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Blessingway Readings & Chants

Mar14

I’m looking through my files to choose a reading for a mother blessing this weekend as well as choosing readings for a women’s retreat this weekend. Anyway, I felt like sharing some of them here for people who might be googling around looking for something to share at a blessingway:

From the book Joyful Birth: A Spiritual Path to Motherhood by Susan Piver

The path of motherhood has a beginning, but no end. It’s constantly changing and constantly challenging. Along the way, we encounter our personal limits over and over. We fall in love over and over. We ride the sharp edge of hope and fear. On this path of discovery, as on any spiritual path, our pretensions are shattered, our minds are blown, and our hearts are opened. We cry, we laugh, we bumble around and make countless mistakes. Through it all, we are gently—or abruptly—poked into greater honesty, lovingkindness, and understanding. It is a truly joyful path.

The memory of [my child’s] birth has become a talisman that I hold in my heart as I journey deeper and deeper into motherhood. For these moments come again in every mother’s life—the times when we are asked to walk straight into our pain and fear, and in doing so, open up to a love that is greater than anything we ever could have imagined: all life’s beauty and wonder, as well as all the ways that things can break and go wrong…Again and again, motherhood demands that we break through our limitations, that we split our hearts open to make room for something that may be more than we thought we could bear. In that sense, the labor with which we give birth is simply a rehearsal for something we mothers must do over and over: turn ourselves inside out, and then let go.

This is the reading we often use for symbolically summoning the four directions. It is from the book  Mother Rising: The Blessingway Journey into Motherhood:

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the East: communication of the heart, mind, and body; fresh beginnings with each rising of the sun; the knowledge of the growth found in sharing silences.

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the South: warmth of hearth and home; the heat of the heart’s passion; the light to illuminate the darkest of times.

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the West: the lake’s deep commitments; the river’s swift excitement; the sea’s breadth of knowing.

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the North: firm foundation on which to build; fertile fields to enrich our lives; a stable home to which we may always return.

From previous posts here is:

After my blessingway with baby girl, January 2011

A birth blessing

Full moon poem

Courage reading

Fear release for birth

Birth warrior affirmation

Two birth poems

Birthing poem

And, finally, here is a handout of the chants we often use. It is formatted with the chants in two columns so it can be cut in half to distribute.

International Women’s Day, Birth Activism, and Feminism

Mar7

“The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It’s so incredible what women can do…Birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal. My friend’s partner said, ‘Birth is like going for a swim in the ocean. Will there be a riptide? A big storm? Or will it just be a beautiful, sunny little dip?’ Its indeterminate length, the mystery of its process, is so much a part of the nature of birth. The regimentation of a hospital birth that wants to make it happen and use their gizmos to maximum effect is counter to birth in general.” –Ani DiFranco interviewed in Mothering magazine, May/June 2008

“We were all held, touched, interrelated, in an invisible net of incarnation. I would scarcely think of it ordinarily; yet for each creature I saw, someone, a mother, had given birth….Motherhood was the gate. It was something that had always been invisible to me before, or so unvalued as to be beneath noticing: the motheredness of the world.” –Naomi Wolf, Misconceptions

Since tomorrow is International Women’s Day, I felt moved to share the above quotes. I also wanted to touch briefly on birth as a feminist issue, spurred by this thought-provoking post by my friend Summer (I have TONS more ideas about this topic, but limited time in which to share them!). Personally, I’ve identified as a feminist since I was a child—long before I became a birth activist. Identifying in this way was my first taste of the activist spirit that has fueled me for the rest of my life. For me, my birth activism is intimately and inextricably entwined with my larger interest in women’s rights. I have always been somewhat confused to hear any woman say she is not a feminist, it grieves me because when you dig a little deeper, it is usually because they are defining feminism according to a very skewed, simplified, inaccurate, media misportrayal of feminism (i.e. a man-hating caricature). I also like the term “womanist.” To me, being a feminist most simply means believing and acting as if women have value. All too often, those who mischaracterize feminism in the above ways believe EXACTLY the opposite.

In one of my many books about women’s issues, I found these awesome explanations of what feminism is—the source being of some surprise to me, the Roman Catholic Order of Sisters of Loretto:

Feminism: a world-wide social change movement which critically but lovingly rejects relationships and structures based on stereotyped roles of dominance (male) and submission (female).

