Tuesday 10% off!

Dec10

Instead of my usual Tuesday Tidbits news-type post, we decided to run a “Tuesday 10% off on the 10th” sale in our etsy shop! Use the code HOLIDAYS10OFF to get 10% off any of our jewelry or sculptures though next Tuesday (the 17th) 🙂 I just finished a small new batch of my polymer clay birth goddesses…

And, our pewter figurine and pendant listings are all up to date and waiting to ship….

Finished sculptures ready to ship.

rative project of Mark and myself.

My husband and I have been having so much fun building our shop’s inventory and working on our projects together. I hope to write more about that process soon, after I finish with all this darn end-of-session paper and exam grading! Then, I’m off work for a month, with lots of time to make sculptures and cast pewter. And, hopefully lounge around reading and making treats with my kids. 🙂

Thesis Tidbits: Cut, Stapled, and Mended

Dec3

Recently I found myself totally absorbed by Roanna Rosewood’s birth memoir: Cut, Stapled, and Mended. In an unexpected overlap with my thesis project topic, in many ways Rosewood’s book is about a journey to the sacred feminine within herself. This thread of the discovery of the larger forces of what it means to be female that runs throughout the book makes a perfect connection to my thesis topic about birth and spirituality (though, I’ve actually switched my topic again and am returning to using birth as the subject of my dissertation instead). Writing about the blessingway ceremony her mother and some friends had for her, Roanna wonders, “After the initiation of birth, will I feel comfortable in the world of women?” (p. 33).

Later, after her second cesarean, she hears from other people the comment that so many other women experience when they experience disappointment or trauma in birth: at least you have a healthy baby. Roanna writes, “I lift the corners of my mouth in silent submission, ignoring my heart’s protest: Birth is not an accident, to be celebrated when you make it through alive. Birth is a rite of passage. There was something I was supposed to do. I am not strong enough to bring life into this world, not good enough. I am unworthy of procreation. Incomplete. An actor playing the role of a woman” (p. 89).

During the birth of her last child, she feels the might of creation pass through her and feels she is herself inhabited by the Divine: “Only then does the Divine come, taking my body as her own. I am no longer alone. There is no fear…I experience completeness. I find religion. Infinity is tangible. Generations of children, their dreams, passions, defeats and glories—they all pass through me, converging here, between my thighs…” (p. 146-147).

She touches on this theme again as she concludes her beautifully written book:

“I understand why we fear birth and seek to make it a sterile and planned event. But doing so denies us our greatest opportunity: partnership with the divine. It’s not possible to numb oneself to fear, pain, and death without also numbing ourselves to courage, pleasure, and life” (p. 160).

Speaking of my thesis/dissertation, sometimes my mind boggles at how wonderfully the Internet “smallens” the world. Nané Jordan, who I quoted in my original thesis proposal, happened to find my blog post and offered to send me a copy of her own dissertation and thesis on birth/women’s spirituality related themes. The package arrived today from Canada and I am very much looking forward to digging into her work. I’m also sending one of my own pewter goddess pendants back to her and I love to know how we’ve made this connection, through words, from across the miles. 🙂

“This is a pilgrimage into women’s wholeness and holiness in giving birth. A journey into re-weaving human connection to the Earth and to each other through birth.” –Nané Jordan in Birthdance, Earthdance

And, this quote caught my eye via The Girl God on Facebook this evening:

“The only people who should run countries are breastfeeding mothers.” – Tsutomu Yamaguchi; Hiroshima Survivor

Tuesday Tidbits: Blogging, Busyness, and Life, Part 3

Nov26

“In a way Winter is the real Spring – the time when the inner things happen, the resurgence of nature.”
– Edna O’Brien

“If I do not do it now, when else can I do it?”?
–Dogen Zenjiin quoted in Women, Writing, and Soul-Making

Newest pendant design—Mark cut this moonstone himself from one we found on the beach in California. (Donkeys?! We ride them!)

I’ve been remarking for a while now that I feel like I’m in a time of “fall cleaning,” so I really identify with the first quote above. Then, the second quote dances in with its companion reminder: do not go back to sleep. Do not let inspiration wither! Ride zee wild donkeys, as Leonie Dawson would say! For the most part, these both feel great. I feel full of promise and inspiration and the itch to declutter my closets. In some ways, it feels painful—I’ve been letting go of some things and saying no more often. I am trying to figure out how to say no to tasks without feeling like I’m saying no to people. And, once again, other women’s (and one man’s) blog posts have come to the rescue. First, some good reminders from the irrepressible Leonie:

I don’t say yes to every interview request I get, or JV request. I don’t say yes to every work opportunity that comes my way (i.e. to sign with a book licensing agent, or speak at a conference.)

I don’t say yes because I know that everything has an opportunity cost. If I say yes, it takes away time and energy and brainspace to work on other things – things that could be more lucrative or more on soul purpose.

And if opportunities aren’t being presented to me that I want, I actively go after the ones I do want and make them happen instead.

via How To Create A Wildly Prosperous 15 Hour Work Week! | Leonie Dawson – Amazing Biz, Amazing Life.

Leonie was the one who introduced me to the concept of what I now think of as the $50 idea or the $100 idea. She wrote a blog post about how to have a million dollar idea, in which she concluded she actually only needed $100,000 idea (which is what she wanted to have available for her household to live on) and she figured out how to do it:

And as I held my newborn daughter in my arms, and felt the mammoth task of mamahood in front of me, I knew I just didn’t have that kind of energy and time. I needed a better idea. A simpler idea. One that was happier and more joyful and full of ease. And as I’ve shared before, the idea came in a dream, in the haze of milky hours between nightime newborn feeds.

My dreamtime elders said to me:

Give it all away. Give everyone everything you’ve ever created and will create for $99 for the whole year. You only need a thousand goddesses to say yes. You will offer them all you have to help them and support them on their journey. And they will be happy to support you on yours.

And I woke up in a blaze of happy tears, and I wrote down on a piece of paper:

1000 x $99=my $100 000 idea

give them everything!!!!!!!!

via How to have a One Million Dollar Idea | Leonie Dawson – Amazing Biz, Amazing Life.

I found this concept transformational and since then, my husband and I have often referenced that we actually only need a $50 idea ($50 x 1000 people = $50,000, which is more than enough for us!). It is certifiably amazing what kind of good stuff you can come up when you’re thinking in terms of a $50 idea. I totally love it! Feel free to use it too 🙂

Oh, but enough with the adding, here is a man’s voice on the necessary art of subtraction:

Subtraction is beautiful: it creates space, time, clarity.

Subtraction is necessary: otherwise we are overburdened.

Subtraction can be painful: it means letting go of a child.

Subtraction is an art that improves with practice. Subtraction can be practiced on your schedule, task list, commitments list, possessions, reading list, writing, product line, distractions.

What can you subtract right now?

via The Necessary Art of Subtraction : zenhabits.

And, some thoughts on “sorry” from the author of the new book Maxed Out that I’m currently reading to review:

Sorry!

I’m sorry I was so slow to respond to your email. Sorry I can’t be there. Sorry I was late to pick up. Sorry to reschedule; sorry to ask for more time; sorry to miss the conference, the coffee, the call.

Most mothers who work outside the home, writes Katrina Alcorn in her book, “Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink,” are perpetually sorry for all the ways they perceive themselves as failing their employers, their families and themselves. Hers is the story of her own “maxing out” after the birth of her youngest child: while working five days a week as a web design executive and shuttling three children through their busy lives, she pulled off the road one day and, as a crushing panic attack settled over her, called her husband to declare that she couldn’t “do this anymore.”

