MamaFest!

Sep5

Last summer, my Rolla Birth Network friends and I conceived of a local event to be held celebrating mothers. We made a couple of decisions in planning our event that were really smart: we decided to focus on celebration rather than education (or even activism), we decided not to involve any money (either for the attendees or the hosts [aside from tabling materials/supplies]), and…this is key…we also decided to only do that which was within our own personal resources to provide. It worked! We pulled off a lovely MamaFest event at Tara Day Spa in Rolla. It was well-attended and fun and involved very little expense for anyone. It was work, of course, but it was within our resources/capacities. Community organizations were welcome to have a table at the event for free with the only stipulations being no formula/bottle materials (this event is co-sponsored by La Leche League of Rolla in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week) and that they had to provide something to do at their table. Our vision was that this event would not involve simply walking around picking up flyers and leaving, but instead would provide an opportunity to hang out with friends, see cool things, learn some stuff, and make some projects. I had a birth art booth that was a delight for me to offer to the women.

This year in August, we hosted our second annual MamaFest event, again with a similar vision. Our resources/time were a little slimmer this year due to peoples’ schedules (particularly my own, leaving my co-founder shouldering most of the organizing effort), new babies, etc. We had fewer exhibits and fewer attendees and slipped more into the boothy-vibe that we hoped to avoid, and learned some things to try next year. I still consider the event a success, especially considering the fairly minimal womanpower with which we had to work. It was an especially good outreach opportunity for LLL and I said at the end that even if I hadn’t been involved at all with the planning of it, I would definitely have considered it a worthwhile event to continue attending with my LLL booth. I was super excited about my simple, but pretty (and free!) offering for the birth art booth this year: mother affirmation/blessing cards. Unfortunately, very few people took me up on my offer and I was a little sad about that, but my LLL booth with its breastfeeding trivia game and got breastmilk ™ pins was pretty popular. We have lots of ideas for next year and the possibility of experimenting with new directions, such as doing away with the booths altogether and having more retreat-like experience stations (i.e. yoga). What we know we want to keep is our commitment to celebrating women and their capacities, because they’re just super awesome and worth celebrating!

Here are some pictures of my booth and some projects from the event:

Birth art booth!

Loved this thumbprint necklace project offered at the booth of a local doula/photographer. Alaina appropriated it immediately because, “me like hearts!”

Babyloss memorial charms offered by the Rainbow Group (local pregnancy/infant loss support)

Emergency back up project that I scrambled for when I realized people weren’t making my cards–affirmation “stones” (glass pebbles written or drawn on with glass paint markers).

At least my own loyal family members showed up and made my project! (mom, sister, and visiting cousin)

What I learned from this event again this year was that you do not have to live in a city to be able to offer something like this in your community, all you need is a small handful of women who care and who can use their skills and resources to make it happen! 🙂

Birth Stories by Two Year Olds…

May9

With each of my kids when they are somewhere between two and three years old, I feel inspired to ask them if they remember when they were born. They always say, “yes,” and I say, “tell me about it” and they do. Lann’s story was a succinct and accurate version of what happened. He said:

Toddlers can do birth art too! Love the placenta in a bowl and the baby attached to the mama with cord (yes, I know the two are mutually exclusive, but I love it anyway!)

Toddlers can do birth art too! Lann drew this after Zander was born. Love the placenta in a bowl and the baby attached to the mama with cord (yes, I know the two are mutually exclusive, but I love it anyway!)

Swimming
Swimming down out of mama.
Crying!
Nursies.
Happy now.

As I’ve written before, he did start crying loudly with only his head sticking out. Almost immediately after he was born, I put him to my breast offering him what I spontaneously called “nursies” and he was, in fact, then happy.

I asked Zander on his third birthday and his version of his birth was as follows:

First you saw a little head poking out.
Then a little arm.
Then another little arm.
And another and another.
And me was little alien.

He was, in fact, born slowly like this with head emerging and then arms and then upper body and then the rest of him. I asked him what happened to his extra arms and he said:

They actually melted.

He was nursing at the time and paused, popped off and said:

and, my extra eye melted too…

That’s my little Zander for you!

