100 Things List!

May21

As part of Leonie Dawson’s Amazing Year workbook, I wrote a list of 100 things to do in 2014. My blog has been fairly quiet lately, but that doesn’t actually mean I have been! A lot of the energy previously used for blogging has been diverted into other exciting projects on my 100 Things list. 🙂 I finished my second free gift offering for newsletter subscribers at Brigid’s Grove (if you aren’t signed up yet, fill in your email on the right hand side of the screen at the BG website and you will receive the free book within 24 hours). This freebie is a 56 page book of earth-based poetry. Most of the poems were originally published on my other blog, but there are several released only in this book (so far).

We’re also offering a spring giveaway of one of our new healing hands pendants AND also a 10% off discount code for our etsy shop (2014SPRING10OFF).

“…Medicine Woman reminds you

to sleep when you’re tired

to eat when you’re hungry

to drink when you’re thirsty

and to dance

just because.

Medicine Woman

let her bind up your wounds

apply balm to your soul

and hold you

against her shoulder

when you need to cry.

Medicine Woman

Earth healer

she’s ready to embrace you…”

via Amethyst Healing Hands Pendant by BrigidsGrove.

Even more exciting from a personal perspective is that I actually finished writing my thesis. Yes, after all my many days of joking, “Oops! I didn’t write my thesis today!” I suddenly really did write it. I had more done than I thought and all I needed was some class-free, focused writing time (my spring school session ended this past Saturday) to get it to a finished position. It might be a first draft if significant revisions are requested/needed (the format is somewhat non-traditional), but I’m hopeful it might be a last draft too! I’ve been working on my D.Min since 2011. I realized last year that I had almost the right credits to do an M.Div first (since my existing master’s degree is in social work instead, I had to take a LOT of M.Div classes as part of the D.Min program), I just had to add a thesis and a couple of classes to the work I’d already done. So, I call it a “pitstop,” because I don’t really need to do it and I’m actually working on something else, but…here I go! I also found out recently that I really only have three D.Min classes and my dissertation left. I’m giving it at least another year on the dissertation though. When I started the thesis idea, I had more like eight classes left, so it seemed like further away and “might as well.” After two partial starts and two different prospectuses submitted, I switched gears again and I actually used my Earthprayer book above as the basic frame or structure for the thesis. I’d been attempting to work with a 400-page document and then I realized it was way too much. The Earthprayer book had ended up being a distillation of some basic themes from my year in the woods experiment and I thought, “ah ha! I’ve accidentally been working on my thesis without knowing it!” I developed it with articles and essays and my theory and process of theapoesis and magically I produced 84 pages and 26,000 words! (My thesis handbook says it should be 80 pages and 25,000 words. Go, me!)

I also booked an official screening of the Red Tent Movie: Things We Don’t Talk About. It will be held in Rolla on August 2nd in conjunction with Rolla Birth Network’s annual MamaFest celebration and it is the first ever screening of this film in Missouri! Before I booked it, a friend surprised me with this lovely little Red Moon painting and said it was for me to use in my eventual Red Tent. I felt motivated after getting it and booked the screening the next morning.

After doing this and apparently feeling the freedom of being off of work for the next two weeks, I took advantage of a full moon special and somewhat impulsively decided to sign up for the Chrysalis Woman circle leader program! This was on my Leonie Dawson 100 Things list with a question mark. Now, it is a question mark no more because I signed up and paid…hope it was a good idea! I’ve only downloaded the manuals and listened to the first week’s materials so far, but I really like it. It feels very thorough and comprehensive and feels like a good value for the discounted price it was being offered for. I’m still a little surprised at myself that I did it though!

I read a post from Elisabeth Esther a few days ago about being all blogged out and I realized this feels true for me too. I’ve been diverting a lot of my writing AND creating energy this year into other projects that I feel really good about and my blog-time is simply falling lower and lower on my priority list.

I also read this post from The Minimalists:

It was Henry David Thoreau who famously said, “It is not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we busy about?” And if I were to append his quandary, I’d say, “It is not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we focused on?”

