Integrated Mama

Oct22

Alaina turned nine months old this week and I again found myself wishing to make a new polymer clay goddess sculpture to capture this new phase in our life cycle. I’m interested by how I began this series during my pregnancy with her and how I continue to feel “moved” to add to it as she grows and changes. While she is on the move a lot, she also spends a great deal of time riding on my hip in a pouch carrier. So, it felt àpropos to make another slingin’ mama figure, this time with the baby on her hip. While, as always, it isn’t perfect, I do like how my new sculpture turned out:

Slingin' mama goddess!

Healthy Baby Fair Booth--just popped out of baby carrier for photo op

I’ve written several times before about my desire to live an integrated life and I honestly think that babywearing makes it (semi) possible. She most wants to be with me, but often she doesn’t want direct play, she wants to ride along and see what interesting things I’m going to do. I think this is part of baby’s biology and part of how the motherbaby relationship is socially and biologically meant to be at this point—mother goes about her business (grinding corn, perhaps), with baby very close and watching. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include typing things on the computer, which is what much of my work actually entails. So, I save household work to do while she’s awake and riding along and I do computer-based work while she sleeps. That way, we (usually) both get our biologically appropriate needs met within our cultural context. Recently, I had a LLL table at the local Healthy Baby fair and several people came up to my friend and me to comment on how we were wearing our babies and how they were just riding along so content to look at what was going on. I tried to explain to one booth visitor who was expressing concern about the changes babies bring to life how I believe that babies can go along with mothers as they go about their tasks/days—it is possible to integrate the baby into the rest of your responsibilities.

Looking at the wavy lake from safe harbor of mama's body (in Ergo)

I was thinking about this again over the last couple of days that I spent with my family on a mini-vacation to Silver Dollar City (theme park in Branson, Missouri). As long as Alaina was riding with me in the pouch or Ergo she was totally happy. We spent hours outside on Wednesday in pretty bitter cold and she rode and looked and nursed and snoozed. On Thursday we took a lunch “cruise” on a Showboat (didn’t actually cruise due to wind) and again, she rode and checked out the world. Then, on Friday, we were back in the park where she got to go on her first rides ever like a big girl—the carousel (out of pouch) and on the Flooded Mine ride (where the whole family rode in a boat—she rode in the Ergo in the boat with me).

Big girl going for a ride!

Several years ago at an LLL conference, a sleep “expert” spoke during the lunch session. She was of the opinion (which is not shared by LLL as a whole), that nursing a baby to sleep is a “habit” that you don’t want to get into and advocates detaching them when they get sleepy so that they learn how to fall asleep without relying on nursing to get them there. She gave examples of babies and sleep associations and then said, “but if a baby is used to being nursed to sleep, they could fall asleep in the middle of Times Square while the ball was dropping on New Year’s Eve as long as mama was there too and nursing them.” And, I thought, EXACTLY! The problem with that is….?! That is one of the very best things about breastfeeding to me—home is where the mama is. So, this week as Alaina snoozed peacefully when she was sleepy while roller coasters sped around and bluegrass played and fiddlers fiddled and cold winds blew and people swarmed all over, I was thankful that I’ve never tried to get my baby to develop a different sleep association! Breastfeeding is magic like this to me, not an inconvenience or a habit to be restructured.

She is nursing in this picture

Of course, integration of parenting with work can also be a pretty significant challenge, as I touch on in my recent interview in the working/parenting series at Molly Westerman’s blog First the Egg. (I typed my responses to her interview questions on my phone while lying on my side in bed nursing Alaina to sleep.)

My whole series of sculptures

Have you met Pachamama?

Oct7

I have a friend who was taking a mythology class in college this session. She sent me an email titled, “have you met Pachamama?” and included this great little picture:

I just love her! Love her serene little face and the yin-yang type of background.

“Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. Pachamama is usually translated as Mother Earth, but a more literal translation would be “Mother world” (in Aymara and Quechua mama = mother / pacha = world or land; and later widened in a modern meaning as the cosmos or the universe).[1] Pachamama and Inti are the most benevolent deities; they are worshiped in parts of the Andean mountain ranges, also known as Tawantinsuyu (the former Inca Empire) (stretching from present day Ecuador to Chile and northern Argentina being present day Peru the center of the empire with its capital city in Cuzco).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachamama

Book Review: Evolve…a woman’s journey

Sep5

Book Review: Evolve…a woman’s journey
by Patrick Stull
Stull Visual Arts, 2011
Hardcover, 164 pages, $44.95
Also available as an iPad app and as an iBook in Itunes for $9.99.
http://www.patrickstull.com/books/

Reviewed by Molly Remer

A combination of stirring photography celebrating the creative journey of pregnancy and lyrical ode to women, Evolve is a unique book presented by artist Patrick Stull. The author-photographer’s love, respect, and honor for women shines through on every page. The photographs are arresting and dramatic and the prose is poetic and beautiful. The book is part of a multimedia exhibit taking place in 2012. I would love to see the full exhibit, which involves full body casts as well as images and voice recordings.