Feminism: a life-affirming movement reorganizing institutions and relationships, so that women will have equal access to society’s goods, services, status, and power.

Feminism: the bonding of women discovering the joy of woman-identity.

Feminism: a process freeing women to work toward liberation for themselves and other oppressed persons.

And here is another definition: “Feminism is a conscious and continuous effort to improve the lives of all women, an effort which requires changing the system that defines success as making a lot of money.” –Jane O’Reilly

To me it also means defining all women’s work, paid or unpaid, as having real value (this includes the “invisible” work of mothering reflected in the second quote I chose to open this post).

I think all of these definitions can be well applied to our work with birth!

I  also think some women who do not self-identify as feminist do not because they feel like, “feminists want women to be like men.” So, here is a feminist quote about that too 🙂 “A woman should not be a mirror image of man’s universe. A woman should not try to emulate men, thus taking on masculine traits, she should develop herself, realize herself, gain direct vision into her own being.” —Anais Nin

I love the final point especially—gain direct vision into her own being. I think empowered birth often triggers this for women.

Net of love in action!

And, then finally, bringing us back to International Women’s Day I have a final quote:

“I believe that these circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we’re weak and sing with us when we’re strong.” –SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

As I noted in my post for CfM this week, in honor of International Women’s Day—and every day—let us celebrate our bodies, honor our mothers, and trust in the nets of love woven around us by a multitude of remarkable, powerful, everyday women.

Birth Quotes Update

Feb10

“Remember that most of the people who really need your work are not hanging out in the oversaturated twitterverse, but in places where what you do isn’t common. Get out of the crowded room and go where there’s a dearth of and a thirst for what you do. Don’t try to shout over lots of shouting.” –Tara Sophia Mohr

(Not specifically birth-related, but an excellent reminder from this post. I’ve often felt with blogging and writing for birth publications that maybe I’m just clamoring to …be heard in a cacophony of other voices (that also have good things to say–am I contributing anything unique?!)

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” ~Erma Bombeck (via Moby® Wrap)

“The miraculous nature inherent in the unfolding of a flower is the very same that moves through a woman as she gives life to the world. We can neither control nor improve upon it, only trust it.” -Robin Sale

“…the stories I see of birth in the media don’t reflect the intense emotions, the physical power, or the immense impact of the experience itself. Women screaming, fathers fumbling about, doctors doing most of the heroic work–these images don’t do justice to my experience. I felt empowered, strong, heroic in my efforts to bring my daughter into the world yet, I am painfully aware how little others see the heroism in my birth experience.”  –Amy Hudock (essay in Literary Mama)

“It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.” – Joyce Maynard (via Literary Mama)

“Giving birth, certainly, should rank among the pivotal heroic adventures celebrated in our culture. Certainly it is more heroic than catching a football or acting in front of a camera, and perhaps even more heroic than going off to war. Men return from the battlefield with victory, but women return from the birthing room with life…” –Amy Hudock (in Literary Mama)

“...if you want to know where a woman’s true power lies, look to those primal experiences we’ve been taught to fear…the very same experiences the culture has taught us to distance ourselves from as much as possible, often by medicalizing them so that we are barely conscious of them anymore. Labor and birth rank right up there as experiences that put women in touch with their feminine power…” –Christiane Northrup

“The intrinsic intelligence of women’s bodies can be sabotaged when they’re put into clinical settings, surrounded by strangers, and attached to machines that limit their freedom to move. They then risk falling victim to the powerful forces of fear, loneliness, doubt , and distrust, all of which increase pain. Their hopes for a normal birth disappear as quickly as the fluid in an IV bottle.” ~Peggy Vincent

“So many words commonly used to describe childbirth–support, patient, management, delivered by, coached, helped, guided–suggest that a woman does not have the power to give birth without being dependent on somebody else. This isn’t the case at all.” –Michel Odent

(This reminds me of that Odent quote about not actively supporting a woman in birth that stirred me up a couple of months ago. That one I had some objections to, the one above, I can definitely get behind, even though I think he is actually …saying the same thing in both quotes!)