You see, there is a vast delta between being busy and being focused. The former involves the typical tropes of productivity—anything to keep our hands moving, to keep going, to keep the conveyer belt in motion. It is no coincidence that we refer to mundane tasks as “busywork.” Busywork works well for factories and robots and fascism, but not so great for anyone who’s attempting to do something meaningful with their waking hours.

Being focused, on the other hand, involves attention, awareness, and intentionality. In my case, people sometimes mistake my focused time for busyness. That’s because being completely focused apes many of the same surface characteristics as being busy: namely, the majority of my time is occupied.

via Not Busy, Focused | The Minimalists.

This helped me understand why I bristle I little bit when I am described as “busy” or people say that I’m “too busy,” or whatever little cracks people tend to make about being an “overachiever,” or whatever. While I sometimes feel too busy or overloaded or stretched too thin, etc. it doesn’t feel like busy work or “filling time,” it feels like being focused and enjoying lots of projects/being firmly and passionately devoted to quite a few things at once.

Wednesday Tidbits: Gifts

Feb19

Two weeks ago, I received a beautiful batik in the mail from Orgasmic Birth! I won it on a Facebook giveaway. It is so beautiful! I waited to post about it because I wanted to post a picture of it on my birth art wall, but it is large enough that my wall will need some rearranging first! 🙂

Several weeks ago, I saved this quote posted via Lucy Pearce on her Dreaming Aloud page on Facebook (Lucy is the author of The Rainbow Way, as well as several other delicious books):

Just the other day, talking to a dear friend I realised out loud that my books are my biggest prayers, blessings from my soul to those yet unknown souls who dream the same dreams, worry the same worries. So I loved this quote from best selling author John Green: “Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t — and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating. But, ultimately, that doesn’t change anything — because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.”

This is actually how I feel also—that when I create my pieces or when I plan a ritual, I’m offering a gift to others (even though I do still charge for my artwork!). This week on Brigid’s Grove we’re offering one of our Embrace Possibility pendants as a giveaway. Just go to the giveaway page and enter there!

I enjoy the gifts offered by other women as well. Paola at Goddess Spiral Health Coaching has added free virtual Full Moon Gratitude Circles to her existing offerings (New Moon FB event here):

I wanted sisters who were sowing the seeds of their intentions to have a chance share what has come to fruition. I also wanted sisters to be able to focus on the blessings they did have and open up the space for more abundance. With these thoughts in mind, I created the Full Moon Gratitude Circles because I believe that…

..the act of gratitude focuses us on the abundance in our lives—welcoming even more abundance in! Gratitude is a practice that can benefit you at all levels- physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Will you join us experiencing the beauty of following the lunar cycle and acknowledging the power of manifesting the life you love? ♥

via Full Moon Gratitude Circles | Goddess Spiral Health Coaching.

And, I’ve been steadily listening to the worldwide presentations organized by DeAnna L’am and offered as the Red Tent World Summit: DeAnnaLam | Coming of Age Made Easy, Womanhood Made Richer, Red Tent in every neighborhood. I also just signed up for a telesummit on Raising Empowered Girls. And, after enjoying a free call about creating nurturing rites of passage for girls, I bookmarked this video from Maidenspirit on First Moon Rising (a documentary film on rites of passage for girls):

Next year, I would love to offer the Meetings at the Moon girls coming of age series of mother-daughter classes to my friends with pre-teen/early teen daughters. I offered this series when I was pregnant with Alaina and it was really fun. Amazingly, the formerly “little girls” from playgroup are now turning ten and eleven and I’ve been surprising to realize that it is almost time for them to receive a class like this!

I’m at one of those places in which I keep having the urge to sign up for a new training! I want to do the online Sacred Pregnancy retreat training, I want to do the new Tele-Tent Red Tents in every neighborhood training, I want to do Leonie Dawson’s business academy, and I want to do the Chrysalis Woman circle training!