It is also the story of our collective “maxing out” in a society that she calls “uniquely hostile to working parents.” Her pediatrician casually tells her that most children get “8 to 10 colds and fevers a year”; she has six sick days a year (and must count herself fortunate) while her husband, a freelance designer, has none. School and preschool hours don’t cover a full day’s work for either of them, leaving them creating an elaborate spreadsheet every week to cover everything and add in doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping and chores. Preschool and day care eat into their budget, and every decision about part-time work or freelance scheduling means redoing the math. At every turn, Ms. Alcorn feels alone — but later realizes (as many reading this will recognize) that her problems are far from unique.

via Being a Working Mother Means Always Having to Say You’re Sorry – NYTimes.com.

A couple of weeks ago, I staggered down to my woods crying about something I’ve now forgotten, but that was probably related to not having time to do something I’d expected to get to do that day and that I had been saying “sorry” over, and it came to me very clearly: Don’t apologize.

And I realized very strongly, I’m done apologizing. I really am done. I wrote about this more in my Rainbow Way blog carnival contribution:

I feel as if I have a long and creative dance as well as a long and creative struggle to balance mothering with my other work. I recently decided that I’m done apologizing—to myself, to others, or in writing—about my twin desires to care for my children and to pursue my own work. I’ve been parenting for ten years. Though I’ve tried for what feels like forever to “surrender” to motherhood during these ten years, I just cannot stop creating other projects, birthing other ideas, and participating in other work while at the same time engaged in the deep carework, motherwork required by children. I do both and I’m done apologizing. My life includes my children and my AND. That’s okay with me.

via Talk Birth | and WomanSpace.

I thought about how often I use the words, “I’m sorry,” and I realized it is way too much. I’m done with it. To clarify, I’m not done with apologizing if I actually need to apologize, what I’m done with is apologizing for things I’m not actually sorry about (I can’t find the link right now, but there was a spoken word piece going around on Facebook recently in which the young woman says something to the effect of, “in my college chemistry class today I asked three questions and every one started with the words, ‘I’m sorry…'” [edited to add: Found it.]). So, far this is working out well and it is making me more mindful of the words I choose and excuses I make. My other realization that I keep having is: Maybe this is okay. Maybe I’m okay. (This is about things like having a bunch of unfolded laundry sitting around, or kids that stay up late and wake up “late,” or about having painting shirts on the table and dinner at 8:00…)

However, I also want to be mindful of the shadow comfort of distraction and one of my favorite authors, Jen Louden, had some juicy thoughts on this for me:

We all do it, I told her. Have mercy. Watch me answer an email supporting someone else rather than writing my new project – how did I get to the email program? It’s like a moment of time disappears and we have given up on our selves. The ways we distract ourselves take all sorts of inventive forms – micro-managing your children’s college application process, researching every last possible option for your vacation /car purchase/new duvet cover… or perhaps you prefer buying domain names and starting new businesses or – this is a truly delicious one – completely decluttering your entire house before you can begin that long held dream.

I’m not suggesting for one moment you try to stop distracting yourself – focus on doing that and you’ll end up with squeaky clean counters and that’s it. (Clean counters are great but probably not the deepest purpose of your life).

Instead, orient your life by desire.

Not because that’s a fool proof strategy or because you will “effortlessly manifest” (insert gagging) exactly what you want but because listening to what you truly desire will keep what you want up in your face while infusing you with energy – tons of wiggling wonderful energy. This makes it a whole lot harder to deny you are choosing someone else’s desire over your own.

You see what you are doing – “I want this but I’m doing this…. hmmm… interesting.”

See this choice point enough times in living breathing painful detail without adding one iota of self-cruelty and you will, slowly but surely, start to choose in favor of your dream. In favor of what calls you. To stop thinking, to stop planning, to stop distracting, and instead, to take blessed simple action.

With a little practice, the worn neural pathways of “But they will be mad at me!” or “It’s selfish to paint instead of visit mom” or “I know helping my friend is valuable, I don’t know if writing my novel is,” begin to atrophy and new ones are born. New pathways that sound something like “There is room for me in my life” and “What I want matters.” You understand it is by taking action on your desires and learning from those actions that the path of your truer life is revealed, one crooked step at a time.

Follow the aliveness, pay attention, orient by your desires.

via Jennifer Louden Blog News.

Orient your life by desire. Yes. This sounds promising. I was recently talking to Mark about how I often can’t separate my “want tos” from my “have tos.” It is hard for me to figure out what I really want to do most of the time, because I’m so darn good at being a harsh self-task-master and I can turn almost anything into a “job” that must be done, regardless of whether I really want to do it any longer. Speaking of Jen Louden, she has a fresh new paperback version (plus app and free support tools!) of her book The Life Organizer. I’m planning to re-work through this book beginning in January (I did it in 2008). I highly recommend it!

And, then, another quick little reminder about being present and about the distraction from “real life,” represented by needing to write a blog post about it!

There are a thousand things I could write about. Four months of adventure and wholehearted journeying has lots of stories. But the stories are where they were when they happened. And writing about them now takes away from Being with them then, and Being with now in this moment.

via The blog post about how I’m not blogging anymore.

This post is what I’ve got time for today. Now, it is time for shower—maybe it is okay that I haven’t had one yet?! ;-D

Blogging, Busyness, and Life: Part 1

Tuesday Tidbits: Blogging, Busyness, and Life (Part 2)

Tuesday Tidbits: Breastfeeding and Menstruation

Nov12

I actually meant to make this post last week following my LLL meeting, but the day (and the week) spiraled away from me and before I knew it, it was already Tuesday again! As I mentioned in my last post, at our meeting we started out talking about breastfeeding and intimacy, which led into a discussion of breastfeeding and fertility as well as many other interlocking topics. It reminded me of some saved items-to-blog-about, especially this post from Lucy Pearce:

I don’t know about you, but I rarely see anything written about breastfeeding and your moontime, I mean how mamas cope with the ups and downs of their cycle while giving to their little ones 24 hours a day? Is it just presumed that if you are breastfeeding then you don’t have a cycle? I know this is true for many women (I’ve known women not bleed for 2 years!) but for me, my bleeding time has always returned after a few months, despite exclusively breastfeeding.

Most days breastfeeding is such a joy, I love the oxytocin high I get when I snuggle with my little one and feed all night long- BUT the days and nights just before my moontime, I feel touched out, wound up by the constant demands and I JUST WANT MY OWN SPACE!

…I have some ‘rules’ that I adhere to on my Sacred 1st Bleeding Day- I DON’T cook, clean, wash or do any ‘housework’, I DON’T work (although occasionally you might find me peeping in on Facebook!), I DO eat simple nourishing foods, I DO some gentle exercise- sometimes a bit of yoga, more often a walk in nature, I have a period of SILENCE to listen in to my inner wisdom- sometimes that has to be a few mins with my eyes closed while feeding.

I know- I’m lucky to have a supportive husband who accepts this- I think because I would take ‘Sacred Days’ when he first met me, he knew the score! So he is happy to take on household duties and extra childcare on these days to support me- and in the bigger picture, by supporting me on these few days I am able to be there for him and my family the rest of the month! (This is possible as we both work part time, so we can support each other, share childcare and housework)

via Blood and Milk – Self-Care for Breastfeeding Mamas who are Menstruating | The Happy Womb.

My presentation about “moontime” was very well-received at the LLL of Missouri conference in 2013 and I’ll be doing an encore presentation in 2014. However, I did not include anything in it specifically about how to handle being a menstruating, breastfeeding woman—time to make some additions! And, speaking of Lucy Pearce, I’m right in the middle of her amazing new book The Rainbow Way, which is about mothering and creativity. I’m getting my blog post finalized for her Carnival of Creative Mothers and I’m just loving this book, this topic, and this creative life I am weaving with my family.