“I believe that natural childbirth is a right and a privilege…Our country needs to step up to the plate in educating women about the benefits of natural birth, and we need to help women actually do it – not just hear about it.” –Mayim Bialik (via ToLabor Doulas Dallas)

“In the moments of labor and birth, all the forces of the universe are flowing through a woman’s body.” – Sister MorningStar (The Power of Women)

Birth Quotes of the Week

Jan29

“I believe that natural childbirth is a right and a privilege…Our country needs to step up to the plate in educating women about the benefits of natural birth, and we need to help women actually do it – not just hear about it.” –Mayim Bialik (via ToLabor Doulas Dallas)

“In the moments of labor and birth, all the forces of the universe are flowing through a woman’s body.” – Sister MorningStar (The Power of Women)

“These hands are big enough to save the world, and small enough to rock a child to sleep.” –Zelda Brown

“Birth is as vast and voluminous, as unfathomable and inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun. And true to the inexorable power and rhythm of their life-giving bodies, women will continue to birth with dignity, grace and courage.” —Mandala Mom

“In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh

‎”I feel the most important thing the birthing woman does is to listen to her own body and find out what her body is telling her she needs to do. And that neither the partner, nor the midwife, nor the doula, or whomever, should be giving orders, ‘Now do this’ or ‘Now do that’ because that interferes with what she is really trying to get from her body…” ~Marsden Wagner, M.D. (via Birth Without Fear)

‎”All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. (via Literary Mama)

“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)

 

 

Birth Quotes of the Week!

Jan15

Fabulous crocheted goddess from my mom as a blessingway gift 🙂

“One thing you can depend upon is that your birthing with be powerful! Powerful pressure, powerful stretching, powerful pushing sensations and intense joy. Expect these powerful sensations and emotions, appreciate them for what they are; they bring your baby to you.” —Hypnobabies (Official)

‎”Birth is one of the most profound teaching experiences life offers. It touches us in the depths of our souls, the most private recesses of who we are. It requires that we respond with more creative energy, more conviction, more trust, than almost anything else we do. Birth requires an intensity that is rarely demanded by other experiences…And through it, we can learn more about ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our relationship patterns, and our needs than through almost any other experience we will face in our life.” ~Nancy Wainer Cohen (Via: Peaceful Birth Project)

“We need to take care with every message we deliver to women about birth, and ensure that each message honors the fact that every woman at every moment is making the best decisions she can for herself and her child, with the information she has. And the truth is…that can take a mountain of strength.” – Melissa Bruijn and Debby Gould (in Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine via Birth True Childbirth Education)

“…if every midwife was able to work in the way that midwifery was originally intended, the modern doula’s role might be very different–with an increased focus on practical and physical measures perhaps, and much less requirement for advocacy and counseling.” –Adela Stockton (New – Gentle Birth Companions: doulas serving humanity )

“…I have noticed that the subgroup of women who tend to choose [homebirth] often exhibit certain characteristics, such as comfort within their own bodies, a desire to have a birth experience that is more poetic than clinical, as well as a desire to return what we all feel is some seriously missing humanity to the experience of having a baby…” –Cara Muhlhahn

‎”It seems as if the birth is a story waiting to be played out, and the midwife is but one character in the play…There are many lessons that we all learn from birth…Not only do the woman and her family learn from the experience, but the midwife learns and understands, with more depth and clarity, the mysteries of life from each birth.” –Janice Marsh-Prelesnik (The Roots of Natural Mothering)

“Birth is a mystery, and you never know what’s really going to happen – but if you don’t reach for the stars and plan to have the very best, you’re unlikely to get it. It’s important to have a vision for your birth and to work toward that vision.” ~ Suzanne Arms (via ICAN of Nashville)

Birth Quotes of the Week

Jan10

“In the midst of a world
…marked by tragedy and beauty
there must be those
who bear witness
against unnecessary destruction
and who, with faith,
stand and lead
in freedom,
with grace and power.

There must be those who
speak honestly
and do not avoid seeing
what must be seen
of sorrow and outrage,
or tenderness,
and wonder.”

–via Unitarian Universalist Association

“One of the most important things I have learned about birthing babies is that the process is more of an unfolding marvel than a routine progression of events.” –Tori Kropp

‎”We are part of generations of women, one to the next. Teaching, mentoring, supporting, assisting, befriending, and so much more. Let us not lose those connections in our lives, in our births…” —Preparing For Birth

‎”There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we” ~Ina May Gaskin

(this quote got the most “likes” of almost all the quotes I’ve ever posted on the CfM FB page!)

