When you look at a newborn, the stalk sticking up out of the belly button draws your eye right to it. These days they paint it with a blue-black substance (which acts as an antibiotic and serves other functions as well, I was told) and it's truly unignorable.
The umbilical cord is the lifeline between the embryo and the mother. In the womb, the baby receives all nourishment and eliminates waste through this tiny pipeline. If you think of that phrase "the ties that bind," the umbilicus is most definitely one of those. The belly button, whether innie, outie, or otherwise, is the remnant of the connection that originally kept each of us alive. The cutting of the umbilical cord, then, symbolizes the beginning of life as an individual.
In our contemporary world, the term umbilical has the industrial high-tech usages we might expect. It is used to describe the long cable connecting an astronaut to a spacecraft, a deep-sea diver to the mother ship.
Many traditional cultures have rites and rituals regarding the umbilical stump. In some Native American tribes, the cord was woven into the mane of the child's first pony; this provided protection for the child. In Turkish culture, the location where the cord was buried had a special significance. If in a mosque, the child would grow up to be devout. If in a stable, she would become an animal lover. In Japanese culture, the first rite of passage in a child's life involves the umbilical cord falling off. My friend Long tells me that in his family, originally from Vietnam, his mother kept each of her children's cord in a beautiful embroidered pouch.
Yesterday Baby Pearl's umbilical cord came off. Tonight we planted it in the root system of the baby loquat tree in our back yard as a tribute to the intrinsic bond between mother and child. A few years down the line, the tree will bear fruit. Then we will show her the tree and tell her this story.
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