitance, accompanied by numerous coincidences, that recured over the long period of translation and revision of the work, lasted almost two years.
It was an extremely delicate and demanding work, because of the space - time examined in the book, and because of the interdisciplinary, multicultural and versatile approach of Lucia. Moreover, a further element of difficulty was the poor concentration in the revision work, because of the rather significant presence of my daughter.
For these reasons, I have revised many times the work I have already done, apparently concluded. This slow and uncertain advancement, this continuous revision of the translation, looked like the spiral dance of the processions described by Lucia in the book.
One step forward and two backward, to advance slowly to return to write, to delete, to write again. A kind of deconstruction work of the translation, of reinvention of the writing process, the Lucia's work and, at the same time, my life.
The word "mother" rang inside of me with a strength such as to involve senses and muscles of my body; when I breast-fed my daughter, I felt great mother, but also little, tiny mother when I was abstracted, I wasn't there in that precise moment, body and mind, to play with her, to take care of her.
The lack of concentration has certainly damaged the precision of the translation, but the particular context has favoured a kind of expansion that, in a some sense, has balanced the mistakes, giving unespected and extemporary intuitions.
In my home, in Rende, there was a germination of life, a proliferation of work and thoughts; the period of care and game with Gaia, spaced out by her providential naps, mixed with the physical, homely work, and with mental work of revision and adaptation of the Emilia Corea's translation.
It is as if in that place, in that particular moment, has happened a kind of re-balancing between to do and to think, theories and practices, and the modality with whom this happened, has contributed, in some way, to reconcile the dichotomy mind/body, generating a new harmony, through terrible conflicts and lacerations.
Strong colours have characterized this period of my life that isn't concluded yet.
The red of the passion, of the knowledge, of the love; the black of the ink, of the sleepless nights, of the incomprehension; the yellow of the sun behind the windowpanes, of the sunny terrace, of the doubt of wasn't able to be a good mother, or to rewrite the text correctly, the fear of not to be successful…because of the exertion. Then, the white of the immaculate sheets, of the the empty space of the lack of contacts, of the interrupted relation networks; and, more, the bright pink of my daughter's cheeks.
Gaia was there, at least she had arrived and I was happy and disheartened at the same time. How was it possible? I was overflowing with new energies and very tired, for a millenary tiredness. I wanted to be the best mother in the world and, really, I committed (I commit) myself completely, I was happy, thrilled…..and still tired, tired, a little sick, a little sorrowful. I have read it happens to many mothers, I have read, but I didn't compare myself with them in that months.
With all the international relation networks among women I woven for years, in that period so important of my life and my daughter's I was alone. I was unable to organize meetings, I'd like that the others do it instead of me, but it wasn't. The happiness and the carelessness that Gaia gave me everyday, were like poisoned, saddened by the loneliness surrounding our love; my friends were absent, scattered in the world, I couldn't catch a train or a plane to come and see them. My family decided, maybe, to test me, forsaking me in need. "Let's look, now, how she gets off!" they have said; or, maybe, more simply, they were engaged in other things.
In that winter days, a storm of feelings made me restless, I felt sad, happy and satisfied, alone. The beauty of Gaia' smiles were only for me, whereas I'd like show it to the world.
This happened and still happens to many women.
The motherhood, the birth in our capitalistic, "advanced" society is often lived by women, that haven't necessary domestic and relational support, with a great discomfort, loneliness, inadequacy, that could become reason of exclusion, conflict, or even violence as, often, the crime news carry us.
The motherhood in our society, changes the women's status, deferring them to a "lower" step of the social scale.
It has to be the contrary, but in our insane world also the most natural rules are subverted. Until some months before my daughter was born, I compared myself with the world of the international women politics, some months after her birth I found myself in a kind of house arrest, in a dormitory area of any western city.
The external world, so important for me, was suddenly narrow. I hadn't foreseen it.
In the same time, a whole inner world, almost unknown was opening. The conflict with my mother, absolutely calmed for years, was breaking out again. A part of me had to be "baby" another time; I acknowledge that this thing moved me, then I read it could happen, so I calmed myself.
The Great Mother wasn't there to wait me, to support me. The book on the desk with the illustrations and the documents I had gathered in these years, every afternoon , patiently were waiting for me and received me while Gaia was sleeping. It was like a fixed appointment, passionate and furtive. In silence I typewrite on the keyboard of my computer, I put back delicately on the bookcases the volumes I have consulted to verify the terms.
The Great Mother comforted me, carried away me, supported me but…in the last months of work exhausted me. I lived in a kind of spiral of energy where my daughter and the Great Mother were, in the same time, centrifugal and centripetal forces, a sort of great creative and amorous thrill that required a certain strain.
It is still difficult to put a full stop to this long and intense period; the temptation to read again and rewrite some sentence is enormous. It is difficult to interrupt the spiral dance and to decide to jump to another whirl, maybe slower, with a more light gait.
But I feel on my face the arrival of a new breeze, I glimpse the spiral of a little and reassuring shell on the beach, I fell that the sea is near. New lands attract my attention and I feel that this is the right moment to print Lucia's book, to present it to the women and men dreaming a better world.
Today, my daughter is two years old, and she is "Gaia", merry, witty, ironic…resolute; in the morning she says goodbye to me smiling and she sets out for kindergarten with her father.
I think I walk with her on a big level expanse with the consciousness to be there after a long and hard slope. Her face is radiant and it seems it has not signs of this exertion, mine has evident traces, but I don't feel any tiredness and the wish to begin again to weave networks is strong.
I though it was right to explain the context in wich the translation and the adaptation of Lucia's book took place; the coincidence of times and work was for me significant and revealing. The symbolic and practical value of this book for our lives and for the planet in which we live is enormous, it couldn't be any scission between personal and political, between theories and practices. Our position today originates from every place we have been, we have lived in, we have inhabited.
In every line, in every page of Lucia's book we can find this saying.
I dedicate this work to my daughter Gaia and to all the little girls and little boys of the world, so that they can use it as an important tool to realize the civilization of the great mother, her values of hope and transformation, peace and regeneration, welcome and compassion.
The world doesn't wait anything else to breathe, to rest and to renew oneself spiritually, to close the wounds caused by millenniums of war, conflicts, injustices and overwhelmings.
The choice of the publishing house MEDiterranea MEDIA to translate this book and to adapt it for the Italian language forms part of the cultural project to create a new collection that want to translate and to release works of international significance aimed at the creation of a new consciousness. A choice that in the past could be defined 'militant', with a bellicose term not reflecting the pacifist value of the political project.
Lucia set out on a difficult journey; it foresees courses bristling with obstacles, dangerous paths in search of one's origins and world's origins.
The legs made to dig within oneself and inside official texts are long and exhausting. The researches and the readings of new texts are numerous; the meetings with privileged witnesses are particular; the searches of traces and signs of the past are various. But the enchantment is assured; it is a fascinating work, that involves us, changing irreversibly our lives. It is the way of the beauty that the dark mother shows us and that Lucia advises us deeply.
I have decided to translate the title of Lucia's book "dark mother" to "la madre o-scura", because I think that in this way the meaning, that refers back to the black color, to the mystery and to the antiquity of our remote mother, remains unaltered.

I thank Emilia Corea, that edits the literal translation of the book, Maria Grazia Terranova for the proof-readings, Nunzio Landri that helps me in the paging and in the search of the original images of the book, Rino Garro that with his critical reading supported me in the moment's hesitation. And I want thank Maria Francesca Corigliano and Donatella Laudadio, women of government of this territory of Cosenza, that are able with their care to combine practical choices and poetry.