“A woman’s confidence and ability to give birth and to care for her baby are enhanced or diminished by every person who gives her care, and by the environment in which she gives birth…Every women should have the opportunity to give birth as she wishes in an environment in which she feels nurtured and secure, and her emotional well-being, privacy, and personal preferences are respected.” —Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS)

“Birth wisdom…comes most completely not from the outside but from deep within the woman’s physiology.” –Robbie Davis-Floyd (in intro to Gentle Birth Choices)

“Hospital-based childbirth classes usually do not teach women about the wonder and mystery and sweaty, intense power of birth, but rather prepare them for each and every hospital procedure by educating their intellects instead of honoring their bodies.” –Robbie Davis-Floyd (in intro to Gentle Birth Choices book)

(Let it be known before anyone gets their feelings hurt that I do understand that there are very good, complete, helpful, awesome hospital birth classes and hospital birth educators out there! This quote is a generality, but one that seems quite true in a number of cases [but not all, of course]).

“…I have noticed that the subgroup of women who tend to choose [homebirth] often exhibit certain characteristics, such as comfort within their own bodies, a desire to have a birth experience that is more poetic than clinical, as well as a desire to return what we all feel is some seriously missing humanity to the experience of having a baby…” –Cara Muhlhahn

“We can no longer sit back and debate whether maternity care is evidence-based. We have seen that over and over again, in most cases, it is not…” –Connie Livingstone

 

Birth & Mystery

Jan3

“Birth is a great mystery. Yet, we live in a rational, scientific world that doesn’t allow for mystery. ‘In this day and age, there must be a better way to have a baby,’ implies that if you are informed enough, strong enough, you can control it. Any woman who has given birth, who can be honest, will tell you otherwise. There are no guarantees. It is an uncontrollable experience. Taking care of yourself and being informed and empowered are crucial, but so is surrender. Forget about trying to birth perfectly. Forget about trying to please anyone, least of all your doctor or midwife…” –Jennifer Louden (The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book)

At Montana De Oro in 2009 (waves remind me of both mystery and surrender)

I couldn’t fit this whole quote into my Facebook status today, so I’m sharing it here. I think it is a good reminder for all of us and especially for me as I get ready to do this again sometime this very month!

Here is a previous post I wrote about surrender, birth, and control and here is one about distraction, concentration, and surrender (which is a concept I love).

Every day I feel more ready to embark on my own new mystery!

Edited to add, in response to a comment about whether it might be possible to have a perfect birth:

I do think it is probably possible to have the “perfect birth” for you, but I have yet to read/see/experience a birth where the mother didn’t think of something that would have been nice to have different. Even with the very blissful stories, there’s usually some kind of “hiccup” or “wish I would have done…” (even if it as simple as, “wish I would have had the placenta encapsulated). I feel like with each of my own births I “improve” upon whatever it was that was less than perfect last time, but then there is usually a new surprise for me with the new birth—because each birth is its own journey and has its own lessons to impart! But, I feel like I spend a lot of energy prior to subsequent births thinking of ways to “fix” whatever the hiccup was with the preceding birth (with my current pregnancy the needed “fixes” for me are LIVE baby and minimizing postpartum bleeding. I expect there will probably be some kind of new “surprise” for me that will lead to me thinking that IF I had done something different maybe THAT element could have been perfect too!). What sounds perfect to me this time around is a very, very undisturbed (possibly unassisted) birth, but with IMMEDIATE postpartum assistance and bloody-towel washing! ;-D

Birth Quotes of the Week

Dec27

“…a tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future….a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.” (adapted from a quote by Agnes M. Pharo)

Happy New Year!

