Succulence and Sensuality

Over the weekend I was honoured to be part of a women's spirituality workshop on 'Succulence and Sensuality'. It came at just the right time for me, as I travel to transcend the beliefs I have about sexality and sensuality that are no longer serve me. Over the past six months I've had my beliefs about sex throw up in my face numerous times.

It started last year when I tried to read Linda Savage's "Reclaim Goddess Sexuality" as part of my preparation for creating the 'Sex After Birth' issue of Down to Birth. I read the word sensuality and realised that I've never thought of anything in my life as being sensual - least of all myself. I started to question and query how it could be possible that I could be 34 and have never consider life from a sensual point of view, never considered that sex was more than 'sex' that it had a distinct and important sensual element to it. So sensuality entered my life.


Writing the editorial for the issue was hard -because I had to face up to all the things that I'd been hiding from for the past three years ... and then I had to send it to Dave, for him to read it and OK that it went to print. Putting it all down on paper seemed to make it real, gave substance to the issues I had had. There is something to be said for not just putting something down - whether it be writing or saying it, but for having it witnessed by others. My editorial was witnessed by 300 other women who read that issue (and it's about to go to print again!)


About a month or so later, I picked up "Reclaim Goddess Sexuality" again. I got a little further this time and began the exercise on intimacy. Again, like sensuality, I wondered where my beliefs around intimacy had grown up, as I realised that almost all of my relationships in the past, have been light on in terms of intimacy. It came to me the following day. When I was eight I was in a pantomime, my first time on stage in a live theatrical performance. Over the two week period, I developed a close friendship with another boy in the pantomime. He was older than me, had a track record on the stage and helped to ease me through the worst of my stage fright. What started off as friendship, developed into more ... slowly and what I would consider now, quite innocently. Until one day he kissed me. The kiss was overseen and all hell broke loose. What I learnt from the experience was that intimacy was wrong and it was also dangerous - it got you into trouble.


Reflecting back now - all my relationships (with one exception) grew from one night stands or very short periods of 'getting to know you'. I learnt the lesson well at that tender age that intimacy was to be avoided at all costs. Now I find myself at 34 trying to reconnect with intimacy and find all kinds of walls being thrown up.


About a month back, I was invited to a 'Sex Party' ... something that really pushed my boundaries. I couldn't imagine sitting there discussing vibrators, lotions and potions - trying on lingerie. But I agreed to go - saying I would sit at the back and put a paper bag over my head. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've had in years. The manner in which the products were presented made them normal - sex portrayed as pleasure! Afterwards we were discussing with the presenter how we all learn at a very early age that sex is dirty and dangerous. When you add that to beliefs around intimacy you come up with some potent barriers to sex.

In my last kinesiology session we went to work on my libido - what was wrong with me? There was nothing wrong with my hormones or my biology. What was wrong - emotional and intellectual issues that were blocking my libido. Jacqui cleared away the blocks and left me in a state to trascend my beliefs. Yeah right ... easier said than done.


Then came the workshop on the weekend with two ladies that I have been lucky enough to sit in circle with over the past three years, both body based psychotherapists. The workshop on 'succulence and sensuality' incorporated elements of the dance workshop that I attended back in February, invoked the Goddesses Hathor, Innana, Freya, Lillith and Lakshmi and provided much process work. The first part of the workshop was held Friday night, with a break over Saturday and then a full day Sunday.


Saturday we were invited to sit with all the things we didn't like, to look in an acknowledge the parts that were hurting or broken, blocked or hidden. What came up for me, is a hatred of my own body. This stunned me, but by the same token seemed to make quite a lot of sense to. When I began to cut Dylan's breastfeeds back to just a feed before bed last year, I started to stack on the weight. I had real battles with an appetite and metabolism that still ran at a breastfeeding rate, and I put on a lot of weight as a consequence. I've had people assume that I am pregnant -very pregnant, and although I've tried hard not to let it eat away at me, obviously it had.


