UGLY BEAUTIFUL — Lyrics

Motel Birth, Mold Walls, and Magick That Held -

(scroll down for lyrics)

I didn’t plan on birthing in a moldy motel.
I wasn’t trying to be brave or rebellious or anti-anything.
I was just a pregnant woman with a history of sexual trauma, and the thought of being in a hospital—flat on my back, exposed, surrounded by strangers in gloves—made my whole body freeze.

Fear makes strange places feel safer.

That cracked little room in Roseburg, Oregon—the one with mold bleeding through the paint and rats fighting in the walls—somehow felt less threatening than a delivery table ever did. It wasn’t common to birth at home.

But it was the one place where my body didn’t curl in on itself.
I trusted that room more than I trusted a system that i always felt small in.

We did research.
We knew the risks.
We made contingency plans.
We didn’t walk in blind; we walked in scared, deliberate, shaking—but together.
Still—it was a leap.
It was trusting our natural process

This song grew from that fear.
Not the pretty version.
Not the empowered-goddess archetype.
The real version:
the “I hope I’m not making a terrible mistake” version.

There was rats and mold in the walls.
There was magick in the air.
My husband invoked angels in all directions.
My husband called them one by one, and I held onto the edge of the tub, trying to breathe like someone who wasn’t remembering every unwanted touch from every year before and praying I don’t mess this kid up.

MEANING — UGLY BEAUTIFUL

There’s something people don’t tell you about sexual trauma:
even safe hands don’t always feel safe.
Even medical care can feel like being trapped again.
Even a hospital bed—clean, bright, sterile—can feel like the place where your choice disappears.

That’s the part of the story that lives under this song.

I wasn’t rejecting medicine.
I wasn’t trying to be radical.
I wasn’t trying to make a statement.
I was trying not to dissociate in the middle of the most vulnerable and scary moment of my life.

The motel sounds ridiculous to people who didn’t live in my body.
But for me, the hospital was the threat—
the motel was the refuge.

And this song is where I lived that decision.

It’s the sound of me choosing the space where I could stay in my own skin—even if that space was falling apart.

I was a scared girl using whatever tools I had—prayers, angels, breath, my husband whispering my affirmations to me—to survive something that terrified me.

People imagine unassisted birth as brave.
I didn’t feel brave.
I felt cornered and determined and trembling and stubborn.
I felt like someone trying to outrun a memory.

And the motel—with its mold, and noise, and rot, and weird warmth—was the only place that didn’t ask anything of me.

This song is a record.

A record of choosing the “ugly” place because it was the only place where I didn’t leave my body.
A record of the angels who showed up in the way only trauma survivors understand.
A record of the husband who held the doorway, the water, the moment, me.
A record of a birth that was raw and messy and un traditional and fully ours.

The lyrics hold the details.
The story holds the why.
The song holds the version of me that stayed.

Ugly Beautiful is a spell I cast without meaning to—
a spell that said:

“If I must meet terror again, let me meet it on my own ground,
in my own way,
with my own magick.”

And somehow, in that cracked room, on that brown tarp,
the ugliest place became the safest.
The mold became the veil.
And my boy came through the only door my body didn’t shut against.

I’m not offering answers.
I’m offering context.
I’m offering the truth as I lived it.

It was instinct.
It was survival.
It was me choosing the room where I stayed present.

Ugly Beautiful is that story in sound.

Crow’s still watching.
And I still thank those angels.

🌿 Gentle Research Notes

These aren’t facts I’m using to prove anything—
they’re just things I found that helped me understand my own body better.

1. Around 1 in 5 people describe their birth as traumatic.
I didn’t want to become one of those people.
And I believe birth went so smoothly for me because I chose the environment where I felt safest—not the one I’d been told I was “supposed” to choose.

My birth was beautiful, grounding, fast, and only seven hours.
But reading that statistic helped me understand why my fear was so big before labor even started.

2. Birth trauma is often about feeling powerless, not about medical emergencies.
This part rang loud in my chest.
I wasn’t afraid of pain.
I was afraid of freezing, of going silent, of being touched by strangers—the way my body learned to protect itself after sexual trauma.

3. Many survivors fear the hospital more than the birth itself.
That was me.
The idea of strangers, bright lights, being told to lie back—it made my whole body brace.
I didn’t want to dissociate while meeting my son for the first time.

4. A lot of trauma survivors birth best where they feel private and in control.
For some, that’s a hospital.
For some, a birthing center.
For some, home.

For me—unexpectedly—it was a cracked motel room in Oregon.
Not because it was ideal…
but because it was our home at the time.

5. Feeling safe helps your body birth more smoothly.
Studies say when someone feels supported and in control, labor often goes faster and gentler.
That matched my experience.
My body opened because it didn’t feel threatened.

6. Choosing an unusual birth space isn’t reckless.
It’s often a trauma-informed adaptation.
I wasn’t rejecting medical care—it was our Plan B.
I wasn’t trying to be radical.
I was choosing the one room where my body didn’t shut down.