I need to remind myself that in addition to everything else I’m already doing, I’m still working on my thesis project for my M.Div program as well as working on coursework for my D.Min. I do NOT need to add something else to my plate (and thinking about doing so might secretly be a way of procrastinating on this work??). But…they all sound so delicious! Maybe it is because it is almost spring and it is time for new possibilities to blossom…

I also downloaded a book about Birth Trauma that is currently free on Kindle:

As a less enjoyable “gift,” yesterday I received a promo package from a certain industry related to babies/birth. In it, there is a “confidential agreement” to sign that would give me a $50 cash kickback for each parent who enrolls in their service through me. I find this squicky and ethically problematic and I hope most certified CBEs reject this confidential agreement as such. It raises big red flags with me (even though it was sent with the apparent awareness/approval of my certifying organization). While I am happy to review books or products or share information with others than I genuinely find inspiring, encouraging, or otherwise beneficial, I am not interested in being a shill for a company, particularly one that seems to suggest nondisclosure of the fact that they are using birth professionals to market to unsuspecting clients who have placed their trust in them. No thanks.

Nursing Mama, Magic Mama

Feb2

Magic mama. She who transforms body and blood into milk. Into life. Into the heartsong of another. Maternal sacrament. Shared freely. Flowing sweetly. Uniting. This thoroughly embodied stuff of motherhood. This physical commitment. This body-based vow to our young. She holds her baby. And she holds the world.

Mammal mama. Liquid love. Cellular vow. Unbreakable, biological web of life and loving.

She’s just feeding her baby. Is she? Or is she healing the planet at the very same time?

Milky smile, fluttering eyes, smooth cheeks, soft hair. Snuggle up, dear one. Draw close. Nestle feet to thighs, head to elbow. And know that you are encircled by something so powerful that it has carried the entire human race across continents and through time for thousands upon thousands of years on its river of milky, white devotion.

—

This new pendant is one of the designs released for the launch of Brigid’s Grove, my collaborative project with my husband. We’re hosting giveaways on our website throughout the month of February to correspond with our launch and one of these pendants is currently being offered as a giveaway! We’ve also got a discount code, a free digital Ritual Recipe Kit, and more to check out on the Brigid’s Grove website and Facebook page.

Birth Labyrinth

Feb1

The labyrinth is a powerful metaphor for each woman’s unique journey of pregnancy and birth. I first discovered the “LabOrinth” via Birthing from Within and Pam England and I quickly incorporated into my birth education classes, making two homemade posters to discuss in class—one illustrating “clock watching” birth and one illustrating birth as a labyrinth. When I send gifts to long distance pregnant friends, I usually include a drawing of a womb labyrinth and this quick explanation:

The journey through birth is like a labyrinth—it has unexpected twists and turns, but it takes you where you need to go. You can find your way blindfolded if you need to, you can walk, run or crawl, and you’ll get to the center—to your baby—in your own time and in your own way. The postpartum return is also a labyrinth, one that can take some time to integrate into your life, being, and “new normal.”

Based on a drawing from my second pregnancy of a womb labyrinth, my husband carefully worked carving a small womb labyrinth design into clay and then making a mold from it and casting the design in pewter. The result is a little uneven and asymmetrical, much like life itself, but I love it! I took the new pendant to the woods with me and this is what I said about it’s meaning…

Womb Labyrinth

Birth journey. Each of us walks our own path. In the center, a baby waits. And, so too, wait deep truths about ourselves. Our own courage, our own fears, our own strength, our own power. One foot in front of the other. That’s how the journey is made. You set out for the threshhold, unknowing. Maybe a little fearful. Maybe intrigued. Maybe anticipatory. Maybe excited. And you start to walk. One foot in front of the other. Sometimes our journeys drop us to our knees. Sometimes we feel around in the dark, searching for something to hold onto. Sometimes we skip and twirl along the path. Sometimes we run. Sometimes we pause and sit down and wait. Sometimes someone walks with us, holding our hand. Maybe even giving us a little push from behind. But, ultimately, it is our own private journey. When we get to the center, we will discover what it is that we know that no one else does.