I realised that if I hated my body - then I wasn't going to consciously or unconsciously treat it with the love, reverance and nurturance that it deserved. I realised that if I considered my body unworthy, then I was actually telling myself that I was unworthy. Neither were the type of self talk that I wanted running in a subterrean stream. Sunday I sat in circle and said all of this - and how I had felt tired and nauseous ... but how in the evening, going out to see live theatre and laughing, I'd felt exhilerated and free. Part of me was going up and part of me was going down.


By the end of the workshop, I felt succulent and I felt sensuous. While there is still many more skins to peel from the onion, I feel as though, for the first time in years that I've had a break through. I can think of sensuality, without sexualising it. I can ponder the beliefs I have held around sex - of sex being about power, of it being wrong, shameful, dirty and dangerous ... and now those beliefs just don't resonnate. They feel like shadows. I understand now that it wasn't having a baby or being a mother that 'destroyed' my sex life. Becoming a mother birthed me as an authentic woman, and sex has remained on hiatus while I have sought out and rebuilt a matrix that conforms with my new beliefs, experiences and world view as a woman.


And I've taken up dancing again ... but not in a class. I've finally burnt onto discs the music I downloaded of Gabrielle Roth's (the 5 Rhythms) and created space to dance in, and an altar of sorts. I've come to understand that I can't 'think' my way out of this, I won't transcend these beliefs mired down in circular thought patterns. The only way I will transcend is to (literally) move through them ... and the only way I know now, is to dance. My body feels alive, tired and sore as this layer of the onion skin is peeled and discarded. The journey continues ....


... But I love my body as I dance, the slow circular movements of my hips, the flowing movements of my arms, the way my head and thoughts quieten and I can just be in the moment. The way my heart quickens, the blood races and my body temperature rises. The freedom the movement lf dance brings with it. And I dance only for me and the Goddess ... and it feels rich and succulent, divine and sensual ... it feels like being truly alive.


Artwork: Sensuality (Lak and Ang) by Louis Parsons - art with soul

Reclaiming Sex After Birth

I was on the phone to one of my closest friends in late 2006. We were talking about sex, and what birthing and becoming mothers had meant to that dimension of our lives. It had been on my mind a lot, and I was starting to seek out the voices and experiences of other women. At the time I was the editor of Down to Birth and Karen ‘dared’ me to do a whole edition around the issue of sex after birth. Never one to back down from an intellectual dare I said ‘yes’.

In first six months of 2007 I spoke to lots of women, but the one most passionate about writing about this issue was my close friend Annie Evett. Not only did she write her own personal experiences but sought out friends and work colleagues in person or via email to collect their experiences. She created spaces in which women felt comfortable and safe to share their experiences with others, opening the dialogue and breaking down the silence taboo around the topic.

In February 2008 the ‘Sex After Birth’ edition was birthed and immediately struck a chord with all who read it. I still get emails now with comments about this issue even though I am not longer editor of Down to Birth.

The issue provided a forum for women to speak honestly and openly about their experiences of sex after having children. They wrote about how good sex could be, and how difficult and painful it could be. They spoke about how sex worked to polarise their relationship, or to strengthen and deepen it. They spoke about the challenges of marrying the sexual and nurturing aspects of themselves. The issues they faced were complicated by emotional and psychological changes in themselves in addition to changes in relationship dynamics with themselves and their partners

Kerri Witt, who is the technical and business whiz behind our eBook project, felt strongly enough about this subject to approach Annie Evett and I after a business brunch to suggest we create an eBook with the articles we had already written. Kerri is yet to have children, but the amount of disinformation and horror stories on the internet disturbed and shocked her – to the point of commenting, ‘I don’t think I want to have kids now.’

When Annie was researching her original article for Down to Birth – she was appalled to discover how the subject was either glossed over or completely omitted from all the popular and best selling parenting and relationship books, even Dr Ruth’s “Guide to Sex”. Creating 'Reclaiming Sex After Birth' is our humble effort to redress that void.

