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Dear Jayne
Leilah piece made me cry as I have with many
women and felt the need to for so many others.
Why are the sufferings of these women and babies
accepted?
Is this pain what this generation needs to wake up
to?
It reminds me of when I was at school ( a top girls school) crying
because my father had beaten my mother the night before and I was sent to the
head mistress as could not stop crying and get on with my work!
She told
me not to bring this to school and to go into the play ground and compose
myself!
Another girl came at recess and told me she often felt as I did that
morning.
Still we went back to school and our families and
more of the samefor a while longer.
My mother did leave my father but did not know
about refuges...
Now we have campaigns to make men and our community
take responsibility for domestic violence.
So a campaign to take some of the pain out of
childbirth is more than a possibility it is happening that is NMAP
!
Denise Hynd
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 11:45
PM
Subject: [ozmidwifery] from Leilah
McCracken/BirthLove
Leilah writes
amazing stuff from the heart about birth - this seemed appropriate to share
here. Especially from about almost half way down where it starts "Women suffer, babies suffer too, pain of all kinds- "for
their own good".
The Moon's
Soft Happiness amidst the Troubles of the World
I know I should try
writing while the moon is full and it's 1am (precisely).
The sky is light
with quick moving clouds, the trees are black with silent,
brooding
intent... gorgeous night, lusty and cool, deepening Autumn and
seeming to
hold its breath, waiting for some omen or other to make it turn
its head-
to light, or to further shadow.
This is the night, this is where I sit.
The house is silent, save for the
quiet murmurs of my husband and two of
our older children (and of course the
accursed din of these computers). I'm
aware of shimmering light cast off by
screens in here- and of the night,
the night does shimmer to those sentient,
and my window is open and some
soft moonlight filters in... faces, moods,
emotion- all sorts of things
flash past in my mind softly, nuances of worded
possibility that can come
down to my screen. What words shall I let flow...
what thought should be
unleashed... what, why- to whom shall I focus? Ever
distracted, ever
preoccupied- ever looking away, within- up at the sky as it
glows white
with thickening cloud. Thus is my night... shrouded with seeming
intent;
purposeful, but for distractions from sole purpose.
Focus, dear. We
need focus- what has been idling in my mind, waiting for a
time that is
ripe to come out? (Is the time ripe now? Or will my little baby
wake up and
cry because she is teething?) I know what has been in my mind,
but I don't
know if the words will come to release the thought. I will try.
My life
is a study of the day. And if in the day I am satisfied, then there
is
nothing more that I could ask for. If I have loved my children- did
some
site work- did some housework- laughed with my husband- ate
nutritiously,
and fed my family well too- if I did all these things, I am
content. I have
done these things, yes, today I have. And while today was a
difficult day in
many ways (seven out of eight kids, aged thirteen and
under, being
"challenging"), I am still satisfied- content- for my day was
served well.
Yes: I am content, even though in my province dozens of women
had
unnecessary cesareans, and even more babies were blasted out by
induction
drugs. I am content... I have learned to be content, and this
revelation
came to me only recently.
I wrote two weeks ago about my
son almost dying from choking. (Note to
parents everywhere: when a child is
choking, it may not look like he is
choking. My son was in no way
indicating he couldn't breathe- he just seemed
to be having a seizure, then
he lost consciousness and turned ashen.) After
he recovered and I brought
him home, it occurred to me that my family is the
single most important
thing in my life; that no matter what goes on outside
my little realm, I
can only be truly satisfied and productive in my life if
my family- my
absolute core- is intact and safe. I realized that everything
I do for
birth and for women is rooted, at its very core, in my sense of
well-being
that comes from being a mother; and that if the core is shaken,
then all
else will shake as well.
This has proven to be a greatly important
realization to make (that my
family is my absolute core, and that a
satisfied core is a satisfied,
thriving me): for now, I feel far less
helpless anxiety about the grave
peril that birth is in worldwide. I know
in my every cell how remorseful
birth's situation is... if I bend my mind
to pain, I can feel it; as can
every woman who wakes up to the sadness and
pain that is all around her.
Women suffer, babies suffer too, pain of
all kinds- "for their own good". No
one's good, not really... hardly ever,
and that is just so sad; especially
when women think there is no other way;
and they are too afraid and
defensive to learn another way (the ancient
way). This is a deadly sad
peril... death it is to spirit and soul to be
forever restrained by drugs
and monitor straps; to be kept captive...
naked, and terribly observed- even
raped and mutilated, but patted on the
inner thigh and told in leering,
sardonic tones that "at least you have a
healthy baby" and to just go to
bed. (Take these, dear, to help you sleep.
We'll watch the baby for you.)
Mothers are left to nurse their wounds
alone, and when confronted with the
big mouths and hot tempers of natural
childbirth advocates, women blanch;
fall silent, then attack- lash out in
rage and pain, assailed at the very
senses of the idea of needless
suffering, or of questioning what their
doctors say. (Why, whole universes
would collapse as massive paradigm shifts
are made.)
Yes there is
pain. Terrific, untouchable pain- and at one time, I would sit
and lash out
at the keyboard, recording my pain and rage at all the pain in
the world of
birth... I would write soulful, deep battle cries, and throw
white fire
into the minds of the hearing. The fire would rage on... and I
would be
spent, until more fire came- then quiet would come again... not
bipolarism
so much as a rest, then a reheating. And while this had it's time
and place
in my path, I feel a shifting away from relinquishing of internal
flame-
because...
No matter what happens around me, I can still be joyful. I
can work my
hardest for birth- for my site- and while the work is hard, and
the stories
often sad, I can feel great joy inside, and know sorrow of
birth will not
consume me completely. I know that women one bus ride away
from me are
having needless cesarean sections. They are there, I can feel
them. A few
years ago, the thought of them made my head spin and my heart
break. Now...
I will write. I will do my site- I will do what I can to get
word and truth
out- and remain happy, because my core is my family, and my
family is with
me and I am caring for them well. This is the recipe for a
lifetime of
living... not years of anguish and torment, what good is a
birth activist
with nothing left to give, eaten up by her own pain at the
world's cruel
ways?
One day, gentle birth will be the norm. The days
of now, of this time of
now, will be seen as cruel, stark demonstrations of
a time of great violence
and hatred toward women. This gentle future I
envision clearly... and I will
not help make it happen by living in pain;
more pain than I as mortal woman
can bear. This future will be helped along
by women in joy- in power- in
birth love- in delight at their own
existence, and great pride in their
families, and ways of life. This joyful
woman I am becoming... I will let
the moon help me along...
(The
moon, high with light purpose, is mournful of all sad things that
happen to
women down below; yet she is lofty with delight at her own
smiling, far
away countenance. Happy to dance in perpetual motion with the
Sun she is-
as the constant sway of male and female collide and interact
through
ageless, limitless days. She is sad for the shadowing of beauty...
yet she
is content in herself, to sit high and fair above a land that has
grown so
much shadow. The moon, she smiles- even as human folly increases...
she
hurts for the people, true- but still, she has herself to
love...)
-----
To read the white hot fires of my rage at the
sadness of birth- and my
tasting of birth's final reality- read
Resexualizing Childbirth. It is the
sum of my learning of the ways and
spirit of Birth.
<http://birthlove.com/free/resex_main.html>
NOTE: you are free to forward and
repost this column as desired, as long
as the document is quoted in its
entirety; including provided links and
this
notice.
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<http://www.birthlove.com>
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