ABOUT OUR NAME & LOGO:

My corporate name is Matrix Midwifery.  A matrix is defined as something within which something else develops or originates, in other words, the uterus. 

The logo of Matrix Midwifery Enterprises, the baby within the crescent moon, represents the Great Mother Goddess holding developing humanity in her arms. 

The arms of the Great Mother, the cycles of childbearing persons, one blade of the labrys as a symbol of transformative power and protection (see below) and the circle of life are all symbolized by the crescent moon. 

The baby is lavender pink, the approximate color of all healthy babies in utero and in the moments after birth. The cord is floating free and away from the pelvis.  The arms and hands are away from the face, allowing the head to flex unimpeded by little fists.  The baby is in an left occiput anterior position, usually moving to left occiput transverse before entering the pelvis, a position that facilitates easy engagement and descent of the baby for most childbearing individuals.

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WHAT IS A LABRYS?

)   My doing business name is Labrys Press.  The labrys is the sacred double-headed ax that was the scepter of the ancient Amazonian Goddesses who were worshiped under the various names of Gaea, Rhea, Demeter and Artemis.

    Gaea was the Mother Earth, the "Deep-breasted One." Rhea, the Aegean Universal Mother or Great Goddess of Crete, was an early form of the Moon-goddess Diana, a goddess of the hunt and of childbirth.  Carl Jung believed that the labrys is an archetype, an indelible marker of the Great Mother myth, in the Psyche of every human being, male and female (Talbott, 2014).

    The name Demeter derives from the Greek word "meter" or mother. De is the Greek letter delta.  It is the fourth letter of the alphabet an is shaped like a triangle, a female-genital sign also known as the letter of the vulva.  Demeter was known in Asia as the doorway of the Mysterious Feminine. . . . the root from which Heaven and Earth Sprang.  The triangle-door-yoni symbolized Demeter's triune attributes of Virgin, Mother and Crone or Creator, Preserver, Destroyer.   Artemis, the Mother of Creatures, was an Amazonian Moon-goddess who was also worshiped under the Latin name Diana. (Walker, 1996)

    In addition, the labrys was carried by the legendary all-women Amazon warrior tribes whose stories are found in the myths of ancient Greece, Rome, Africa, Asia Minor and Crete. The word Amazon has been translated as "a match for men," symbolism which speaks powerfully to the position that the midwifery model of care holds in relationship to the patriarchal medical model.

eminist philosopher and writer Mary Daly sees the labrys as a symbol of feminist truth-seeking:

". . . we often refer to the labrys as a feminist symbol. . . an image that points beyond itself to deep Reality. When we activate its Metaphoric Potential, however, we whirl it, hurl our Selves with it. As Metaphor it carries us into new Realms, and it changes our perceptions, our be-ing. Used metaphorically, it is an instrument of change, of  Metamorphosis.   Flying with it, we shift from circular reasoning to Spiraling
E-motional knowing and action." (Daly, 1984)

". . . many women who have experienced, as a result of coming to feminist consciousness, a burning desire to study, have found that precisely because of this deep awareness, patriarchal 'education' is almost too disgusting to endure."

Words/labels often stop thinking/
imagining/conquesting. We must break their mindbinding power. Sometimes it is necessary to reject them entirely; in other instances we prune them into adequate instruments, so that they will point the way into the Background, rather than blocking it. 

For this purpose, Crones need to sharpen our minds/wits so that they become the Sacred Double Axes of Amazons. The A-mazing Female Mind is the Labrys that cuts through the double binds and doublebinding words that block our breakthrough to understanding radical feminist friendship and sisterhood." (Daly, 1978)

    It is in this spirit of breaking though patriarchal perceptions in medicine and maternity care and thereby re-turning to our ability to think things through for ourselves and re-member the Background Wisdom of our ancient midwifery heritage that these books are written.

REFERENCES & FURTHER READING:
Daly, Mary Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy: Beacon Press, Boston
    MA, 1984, p. 407.
Daly, Mary, Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism: Beacon
      Press, Boston MA, 1978, pp. 368-369.
Hogan, Steve & Hudson, Lee, Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian
     Encyclopedia, Henry Holt & Co., New  York  NY, 1998.
Talbott, Marlene, <http://labryscounseling.com/Dr%20Marlene/html/
     labrys.html>, 2012.  (Accessed January 7, 2014).
Walker, Barbara, The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Castle
    Books, Edison NJ, 1996.

(Reviewed, revised and updated January 21, 2025)