In creating this eBook we are not seeking to fix, lecture or take the moral high ground. This isnot a ‘how to’ eBook. We want to dispell and defuse the deeply embedded belief that women should ‘Just get over themselves and get back on the job’ when it comes to sex - it is far more complex than that. We want women to stop carrying the guilt that it is ‘their fault’ that a couple’s sex life is not like it once was. This is unfair. It is our desire to show that many assumptions around initiating and maintaining a sex life after birth (such as the six week marker) are either erroneous, simplistic or both.

Our intention is to create a resource which is easily and readily accessible, that gathers in one place, a collection of personal experiences and wisdom as a beginning point to reclaim sex
after birth. The women who share their stories here are experts, in the truest sense of the word – wise through experience. We hope that you go on to open dialogue with friends and family
members about sex in this vulnerable period in couples’ lives, after reading this eBook. We also hope all women and men who read this, will understand that where they are currently on their journey, wherever that may be, they are not alone. And that they need not remain stuck there.
That each journey although it is unique,carries elements similar to every other journey. It is our sincerest wish that this strikes a chord with everyone who reads it - just as that original edition
of Down to Birth did.

'Reclaiming Sex After Birth' is due for birthing July 1st and will be available exclusively here.

Story telling

This is my 200th post! Pretty exciting stuff. I've decided to revisit, as part of a new eBook project on reclaiming sex after birth, my Summer editorial from Down to Birth. Happy two hundred blog posts to me and may the light continue to shine the path less travelled ....

Story telling is as old as antiquity, as old as both written and spoken language. I believe, it is one of the building blocks of what makes us quintessentially human. At the Goddess conference last year, I literally took to heart the charge given to us, to go out, each of us and tell our stories as women. This seemed to be a truly divine and special charge. I was a bit slow to realise that this really isn’t such a new thing for me.

I belonged for four years, to a community of women who regularly, boldly, honestly and bravely shared their stories as women. Many women from this community are still close and special friends. I also edited for three years a magazine that is unique for regularly printing homebirth stories, in a climate that projects and promotes birth as a fearful and dangerous medical event. It shouldn’t have seemed such an important task to ‘go out and share my story’ – but it was, it was my invitation to leave the world in which I felt safe and comfortable and to embark on a journey as a writer.

Julia Cameron, author of ‘The Artist’s Way’ says that sharing truth is like shining the light into the darkness. I have discovered that not everyone wants you, much less applauds your efforts, to shine the light of truth - not everyone wants you to tell your story.

It’s tough because those closest to us, their stories are intimately entwined with our own and you can’t help but share parts of their stories when you tell your own. It is inevitable that you will hold up a mirror to those around you when you share your story – what they see is their reflection. Often what people do is project what they see back onto you, and this is where I believe we become unstuck. When sometime strikes a chord in us, or we feel challenged, wounded or hut, we need to look into ourselves to see what it is, rather than seek to lash out. I’ve been there, and I have done it. Now I pause before I react to try and understand what it is in ME, not in THEM that I'm interacting with.

I understand now why we have created mythology, fables and fairy tales. In fiction there is a safety to share wisdom and insights without upsetting others. I also appreciate why it is so damn difficult to share our stories as women and why it essential, despite the opposition, that we must tell our stories. My fiction is steeped in my own life fiction – there is a little or a lot of me, my life, my trials and tribulations in everything that I write. Those close to me will see whatis fiction, what is fantasy and what is the place between.

There is a safety in writing fiction to explore the places less traveled, and as my friend Catherine pointed out, there is also a safety in reading fiction, to explore both the dark and light places. As writers, when we shine our light, we have no idea how far that small beam will shine or just what it will light on it's way.

(Revised extract from The Down to Birth Summer editorial ‘Sex After Birth)

Change

Change

is never a loss -

It is change only

-Vernon Howard -

The Mysic Path to Cosmic Power

I'm currently in a state of transition between the old and the new. As I wrote here between The New Year and the Chinese New Year I am taking stock, reviewing, assessing, clearing, finishing and letting go.

