On Being & Becoming
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on being & becoming
Celebrating the long labors of making our own way in this world
By mother mother binahkaye joy
21 january 2022
I love words. Last night as my children played raucously, and various objects whizzed passed my head, I sat with my eyes glued to the tiny words printed on the thin pages of one of my favorite books. Flipping through assorted alphabets in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, I delighted at finding words I’d never heard of. One of the places I landed was epicycle, and it had an illustration.
As a spiral enthusiast, and celebrator of all things round and circular, I was thrilled to discover a new circle word! Circles, orbits, rotations—all of these shapes and patterns are at the heart of my movement practices. It felt very synchronistic to come into this expanded knowing.
Then I looked up two words that I use often in my writing, being and becoming. There are so many words for which we know the definition, but then when we read the meaning word for word, something else sparks. That’s what happened when I read the entries for these two words.
being
the quality or state of having existence
becoming
to come into existence
Of all the definitions listed, considering these two together brought me pause. One of my previous blog spaces was called Be(come)ing Binahkaye. I opened it when I was 7 moons along with my first born. It was my way to center the labors of being me as I was in that present moment, and also discovering who I was becoming.
At the time I started that blog I’d been being an invisible mother for a long time. Having labored through many protostar births my language was very steeped in tones of loss, grief, and despair. As much as I wanted to, I wasn’t quite sure how to make space for a new story, one where I got to meet my baby in human form. I could see and feel everyday that my world was transforming as the baby growing inside of me meant I was becoming a visible mother after all those years of mothering in unseen ways.
I was excited by the newness of being seen and celebrated, finally. And I was also overwhelmed by the sadness that had never had room to breathe. How could I account for all of it? All of me, I wondered often. I needed a way to unpack the layers of myself, and also not dismiss any parts of my journey.
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The epicycle gives me a perfect way to conceptualize the phenomenon of both being and becoming. I imagine myself, my being, as the ever-expanding larger circle, in the constant labor of being me. And then I can see that I am also the ever-rolling smaller circle, the labor of the becoming, rotating around the larger circle, continuously evolving and transforming the whole of me through exploration, processing, and integration of life experiences.
For months now, long before coming across the word epicycle, I have been journeying back into my stories and memories, discovering the bounty of my inner archives. Our stories are our wealth. I am combing through thousands of photos and video clips, through nearly two decades worth of journals and hard drives, through too many email accounts—the ones that haven’t been lost—and old blogs, old love notes, cards, and travel itineraries—everything hinting at some piece of my beingness from that season.
Looking back from the future of those former nows, I can see so much of who I was becoming. I can appreciate why I’ve had so many names in this search to find myself amongst the different paths. Girlchild. Dancer. Woman. Artist. Choreographer. Writer. Movement Facilitator. Mother of Movement. Visionary Space Activator. Creative Practice Practitioner. Invisible Mother. Doula. New Mommy. Mothering Artist. Life Partner. Business Mama. Creator. Mother Mother. Dancing Mother. Sacred Nourishment Practitioner. Spiritual Midwife. Sacred Storyteller. DJ Mother Mother Be. Astronomer.
Throughout all these becomings, I haven’t discarded any of my selves along the way. Rather, I have been rolling along the perimeter of my being, gathering, folding, sifting, sorting, absorbing, reclaiming, reemerging. All rotations relevant to the whole, essential to the fullness of who I am in every way.
Learn more about our next gathering in Writing Down The Bones | A Soils Lab with Margaux | Practice Map. To attend a Soils Lab you must be a creator in the Creators Circle. To learn more about the Garden or to join as a creator, please visit the Fertility Abundance Garden Welcome Center.
Another place I celebrate the long labor of being and becoming me is my name, Binahkaye Joy. I secretly called myself Binah for almost 2 years before I ever spoke my name aloud to anyone else. I’m now coming up on 17 years of living as Binahkaye Joy in the world. The early years of embodying my name were full of tongue stumbles, awkward introductions, and lots of practicing my new signature whenever I put my pen to the paper. It was like walking into my new identity on shaky, toddler-like legs. I knew who I was, but it was a whole other thing communicating that knowing beyond the quiet expanse of my innermost dreams.
The meaning of my name has changed over the years. The more I learned about myself, the clearer I got about what the energy of my name was holding. At first Binahkaye meant “she who dances our power.” I had chosen Binah because it means “dancer” in a West African language. Kaye is a derivative of my birth name, which means “the powerful one.” Once I finally announced myself to the world, I learned of Binah’s many meanings in different languages. Understanding. Vision. Sacred Instrument. Big Booty. Honey Bee. Great Cosmic Mother. Every time I learned of a new meaning, I felt another world of possibility opening up within me. It seemed I had chosen a name that held space for many different parts of me.