As I mention to pregnant women, the return journey of postpartum is a labyrinth as well…

Postpartum Labyrinth

The journey of postpartum is a labyrinth too. Carrying our babies in our arms, past sleepless nights, through endless days. Through worry and tears, through sharp, sweet, timeless moments of a joy so bone deep it knows no words and in a love so endless that it defies description. And, we walk. Sometimes we bounce. Sometimes we sway. Sometimes we sing a little tune. Sometimes we beg. Sometimes we scream. Sometimes we sit down and say we can’t keep going. Sometimes we skip through the sunshine and dance in the moonlight. Sometimes we can’t believe how much fun we are having and how wonderful this is. Sometimes we feel so alone, we think we might break. And, yet, we keep going, and we emerge, blinking at the newness of it all.

This new pendant is one of the designs released for the launch of Brigid’s Grove, my collaborative project with my husband. We’re hosting giveaways on our website throughout the month of February to correspond with our launch and one of these pendants will be offered as a giveaway! We’ve also got an etsy discount code, a free digital Ritual Recipe Kit, and more to check out on the Brigid’s Grove website and Facebook page.

Day of Hope and Healing (Plus Amethyst Network Birthday Giveaway)

Aug19

A Birth Healing Blessing

Blessed sister, beautiful one
with broken wings.
Your journey is a difficult one…
that no mother should have to endure.
Your path is steep, rocky and slippery
and your tender heart is in need of gentle healing.

Breathe deeply and know that you are loved.
You are not alone,
though at times, you will feel like a
desolate island of grief
untouchable
distant.
Close your eyes.
Seek the wisdom of women who have walked this well-worn path before you,
before,
and before,
and before you yourself were born.
These beautiful ones
with eyes like yours
have shared your pain, and
weathered the storms of loss.

You are not alone (breathe in)
You will go on (breathe out)
Your wings will mend (breathe in)
You are loved (breathe out)
~ Mary Burgess (Mending Invisible Wings)

Today is the Day of Hope and Healing, a national remembrance day for families who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, infant or child loss. Tonight, one of my friends is having a Day of Hope event for local families. I’m happy to participate and I picked out the poem above to read. I also made a prayer flag as part of the prayer flag project. I included lines from a song that spoke to me deeply during my second miscarriage. I left the mama’s arms unglued so that they can close, open, or wave in the breeze. Unfortunately, the glue I used leaked through, which gives her a “weeping Madonna” quality. I was bugged by it at first and almost didn’t show a picture, but then I decided I actually like it like that!

This week is also The Amethyst Network’s third birthday. I helped co-found this organization as a direct result of my own in-the-midst-of-miscarriage-realization about the need for miscarriage doulas in the world, and I’m proud of the resources we’ve collected and the services we offer to women around the country. As TAN posted on our Facebook page:

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating this week by doing random acts of kindness or paying it forward and then coming back here and telling us about what you did. Whether it’s related to your baby’s memory or not, what goes around comes around, and TAN believes in being a force for good in the world. We hope you will join us in celebrating our birthday by giving gifts to those around us.

***Giveaway now closed. Ravenna was the winner!***

So, I decided to offer a pendant giveaway in honor of TAN’s birthday! (I also reached 500,000 hits last week and I often do a giveaway for things like that, so it is doubly time to do one!) I made this pendant last night specifically for TAN’s birthday. It has a footprints charm like the one that was so meaningful to me, a howlite stone, and also a tiny amethyst heart (and a freshwater pearl). It comes on a simple ribbon, but can easily be taken off and added to your favorite chain instead. You don’t have to do anything fancy to enter, just leave a comment. If you’d like to share The Amethyst Network’s page or website with your Facebook friends or followers, then you can earn a bonus entry! (just make sure to leave another comment telling me you did so)

(classy twig not included 😉 )

The giveaway will close next Monday night.

I also made a diverse assortment of birth art goddesses last night and I decided to make a miscarriage mama with a footprints charm too. She is purple and is holding an amethyst crystal, in honor of The Amethyst Network’s birthday too! I haven’t decided what to do with her yet…keep her…sell her…do another giveaway…

Here are the rest of the mamas who came to life in my hands last night:

There are some VBAC mamas, a river mama, a laboring mama, a birthing mama, a moon mama, and a loss mama. I’m working on adding them to my etsy shop along with some more new pendants! 🙂

Birth on the Labyrinth Path: Anniversary Book Giveaway!