In this image from Remedios Varo the woman is leaving her psychoanalyst and dumping baggage into a well as she moves on. For me its difficult at the moment to actually dump the baggage, because I am still working on my final edition of Down to Birth. In essence I'm still carting the baggage.

While I am still caught in the HMA machine its easy for me to become bitter and angry - because I desperately want to move out and move on, but my personal integrity (thanks Annie for pointing this out to me this afternoon) wont allow me to just dump my stuff down the well and move on - however much I truly desire to do so. I need to finish this last edition, I need to honour the work and effort that others have put in, and I need to end this chapter of my life without regret or the haunting of my conscience. I want to leave being remember for all the right reasons. This is the legacy I deserve to bequeath myself.

But the problem is I keep getting caught - like a persnicketty crumb in the back of the throat. I try and cough to move it, I take a long slow drink, I stick my tongue down the back in some weird and completely wong movement ... but it remains stuck. I think of all the things that are difficult at the moment in relation to finishing the magazine, but without the energy nor the passion, I keep get stuck. Rather than resolving to find a new and creative solution to a problem layout, an article that requires rewriting, photos that need to be resent or artists that dont return my emails, I just turn the computer off, walk away and pretend that it doesn't exist. Sigh ... I need to swallow my pride and accept the challenge head on ... reminding myself all the time that I can do this ... that the time for dropping the bundle down the well is nigh.

The other aspect that I continue to struggle with is to not demonise what (which also includes who) I am moving from. I need to remind myself that I made the choices to do what I did in the past three and a bit years, I choose to be the martyr and it was not anyone else's doing. While there are things about the last three years that are difficult to accept (there is that word again) there have been many wonderful and positive aspects to everything I have done in the past three years. While I may have been a shadow artist during my time as Editor and Layout Designer for Down to Birth - it helped me to keep in touch with the artist within me, until it was strong and confident to emerge from the shadows.

It seems that while I'm transiting its easier to see things with a negative pall cast on it. Perhaps its a survival mechanism that I have created to help me move on from things. I wrote the other day that I am not a bridge burner but I think I lied - while I dont tend to burn bridges with people, I tend to burn bridges in other domains - even if its only within my head. It's something to be mindful of and to give myself permission for these thoughts and feelings to pass through me, rather morphing them into a cord in which to bind myself with. So my challenge is to just accept this change that is occuring both within and around me, to understand and honour the truth as it is, was and will be, and finally, to allow myself to move forward with grace and conviction - the grace bit being the hardest of course!

What have you recently changed in your life? What presented the greatest challenge for you in accepting and being a positive part of this change?

Thursday 13: Thirteen Things to be Grateful for in 2007 [1]

As the year slowly but surely winds down to the end of the calendar year, its time to look back and reflect on the year that was. This year, influenced by a conversation had around Genevieve's kitchen table last year, I intend to reflect back on what there is to be grateful for in 2007. As I've been cooking dinner I've realised that I have 'things/events/stuff' to be grateful for but also a number of people to be grateful for.

1. Finding FlyLady changed the way in which I was able to think of my home, the housework and my place in it. During January and for part of February I ranged through our old house, finally unpacking boxes that were near to two years old. I discovered that clutter, in all its shapes and forms sucks the light from your home. While I regularly fall off the FlyLady bandwagon - its finally a 'home' to come back to when I want to begin getting on top of a run away housework. To date, its the only system which has worked for me. The words 'FlyLady' and 'swish and swipe' are bandied about our home now, as if they were always part of our vernacular.

2. Buying our first home was a pipe dream that we never thought possible. With Dave's new job, beginning August 2005 we were finally able to start saving money and in Feburary (during Mercury retrograde that warns strongly against big purchases) we walked into our dream home, put a contract on it and a few hours later were told the house was ours!! It was only after the whirlwind buying period that we realised the house had more than adequately met the check list of 'must haves' ... it also had a pool, a cubby house, an aviary. It was also in a quiet street in the middle of a lovely leafy suburb, close to the motorway - but far enough away to not have the noise or pollution, close to school, the university is just up the road ... in March we moved in and despite some serious issues with the pool, which are only just resolving now, we feel incredibly blessed to be here! ... oh and our old housemate Phil (aka Uncle Phil) was able to move with us, so our 'family' remained intact despite the move.