Speaking of creativity and mothering, a lot of my energy has been going into creating some new sculptures to be cast in pewter for my collaborative project with my free-range husband. I feel like I’m frequently patting myself on the back about them, but I just can’t help myself—I feel so pleased and really kind of impressed that we’re doing this. I didn’t know we could and yet…look!

The first and last photos are of new designs that I created after our fall women’s retreat this past Saturday. The last one (which I’m currently wearing!) reminds me of this quote that I read today for one of my classes:

“I can be a strong woman and laugh loudly and sing joyfully and dance wildly occasionally. I can imagine incredible things and weep if I need to.”

(woman speaking in the book To Make and Make Again: Feminist Ritual Thealogy, on why rituals matter)

And that reminded me of a lovely recent post by a friend about her sacred work:

She speaks the words and I hear the rumble
Rumbling, within me
It IS a calling
For it calls to me
Deep in my soul, my heart, my sleep
It is in every fiber of my being

via Sacred Work | Midwives, Doulas, Home Birth, OH MY!

Okay, so now I’ve moved totally away from my post theme and I don’t really have time to pull it back. Nor can I re-title it and start over, because it does segue..so, for now, I’ll bring it around the circle by mentioning that last week on my way to class, I listened to my favorite podcast, Voices of the Sacred Feminine. The first topic of the night was Women’s Spiritual Power by Hilary Hart (whose awesome sounding book Body of Wisdom went immediately on the top of my Amazon wishlist). She speaks about both menstruation and breastfeeding as powerful spiritual openings for women. Menstruation as a time of “cleaning out,” both emotionally and physically, not just for the mother, but for the whole family. She said mothers “process” the whole family’s emotions each month and clean the house, semi-metaphorically, for the family to renew and begin again. She spoke of breastfeeding as this relational, spiritual act that holds deep power. She also talked about birth and the power of birth as a creative, spiritual act. I enjoyed her thoughts because she doesn’t have children herself and nor does the host of the show and it was interesting to hear them touching on topics that I care about so much, but that they are viewing from somewhat of the “outside.”

The second topic of the night was the Sexual Politics of Meat. It may not sound that connected, but it did, in fact, tie right into my Birth Lessons from a Chicken article (in the podcast connections are made between the exploitation and domination of women and the sexual exploitation of female animals. In my article, I make the connection between the mothering and “birthing” behavior of the chicken and the birthing needs of women):

Then, one morning when my husband went to feed the chickens, he heard a funny noise. He looked at the broody hen and from beneath her, a fuzzy head appeared. Then two. Eventually, four. In this cold, cold weather at the wrong time of year with the wrong kind of feet and the wrong kind of eggs, she did it! We didn’t trust her, or believe in her. Our book and the experts didn’t either. However, her inherent mothering wisdom won out—it trumped us. At the risk of excessive personification, it truly seemed that she had believed in herself and trusted her instincts (or perhaps, that Nature believed in itself).

via Birth Lessons from a Chicken | Talk Birth.

Tuesday Tidbits: Blogging, Busyness, and Life (Part 2)

Oct29

This is part 2 of my post from last night. In said post, I made the following observation:

In the last year, I’ve taken on regular (unpaid) blog contributor commitments with multiple other blogs. I’m recognizing that some of these experiences feel rewarding and enriching and some feel more like I’m being “used” to contribute to the project of another person without a lot of gain for myself. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past couple of weeks both pondering how to be less hard on myself as well as about the role of blogging in my life…where does it fit? Is it inhibiting other work I could be doing or contributing to it? How do I make the transition between focuses, or, is it possible to maintain multiple focuses and multiple blog commitments…?

via Blogging, Busyness, and Life: Part 1 | Talk Birth.

I did a little google search for the “shadow side” of blogging and I read some great stuff:

If your online business model is centered around free, then you are training your audience to devalue you…

I’m talking primarily about blogs and newsletters here. The past few years of explosive blogging growth has created a sort of information “arms race,” where everyone is trying to pump out more and more free information, because by God, that’s what everyone else is doing. That’s had some good, bad and ugly consequences…

The Bad: The more business your blog helps brings in, the less time you have for blogging. There’s a fine balance between running a business and running a blog. Sure, you can hammer out excellent content and make scads of people happy, but at the end of the day you still have to do the stuff that pays the bills. It’s hard to keep up with a blog, the comments, the newsletters, etc., when you’re doing it all gratis. (James Chartrand has a great post on “sweatshop blogging.”) So naturally, you branch out into products and services…

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against “free” – I’m against “freeloaders.”…

But free is expensive. Not to the person receiving it, but the person who is creating it. I probably put 30 hours into producing those workbooks, and an additional 10 hours this month writing blog posts and tweaking this blog to make it snazzier for you. That’s an entire 40-hour workweek. For free.

Think of your weekly paycheck (or if you’re self-employed, just divide your monthly income by 4.33). That’s some damned expensive “free.” But we do it happily, because we know if we’re positioning all that free right, then our “right people” will find us and hire us to do more involved things…

But if all you do is free, people don’t see how expensive it is for you – and they don’t appreciate you.

via The Dark Side Of Blogging: When Free Gets Ugly.

To be clear, I’m not talking about charging for blogging—what I’m talking about is how blogging may use up time that could potentially be spent on activities that generate income. I have book ideas, I have classes to work on, I have products to develop and list on etsy and every time I write a blog post instead, I could theoretically have been building one of those aspects of my life instead.

People even imply and suggest (or at least the Twitter gang did) that bloggers should be ashamed of asking for money, for any kind of payment for that solid advice and knowledge. Bloggers should be ashamed of asking for money for the posts they write, the ones that take anywhere from 3 to 15 hours of work a week.

Yet, no one feels ashamed reading their favorite blogs every day. They feel no shame learning, benefiting and profiting off someone else’s unpaid labor – without ever having to dig out a penny.

People get upset over sweatshop workers slaving away – but they think nothing of being the sweatshop owner that profits every day from every blog. In fact, many people think that’s okay.

via Free Blog Posts.

Last night, I also wrote about that feeling of being “too much” for people sometimes:

When I attended the GGG this year, one of the realizations I came home with is that sometimes I feel like people are trying to get me to be less (more about this some other time). And, I remembered a session I had with a healer who did a somatic repatterning process with me—one of the beliefs she tested on me was, “I am not enough.” It got a marginal response, but then she tested, “I am TOO MUCH.” And, THAT is the one that tested as true. I wonder how much about myself that I try to change or that I struggle with actually comes from the fear of being, too much. Too intense. Too active. Too talkative. Too much thinking, too much writing, too many ideas, too many projects, too much waving of my hands and pacing when I talk. Too, too, too, too much.

via Blogging, Busyness, and Life: Part 1 | Talk Birth.

And, in a continuation of the notion of “sleeping with your ex,” I also wanted to share this quote about “burning down the farm”:

I can’t tell you how many people want to make a big positive change in their lives, but are afraid to make the leap. They don’t want the discomfort, don’t want to leave what they’re comfortable with.

From losing weight or getting healthy to quitting a job you hate to learning something hard, most people would rather stick to what they know.

I’m here to make a rather drastic but effective suggestion: burn down the farm.

via Burn Down the Farm : zenhabits.