Jun6

Last year, while browsing through the Kindle store on Amazon, I made the chance discovery of a delightful little treasure of a book called Birth on the Labyrinth Path. Written by Sarah Whedon, the editor of Pagan Families, the book was very affordable and so I snapped it up and devoured it right away! (I don’t think I had any idea that it had literally just been published within a few days of my purchase.) The book’s lyrical explorations inspired a brief blog post, through which the author then discovered me. After some time spent enjoying each other’s writing on our respective blogs, she invited me to become a contributor at Pagan Families. While I don’t actually self-identify as Pagan, but instead as something more unwieldy like a Panentheistic Goddess-oriented Unitarian Universalist, I was delighted to begin contributing and find that I have stretched my horizons and come to learn new things about myself through the process of writing for a collaborative project. This week we’re celebrating the anniversary of Sarah’s lovely book with a fun giveaway and a series of thematic posts.

****Giveaway is now closed. Michelle was the winner****

This post is a companion giveaway to the book birthday celebration! You can enter to win your own e-book copy of Birth on the Labyrinth Path. The giveaway will end this Sunday at midnight, so make sure to enter soon 🙂 I’m not fancy enough yet to figure out a Rafflecopter giveaway, so I’m doing this the old-fashioned way. To enter, just leave a comment sharing anything you’d like to share about labyrinths or birth or the two together!

Also, make sure to check out my long post today at Pagan Families on the subject of life and labyrinths—perhaps better titled, “labyrinths I have known and loved,” or “labyrinths as birth art.” Here’s an excerpt:

It took me a little while, but I eventually discovered that a labyrinth is a perfect metaphor for birth and could be of potent use during birth education, as well as a tool for birth preparation and for processing one’s birth story, feelings about birth, and birth experiences. I was inspired by Pam England’s work with the LabOrinth and began to incorporate the concept into my own birth classes. Most couples seem to connect with it, regardless of their own religious background, though I think on the surface it feels a little too “New Agey” to some of them. Labyrinths are actually ancient (oldest found is 3500 years old!) and have been found in many cultures and places. According to England, they were used by midwives in England 500 years ago as tools for healing. And, centuries ago, mosaic labyrinths inlaid in the floors of churches were walked by pilgrims on their knees (those who could not actually make pilgrimages to the Holy Land in person, would crawl through the labyrinth in the church on their knees as their pilgrimage). I use the crawling example in class to explain that in the “labyrinth” of birth, you can go at your own pace and speed and you can even crawl if you need to! You can also find your own way blindfolded or walking or running or dancing.

via Book birthday party: of life and labyrinths.

On our last vacation day at Pismo Beach, my husband and I drew a labyrinth in the sand together with our toes and then we walked it with our family.

Blogaversary birth jewelry giveaway!

Oct29

***This giveaway is now closed. Sarah is the lucky winner!***

This month I not only hit 300,000 hits on my blog, but it is also my blogaversary! Five years ago, on October 29 I started this website with my first post. I had no idea where it would go from there! I know there are many other more popular bloggers with lots more hits than I have (especially in FIVE years!), but I feel very happy and comfortable with my level of traffic here and the contribution I am able to make. And, interestingly enough, over 150,000 of those hits were during this year alone. And, during just this month I had more hits than in my entire first year of blogging! That slow and steady progress and consistent presence makes me feel really good about my work here. So, to thank my readers for reading and to celebrate my blogaversary and the 300, 000 hits mark, I’m going to offer a giveaway of a beautiful Birth Dancer pendant by Wellstone Jewelry!

“The sterling silver dancing goddess, nurturing her baby, preparing for birth.”

This is not a donated item—I bought it to resell, but decided I’d like to offer a happy giveaway instead!