3. The Bunya Mountains ended up being our only holiday this year. It wasn't the we planned not to have holidays this year, but I guess buying a house sapped up any spare money that was lying around and with Dave's change in jobs there were no more paid for jaunts to Cairns that we'd been able to enjoy in years past. The four days there were not long enough - we bush walked, stoked the fire, bird watched, walked some more and for me, I mediated, I journalled in a gushing purge that helped to clear my head and see my way clear for what was to come. I understood that there was a deep need in me to reconnect my mind, body and soul. I realised that I needed to discover new ways to indulge in my absolute need for freedom - walking and writing immediately came to mind and over the course of the next few months this took form.

4. The epiphany that I could just write for a living/career occured on the solar eclipse in September. This was on the back of six months of intermittent blogging and a growing sense of confidence in my writing, plus a desire to begin to voice, through writing, my ideas and opinions. Not to mention the insights that I had during our stay in the mountains. It didn't come in a blinding flash, it was just a simple dawning of something that I've known I wanted to do all of my adult and teenage life. It was incredibly freeing - I no longer had to worry about what to do in 2008 - study, a job, another baby? I would simply write and whatever is meant to happen as a flow on from that will be.

5. The birth of my neice Kira Lee Treggae bought up more baggage than I thought was possible. I realised that the anger I had in regards to my sister's birth choices and the innate sense of being a crusader for my unborn neice or nephew (though I was certain that she was indeed a girl the entire time!) was born from a need in me, that was being projected outwards. I understood that the anger was mine and was not with my sister's birth choices, but the choices that were erroneously made in regards to my birth. Itwas the first step in what has been a long journey this year ... culminating in writing this article

6. Completing The Artist Way changed the way in which I relate to my creativity and was the most powerful, profound and life altering personal development that I have ever done. Over the 12 week process I all but gave up drinking, I came to recognise my bad habits and destructive patterns and most of all, I came to realise that I am a work-a-holic and this stands in my way of enjoying my creativity, my family - really just living my life to the fullest. I understood that I seek validation of myself from those around me - from outside of me, and understood for the first time, that I need to find validation from within ... which I'm now working on. I'm grateful to understand now, that I am cranky and unhappy when I dont practise my creativity and that time out, alone with my inner Artist is not a luxury but a necessity.

7. Beginning a Goddess journey started with the first step of throwing caution and excuses to the wind and signing up to go the the Goddess Conference, that was held on the Gold Coast. I was gifted two amazing pieces of wisdom which have finally transformed the way in which I can view my entry into this world and to begin the process of being at peace with it. The singing, the ritual, the wisdom, the being with over 90 like minded women and spending time with two special women made this the highlight of my year. It was also the first time I had been away from Dylan for the night .... which was a huge step on a different path. The Goddess journey is a path that I intend to pursue with purpose next year as I feel this is finally the 'right time' after a few years to embark on the next stage.

8. Completing my first ever National Novel Writing Competition now seems like a blur of a dream. Across November I wrote 50,300 words to fall over the finish line on the final morning of the competition, having had the week from hell as the final week of writing. I created some amazing characters and got to pursue ideas, and philosophies, quirks of human nature that I feel is a blessing. Although no where near finished 'Finding Aphrodite' will be finished and then given a major overhaul next year. The characters continue to wander around in my head, demanding that I find time to put them down into text. I learnt from doing NaNoWriMo that I can indeed committ to something and finish it, I am able to write an extended piece of work, I am able to surrender control and allow the characters to create their story and I am able to balance everything in my life so that writing can happen. It also allowed me to understand for the first time that my volunteer work encroached on too much of my life and I had allowed it to happen.