‎

“Understand that the tremendous energy going through you during birth is the same sort of power as the force of ocean waves moving towards shore. Know that just as a bird knows how to build its nest, and when to lay its eggs, you too will build your birthing nest…” –Janice Marsh-Prelesnik (The Roots of Natural Mothering)

“Open hearts, strong hands. Be present, listen, feel her, trust your instincts. And remember–I have birthed my children…she will birth this child her way, with her power, be with her and let her feel your faith in her.” –Jennifer Walker (quoted in Adela Stockton’s new book, Gentle Birth Companions)

“We are living in a time where many birth peeps start out in passionate service to birth work, inspired by a Calling. But without elders to harness that passion and slowly cultivate it to grow a strong inner container so the new birth peep can learn to hold the psychic power of birth, the hard work and… unrealized dream of making a difference gradually morphs that passion into keeping a job or career…” (from Pam England’s blog post about Where are the Birth Grandmothers…)

‎”Doulas are just women who really, truly care about other women, on a major level.” –Linda Quinn (quoted in Adela Stockton’s new book, Gentle Birth Companions)

“Childbearing integrates a woman’s mind and body in the most intense way and brings on an existential crisis. However, this crisis is instructive rather than destructive. It forces a woman to rethink the meaning of her life, and to deal with the imminent, inevitable changes of lifestyle and family roles.” –Elizabeth Noble (Childbirth with Insight)

“Do not force nature, do not insult it, for it is as if you were to open the ears of corn to make the stalks grow.” –Chinese Medical Review (1852) (via Lamaze International e-newsletter)

‎”Every pregnancy and birth has something to teach us. Every one is important. Every mother and baby deserve whatever is truly best for them with respect and dignity.” —Preparing For Birth

“The more pregnancy is lived like an illness, the more it becomes in itself a cause of illness.” -Michel Odent, MD, Birth Reborn (via Mothering Magazine e-news)

“I used to have fantasies…about women in a state of revolution. I saw them getting up out of their beds and refusing the knife, refusing to be tied down, refusing to submit…Women’s health care will not improve until women reject the present system and begin instead to develop less destructive means of creating and maintaining a state of wellness.” ~A Woman in Residence, Dr. Michelle Harrison (Delightful Pregnancy & Birth)

“It is necessary for some women to risk total reclamation, to risk the direct and intentional use of power, in bold, even outrageous ways. It takes only a minority of women to alter present reality, to create new reality, because our efforts are more completely focused, more total.” –Barbara Starrett

‎”Please, choose your birth attendant and place of birth carefully. Search hard for the attendant that you connect well with. You and your baby deserve to be treated with utmost respect and dignity. There are attendants who believe in the sacredness and sanctity of birth. You may, however, need to act as a detective to find them.” –Janice Marsh-Prelesnik (The Roots of Natural Mothering)

“I know myself linked by chains of fires,
to every woman who has kept a hearth.
In the resinous smoke
I smell hut, castle, cave,
mansion and hovel,
See in the shifting flame
my mother and grandmothers
out over the world.”
–Elsa Gidlow (quoted in The Politics of Women’s Spirituality)

Posted in honor of the Winter Solstice.

Story Power

Dec22

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” –Muriel Rukeyser

I have written before about the role and power of story and birth and I have an article pending publication on the same subject. In a not-about-birth anthology I finished recently (The Politics of Women’s Spirituality), I read the following from Carol Christ:

Women’s stories have not been told. And without stories there is no articulation of experience. Without stories a woman is lost when she comes to make the important decisions of her life. She does not learn to value her struggles, to celebrate her strengths, to comprehend her pain. Without stories she cannot understand herself. Without stories she is alienated from those deeper experiences of self and world that have been called spiritual or religious. She is closed in silence. The expression of women’s spiritual quest is integrally related to the telling of women’s stories. If women’s stories are not told, the depth of women’s souls will not be known.

While she is writing about women’s spirituality, I think what she says is very true of birth as well—if women’s birth stories are not heard, the depth of women’s experiences will not be known (and the birth machine will keep on rolling). I also hear women apologize for telling their birth stories “over and over” or, “for continuing to talk about this.” BUT, I believe that telling the story over and over is how we process and integrate the story into our lives. It is how we make it our story and integrate the lessons from it as well as making it make sense within in the context of the rest of our lives as women. Without telling the story in this manner, there is a gap left behind (or, sometimes a wound). Telling the story multiple times does not indicate “stuckness”—on the contrary, not telling the story leads us to a “stuck” place (I think I get this idea from Pam England, but I’m not completely sure).