“Throughout all these becomings, I haven’t discarded any of my selves along the way. Rather, I have been rolling along the perimeter of my being, gathering, folding, sifting, sorting, absorbing, reclaiming, reemerging. All rotations relevant to the whole, essential to the fullness of who I am in every way. ”
A few years into being Binahkaye Joy and I expanded the meaning: “the dancer radiates our awesome powers.” 19 years ago I was preparing for a semester in Ghana. One of the first parts of the program was studying the Twi language. It really landed with me that the literal translation from the Twi for “what is your name”—yE fre wo sen?—is actually “what do WE call you?” I thought that it was so profound that every individual is inherently a part of a whole, a circle. In constructing the elements of my new name, it was important to situate myself as a part of a community who is witnessing me and my creations. I wove the yE—the we, the us, the our, the many— into every meaning of my name.
Eight years into being Binah and the meaning of Binahkaye morphed again, as motherhood grew more visible dimensions of my motherself. The meaning changed to “the mothers are dancing for our power.” I felt very strongly that I was a part of a village of mothers, even though we didn’t all live in the same place. I saw how our labors to make a way for our children, to preserve our autonomy and birthing majesties, to create worlds where we could take up space and move at our own frequencies—I saw how all of this brought us into a sacred togetherness that traversed space, time, and material realities. And even though I hadn’t identified all the language for these feelings, my name was lighting the way forward for me. Foggy as some parts of new mommy life were, I was very clear that the holy and radiant evolution of humanity depended on the loving and liberation of the mothers. And so I imagined myself, my life, an ongoing ringshout*, a moving circular prayer for all the mothers, and our children, and our dreams. If the mothers are well, then all is well.
see what am i holding? for an explanation of the “ringshout.”
Inspired by one of our Soils Labs in the Summer 2021 Garden, I share the story of how Joy became my last name. I also talk about the movements leading up to becoming Binah, and some of the tender, hilarious, and heartbreaking moments of evolving and living into my name.
Photo by Arnaldo James | Waterfront at the Breakfast Shed, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, 2011
I arrived at the completion of my initiation as a fertility priestess a few months after the world arrived at the pandemic. For 4 years I had worn all white, and felt my way into what and who and how I was becoming. I was sooooo looking forward to a thrift store spree to celebrate the return of colors to my wardrobe—but all the stores were closed. So then I discovered online thrifting…and I digress!
The Garden was also born a few months before the close of my initiation season. And it was inside the soft reception of the Garden that I first began addressing myself as Mother Mother. The beautiful creators in the Garden helped me grow into my new title too, calling me Mother Mother, and seeing me as I was daring to see myself. This sistership we are cultivating is the sweetest thing. We practice loving each other as we are, believing in each other, witnessing each other, affirming each other. The Garden is a place to practice saying who you are out loud, and in the presence of those who are enthusiastic about cheering you on and celebrating your brilliance. I think if it were not for the Garden, I would still be searching for a way to tell the world who I am. The Garden gave me the much needed space to practice my new identity as Mother Mother, and this led also to a new meaning of Binahkaye.
“And so I imagined myself, my life, an ongoing ringshout, a moving circular prayer for all the mothers, and our children, and our dreams. If the mothers are well, then all is well. ”
Another roll along the epicycle, and Binahkaye now means “mother of mothers” and “dancing mother.” It holds the multitudinous truths of my devotion to mothers, and my devotion to the dance. My name speaks of the long labors that come with the commitment to create spaces where mothers can be seen and honored for their labors. It also vibrates with the expansion of my movement making dreams and echoes the long-seeded, newly sprouted entity of Dancing Mother, my spiral movement galaxy.
So much of who I am, and who I am becoming, is reflected in my name, my labors, my creations. The moments have collected themselves into stories, and I am experimenting with ways to tell them all. I love studying, creating, birthing, mothering, dreaming, seeding, shaping, mapping, weaving, feeling, being, becoming. With every spin of the Earth, as our bright blue planet makes its own epicyclical sojourn around the sun, we are blessed to witness and participate in this mighty collaboration called life. Magically, divinely, consciously, we all get to be here, and become here, again and again. Just as the Earth is still very much in its becoming after 4.5 billion years, so too are we emerging magnificently, courageously, into each new now. Every rotation, every breath, every heartbeat matters. It’s all growing somewhere.
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