Additionally, in a synchronicity that gave me chills, during the teleclass I was listening to just as I hit publish on part one of my post, ALisa Starkweather described that sometimes we feel “small” and sometimes we feel “big”—and that we are both. Sometimes we are small—both in terms of playing it safe, but also in being small-minded, or shrinking away—and sometimes we are big. We can hold both of them and bring them together, into integration, and accept that we have our small times and our big times and so do others. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend on Facebook a few weeks ago in which she mentioned sometimes feeling like she likes her “online self” better than her real self. I identified with what she wrote, because I have thought the same thing and have been heard to say more than once, “I think I’m a better writer than I am a person!!!” ::::sob:::: I also wrote a blog post a while ago that touched on this somewhat—I.e. is my online self my “real self.” I concluded that it was a part of my real self and that I am both more and less than I might I appear online!

So, which is it? Am I authentic and open, or keeping my mouth shut all the time?! Maybe both. What I know is there is a lot I don’t write about. I don’t write because I’m too scared, or too sensitive, or too fearful, or too self-righteous, or too busy, or too annoyed, or too scattered, or too embarrassed. I don’t write things because I have relatives who read this or friends who read this and I’d rather not share some things with some people. And, which is it? Do I have nice energy and a gentle voice or am I a strident hospital-basher out to demonize and victimize?!

And, I started to reflect that I guess I am all these things and how people experience me and my writing is in part up to me and in part up to them. Just like in real life. I can be gentle, kind, and nurturing. I can be critical, judgmental, and harsh. I can be helpful and I can be selfish. I can be patient and impatient. I can be friendly, I can be preoccupied. I can be energetic and enthusiastic and upbeat and I can be exhausted and defeated. I can be a fabulous, fun mother and I can be a distracted and grouchy mother. I can be funny and I can take myself too seriously. Different people, relationships, and environments bring out different expressions of who I am. Sometimes I really like myself a lot. I like who I am, I like how I move through the world, and I’m impressed with my own capacities. I have great ideas and solid values and principles and the ability to articulate those in writing. Sometimes I actually hate myself. I see only the bad parts and I wish I could just be better. I feel hypocritical and over aware of inconsistencies in my own thoughts/beliefs and my expression of my values in the world. I often want to be better than I am, but in rare moments of grace and self-compassion, I realize that I’m pretty good already. And, in some moments of self-righteousness and superiority, I actually feel better than some people in some areas/some ways!

via The dualism of blogging (and life) | Talk Birth.

I can express myself more fully and in a more polished/thought out way online than I often have the occasion to do in person, when I often feel more frazzled and distracted in real-life than I’d like to feel. However, from the reverse side, when I read someone else’s blog, I often actually feel like I get a fuller and more complete picture/experience of that person than I do in person when I’m rushing by trying to grab a few snippets of conversation at the skating rink! So, I feel like their online selves help me actually know their real selves better than I would if I just had to rely on face to face time. I’m not sure if that makes sense typed out, but I’ve been thinking that recently also–thank goodness for friends with blogs, because I feel like I understand them much better and learn more about how they think and feel. Additionally, in a type of reverse experience, I’ve met several people who online rubbed me the wrong way/seemed abrasive and/or rude and when I met them in real life, I loved them and they were tons of fun! (And, I’ve met people in real life who I thought were awesome online and discovered them to be meh in real life…)

I also thought about some other blog posts about blogging and touching on perfectionism and people-pleasing:

A few years ago, such responses might have bothered me, but now…well, they still bother me a bit. (Hey, this is HALFway up the Mountain–I’m human after all!) They don’t get under my skin quite as much as they would have in the past, however, since I’ve come to this helpful, empowering realization: There will always be idiots.

This may sound negative, but it’s actually incredibly liberating! It drives home an important lesson: You can’t please everyone! Once you fully realize this, you can stop trying! You can stop worrying, “What will ‘They’ think?”! You can stop letting your actions be determined by a handful of strangers–who are probably going to be negative no matter what you say or do! You can just be yourself, do your best, and live your life.

What a relief!

It’s also incredibly empowering to remember that just because someone offers bait, doesn’t mean that you have to take it–in person, on Twitter, or anywhere else. You can let them put in their two cents of negativity and leave it at that. You can just let it go, or you can choose not to take it in at all.

via Dan Teck | Halfway up the Mountain.

Dan’s wife Jody also had a good post on a similar theme:

And so we live our lives committed to pleasing everyone because when they are pleased, they will approve of us, praise us, and love us.

It makes so much sense that we would live our lives in this way – who wouldn’t want to feel loved?

But what I realized is the cost of getting this love was absolutely exhausting. Even though I tried very hard to not upset anyone, I found that I still would. While it was rare, I would sometimes receive phone calls from angry people saying that I didn’t do x, y, and z quickly enough or well enough or in the right way. I would receive emails saying that I wasn’t soulful enough or caring enough or loving enough.

Hearing these criticisms would devastate me. But I was determined to not give up – I knew that if I just tried a little bit harder, I would still be able to please them. I knew I could eventually make them see my side and “win them over.”

And sometimes I could. But oftentimes I couldn’t.

Eventually I learned four words that were powerful enough to change my life:

You can’t please everyone.

via Four Words to Free Your Soul – Heart of the Soul.

This thinking about blogging and life and work, also has me thinking about technology and its role in my life. Its contribution to my feeling “sped up” and fragmented. I’ve been talking for months now about creating a Say NO Experiment, in which I spend 30 days saying no to as many things as I can (many of which catch my eye online). However, since I haven’t ever started that experiment I signed up to participate in this cool sounding teleseminar: Red Tent Revival.

Something caught my eye there though and it was the notion of saying YES to life. I feel like lately everything operates under this yes, yes, yes buzzphrase and yet I am struggling with the courage to say NO. It is popular to advocate grabbing life by the horns, seizing the moment, etc., and yet my default reaction is almost always YES. And, then, I have to backtrack back to the NO that actually wants to be heard!

So, then I read this beautiful post from Hands Free Mama (who I love, even though every time I read her I find myself noting the irony that she has built her business on the internet essentially around critiquing parental use of technology).

If I live to be 100, it will not be because I could accomplish more in one day than most people could in a week.

It will because I took time to gaze at stars, watch sunsets, and walk beside my children, not ahead of them.

If I live to be 100, it will not be because I earned prestigious degrees that adorned my walls.

It will be because I pursued the passions of my heart and decorated my soul.

via If I Live to Be 100 | Hands Free Mama.

And, on the flip side, since I love to keep myself in a constant state of self-imposed mental knots of paradox and dualism, I also read this post about why parental use of technology is fine and does not need to be demonized (for examples of ongoing trend of pointing out the flaws of those nasty, bad iphone “addicts,” feel free to check out this and this. Both of these examples absolutely have merit and possible created uncomfortableness or defensiveness precisely because we can see ourselves in them. However, both of them are also using technology to critique technology in a way that is beginning to feel trite and overused.)

I don’t want to model the perfect mom who doesn’t exist and hide the rest of my life from my kids. I want to model the balanced (and sometimes unbalanced) normal mom who loves them very much. And today, part of normal = tech user. It is time for society to realize that.

via Oh those technology obsessed neglectful parents… – PhD in Parenting – PhD in Parenting.

I have to say that when I read content decrying technology as negative and lamenting the abundance of children on their “devices,” part of me hears: “these new-fangled kids driving cars instead of good old horses and buggies!” This is reality. In my specific family, technology and screen-time built my family’s financial security and our literal home. My husband made a living for years off of screens—eight hours a day in front of one in fact. I use one now to support my family and to, get this, be with my children. Using a computer (ipad, etc.) is how I teach, how I write, how I communicate, how I interact, how I earn money, how I sell my creations. My mom was on the phone a lot when I was a kid. I’m on the computer a lot. Maybe Idealized Mythical Past Mom was in the cotton field a lot, or washing laundry for others, or working in a lace factory, or milking cows, or shelling peanuts or making paper flowers, or keeping up the house, or taking care of younger children, or, or, or. Moms have never “not worked.” And, they’ve never been non-“distracted,” just the mode and texture of this “distraction” shifts with times, contexts, roles, activities, and availability of whatever. Perhaps it is all just life and living?! I am as interested by mindfulness and present moment awareness as the next person and yet I always wonder: “can’t I be typing this blog post in the present moment?!” Can’t I be thinking about my to-do list in the present moment? Can’t I be smelling this rose in the present moment? AND, can’t I also be sending this text in the present moment? Why does “present moment” have to be synonymous with no to-do list and no technology? I can very presently us both…right?!

