Nuchal Cord

The umbilical cord was the first bond of your life. It was your channel of connection to your mother — your oxygen, your nourishment, your entire world, for nine months. Everything you needed to live came to you through it. And this very cord, the one that nourished you, wraps itself around your neck at the moment of birth.

The image carries a force that is hard to ignore. What connected you became tight. What nourished you became a noose. What gave you life reached into the moment of your first breath. Medically, a nuchal cord is common, often harmless, and in most cases without lasting consequences — but that is only one level. The other level is the level of experience. And on that level, what happened there is a deep image.