I love how the baby looks like it is “floating” in this one.

Yesterday morning, I spontaneously asked Alaina if she remembered being born and like the others she said yes. I asked her what happened and she said:

My baby! My baby!

I asked, “did you hear mama saying that?”

She said yes and then said,

Now, nonnies. Then she just gazed off into the distance like she was remembering.

I asked her if she remembered anything else and she repeated the above. Shortest of the children’s birth stories, but also distilled to its essence 😉

I’m curious to know if other people ask their children this question and what kind of responses to you get? I love each of my children’s birth stories as told by them!

Both boys made me a birth art sculpture for my birthday this year and each is about a baby being born:

Zander’s sculpture: The Goddess of Birth

Lann’s sculpture.

Tuesday Tidbits: Writing, Reading, Rituals

May7

“There is an open, flexible, compassionate way of relating to everything we experience, including natural disasters and sudden death. It is not so much a process of learning how to ‘get over’ a profound loss, but rather how to allow it to be there, lightly, gently, like a fine thread woven forever into the tapestry of who we are.” –Nancy J. Rigg (previously used in this post)

I know it is boring to hear about how busy someone else is, but I’m barely keeping my head above water recently. I’m sad that my blogs are sinking to the bottom of my list, because I do so love to write and I have ideas for new blog posts every single day. And, every single day, no matter how long the to-do list is, I have a secret plan that I’ll work like the wind and finish everything else on my list and then I’ll still have time “left over” in which I’ll actually get to write the imagined posts. Just isn’t happening this week though. I haven’t even read any birth articles to share thoughts from! However, past self, who apparently had some more time to spare than current self, did produce some work that has given me fodder for this week’s Tuesday Tidbits post. I was pleased as can be to have my article, Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue, published in Pathways Magazine this quarter. There are precious few opportunities remaining to be published in a print magazine for natural parents and there is just something extra special about having an article published in a full-color, real magazine 🙂 They sent me a pdf version of the article to distribute on my own website and so I’m doing just that. For the nicely printable pdf version, click here.

We are mammals because as a species we nurse our young. This is a fundamental tie between the women of our time and place and the women of all other times and places as well as between the female members of every mammal species that have ever lived. It is our root tie to the planet, to the cycles of life, and to mammal life on earth. It is precisely this connection to the physical, the earthy, the material, the mundane, the body, that breastfeeding challenges men, feminists, and society.

Breastfeeding is a feminist issue and a fundamental women’s issue. And, it is an issue deeply embedded in a sociocultural context. Attitudes towards breastfeeding are intimately entwined with attitudes toward women, women’s bodies, and who has “ownership” of them. Patriarchy chafes at a woman having the audacity to feed her child with her own body, under her own authority, and without the need for any other. Feminism sometimes chafes at the “control” over the woman’s body exerted by the breastfeeding infant.

via Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue | Talk Birth.

Then, on my birthday last week, my contribution to a series of guest posts by feminist readers about children’s books appeared on First the Egg:

“Books have always been a huge part of my life, and I have many favorite and noteworthy books from my childhood. When considering the question though, one quartet immediately came to mind since two of my children are in fact named after one of the characters–the same character, no less! The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce is the tale of Alanna, who disguises herself as a boy in order to train as a knight. Alanna is a very kick-ass girl, and though she is small and petite, she learns to be an awesome knight, in fact the very best. She develops close friendships with the other squires while managing to guard her secret from most, even through the changes of puberty, until her final test of knighthood. These books have magic and battles and bullies and evil sorcerers and a talking cat and a Great Mother Goddess who takes a special interest in Alanna.”

via children’s books from feminist readers: the other Molly.

And, as far as reading that I’m supposed to be writing about, I’m really looking forward to finishing my book review of The Midwife’s Tale by Sam Thomas and publishing the author interview I did with him.

I also read a fun treasure of a book called Thea Gallas Always Gets Her Man. It was a mystery about a pregnant-mother-of-three and aspiring lactation consultant who solves a murder mystery in between helping mothers with breastfeeding questions. Review forthcoming, I promise!