Why would a man prepare a project such as this? According to his introduction, due to “this insatiable desire to be part of something that excludes me…I have found something within me that one might call love, though I think it is more a sense of attachment to something that makes me whole. I have fallen in love with this creature and she has left her imprint on my being, casting me out to share the love—the humanity I have found.” Later he also shares that: “I have discovered nothing more stunning, nothing more emotionally stirring, nothing more intriguing than a woman as she creates life.” He also has an activist purpose behind his work, asserting that one mission of the Evolve project is to help people recognize the strength and value that all women possess. Stull states, “I also want people to consider the daily injustices to women and children all over the world, and how often they suffer the greatest costs of conflict. Why are women treated so cruelly?”

The early photographs shared are the faces of the women we follow throughout the rest of the book. A short snippet of information about the woman’s life accompanies each portrait. One woman is a midwife and several mothers had homebirths and/or hired doulas or midwives for their births. Evolve is a high quality hardback book that would be a great addition to a birth center waiting room or midwife’s office. If the price for the hardback book is out of your budget, luckily there is an affordable iBook version available.

The overwhelming message received through Evolve is of pregnancy as an active process. The pictures are very active and dynamic in feel, celebrating form and motion. Evolve is not a book of “belly pictures,” it is a book about women and their lives in the act of creation.

—

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes.

Mother Blessing Quotes

Jul15

For the mother blessing ceremony I wrote about recently, I also went through my birth quotes collection (which is becoming quite extensive!) and picked out some special quotes that reminded me of things I wanted to share with the birthing mama-to-be.

“For each of us as women, there is a deep place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises…Within these deep places, each one holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us…it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” –Audre Lorde

While some people have said they don’t like the use of the word “dark” in this quote, I think it is perfect. In the darkness is where wonderful seeds take root and grow.

“It is so easy to close down to risk, to protect ourselves against change and growth. But no baby bird emerges without first destroying the perfect egg sheltering it. We must risk being raw and fresh and awkward. For without such openness, life will not penetrate us anew. Unless we are open, we will not be filled.” –Patricia Monaghan

Since, as I mentioned, this recent ceremony was for a PAL-mama, I included the above quote. While I don’t really like the image of the egg being destroyed (if I relate the quote to birth), I feel like this is a good quote to describe the bravery involved with consciously undertaking the pregnancy after loss journey.

I also included my top two favorite quotes about birth and pain. The first:

“When I say painless, please understand, I don’t mean you will not feel anything. What you will feel is a lot of pressure; you will feel the might of creation move through you. Pain, however, is associated with something gone wrong. Childbirth is a lot of hard work, and the sensations that accompany it are very strong, but there is nothing wrong with labor.” –Giuditta Tornetta

I love the part about the might of creation. How is that for a bold summation of the potency and power of birth. While some people object to the inclusion of the word “painless” in it, to me the takeaway message of the quote is that birth is too big for the word “pain” to adequately contain or describe it. We need more and better language for it! And, that brings me to the second quote:

“So the question remains. Is childbirth painful? Yes. It can be, along with a thousand amazing sensations for which we have yet to find adequate language. Every Birth is different, and every woman’s experience and telling of her story will be unique.” –Marcie Macari

From the same author, two more quotes, this time describing the transformative power of birth:

“Birth is an opportunity to transcend. To rise above what we are accustomed to, reach deeper inside ourselves than we are familiar with, and to see not only what we are truly made of, but the strength we can access in and through Birth.” –Marcie Macari

“A woman in Birth is at once her most powerful, and most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed unhindered understands that we are stronger than we know.” –Marcie Macari

And, then, a helpful reminder, that birth is our gateway to conscious, active, full-on parenting for the rest of our lives!

“The natural process of birth sets the stage for parenting. Birth and parenting mirror each other. While it takes courage and strength to cope with labor and birth, it also takes courage and strength to parent a child.” –Marcy White

And, finally, I shared the quote that to me was a touchstone describing my feelings about Alaina’s entrance into my world. She did this for me.

“A baby, a baby, she will come to remind us of the sweetness in this world, what ripe, fragile, sturdy beauty exists when you allow yourself the air, the sunshine, the reverence for what nature provides…” – Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser (in Literary Mama)

Speaking of that sweet baby of mine, here she is at my friend’s mother blessing ceremony. I’m so glad she’s here! And, my heart is full for my friend as she is soclose to her own fresh baby girl. I’m glad my daughter is going to grow up within a circle of strong, empowered, healthy women and girls and I love taking her to blessingways with me, knowing that I am socializing her into a model of womanhood and life that values the feminine 🙂 (and, yes, that is a bindi on her forehead).