Moms read books, watch TV, fold laundry, nurse babies, follow around toddlers, talk to friends, weave baskets, bake bread, cook meals, and yes, write blog posts and check in with their online classes, while simultaneously being with their children. It is interesting that only the activities involving technology/screens are portrayed as or described as “being distracted” and not “present” with parenting. When I had my conversation with my mom yesterday about coming from a noble line of busy women, she told me about a skit that she was involved with as a child (part of Girl Scouts? I forgot already! Too distracted!). It was a Mother’s Day skit and each girl portrayed her own mother as a parody. My mom, fulfilling the role of her mom, talked on the phone the whole skit and said, “just a minute kids,” at periodic intervals. This was in those “good old days” of the 1950’s, often romanticized today as heyday of the “traditional family.” Today, skit-mom would be saying, “I need to update my Facebook status!” (or, something). This is NOT to say that mindfulness in parenting and connection with children is not important—not at all, what I AM saying is that this is not a “new,” technology-specific parenting experience. My own mom talked on the phone quite a bit and she also wove baskets and worked on craft projects and had tea parties for my little sister and helped my brother with costumes and talked to my dad and visited with her friends, and, and, and. ALL of those things “distracted” her from specifically talking to/interacting with ME, but, why not? It is part of living in a family and being part of a system of complex, multifaceted, multitalented, multi-interested, real people. In my own family now, that includes an ipad and iphone and a computer, as well as many, many other things.

(And, by the way, I think that was an awful idea for a Mother’s Day skit! My mom said, “and, we never spoke of it again.” ;-D)

Took this picture last week and find it a perfect illustration:

Pewter artwork in front, written screen-work in back! 🙂

And, I took some more (non-people) pictures of snippets from my life at home with my family:

New pewter work! I ❤ her!

Clay in progress!

My to-read pile by the bed.

My to-read pile near the bed.

We’re having a great time with this often big and sometimes small life together. I just want to remember to keep noticing that 🙂

Free-range husband felting a wizard hat.

Helping mama with clay.

Ready to go to a party!

Ready for Halloween party!

Thesis Tidbits: The Wise Women Behind, Within, and Around Us

Oct22

“The Childbearing Year” sculptures cast in pewter.

When I first described my thesis project about birth as a spiritual experience, I described my use of the word “spiritual” in this way:

When I use the word “spiritual,” I mean a range of experiences from a humanistic sensation of being linked to women around the world from all times and spaces while giving birth, to a “generic” sense of feeling the “might of creation” move through you, to a sense of non-specifically-labeled powers of Life and Universe being spun into being through your body, to feeling like a “birth goddess” as you pushed out your baby, to more traditional religious expressions of praying during labor, or drawing upon scripture as a coping measure, or feeling that giving birth brought you closer to the God of your understanding/religion, or, indeed, meeting God/dess or Divinity during labor and birth).

via Birth as a Spiritual Experience (Thesis Project) | Talk Birth.

Just this week, a mother shared a link to her birth story on my Facebook wall and there, embedded within the body of her narrative, was exactly the kind of thing I’m exploring with my thesis:

The pain was deep and blinding at this point. I was still pacing. I felt out of control, my primal being had been unleashed and it was a spirit I could no longer cage. I yelled that I couldn’t do it, I begged for help. In my mind I was screaming, I wanted to claw at my eyes, rip out my uterus, jump off a cliff and end my pain.

Then something happened… I don’t remember what was said, but the walls around me rung with words of encouragement from my men, and from the wise women.

All of a sudden it didn’t feel like we were just 6 people, but the very ground beneath opened and the walls melted and the ceiling cracked to reveal the sky and what I saw were the souls of billions of women who had come before me, gathered together in support of us. I opened my eyes and suddenly it was as though I was immeshed in a tightly woven tapestry of all the mothers who have ever existed- all my sisters and grandmothers- that had birthed their children before me and they held the space- I found myself surrounded by souls from every time and place. These were women of the cities, of the jungles, the sierras, the ghettos, the caves, the shores… these were mothers from every single culture, every walk of life. Starting deep and low and getting louder and louder was a chanting, and in my mind’s ear I heard some ancient song that these mothers sang to me- and it brought me one message: I can do this. I am doing this. I am safe. I have the power. I am protected by all the mothers who have come before me and I will hold the space for all the mothers who will come after In that moment, I was protected and supported by every mother who had ever existed- they stood around me in a circle and from them, I drew my strength.

No more fear. No more pain. I banished the negative feelings and harnessed all positive energy. I opened my eyes and looked deep into the eyes of my child and I was moved by his wisdom- Joell smiled back at me and a universal truth made itself known to me in that moment: all children are deeply connected to birth. Something in his eyes told me, “You can do it, mommy”. They understand the universe in ways we cannot fathom. They are the wise ones, and from them we have much to learn.

via A Slightly Twisted Fairy Tale » A Perfect Circle: The homebirth story of Carmelo Cypress, pt. 1.

I’ve also been catching up with issues of Midwifery Today and noticed the following quote in the article, “Searching for Ancient Childbirth Secrets” in Midwifery Today Autumn 2013. Tsippy Monat writes:

“Anthropology describes trance as a condition is which the senses are heightened and everyday things take on a different meaning. Communicative competence with other people may increase or may not exist. Facts of time and place are revealed differently than in normal everyday consciousness. This description reminded me of situations encountered at birth because birth is a condition in which the mind is altered. When I accompany births, I experience the flooding of oxytocin and endorphins. In Hebrew, the root of the word birth can also mean ‘next to God'” (p. 49).

And, in an essay based around an article about an old Gemanic/Jewish naming ceremony that I wrote for a different blog, I wrote:

If power does indeed rest in the stories that are told, how would the birth culture in the US change if we did have stories and rituals like the Hollekreisch (with original connection to the Goddess intact, of course)? In their book Milk, Money, and Madness, Michels and Baumslag explain: “In western society, the baby gets attention while the mother is given lectures [emphasis mine]. Pregnancy is considered an illness; once the ‘illness’ is over, interest in her wanes. Mothers in ‘civilized’ countries often have no or very little help with a new baby. Women tend to be home alone to fend for themselves and the children. They are typically isolated socially and expected to complete their usual chores, including keeping the house clean and doing the cooking and shopping, while being the sole person to care for the infant…” (p. 17)

This is in contrast with perhaps the original function of the Hollekreisch ceremony which acknowledged the mother’s vital role:

“The consistent connection of the ritual with the motherʼs rise from childbed, and the home-based nature of the ceremony, seem to indicate that the Hollekreisch ceremony gave the mother an important role. Hayyim Schauss, whose research was based on interviews, eyewitness accounts, and historical writings dating from the seventeenth century, indicates that in some areas of Germany, a synagogue ritual preceded the ceremony. The mother of the child walked to worship with the local rebbetzin and donated a new wrapper (wimple), with the infantʼs name sewn onto it, for the Torah scroll. This allowed the mother and her ability to give birth to be celebrated along with the new child—which may be precisely why the ceremony became associated with, or was originally rooted in, the legend of Frau Holle” (p. 66, emphasis mine).

via Hollekreisch: Honoring Childbirth.