There are lots of ways to enter to win this lovely pendant and the giveaway is going to last for a long time—basically through the duration of my ongoing blog festival, which will last until December 15. To enter, do any or all for the following:

Leave a happy-blogaversary comment on this post 🙂
Become a fan of Talk Birth on Facebook
Follow Talk Birth on Twitter
Tweet about the giveaway (and comment to tell me!)
Share the giveaway on Facebook (and comment to tell me!)
Suggest Talk Birth on Facebook to your friends.
Share self-care/self-renewal tips with me that I can pass along to my readers!
Comment and share your favorite post from Talk Birth (double entry for this one!)
Contribute to my ongoing blog festival and you will earn FIVE bonus entries (I’ve received some great contributions so far and will start publishing them next week. If you’ve already contributed, you will be automatically entered in the giveaway. But, seven weeks is a long time, so I could really use some more contributions! Remember that you can send me previously published posts that are your own personal favorites. This could be good exposure for your own writing/blogging! I do not want any pregnancy/birth 101 type of posts, but otherwise I’ll happily accept good quality posts on a variety of subjects).

I added an archive drop-down to the sidebar recently in honor of my blogaversary, so if you want to take a walk down Talk Birth memory lane, make sure to check it out on the right hand sidebar, halfway down —>

And, again, thank you. Thank you for reading, thank you for your comments, thank you for feedback and support, thank you for sharing my posts on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for sharing yourselves with me. Thank you for letting me share myself with you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for participating. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to share my voice and my thoughts and to be heard in the larger, virtual community, in addition to in my own small, in-person community. When I began writing here, I felt frustrated and uncertain about my ability to make a contribution to the birth world. I desperately wanted to transform the birth culture in the US. I felt blocked and denied in my access to the people I wished to reach. I felt frustrated and “held down” by the needs of my small children. Writing here offered me freedom and reach and enabled me to be a birth educator and activist in the wider world beyond my own rural home, as well as contributing to my local community. It has allowed me to make a (small) difference in many lives in many parts of the world—I have regular readers from Australia and Kenya and Serbia, for example. I could never have made those connections without my writing and I feel blessed to have found an avenue for my voice and ideas.

Thanks for your support!

After my brother’s wedding earlier this month.

Book Giveaway! The Midwife of Hope River

Aug30

**This giveaway is now closed. Heather K was the winner!**

In conjunction with the virtual book tour for Patrician Harman’s new book The Midwife of Hope River, I’m very pleased to offer a giveaway of a paperback copy of this wonderful piece of historical fiction.

To enter to win, simply leave a comment on this post!

For additional entries, do any or all of the following:

Become a fan of Talk Birth on Facebook (if you’re already a fan, tell me, and you can have a bonus entry!) and let me know.
Tweet the giveaway (and let me know)
Become a fan of The Midwife of Hope River on Facebook (and comment to let me know!)

Read my reviews of Patsy’s two memoirs here:
Book Review: Arms Wide Open: A Midwife’s Journey
Book Review: The Blue Cotton Gown

Patricia Harman is also on a physical tour for her book (schedule here) and you can also check our her website, Facebook page, and Twitter account.

Giveaway closes at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 6.

Disclosure: Amazon affiliate link included in cover image.

I’m a winner!

Jun27

A couple of weeks ago, Kristin from Birthing Beautiful Ideas shared a giveaway of a lovely wire wrapped tree pendant from Home Baby Crafts. I’d never heard of them before, but the pendant was gorgeous so I became a Facebook fan and entered the giveaway, as did several of my own Facebook friends when they saw me clicking that “like” button. I am a fan of a lot of Facebook pages and because of the intricacies and oddities of how FB chooses to show information, I don’t necessarily see all the stuff from all the pages that I want to see. The following week, I got a mysterious FB message from my husband’s aunt just saying, “you won!” I dismissed it as Facebook spam of some kind. Three days later, another mysterious message came, saying only, “did you see that you won?” I got ready to delete that message too, thinking, I’ve got to write to her and tell her that her account is sending me spam messages, but when I went to her page to do so, I noticed that Home Baby Crafts was a liked page we had in common. I thought about that lovely tree pendant…could that be what her Facebook messages were about?! I quickly went to Home Baby Crafts and oh my goodness, the page owner was doing a “final call”—i.e. “Molly Remer is the grand prize winner, does anyone know her? I will re-draw another winner.” Oh my! I leaped to respond and to send my address, etc. (discovering in the process that Cassandra from Home Baby Crafts had indeed messaged me to let me know of my winning nature, but that FB had routed it to the nearly invisible “other” folder that I never look in).