I’m also swooning with anticipation about reviewing the new documentary about Ina May Gaskin. My screening copy of Birth Story came in the mail this week and I’m hoping to have a few Birth Network friends over for a movie review night.

I’m wrapping up the session—teaching three classes at once is a LOT for a homeschooling, toddler-breastfeeding, LLL Leader, priestess, student, writer mama—and planning an extensive and complex trip to California for my grandma’s memorial. I’m honored to have been asked to plan and officiate at the ceremony for her committal service and also to give a speech at her celebration of life luncheon. Doing these things is really important to me and I’m pleased to be able to offer them as my gift, but at the same time they’re also tipping me over the edge into reallyreallytoomuchtodoandI’mgoingtofreakoutalittle territory. I spent a long time today crying and looking at pictures of my grandma on her Facebook page when I “should” have been grading. It still doesn’t feel real and I’m still staggered at the magnitude of loss I feel. I miss her. I’ve never landed on California soil without Mamoo living there and waiting to greet us.

With Mamoo at one month old. Look how our lips are pursed in a matching fashion as we talk to each other!

I’m also finalizing the preparations for our spring women’s retreat at my house this Friday. Again, this is something that I feel very blessed to be able to offer to others, while at the same time I’m also freaking out a little and just not. able. to. rest. and be still, in the way in which I feel I need to do. However, I also feel like I really, really need this retreat. I truly need to do this, for my friends and for myself.

One of the custom VBAC sculptures I made while at Craft Camp made it to its destination and now I’m receiving further requests for them. I keep saying I’m not going to do custom orders because I just don’t really have the time, but these beautiful mamas write to me with their strong stories and their tender hopes and I feel compelled to make the figures they ask for…

Thank goodness for Tuesday Tidbits! It means I’m guaranteed to write at least one post during the week. It gives me the focus, structure, and permission to be brief that I need in order to actually get something published, even if it is hastily organized and sloppily edited!

Happy Earth Day!

Apr22

Why this phrase? Two reasons:

Womb ecology reflects world ecology. World ecology reflects womb ecology.

And this (already used in several past posts):

When women are faced each day with enforced cesarean deliveries, birth control that maims and kills them, and doctors who think them dirty, when we encounter rape, violence in the streets, job discrimination, sexual slavery around the world, pollution and nuclear madness, we realize that reclaiming the integrative ways of our ancestors must involve our healing powers on all fronts—from the medical to the social to the environmental to the political to the psychological to the spiritual. Healing the divisions that were imposed during the patriarchal era is the survival issue of our time and our planet. A world that systematically sickens its women cannot survive. [emphasis mine]

Chellis Glendinning in Politics of Women’s Spirituality

Cesarean Birth Art Sculptures

Apr15

While it is still Cesarean Awareness Month, I wanted to make sure to write a quick blog post about a special series of custom sculptures I made recently for a special VBAC-hopeful mama. Earlier this year I was contacted via Facebook by a mother who shared a little bit of her story with me and who has given me permission to share it here as well. She experienced a traumatic cesarean following a birth-center-labor turned emergency transfer. Her baby almost died and she is still struggling to reconcile her feelings and her grief about his birth. She was very appreciative of the care from her birth center midwives and asked me if I would make a set of custom sculptures for them as a gift. While I previously only made sculptures for myself or for my friends, her story touched me and I agreed to make the figures. The picture I took of them ended up becoming the “famous” cake-pan lid photo that launched me into selling a whole lot of birth art sculptures over the last two months and opening up my little etsy shop. After receiving the sculptures, she requested I make another special set of sculptures, this time for her. Her request was to have a figure that was “wearing her scar proudly” and that would help her heal from the trauma and disempowerment of her emergency cesarean as well as prepare for a hopeful future VBAC. I was intimidated by the idea of making something to help someone else heal. I mean, wow! What a privilege and responsibility. There felt like a real risk in interpreting another woman’s experience artistically and I worried about disappointing her or not getting it. Around the same time as this request, I talked to a real-life friend about her experience with ovarian surgery during pregnancy and her feelings about her scar. After talking to her, I kept thinking, “her courage is written on her body” and I knew I wanted to include words as part of the scar. For my friend, the result was this figure:

For the VBAC mama, I wanted to create a figure that showed her joy in the birth of her healthy baby, the link between scar and baby, and the fact that her body has been marked by this experience in a profound way. You can’t really see in the picture, but written in the middle of the scar is the word, “love,” because she acted with great love.For the next figure, the one representing her future, planned pregnancy, I included the word “hope” written into the scar, as well as her now-toddler by her side:

And, finally, I wanted to create a powerful VBAC mama sculpture, courageously pushing out her baby in triumphant joy and relief:

In her scar is the word, “courage.” For these figures, I am pleased with how the scar feels like an integrated part of them. They hold that experience, they wear it, their courage, love, and hope has been permanently written upon their bodies. It is there, loud and clear, and yet new experiences are too. To me, these figures felt unifying and whole. I hope the recipient also felt that message 🙂

After writing this post and scheduling it, I read a deeply touching story by a mother who had cesarean births: Being a C-Section Mama In the Birth Goddess Club

But, there was a moment after my section with Louise where I got out of bed for the first time and walked to the shower. Everything was quiet. My baby girl was sleeping. My husband, Kurt, was holding my hands and trying to help me. It hurt so bad that I was nauseated and started dry heaving. The straining of my torn and abused stomach muscles put me over the edge into a universe of suffering and pain. I thought I couldn’t, it was too far, but I made it across the room and into the shower. I stood there, gray-faced and trembling and sobbed and sobbed while the water ran over my defeated, mutilated body. I couldn’t bend down to wash myself. My head was spinning. I focused all of my concentration on fending off the nausea. My husband got onto his hands and knees and crawled onto the floor of the shower. He knelt at my feet, fully clothed and getting soaked by the warm water. He washed my feet and my legs and my incision, also my deflated and sagging stomach. He looked up at me and he was crying. He wrapped his arms around my thighs and held on to me tight. He cried and said, “Thank you.”

I will never know what it’s like to triumph in birthing a baby, but I feel like I became a warrior and a goddess in my own, lopsided way.

–Amanda King

I almost forgot to include it, but the first cesarean birth art piece I created was actually not about VBAC at all, but was about the birth of triplets. The mother wanted a set of sculptures acknowledging her triplet birth journey, which included a cesarean birth and also not being able to breastfeed the babies. I felt anxious about making the “right” kind of cesarean piece and went with something that I felt conveyed the sense of the mother’s body “flowering” open to release her babies. I also set a jewel at her heart to indicate the love with which she opened her body to let her babies enter the world.

The Childbearing Year Sculpture Series: Pregnant Woman, Laboring Woman, Cesarean Birth Goddess, Mother (of Triplets)

“I became a mama goddess, too. I became a wonder of fertility, of softness, of late nights and warm beds; a body capable of unimaginable things. I labored and tore open, too.”

–Amanda King (in Being a C-Section Mama In the Birth Goddess Club)

Children’s Birth Art Gifts

Mar11

I’m not the only birth artist in the house! Last month, while I worked on my own sculptures, Zander worked and worked and created one of the best gifts I’ve ever received:

This is the Goddess of Everything, he told me: “See that pink stone in her belly, mom? That is the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.” She has a lot of detail. A snake on one shoulder, a bird on the other, a moonstone, and hearts. I love her! The boys then went on to create more gifts for me over the course of a couple of days. I love them all, but the one above is something pretty special!

: Protection Goddess (by Zander)

: Birth Goddess (by Lann)

: Goddess of Time (by Zander)

: Tree Goddess (by Zander as gift for a friend)

: Nursing Goddess (by Lann)

: Goddess of Love (by Zander. You may assume he “borrowed” the heart hands from me, but NO, it is me who got the idea from him!)