So, as long as we’re talking story, my favorite books of birth stories are:

The Power of Women by Sister Morningstar

Simply Give Birth by Heather Cushman-Dowdee

Journey into Motherhood by Sheri Menelli

Adventures in Natural Childbirth Janet Schwegel

And, my own birth stories are available too:

My first son’s birth story is available here.

My second son’s birth story is available here.

My third son’s birth story is available here (warning: miscarriage/baby loss).

—–

On a somewhat related note—this time not about sharing stories, but of hearing too many other voices—I did just enjoy reading a blog post from Jennifer Louden called “static free authenticity” that describes something I complain of feeling:

Humble suggestion number one: Turn off Everyone Else’s Broadcast
When it feels too hard to hear you among all the other yous out there, you aren’t suffering from multiple personality disorder, but you may need an Internet fish bowl break.

I say “fish bowl” because everyone’s voices and big plans and ideas can create a sort of invisible fish bowl that hems you in – without you necessarily noticing it.

I describe it as being so filled with the voices of others that it is difficult (or impossible) to hear the still, small voice without. Or, alternatively (when thinking of my own written contributions to the world) as contributing to the neverending cacophony of voices clamoring to be heard.

Speaking of Jen Louden, in another post (this one about depletion), she quotes a woman as saying: “Women get into a cycle of depletion and they’re afraid to step out of it, because then they would be freed up to actually take action on what they really want. They are positive they won’t be able to create their heart’s desire. So they stay busy or scattered or overcommitted so they never have to try.”

I see a lot of truth in this also.

Birth Quotes of Week

Dec18

“In discussions of reproduction, women do not centralize themselves in the creative act, other than in the rare circumstances of unmedicated home-births. The idea of women as goddess or creative force is disparaged by doctors, by Western society, and even by childbearing women themselves; contemporary Western women often credit their doctor with producing the child.” –Elly Teman

From the book Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body & The Pregnant Self.

I recognize that not all women connect with the “birth goddess” image, but I think most women who give birth under their own power can identify with the “creative force” moving through them. Guiditta Tornetta describes it as the “might of creation moving through you,” which I think is absolutely beautiful.

“The preference for unnatural childbirth practices, which seems to be spreading across the world, despite countermovements to tune into the natural process, has led birth, in many places, to be a major psychological disaster zone, in which almost everything is done the exact opposite from how it would happen if allowed to.” –R. D. Laing (quoted in Childbirth with Insight by Elizabeth Noble)

“Because parents are transients in the maternity care system, there is little cumulative birth experience over successive generations of mothers. Women giving birth don’t make the same mistakes as their mothers or grandmothers–-they make new ones.” –Elizabeth Noble (Childbirth with Insight)

“Many women have described their experiences of childbirth as being associated with a spiritual uplifting, the power of which they have never previously been aware. To such a woman, childbirth is a monument of joy within her memory. She turns to it in thought to seek again an ecstasy which passed too soon.” ~Grantly Dick Read, Childbirth Without Fear

‎”Birth goes best if it is not intruded upon by strange people and strange events. It goes best when a woman feels safe enough and free enough to abandon herself to the process.” – Penny Armstrong and Sheryl Feldman, A Midwife’s Story

“Women have millions of years of genetically-encoded intelligences, intuitions, capacities, knowledges, powers, and cellular knowings of exactly what to do with the infant.” –Joseph Chilton Pearce

“It may be that the first stage in an effective global revolution for peace will be when male doctors accept progressively to retire from obstetrics and return childbirth to women.” –Michel Odent, MD

Another Michel quote that generated some more debate on my FB page. Several people made the point that sex of the medical provider doesn’t mean much and that many, many female OBs treat women poorly as well (or, likewise, there are male OBs who treat them well). I get the feeling he means return childbirth to *birthing women* (and midwives), rather than to any OBs, regardless of gender. A reader made the point that female care providers are perhaps no better because they are fully socialized into a male, medical model and I agree—the system needs to be returned to the midwives model of care (with occasional OBs available as specialists, not standard).

“Birth is not painless, whether it is a physical birth, an emotional one, or a spiritual one. But it is not exactly painful either. Any creative process takes intense concentration and furious labor. It strains us to our very core. But is that pain? Many birthing mothers experience something like ecstasy when they give birth…” –Patricia Monaghan

(more thoughts about this one to follow)