Anyway, yesterday it arrived and it is thoroughly, awesomely gorgeous. I love it!

I’m wearing it when I teach tonight!

Cassandra also makes these totally cool baby-in-the-womb pendants too:

I want one!

But, speaking of teaching, look at this person who is modeling her new pendant…does she look 100%?

NOOOOOO! I have had a little cold and now I’ve ended up with laryngitis. It didn’t really hit me until yesterday afternoon after having fun visiting my friend at the pool. If she wasn’t so much fun to talk to, I might still have my voice! ;-D I’ve taught with laryngitis before and it was pretty much totally sucky, but I DID IT. It looks like I’m going to be doing so again in about two hours (for a five hour class). I’d SO rather not. It was embarrassing, frustrating, uncomfortable, and just generally awful to do it before and I was totally cool with that being a one time experience.

At least I can rest in the assurance that I’m a winner. And, wear a fabulous new necklace. That helps!

Also, in a fun little twist, I think the necklace looks like it was custom-made to go with the beautiful new logo we have for our local birth network:

The Spirituality of Birth + Book Giveaway: Birth on the Labyrinth Path

Jun20

I’ve been experiencing a fun trend in the books I’ve been reviewing lately—many new resources are being published with a shared theme of approaching birth from a spiritual perspective. There are resources now available for women from a variety of spiritual backgrounds, all honoring and respecting pregnancy and birth as experiences uniquely connected in an embodied way to the numinous and sacred, in whichever manner we choose to name it. I recently finished a class for my doctoral program and the subject of my final paper was “A Thealogy of Birth,” in which explored the sociopolitical, cultural, religious, and personal relevance of birth from a thealogical (Goddess-oriented) perspective.

I just reviewed The Gift of Giving Life which delves into the divine nature of pregnancy and birth from a Christian (specifically LDS/Mormon) perspective.
I then pre-reviewed the upcoming book Embodying the Sacred, which is written from a Catholic point of view.
And, earlier in the month I finished reading a gorgeous book with a non-specific spiritual perspective: Sacred Pregnancy
In the past, I also reviewed the book L’Mazeltov, which is written specifically for Jewish parents-to-be.

All of these resources are amazing and I’m so glad they’re available for pregnant women.

Now, I’m excited to offer a short review and a giveaway of another new book, this one written from a pagan perspective. Published by Pantheos Press, Birth on the Labyrinth Path is written by Sarah Whedon and focuses on “Sacred Embodiment in the Childbearing Year.”

My mini-review from Goodreads is as follows:

I really enjoyed this short book about pregnancy and birth from a pagan perspective. The reflections on the embodied, spiritual nature of pregnancy and birth were wonderful. It is very positive and reinforcing and contains great thoughts like this one: “A body that is curvier than it was before, maybe bearing stretch marks or scars from surgical procedures or tearing, maybe producing milk, is a body that bears the signs of delivering a human being into this world. We may mourn our smooth, skinny, unmarked maiden bodies, but at the same time we can celebrate the beauty of our storied, productive, and strong mama bodies.” Whedon also quotes this lovely passage regarding the connection pagan women might feel to the Divine: “I am the holy mother; . . . She is not so far from me. And perhaps She is not so very distinct from me, either. I am her child, born in Her, living and moving in Her, perhaps at death to be birthed into yet some other new life, still living and having my being in Her. But while on this earth She and I share the act of creation, of being, and Motherhood” (from Niki Whiting, “On Being a Holy Mother” in Whedon, p.)

I also shared some lovely quotes from Birth on the Labyrinth Path in my recent post on Birth Culture.

*********The giveaway is now closed. Ellen was the winner!*********

I’m also pleased to host a giveaway of a Kindle copy of Birth on the Labyrinth Path for one lucky winner! To enter, just leave a comment sharing one of your own thoughts or favorite resources about the spirituality of pregnancy and birth. The giveaway will run through next Wednesday (6/27).