Birth art journey: mamapriestess

Feb27

This month during my computer-off retreat I felt the itch to add to my birth art journey collection. I haven’t made a new addition to it since Alaina’s dental work in September. Since she is so very interested in rituals and likes participating in women’s circles and wearing my special jewelry and setting up altars (this month two words added to her vocabulary were “altar” and “sacred bundle.” Adorable!), I created a mamapriestess sculpture as the next in my series:

It felt perfect to me, which was great, because I’ve been experimenting with (single) priestess sculptures since my priestess ordination in July and I had a lot of bum starts like this unfortunate try:

Couldn’t figure out yet HOW to do a standing figure after so many creations of seated figures. This one quickly ended up in my closet as did this one:

Not only not very attractive and leaning over, but ended up with burned hands and a broken skirt piece too!)

My next attempt was this one:

Ah! Getting better! Then, this one:

I created a mini version of her intending to include it in a “sacred bundle” at a festival, but I didn’t end up using her for that after all:

Larger priestess and mini priestess and tooth decay sadness mama sculptures.

I became enraptured with the tiny priestesses though and made this one also, who is still one my favorite sculptures (I call her the Womb of Creation):

Each figure in what I think of as my original birth art series has a special meaning to me. It is a 3-D journal of my life with my daughter. Each figure either had a message for me or was created to express a message or a lesson or to incorporate some aspect of my identity or to capture a memory. Here was the full series this summer:

After making the newest mamapriestess to add to the birth art journey series, I was on a roll and I created this version which I like even better:

And, I made a mini-mamapriestess as well:

Then, I started making other mini mamas and their babies:

And, I made a custom sculpture for Journey of Young Women:

Before mailing, I included her figures in a little grouping of minis on the altar for our women’s circle ritual this month:

The same week that my picture of my first custom sculpture order taken on my kitchen counter in front of a humble cake pan lid took off on Facebook (seriously, it had around 250 likes and over 130 shares, which is pretty close to “viral” in terms of birth art I think 😉 ), I also had two photos entered in a Goddess art contest in which this one won a prize…These figures are very near and dear to my heart and really represent my own journey through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood is a way that feels very meaningful to me, so I appreciated the feedback from the contest hostess on the photo also:

I love this one, Molly. It’s so perfect in its simplicity. The cast of shadows from the bright sunshine is lovely! The detail and uniqueness of each of the Goddesses Gathered is amazing! I find myself looking at each one wondering which is me! Such a special little altar for the Goddess. I can imagine myself focusing all my prayers in the center…. knowing that they will either slip through the crevice as dream seeds planted in the richness of the dark unknown, or being lifted upward to be gathered by the air, the wind and the very spirit of life and infinite possibility. Thank you for sharing. Blessings.

And this photo was a runner-up in the art contest 🙂

The “famous” cake pan lid photo!

In new experiments this week, I tried making some very tiny sculptures to use as pendants, with one continuing the “mamapriestess” motif…

Even tinier than that are these two I just finished late last night:

And, if I do say so myself, I made a pretty cool sculpture using a rock I found in the woods:

And, since my mamapriestess sculpture was about her in the first place, at her insistence, I gave the first little mini-mini mamapriestess to Alaina to wear as a necklace:

Finally, lest anyone think all I do is waltz through the forest photographing my art in the sunshine and feeling all Goddess-esque and Earth-mama divine, this is really what is sometimes like behind the scenes:

Crabby and wanting to go back inside (note my hand holding her back from stepping on me).

Scratchy knocking-stuff-down cat and toddler with pig ball “helping” me set up my little sculptures!

She also is very, very, very eager to help me put the pigment on (note the table and her arm!)

While this birth art journey has very much been intertwined with my pregnancy-after-loss journey, my preparation for birth, incorporating the lessons of birth, and expressing the phases and feelings of life with my new baby-turned-bigger-baby-turned-toddler as well as my life as a woman, I realized that it was high time I add another figure to my series that includes all of my kids!

They’re all bigger than this in proportion to me, obviously, but these aren’t meant to be perfect representations (I also don’t just have a smooth, faceless head!)

I also finished a bunch more sculptures late last night (my oldest said they look like a rainbow :)):

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.”

—Everyday Blessings

Hope and Healing

Feb25

Day of Hope and Healing…

What does that mean to me?