Also in a new family project that actually has deep roots in my personal experiences with birth as a spiritual experience, Mark and I have been working on making pewter versions of some of my birth art sculptures. This one is my pushing-the-baby-out sculpture, the original of which was created to help me prepare for the birth of my last baby:

I am a wild woman
and the spirit of every wild woman
coalesces in me
for we are each wild women
and we are all the spirit
of the wild woman.
I will follow the voice in my heart.

~ Melissa Clary, quoted by Raising Ecstasy

(via Journey Of Young Women)

Tuesday Tidbits: Birth Power

Oct15

“When a woman births without drugs…she learns that she is strong and powerful…She learns to trust herself, even in the face of powerful authority figures. Once she realizes her own strength and power, she will have a different attitude for the rest of her life, about pain, illness, disease, fatigue, and difficult situations.” –Polly Perez

“The way a society views a pregnant and birthing woman, reflects how that society views women as a whole. If women are considered weak in their most powerful moments, what does that mean?” –Marcie Macari

“I think one of the best things we could do would be to help women/parents/families discover their own birth power, from within themselves. And to let them know it’s always been there, they just needed to tap into it.” –John H. Kennell, MD

“As doulas, midwives, nurses, and doctors, it’s important to never underestimate how deeply entrusted we are with someone’s most vulnerable, raw, authentic self. We witness their heroic journeys, see them emerge with their babies, hearts wide open…” –Lesley Everest (MotherWit Doula)

“When you have a baby, your own creative training begins. Because of your child, you are now finding new powers and performing amazing feats.” –Elaine Martin

“Learn to respect this sacred moment of birth, as fragile, as fleeting, as elusive as dawn.” ~ Frederick Leboyer (via From Womb to Cradle Doula Services)

‎”It takes force, mighty force, to restrain an instinctual animal in the moment of performing a bodily function, especially birth. Have we successfully used intellectual fear to overpower the instinctual fear of a birthing human, so she will now submit to actions that otherwise would make her bite and kick and run for the hills?” –Sister Morningstar (in Midwifery Today)

“Birth is women’s business; it is the business of our bodies. And our bodies are indeed wondrous, from our monthly cycles to the awesome power inherent in the act of giving birth.” –Sarah Buckley

“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That’s what I want to hear–to hear you erupting. You Mount St. Helenses who don’t know the power in you–I want to hear you…If we don’t tell our truth, who will?” –Ursula K. Le Guin

“For most people, modern life meanders along a path of ups and downs, by and large devoid of high-voltage experiences that have the power to alter our lives in significant ways…The birth of a child is one of those significant experiences.” –John & Cher Franklin (FatherBirth)

Birth power has been on my mind today after I read my friend’s Shauna’s unassisted birth story of her eighth baby:

Our baby was starting to crown as I finally squatted down low with one leg higher than the other (I was out of time to change things up. I’ll just squat and do it the same ‘boring’ highly effective way I always do it I thought lol.) I used some counter pressure on her velvety head to help ease her head out but it wasn’t really needed and a painless contraction inched her head fully out. I noticed I talked a lot to Ricky about what was happening like I was giving him a play-by-play of a sport. I stood up on two legs again…As I stood up Ricky took a few pictures of me holding her fully birthed head with one hand and I said, “Get a picture of me smiling.” I totally posed for a picture while I cradled her head between the two worlds of womb and Earth…

via Life With Eight Kids: Beatrice’s Unassisted Birth Story (half hour labor and birth -with extra info on my favorite topics of vernix, cord cutting, and not pushing).

Completely coincidentally, over the weekend I made a new sculpture that I named in honor of Shauna and her past births.

I called this one “Squatter’s Rights,” after an article draft Shauna wrote several years ago that had a potent impact on me, particularly her line, “and then I reach down and catch what’s mine.” (previously written about in this post.) I made the new sculpture because I received a message on etsy asking me about the sculpture shown at the conclusion of another past post:

“I believe with all my heart that women’s birth noises are often the seat of their power. It’s like a primal birth song, meeting the pain with sound, singing their babies forth. I’ve had my eardrums roared out on occasions, but I love it. Every time. Never let anyone tell you not to make noise in labor. Roar your babies out, Mamas. Roar.” –Louisa Wales

via What Does Coping Well Mean? | Talk Birth.

Over the weekend, I also made a batch of new sculptures for a training taking place in Hawaii:

I hope these bring a sense of birth power to the women receiving them 🙂

Tonight I lit a candle as part of the Wave of Light for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It is important to acknowledge that power may be found in the full spectrum of experiences of the childbearing year…

And, in a thematically appropriate connection, a Facebook fan sent me a link today to a powerful video of a woman singing during labor. I’d seen a version on YouTube before, so I went looking for it there and instead I found a short webisode specifically about singing during labor:

In my own first labor, I hummed the blessingway chant Woman Am I over and over again until the baby was born. I find that humming, vocalizing, and talking to/coaching myself is one way that I awaken my own birth power during birthing.

How do you awaken your birth power?

I shared some ideas in another past post, but I’d love to add to it!

Tuesday Tidbits: Life and Death

Oct8

A nice fresh October rose in the back yard.

“Here’s what I know about the other side: women carry the doorway to this place within the womb. The womb is the connection to the spirit realm from which all spirits enter.” –Tami Lynn Kent (Wild Feminine)

After my grandma died, I read an article that paralleled good birth care with good death care. I saved a quote from it to share, but didn’t post it because I didn’t really have anything else to go with it at the time. This month marks the six-month point since my grandma died and I found myself writing about her and making my own birth-song, death-song parallel for my most recent essay for Feminism and Religion and I knew the time for this current post had also come. (Note: the FAR post doesn’t come out until Wednesday, so the link won’t work until then.) Here is the quote I saved:

My Oma was completely cared for. She was bathed in her bed. My mom made homemade applesauce for her. My uncle gave her drops of wine. Her clothes were changed to housedresses she loved. We whispered love notes in her ears. We stroked her arms and held her hands. Nothing existed besides her.

A woman in labor, with the best support, is completely loved up. Taken care of so that she can focus on following her body and natural rhythms. She is massaged, sung to, whispered words of power and praise. All to fill her up so that she can remember her strength, courage, and beauty.

via Life and Death. Miracles Abound. | Naturally Prosperous.

My grandma’s perpetual calendar. Made by my dad and painted by my mom in the 80’s or so, it was passed along to me. When I finally changed the tiles to September, it prompted another bout of crying because I had to put away the tiles from March–the last time my grandma touched and set up this calendar herself. It was both sad and painful and also beautiful and generative to be setting it up myself and now…the wheel of the year continues to turn and I really should be taking out September and setting up October…

My mom doula’ed my grandmother through her dying process and it was hard, but she did it. This week, my aunt sent out some pictures from my grandma’s doll collection so that we could pick which dolls we might like to have. My grandma loved Shirley Temple and had a Shirley collection, among quite a few other dolls. I’ve written before that I guess this love of dolls is genetic and I definitely got it from both my grandmas. Anyway, I was looking through the doll pictures and feeling impressed with the effort and love my aunt had put into captioning and describing each doll, as well as deciding which one was my favorite and then my eyes were filled with tears. I thought about my own dolls, there on the shelves and in nooks and corners of the house and pictured my little daughter going through them and taking pictures after I die and it was just really flipping sad.

And, so to continue to the theme of today’s post I remembered marking this poem in my 2013 We’Moon datebook (I’m getting ready to order my 2014 edition and so I’m going back through the things I’ve marked this year).

We All Become Small

…Above the hospital bed
hangs a photo of you:
black lingerie, red curls,
mouth alive with laughter.