🌙 What this means for Ugly Beautiful

I didn’t have a traumatic birth.
I had a safe birth after a lifetime of unsafe moments.

And that safety—
the privacy,
the angels,
the cracked walls,
my husband’s hands catching our son—
is the reason it went so well.

My story isn’t:

“I had a traumatic birth.”

My story is:

“I had a history of trauma.
I made a choice that kept it from touching my birth.”

That’s the heart of the song.

Ugly Beautiful isn’t about trauma overwhelming me.
It’s about me choosing the only room where trauma couldn’t follow.

🕊️ Sandalphon — Witness, Messenger, Guardian

Sandalphon is often described as the angel who hears our songs, gathers our prayers, and carries them up — to heaven’s throne. Wikipedia+2Learn Religions+2

They say his height stretches from Earth to Heaven — a bridge between human fear and sacred surrender. Wikipedia+1

He is known as the angel of music and prayer. Through breath, chant, or whispered names, he gathers the hum of grief, hope, fear, love — and weaves them into a garland of voices that ascends. Learn Religions+2Cristina Aroche+2

In some old teachings he is also said to protect the unborn — a guardian for new souls before their first breath. AURIEL GRACE+1

I whispered his name in that dark, cracked motel room. He heard.
When I called him, I wasn’t asking for perfection — I was asking for passage: passage for fear, passage for breath, passage for new life.

🕊️ Sandalphon’s Song

Some esoteric writings say that when a song gets stuck in your head, Sandalphon is already carrying your wish upward. He threads the melody through your mind so you know the prayer has left your mouth and entered his hands. The wish is moving. The gate is open. Sandalphon is already at work. Next time you get a song stuck in your head, Sandalphon might be talking to you.

🖤 A Blessing for Anyone Reading This

May the place you feel safest be the place you choose—
even if it surprises everyone else.
May every instinct you’ve ever apologized for
lead you back toward your own center.
May your body trust you the way you’ve learned to trust it.
Crow’s on the wire, keeping gentle watch while you find your way home.

Lyrics—

[VERSE]
Lived in a mold trap.
White paint bleeding black spores.
Rats in the walls and grief on the floor.
Dead porch rat offering—cat got half.
Pink tile gleaming like a psychopath’s laugh.
Cracked and blackned.
We had to scrub the mold
Before we could nest
So we could give our heads and new son
A place to rest.
Pregnant and broke.
Carried a knife.
Prayed in the tub while I bled out my life.
Lost all my friends. Lost all my plans.
Still did magick with shaking hands.

Mattress Alley.
Bring the bat.
They said you might need it.
Power blew when the instapot breathed.
Shared heat with fleas.
One cat died. We screamed.
We had shields. We had hot water.
Still smelled death in the wet walls.
Blackberry bramble tore through skin.
But I swear to god—I loved it then.

[CHORUS ]
Ugly. Beautiful.
Rot and bloom.
We built a church in a motel room.
Cried in the hallway.
Birthed in the dark.
Lit that pain like a sacred spark.

Ugly. Beautiful.
Blood and breath.
Some days feel like holy death.
And I laugh.
And I mean it.
My whole life broke—and I seen it.

[VERSE]
Didn’t go to the hospital.
Too many ghosts in white coats.
Too many hands that don’t ask.
Too many rules when I’m trying to breathe.
I feared the table more than the pain.
Feared the “lie back” more than the flames.
So we stayed in the rot.
In the cracked motel box.
Let the walls breathe mold while I burned out the lock.
Seven hours.
No needle. No mask.
Just breath and blood
and my husband’s hands.
He called the angels.
One by one.
Sandalphon, carry this boy to the sun.

[VERSE]
Michael, stand at the door.
Crowbar scars still etched in the wood.
Gabriel, speak when the silence grows sore.
Raphael, wrap the pain in something good.
Uriel—make this ground stable again.
Metatron—light every nerve in my skin.
Sandalphon, hooded and huge,
he hummed through the walls like a distant tune.
He said: the song stuck in your head is a prayer.
He said: the cornucopia’s already there.
And we birthed a star.
In the ugliest place.
And it smelled like mold and vinegar
but it looked like grace.
On a brown tarp.

[CHORUS ]
Ugly. Beautiful.
Rot and bloom.
We built a church in a motel room.
Cried in the mirror.
Birthed in the dark.
Lit that pain like a sacred spark.
Ugly. Beautiful.
Blood and breath.
Some days feel like holy death.
And I laugh.
And I mean it.
My whole life broke—and I seen it.

[OUTRO ]

Michael at the door.
Gabriel in the walls.
Raphael in the water.
Uriel when it falls.
Metatron—light the line.
Sandalphon—carry mine.
Cornucopia in the spine.
The spell is sealed. The boy is fine.

[spoken]

Sandalphon : Please help us deliver our son safely into this world, and help us into a happy, healthy, home.