I pause a moment to honor my own courage and heart in trying again. In feeling fear and doing it anyway. Of daring to hope. It takes courage to open oneself up to loss again. To risk pain. To knowingly step forward into what may result in suffering. I celebrate my own daring to try again. For me it paid off, others continue to experience only additional pain and loss. It was a gamble. A roll of the dice. Losing babies shows you how chancy the childbearing year is. How full of promise and how full of pain and disappointment. I’m shocked by how often I continue to think about pregnancy loss, miscarriage, my own little Noah.

Just this weekend, I talked to Mark about the unresolved feelings, questions, and confusion and what ifs I still have and I guess will always have about my own miscarriage experiences. And, I told him, I still think about it every day. Every, single day, three years later. Is that just because I’m a “highly sensitive person” or is it because I was changed to the core by the death of my little baby? Every day I remember him, every day I remember what I learned, and every day I remember how it felt. So, this Day of Hope and Healing to me, is a chance to acknowledge and remember, to celebrate my own strength, and to love the gifts that loss brought me. I still feel a sensation of having a “hurt place” instead. A distinct spot in my uterus that remembers the baby that did not make it. A place that bled with such vigor that I was afraid I would not live. A place that tried so hard not to let go and then yielded. I laid in the bathtub and thought, “I will always be a little bit pregnant with him,” and maybe I am.

Today is The Amethyst Network’s Day of Hope and Healing event. I spent some time yesterday in the woods thinking about this and what it means to me and the above is what I spoke into my little voice memo recorder. I’m excited about our vision for The Amethyst Network in training for miscarriage doulas and offering support for loss families, so today on our Day of Hope and Healing I also donated to our Indiegogo fundraising campaign. We’d surely appreciate your donations as well 🙂 Also, make sure to check out the Day of Hope Pinterest board for inspiration.

A couple of weeks ago, Zander made some sculptures while I was working on my own and he surprised me by making this little “guardian of the dead.” He says she is holding and nursing baby Noah:

Based on my own past “guardian of the womb” experience, I also made a new little sculpture for myself:

On the way back to the house after taking these pictures, I noticed that some tulip bulbs I planted in a terribly haphazard manner last year are actually starting to come up! That felt like…hope.

Today I also made some revisions to my miscarriage memoir and decided to reduce the price to only 99 cents on Kindle!

Celebrating Pregnancy & Birth Through Art

Dec18

This article is adapted from my notes for past birth art workshop presentations. It is part of a story for the Winter 2013 edition of the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter.

Celebrating Pregnancy & Birth Through Art

by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE, CCCE

http://talkbirth.me

See other posts and pictures about birth art here.

Birth art is one of my favorite birthy subtopics and I used art during my pregnancies, postpartum, and continuing in life today. I love exploring birth art with women and I’ve presented on the subject at multiple conferences, as well as hosted a “birth art booth” at our local MamaFest event this past fall. Art can play an important role in self-discovery and preparation for birth and parenting. Art used during pregnancy and following birth can be powerful tool of validation, celebration, exploration, and insight.

Why is art during pregnancy is useful?

Art during pregnancy is primarily as a tool to tap into “right brain” consciousness and express unexplored gifts, primal wisdom, or release hidden fears. Creating birth art can help both women and men explore your feelings, memories, beliefs, and perceptions surrounding birth outside of the confines of the spoken or written word. The purpose of birth art is to explore what you find within as you create your art and not the final product—as Pam England describes, birth art is as raw, honest, spontaneous, and personal as birth itself.

Art during pregnancy can be used for:

Birth preparation.
Exploration of fears.
Celebration of feelings & experiences.
Fun!
Visualization.
Focal point.
Exploration of the unknown.
Self-discovery & insight.
Healing.
Revealing unconscious patterns/ideas.
Celebration of the power of the female form.
Celebration of new life.
Representing hopes/dreams.
Communicating hard to verbalize ideas/feelings.
Exploring “right brain” methods of understanding the birth journey.
Explaining concepts in new ways.
Symbolic/spiritual insights.
Revealing hidden birth wisdom.
Expressing creative gifts.
Mementos

Types of art exploration in pregnancy:

Sculpture—variety of mediums (fiber, clay, pottery…)
Painting
Drawing
Photos
Jewelry
Belly casting
Body art (such as henna)
Collage
Mandalas
Decorating objects—prayer box, wreath
Quilting

Birth Art Examples:

: My pushing the baby out birth art sculpture

: Several sculptures hanging out in the woods.