9. Down to Birth allowed me to be a conduit for birthing and parenting wisdom for the third year, but this year I really struggled. Moving house and being without both computer and then internet afterwards got the magazine year of to a really slow start, and the momentum never really picked up. As my interest increased in pursuing my own creative outlets, mainly writing, I came to resent the time that Down to Birth took up. In the final week of November I understood that it no longer functioned in a positive way in my life and I made the tough, and heart wrenching decision to give up editorship of the magazine in the new year. It felt as though I had amputated a limb and had been dropped by the great love of my life. But I'm moving on and I'm grateful for the opportunities that have been made available to me through my work and time with the magazine - the networks I have become part of, the wisdom and stories that have been shared with me, the opportunity to keep my hand in writing to the point where I felt free and confident enough to begin writing extended editorials.

10. The Australian Homebirth Conference took me to Sydney for four days and three nights at the beginning of November. It meant being away from Dylan for all that time, which was something that was huge for me. Although I came away from the conference deflated, tired and quite raggered feeling, it was another sign post that I am grateful of that my time as an active member of the homebirth community and lobby was coming to an end.

11. My Dad's visit in October to coincide with Indie was a short but incredibly heartening experience for all of us. After dinner on the first evening, and being encouraged to pour myself a small wine, Dad put forward a toast to Dave and I to congratulate us on the parenting decisions we had made, and stuck to - that he could see the effort and sacrifice we'd made shining through Dylan. It bought tears to my eyes to have this acknowledged, as when you tread the path less travelled the tendency for others is to deride, to question, to challenge and to be less than supportive. We've had our fair share of that over the last four years, beginnging with the decision to birth at home, then issues with cosleeping, full term breastfeeding and the choice not to vaccinate which has meant that one of Dave's sisters has chosen not to visit us for the entire length of Dylan's life. It just goes to show how powerful words really are.

12. Rites of passage continued throughout this year to dominate my thoughts. The blessingways that I have been able to be part of this year has continued to concrete my faith and belief in how important rites of passage are for women in our society. In February, under the big frangipani tree we gathered to celebrate Anna's impending birth and to name her 'Woman Giving Birth' and to draw mandalas for her to put on her wall. A few weeks later it was Genevieve's turn in an incredibly intimate and moving afternoon with a few of her closest woman friends and family members. Lastly this year, was Nicole's dusk blessingway, with a roaring fire, dressing callico dolls and angelic singing. Secondary to this, but not necessarily second in importance was reading Naomi Wolf's "Promiscuities" which spoke, among many topics, sex as a rite of passage. This ignited my desire to research and write the "Blood Sister Project" idea that I first had in 2006 having completed my Womens' Rites of Passage course. I am grateful that synchronicity keeps this idea alive, and expanding.

13. The Circle of the Sun was begun this year by my friends Alex and Mercedes to travel through the zodiac and explore our creativity. This has had profound implications not just for my soul journey this year, in more episodes of synchronicity, but for my creativity journey. My desk is surrounded with my Circle of the Sun projects - a collage of me dancing as a child in my jeanie outfit, my dark and brooding mandala, my ceramic leaf bowl and fnally the red tissue paper covered mask. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to be part of this throughout the second half of 2007, to have sat in circle with women in an arena not dominated by birth, to have shared and shared in wisdom, to have journeyed within and beyond myself.

... and now the 13 people who shaped my life in 2008. I give thanks and appreciation to you all.

Dave, who despite all my crazy and often self centred idiosyncracies remains calm, focused and loving ... and with me after five years. His support in my decision to write has been unwavering and his patience saintly, as I continue to unravel and heal my life, so I can be whole, bold and authentic. I'm ever so grateful that he's my companion on this journey ... a lesser man would have given up by now.

Dylan continues to inform, educate, push my boundaries and buttons, love me unconditionally and talk non stop! Without him, I would never have known it possible to talk non stop about Spiro the Dragon for more than half an hour, when he himself knows nothing of Spiro! His passion for life, and all that it holds reminds me daily that this needs to be my credo as well.