Haumea: The Divine Midwife

Jul5

“Haumea, a Polynesian Goddess, was credited with teaching women how to give birth by pushing their babies out from between their legs. Before this, folklore claims that children were cut from their wombs, extracted by knife like a pit from ripe fruit. Thanks to Haumea, women were able to forgo this dangerous passage.” –Kris Waldherr, Goddess Inspiration Cards

Reading this, I felt like women need to “meet” Haumea again. Perhaps modern midwives, doulas, and birth educators are Haumeas on earth, reminding women that they have the inherent power and capacity to push their own babies out from between their legs, rather than having major surgery.

After reading about Haumea and thinking about my own births, I felt inspired to make yet another figure in my birth art series. I’m experimenting with new types of figures lately and made this catching-your-own image:

You will safely give birth to something powerful.

Birth Altar Wisdom

May25

I am preparing to paint a birth altar cabinet for a friend’s upcoming blessingway ceremony. I have felt the urge for some time to share a post about the words that I included on the birth altar that I created for myself before my last birth. Some elements included were from pages of a cheapy page-a-day calendar from the $1 Shop and some were parts of a t-shirt tag from the tag on a shirt I purchased from WYSH at an LLL conference in 2009 (why keep a t-shirt tag from 2009, you might ask? Because it had lots of cool things written on it! And, behold, it became a source of birth altar wisdom for me. Wisdom lurks in unexpected places!)

I am struck by how these words from unconventional locations apply so perfectly to giving birth. Here’s what the little cards and snippets I included say:

From the calendar:

Inhale * Exhale * Relax * Repeat

LOVE the process.

Embrace peace within.

Keep it simple.

Right here

ENJOY

Right now

From the t-shirt tag:

Befriend fear, embrace struggle, trust nature, the process, and a baby’s wisdom (I swear, this shirt had NOTHING to do with giving birth!)

We don’t tell our flowers how to grow, to stay low or bloom before they’re ready.

Undivide your attention. All clear.

Lead with your spirit, rise above the noise, show the world your true self.

Also from the tag were individual words that I included: freedom. trust. inspiration. respect. authenticity. empowerment.

And, then I cut the following from a tag on a pendant from my husband:

May the Love we’re

sharing spread its Wings

and fly across the Earth

and bring new Joy to

every Soul on the Planet.

Happy Birthday to Me!

May23

When I get money as a birthday gift, I usually just put it in with the household money and it gets spent on groceries or miscellaneous cash expenditures. This year, I decided to get myself a present! I saw these unassisted birth pendants by Meghan Rice on Laura Shanley’s site before I gave birth in January and loved them, but talked myself out of buying one for various reasons (too expensive, what if something happens to the baby, etc.). Since I did end up birthing my daughter on my own AND in a kneeling position exactly like the pendant and since she was born in January (birthstone is garnet), I decided to go ahead and splurge on one of the pendants with a garnet belly 🙂 She arrived just before Alaina’s four monthabirthday on May 19th (also my mom’s birthday!) and it felt like just the right occasion. I really love this pendant!

I have to say that I have the greatest collection of pendants in the world. Too bad I only have one neck, because I would like to wear many of them all of the time! 😉

We also hung up my belly cast. I like how it looks on the red wall!

far away

close up

Birth Art Wall

May10

On my recent belly cast post, a commenter asked me where I hang my belly casts. My first one hangs on the birth art wall in my hallway and I am planning to hang the new one on the opposite wall (which is painted red—I think the black and white of the new cast will look nice on the red wall). Anyway, the question prompted me to share a photo of my birth art wall:

Is it weird to have a birth art wall? The possibility never crossed my mind until just now when I went to post the picture! 🙂 Someone did once refer to it as, “your fertility shrine,” which is not how I think of it at all. I think of it as a visual celebration of the role of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood in my life.

Finished Belly Cast!

May9

On Mother’s Day I wanted to finish painting the belly cast we made during my pregnancy with Alaina. During my pregnancy I made a series of black and white mandala-type drawings and I knew right away that I wanted to continue this theme on my belly cast. It felt somewhat odd to paint the cast black—like it was weird of me to do so, but it was the only “vision” I had for the cast!

I feel a little critical of it—it was very difficult to paint smoothly with the white on the uneven/porous surface—but, overall I feel very pleased with how it turned out.

Here is a different angle:

I did not do a belly cast with my first pregnancy. With my second, I did, and I painted it very simply:

Family Adventures in Polymer Clay

May7

Last time I made new polymer clay sculptures, my boys wanted to join in. They have always liked sculpting things and got into it, making a whole little series of figures each. My older son (7.5) made these little cuties:

Close up of the mom with her baby

My younger son (5), made a whole series of little ball creatures:

Two of them looked like they had another ball stuck on to them and so I said, “oh! Are these holding babies?” He looked a little sheepish and said, “no, it is eating that other one.” LOL! This is classic, classic Z ;-D

Later, he said he’d changed his mind and this one above, “actually IS holding a baby.”

This was my own little series I made at the same time:

Talk Birth

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