You were flamboyance
boasting bold jewelry
and flowered baseball caps.
Everyone called you Mom.

Now you are thin and still…
…You are the end of my journey
the final portrait.

No matter how red our curls,
how bright our rings
we all become small.

We all grow silent,
ease out of our feet,
slip away from our hands,
rise beyond our body
and fill the room with goodbye.

Natascha Bruckner (in We’Moon 2013)

I’d also marked a poem about miscarriage:

I recently added new miscarriage memorial charms to my Etsy shop.

Miscarriage
I won’t forget
how cold that summer turned
after
or how my days developed
sharp edges or how
with time passing,
you still grow older.

You’re the girl I wasn’t
convinced I wanted,
and there’s no name
for the landscape I stand on.

–Joyce Hayden in We’Moon 2013

I really identified with the sentence, there’s no name for the landscape I stand on, feeling reminded of my own post-miscarriage drawing in which I tried to capture the sensation of having to walk over the bridge alone…

One of my friends does Prayer Paintings for mothers who’ve experience pregnancy loss, miscarriage, or stillbirth (she also does Birth Blessing painting to celebrate pregnant women). She asked me if she could paint one for me and as we talked it over, I realized I didn’t feel like I needed a loss painting OR one that was about pregnancy or birth, but rather something “integrative.” And, she created something beautiful for me that felt perfect. She titled it Empowering Circle of Reflection and I love the rich, red, surprising sky. It is perfect.

Returning to my grandma as well as thinking about the purpose of writing and exploring feelings in writing and so forth, I also want to share this quote from We’Moon 2013:

“I see beauty in all faces, all women, near and far. All winds blow, all ferns and grasses grow, all cello weep, all hands write. In writing move the body, the memory in the bones. Lift me up into these trees and into these women’s arms, all branches intertwining..Get those stories down. The moon, the Milky Way, the cream smear of falling stars, the bats and frogs and wood chips, racoons on a log. My jacket hangs on a tree stump every night, and I wear a spiderweb each dawn. Remember this: preserve. Pass on, embellish, enliven and unfold. All winds will blow this history into dust—unless we write it down, and name it holy…” Bonnie J. Morris (in We’Moon 2013)

One of the realizations I had after my trip to the Gaea Goddess Gathering this year was that not everything has to be a story. There doesn’t have to be a blog post around every corner. However, after reading the above, I thought that maybe it isn’t so bad/annoying that I look for the story everywhere and that I try to write it down and name it holy.

And, one last We’Moon transcription:

A Meditation by Mia Howell (in We’Moon 2013)

New mother-blessing tree of life pendants.

The Japanese say that even the other side
has another side. We need to keep turning
things over in our minds until we can see
them in circles of motion, in spirals, in
the complete roundness of their being, through
all the cycles of becoming, undoing, renewing.

We need to understand how we got to this point
and then we need to remember it is just a point.
We feel each beat as a beat but also as part
pf the rhythm of the greater dance of greater things.
We need to turn ourselves around, in order to
see our journey in its full-spiraled progression,
to see our self in its many iterations
of age, development, understanding,
to see how the layers peel away one by one
and yet each is part of the other,
to see how the edges blur, to see how sometimes
there are no sides at all…

Tuesday Tidbits: Postpartum Mamas

Sep24

As Americans, we are under the impression that new moms are ‘Superwomen’ & can return to life as it was before baby. We must remember to celebrate this new mother and emulate the other cultures that honor new mothers by caring for them, supporting them, & placing value on the magnificent transformation she is going through. This is the greatest gift we can give to new mothers & newborns…–Darla Burns (via Tuesday Tidbits: Postpartum Mothering)

“The first few months after a baby comes can be a lot like floating in a jar of honey—very sweet and golden, but very sticky too.” –American College of Nurse-Midwives

The United States are not known for their postpartum care practices. Many women are left caught completely off guard by the postpartum recovery experience and dogged by the nagging self-expectation to do and be it all and that to be a “good mother” means bouncing back, not needing help, and loving every minute of it.

This country is one of the only utterly lacking in a culture of postpartum care. Some version of the lie-in is still prevalent all over Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and particular parts of Europe; in these places, where women have found the postpartum regimens of their own mothers and grandmothers slightly outdated, they’ve revised them. The U.S. seems only to understand pregnancy as a distinct and fragile state. For the expectant, we issue reams of proscriptions—more than can reasonably be followed. We tell them what to eat and what not to eat. We ask that they visit the doctor regularly and that they not do any strenuous activity. We give them our seats on the bus. Finally, once they’ve actually undergone the physical trauma of it, their bodies thoroughly depleted, we beckon them most immediately to rejoin the rest of us. One New York mother summed up her recent postpartum experience this way: “You’re not hemorrhaging? OK, peace, see you later…”

…“A culturally accepted postpartum period sends a powerful message that’s not being sent in this country,” said Dr. Margaret Howard, the director of the Day Hospital for Postpartum Depression in Providence, Rhode Island. “American mothers internalize the prevailing attitude—‘I should be able to handle this myself; women have babies every day’—and if they’re not up and functioning, they feel like there’s something wrong with them.”

via Why Are America’s Postpartum Practices So Rough On New Mothers? – The Daily Beast.

Via First the Egg, I then read this powerful reflection prompted by the article above:

In the piece, one woman mentions that women are literally still bleeding, long after they’re expected to “bounce back” and reclaim their old lives and be totally self-sufficient. Our bodies haven’t finished healing, and we’re supposed to look and act as though nothing even happened here, it’s all good. It’s all just the same as it was.

Secretly, I’ve been the slightest bit ashamed of all the help I’ve needed.

via Eat the Damn Cake » bleeding time.

I also read this raw, honest, and touching look at the “betrayal” experienced by women who enter into the mystery of birth expecting a blissed out, earth mother, orgasmic birth experience:

…But inside my head, I could not believe what was happening. How painful it was. How terrifying. I felt helpless. And degraded and humiliated by there being witnesses. And at the same time, I felt so, so alone. I remember at one point saying, completely out of my mind, “I don’t understand why no one is doing anything to help me! Please help me!” Della reminded me that what I was feeling was the baby coming. That I was doing just what I was supposed to, having the baby, right then….

via Mutha Magazine » S. LYNN ALDERMAN’S Ugliest, Beautiful Moment (Or, Fuck Ina May).

And, that made me think of my own thoughts about birth regret and how we may hide it from the pregnant woman we perceive as vulnerable in her beautiful, fleeting state as Pregnant Woman:

I’ve come to realize that just as each woman has moments of triumph in birth, almost every woman, even those with the most blissful birth stories to share, have birth regrets of some kind of another. And, we may often look at subsequent births as an opportunity to “fix” whatever it was that went “wrong” with the birth that came before it. While it may seem to some that most mother swap “horror stories” more often than tales of exhilaration, I’ve noticed that those who are particularly passionate about birth, may withhold or hurry past their own birth regret moments, perhaps out of a desire not to tarnish the blissful birth image, a desire not to lose crunchy points, or a desire not to contribute to the climate of doubt already potently swirling around pregnant women…

via Birth Regrets? | Talk Birth.

Which then made me think about the women who know...

Where are the witches, midwives

and friends

Circle of women sculptures as gifts for my women’s group. Yes, there’s a crack—“the world cracks everyone”—but that is how the light gets in…

to belly dance and chant

while I deliver

to hold me and breathe with me

as I push

to touch me and comfort me

as I cry?

Where are the womyn who know

what it’s like

to give birth?

via Where are the women who know? | Talk Birth.