Phil who is the fourth member of our family, is the glue that holds my sanity together when he's home. The five minutes he takes out of an evening to read a book to Dylan, play lego, or unwhingingly to do the dishes for the umpteenth night in row or takes the washing off the line without being asked - really makes a difference in my life. And boy can this fella cook ... congratulations to Amy for snaring him!

Kirsten has been a friend for quite a few years now, but taking on the reins of HMA convenorship bought her more intimately into my life. Her ethos of 'no martyrs welcome here' really made me look hard at my life, especially the time and effort put into to HMA. When I was busy with the magazine, she took Dylan into her home and allowed me to work from a cafe down the road. Her gentle nature, her passionate parenting and her wicked sense of humour make her addictive to be around and leaving is often an hour long ritual. She loved and gave me her unconditional support when I decided that I had to walk away from HMA. And that to date has been her greatest gift to me.

Anna this year indoctrinated me into 'the sisterhood'. No that's not some sort of secret society - though it may as well be for me. She allowed me to experience the joy and closeness of a sister like figure in my life - which has meant more to me, than words will ever express. Over the year she's had Dylan so I could work or get to an appointment. She's given me the opportunity over and over again to practise my gifts of generosity. And I've had the chance to be an honorary aunty and enjoy seeing Saskia's face light up when she sees me (I should also mention here that Kirsten's son Lucien also does the same - even to crawl into my lap for a cuddle which is truly special!)

Nickole inspires me to be intensely creative, deeply woman, to not just survive but to shine. At her blessingway a few weeks ago, we were able to hold each other and have a good cry. Knowing Nickole this year, but also for the past few years, has taught me that if I look inside me and I dont like what I see, then I have the strength and resolve to change it. Nickole's nurturing of my talent has been cornerstone for my development as a writer .. through her example of 'giving it a go' I decided that I could also 'give my art a go'.

Annie was a partner in crime for yet another year. She, without a sensible word, urged me to abandon all sense of decorum and scream like a woman possessed when we saw Adam Hills on stage in the Spicks and Speck-tacular (just as an example of how one woman can be your partner in crime) She supported me passionately and without question when I chose to walk the writers path, introducing me to her friends as 'a writer'. We took a number of day trips away together, I went to the Ipswich Train Museum for the first time, she baby sat so I could see The Chaser boys, made me innumerable cups of Rooibos tea and always had a reserve of new YouTube clips to share. Here's to more adventures in 2008 ... and was always, always pushing and challenging me to be a more honest and authentic woman in all that I do and say!

Danae exploded into my life like the best possible evocative perfume, that boldy and beautifully enters a room. We met firstly on Mystic Medusa's blog, then through Dan's blog when she put the call out for someone to do The Artist Way we were meshed together on the rollecoaster ride that is TAW. Her honesty, her rawness, her wild woman passionate intensity, her generosity in sharing her wisdom and the uniqueness of her views have helped to shape not just my writing, but the way in which my view on the world, on mothering, on being a woman is evolving. Dan allowed me to see me desire to keep digging for the truth - and to hold that in high esteem. And she told me that I have an altar of initiation in my birth chart ... which put to rest the desire I've always had to find something 'special' in my chart!

Catherine is the second of my Mystic Medusa blog mates who crept into my life, via email. I rediscovered the thrill of getting email and corresponding late at night - a fellow procrastinator. her wry wit and well of knowledge (or ability to get said knowledge) is awe inspiring. It's been a long time since I've had a confidante in bitchdom - and Catherine stepped up to the job with creative aplomb! My inbox quite simply will never be the same again. And was she was able, on ridiculously short notice to share in the experience of The Chaser live at the Tivoli.

Jacqui and I sat next to each other on the first morning of the Goddess conference, and we struck up an easy conversation, in amongst my mess of nerves. I later discovered that she was a midwife and a kinesiologist. Her wisdom has helped on at least two occassions now to put my life into perspective and that's not when I'm lying on her table, having my energy rebalanced. Meeting her opened new and powerful opporunities for me to heal myself and after only a few visits I'm reaping the rewards.