Postpartum nursing mama sculpture

Postpartum pushing the baby out sculpture

Labyrinth of pregnancy pre-birth sculpture.

Early birth art—incorporating the pregnant identity back into my life

Very, very early birth art sculptures–these were my first ever pregnant goddess sculptures of polymer clay. I’ve come a long way since then!

What my birth art series of polymer clay goddesses eventually evolved into!

Womb labyrinth–postpartum art after second son’s birth.

Needle felted wool birth art sculpture from first pregnancy.

Blessingway birth art gifts–photo by my friend, painting by my now sister-in-law

Birth altar of blessingway birth art gifts during blessingway

Birth art altar post-blessingway, all set up in my birth nest corner, reading for the birth of my daughter.

Fabric labyrinth by my friend as a blessingway gift.

Batik Goddess of Willendorf by another friend as a blessingway gift.

Painting by my now sister-in-law as a blessingway gift.

Baby and placenta by another friend as a blessingway gift.

Front of my birth altar prepared for my daughter’s birth.

Polymer clay labyrinth, plus goddess sculpture

Different type of polymer clay labyrinth,

Drawing during my last pregnancy (labyrinth of birth)

Henna on friend’s belly at her blessingway ceremony.

Birth art plaster goddess painted to match my belly cast from second pregnancy.

Belly cast from my second pregnancy.

Belly cast from my daughter.

Birth altar opened up.

Birth art sculpture about incorporating the pregnant woman identity.

Joy of pregnancy mandala drawing from last pregnancy.

Labyrinth of pregnancy after loss drawing.

Birth art sculpture depicting pushing the baby out. Roar, mama, roar!

Miscarriage memories–baby in my heart sculpture

Gift for a pregnant friend.

Mini Priestess sculpture–the womb of creation.

Art helps work through dental trauma also!

Three generations sculpture for my mom.

Mother’s day present made by my husband

Gaurdian of the womb sculpture

Toddlers can do birth art too! Love the placenta in a bowl and the baby attached to the mama with cord (yes, I know the two are mutually exclusive, but I love it anyway!)

Earlier picture of my whole birth art series.

This photo was a beautiful gift from my friend Karen.

Polymer clay birth art pendant experiement

Elemental goddess sculptures

Birth art gallery way in my hallway at home

Mother’s Day present from 2011. My favorite ring of all time 🙂

My at the time five year old getting in on my sculpture good times!

Womb labyrinth from postpartum with my second son.

My own logo counts as birth art, right?!

Needle felted birth art sculpture from my first pregnancy.

Circles of women (and art)…

Awesome crocheted birth goddess by my mom.

Collaborative birth doll from my blessingway.

Birth art by my friend who calls herself a “non-artist”–but, it doesn’t matter because birth art is for everyone!

Two Suggested Exercises for Birth Professionals or Parents:

Based on Pam England’s LabOrinth article, I enjoy showing parents how to draw a birth labyrinth (several examples can be seen in the gallery above). Drawing a labyrinth with an explanation of how this type of image can be used to explain/explore the progress of labor as opposed to medical models such as cervical dilation charts or labor progress “bell curves,” can be a very eye-opening exercise for parents. The resulting image is a powerful visual of “normal birth,” instead of “clock watching” birth. I’ve made two posters than I use when I teach birth classes. The first shows a rough Friedman’s curve and a cervical dilation chart—these images are part of a deeply ingrained cultural view of birth and it is hard to shake these associations. This linear birth structure may be how we view labor from the outside, but it is not how we experience it from the inside, the labyrinth is a more appropriate birthing image as it feels from within and this is why…

No shortcuts—have to keep going til the end.
Speed varies.
Can’t get off the path (no falling off the curve).
Can get through blindfolded.
One step at a time will get you through—one foot in front of the other (one contraction at a time).
Can’t get lost. If you get out of the lines, you get lost—try to take shortcuts, get lost. Have to continue on your path.
Can crawl if you need to (or run!).
Circular (nonlinear)
No right way to finish.
Contemplative
Meditative
Journey
Everyone gets to the same place eventually—can go own speed, some fast, some slow
Do not need instruction to complete (no birth plan)
No timeline
No need to study.
Can rest if you need to.