Thinking about that reminded me of the chant we sang around the fire at the festival I just returned from on Sunday night:

Dance in a circle of women,

Make a web of my life,

Hold me as I spiral and spin,

Make a web of my life…

via Goddess Chants – Dance in a Circle of Women by Marie Summerwood.

May all pregnant women and tender postpartum mamas dance in a circle of women!

I’d hoped to have time to post a festival recap and some lessons learned, but other responsibilities take precedence at least for today, so I’ll leave you with one of the pictures my sister-in-law took on a misty morning, sunrise stroll around the lake and another that I took in the Temple at the festival:

Postpartum Survival Tips

Timeless Days: More Postpartum Planning

Mothers Matter–Creating a Postpartum Plan

Planning for Postpartum

Some reminders for postpartum mamas & those who love them

Birthing the Mother-Writer (or: Playing My Music, or: Postpartum Feelings, Part 1)

Postpartum Thoughts/Feelings, Part 2

Postpartum Feelings, Part 3

What to tell a mother-to-be about the realities of mothering…

Tuesday Tidbits: Pain, Birth, and Fear

Sep17

“…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

During my first pregnancy, I read like crazy. I felt like I was studying for the biggest test of my life, only it was impossible to know what was actually going to be on it. When I actually gave birth, I was delighted to find I was able to get out of my head and trust my body. Quite some time later, I figured out that information about birth does not equal knowledge about birth.

We spend a lot of time informing and educating women about their choices surrounding birth and are often then surprised that this apparent information does not translate into experience once in the birth room. Obviously, this is partially because the birth room is a context impacted by a large number of social, cultural, psychological, and environmental factors, but I believe it is also because with all of our information we still haven’t managed to help parents develop knowledge and the two are not the same. Parents are often not able to recall or to mobilize information resources while actually embroiled in the birth experience. They need an inner knowing and inner resources to draw on for coping.

via Information ≠ Knowledge

I also pondered (and continue to ponder) how women really learn about birth. Like I did, most of them seek out written information and this can lead to information overload…

With the wonderful world wide web available to us 24/7, the deluge of information we encounter (and seek out) during pregnancy can feel a lot like drowning. So many choices, so much to learn, so much to digest. There are times when everything seems to come into question — from what you eat during pregnancy to whether you should create a birth plan…

via Stop Birth Information Overload by Getting Back to Basics — Giving Birth with Confidence.

My all-time favorite article about the notion of this “information feeding frenzy” engaged in by pregnant women is by Pam England who explains the following:

It would seem at first glance that a mother who gathers lots of information during pregnancy is motivated and headed in the “right direction.” However, a more important detail of her preparation is her being aware of what is motivating her to become so well-informed. What does the drive for information feel like in her body? How does she know in her bones and gut how to use the information? And to what degree is she is aware of any of this?

If she is not listening to the subtle messages in her body, in her breath, in her dreams, or in the patterns in her thoughts and emotions, then she is acting from her conditioning and not from awareness. From the outside, no one may be able to tell the difference, but on the inside, she will feel the difference…

via Birthing From Within – Information Frenzy.

Which brings me back to this quote:

“I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.” –Michel Odent

via How Do Women Really Learn About Birth?

And also to another of my own articles about information overload during pregnancy:

Many pregnant women have information overload. They are faced with more information than they know what to do with. They are bombarded by it. What they really need is “knowing.” They need to know: “What skills do I possess or can learn that will help me greet my birth with anticipation and confidence? What are my tools? My resources? Can I just let it happen?” As an educator I ask myself, “What will help them feel confident? Feel ready? Trust their bodies and their capacities?”

via Talk Less, Learn More: Evolving as an Educator

A lot of this information feeding frenzy, including that of my own first pregnancy, may be related to fear of labor, pain, and the unknown.

Could it be that human fear of pain is being used to generate financial profit? (the opium-is-the-opiate-of-the-masses model). Perhaps once the notion of palliative care reached a certain level of acceptance for the dying within the medical community, it began to spill over into other human conditions (the slippery-slope model). Or, perhaps we don’t want transparency at all (the denial model)…

…I can think of many questions that fall under this topic…Why do we call the intense phenomenon of birth “painful”? How do our genetics, behavior, training and thought-processes affect our experience of pain? What about the health care culture – has it focused on relieving pain at the expense of what we gain from working with pain short of trauma or imminent death? How do we prepare women for working with sensation without automatically labeling it pain? Is the “empowerment” often attributed to giving birth what is learned by going through the center of the “there is no birth of consciousness without pain” experience? These questions are just a start…

via About Pain and Birth | Dancing Thru Pregnancy® Blog.

Could these fears also be tied to our cultural lack of appropriate vocabulary for pain?

A childbirth educator interviewed during the film briefly discusses pain and says that we need more words for pain, because it is ridiculous that we have only one word that is used to describe a hangnail, a broken leg, being hit by a car, and labor. I had already been musing about pain during labor and how we perceive it, talk about it, and so forth and this comment was additional food for thought for me. I’m thinking that there are many other words used to describe women’s experiences of labor and birth other than pain–a word that is limited in scope and that for some women may well not even apply to the experiences in birth

via Words for Pain

Or, to a fear of “losing control” during labor?

A topic that frequently arises in birth classes is about the fear of “losing control” in labor. Losing control, “losing it,” or “freaking out” are concerns expressed by women preparing to give birth. It is important to acknowledge that this is a common fear. I also like to ask parents to think about what “freaking out” or “losing it” would mean to them? I ask them to consider what benefits there may be to losing control. I also say, “What if you do freak out? Maybe, so what?! Maybe it is okay. Maybe it is good. Maybe it is helpful…”

via Fears About Birth and Losing Control

Or, perhaps more simply, to a lack of trust in our care providers?

I was interested to read a short segment in the book Labor Pain about studies on fear about birth. A Swedish study indicated that it was not pain that caused women the most anxiety about labor (44% of women had fear of pain). It also wasn’t fear of death of the mother or baby (55% worried about this). It wasn’t fear of their physical or mental capacity to give birth (65% feared this), but it was “lack of trust of obstetric staff during delivery” (73%).

via Fear & Birth

Men may also feel a lot of fear surrounding birth and have few ways to express it:

Although a man cannot feel the same pain as a laboring woman, I believe that many men experience a similar cycle of emotions in the birthing space to that which Dick-Read described, with a slightly different end product, namely: Fear > Tension > Panic. A man who is not confident in his partner’s birthing abilities, who is poorly informed, and/or who is poorly supported, becomes increasingly tense; and if this tension is not eased, then he spirals into an irreversible state of panic. This panic manifests differently in different men: some men become paralyzed by their fear (the familiar specter of the terrified dad sitting stock-still at the foot of the bed), while others spring into hyperactivity, bringing endless cups of water or becoming obsessively concerned with the temperature of the birth pool.

via Fathers, Fear, and Birth

I think it is also important to recognize the deep gifts to be found in facing our fears and doing it anyway:

We may feel guilty, ashamed, negative, and apologetic about our deepest “what ifs.” We worry that if we speak of them, they might come true. We worry that in voicing them, we might make homebirth or midwifery or whatever look bad. We don’t want to add any fuel to the fire of terror that already dominates the “mainstream” birth climate. And, we don’t want to lose “crunchy points.” We want to be blissfully empowered, confident, and courageous. And, guess what? We are. Sometimes that courage comes from looking the “what ifs” right in the eye. Sometimes it comes from living through them. My most powerful gift from my pregnancy with my daughter, my pregnancy-after-loss baby, was to watch myself feel the fear and do it anyway. I was brave. And, it changed me to learn that.

What if we can learn more from our shadows than we ever thought possible? There is power in thinking what if I can’t do this and then discovering that you CAN…

via What If…She’s Stronger than She Knows… | Talk Birth.