My other favorite group birth art project is to painting small pregnant goddess figurines (I make big batches of these in a mold using plaster). My most recent experience in doing so was at Rolla Birth Network’s MamaFest event:

: Plaster figures being molded and prepared!

: Birth art booth!

: In the birth art sanctuary painting goddesses.

: Happy mama with finished art

: Doula and pregnant mama working on their projects

This experience reaffirmed for me that birth art is about process not product. And, also that I don’t have to personally do anything to have the process be a meaningful one to participants. As an example of what I mean: at MamaFest, a very young mother came into the birth art sanctuary. I gave her my one minute spiel about the purpose of birth art and she painted her figures alone in the room for about 20 minutes. When she emerged, she showed her figures to me and explained what all the symbols and colors meant. Then, with tears in her eyes, she hugged me and said thank you and left. This was a mother I’d never met before and I’ve never seen again. And yet, we shared a special moment through birth art.

Molly Remer is the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter editor. She enjoys blogging about birth, motherhood, and women’s issues at http://talkbirth.me.

Strong, Strong…

Nov21

I woke up this morning with this quote running through my head and thinking of a pregnant friend of mine. Since her story is not mine to tell, suffice to say, she had a long and winding road to reach this point and this evening she gave birth at home after having had a cesarean with her first baby! Yay! I’m so excited for her and for their whole family. One part of me just knew she could do it and the other part of me still worried that I was being falsely optimistic. It has happened to me before—that I supported and encouraged and hoped with the mother and despite all those hopes and dreams and wonderful, careful, thoughtful plans, the birth still didn’t go as planned. I also believe that all births are acts of courage and that mothers, whether they push out their babies or not, have the capacity to dig deep and discover strength beyond anything they previously knew. However, just, yay. I’m so happy and excited and relieved for this friend of mine 🙂 The sculpture in the picture is the birth art piece I made after I actually gave birth to my last baby. She captures the pose in which I caught my daughter. My previous photo with this quote was of the pre-birth sculpture I’d made to address my pushing-the-baby-out fears:

Still figuring out the pictures with words app that I got. I love my nature spots in the woods as backgrounds, but they’re too busy and make choosing a text color that actually works almost impossible!

“Childbirth is power in its purest and most natural form–it is wild and uncontrollable and takes us on a journey of surrender. Birth is about so much more than babies being born. It is about a mother finding her inner strength at her most vulnerable and powerful moment, which begins her unique and lifelong journey of mothering that child.”

–Brianna Kauer (in Midwifery Today, issue 103)

And, speaking of thankful birthy goodness, Thanksgiving is tomorrow and that reminded me of an earlier post about the rest and be thankful stage!

I also would like to mention that I have a Talk Birth topic on ScoopIt now. I primarily started it so that it could handily feed into my Talk Birth Facebook, while still leaving a more useable record for me to go back to/repost (things just kind of disappear off the page on Facebook and it can be hard to remember what the heck I’ve shared there if I then want to do a blog post about it). I was introduced to ScoopIt via LinkedIn when I started following a really well-curated topic about E-Learning and Online Teaching. There are very, very few birth-related topics on ScoopIt, so start curating one! It is fun and easy and, as I said, really handy for feeding content into your Facebook page or other media (I experimented yesterday with sending a post directly to WordPress and that worked too!)

I’m also thankful for several days at home to spend with my family and without a long to-do list. I have one final paper to grade tonight and then my calendar is pretty deliciously blank for the next four days! We can really use this. I need a stillpoint, a rest, and some time to spend on the fun things I want to do like wallow in piles of books and make fabulous new sculptures and go sit out in the woods and…and…and…