Scott sms-ed me one afternoon as I was pulling into a service station to fill up with petrol. A single lined text message after 14 years of silence. He was my first boyfriend back in 1991. I had searched for him on and off for years. Excitedly in 2003 I found him registered on a school friends website but got no reply. After a few days of intense text messaging, I could finally put aside the restlessness I had always had about him - he is now married with two primary school aged sons. It's crazy how the universe works. It also got me thinking again about sex as a rite of passage - his appearance back in my life coincided with me finishing 'Promiscuities'.

Kate is my mother-in-law, though more affectionately known as Mum2. This year she's made a number of trips to Brisbane to be with us, and most especially in November to care for Dylan while I was away in Sydney. I'm always grateful for the fact that she really understands what its like to parent in isolation from your family, the love, support and down time they can provide for you as parents. With this year being a tough one for my Mum and I, I really appreciated and valued the time Kate spent with us this year and for the many long hours of conversations about everything and anything.

Karen is my soul sister, she's also a very old friend of Annie's (thus how Annie and I know each other). No year goes by without Karen's input into shaping and making sense of my life. Though we haven't had the opportunity to hang out in person this year, nor to indulge in really long and regular phone calls, I know that she's always there for me. No list is complete without her!

I have many other beautiful men and women in my life, including my family of birth, who have contributed in small powerful ways to my life over the last year ... and I honour you also, and give my thanks for your blessings, gifts and opportunities. 2007 has been a transformative year for me and on this foundation I look forward to exploring and adventuring confidently into 2008.

Nurturing

When my partner Dave found out that the theme for this issue (Winter 2006) was ‘nurturing the nurturer’, his immediate response, with raised questioning eyebrows was, ‘Well what will you write about?’

Nurture is defined officially as ‘nourish, rear, foster, train and educate’. Implicit in each of those actions is love and support, which to me is really what is at the core of nurturing

I admit that I am reluctant to accept help and to allow others to nurture me. However there have been two rare exceptions in the past three years where I have readily, voraciously and easily accepted the nurturing offered by others - though it’s taken until now to realise that it was a form of nurturing.This nurturing was the knowledge, infomation and wisdom offered to and shared with me by my midwife and by the women at the HMA Brisbane support group.

I know that not everyone places such a high value on infomation, knowledge and wisdom, but for me they are essential. I heard about practises and beliefs regarding birth and mothering, that I had never before been exposed to, at the HMA Brisbane support group (which I religiously attended throughout my pregnancy and into the early months of mothering). The openness and honesty of the women at each meeting allowed me to gain much needed confidence in the ability of my body to birth with the ease and grace which nature intended. It also reinforced to me time and time again - that choosing homebirth was the best decision that we could have made, to lovingly, peacefully and safely bring our child into the world.

The birth stories and insights into the birthing process that were shared over the five months, at support group, nourished me during my fast and furious labour. Without the wisdom that bubbled to the surface in the first hours of my labour - I probably would have been terrified that I could not cope, such was the intensity and speed with which my surges unfolded. I intuited, from birth stories that I had heard, that I was obviously going to have a fast birth and I was going to cope.

In addition to sharing her midwive’s/mother’s/woman’s wisdom and experience with me during my pregnancy, my midwife empowered me to believe in myself - perhaps the most profound and influential of all the nurturing that has been offered to me to date. It is a gift that I am truly grateful for. She fostered and nourished me through my transition from maidenhood and into motherhood very simply, by reassuring me that I had everything inside of me that I needed to birth and mother well. She validated and encouraged me to tap into my intuition. Combined with the trust I had in myself, this empowered me to tackle the challenges of mothering head on once I had birthed Dylan. I also knew that she was only a telephone call away should we not fare well as new parents.....

...On the following pages are articles that I hope provide food for thought, practical ideas or spark happy memories. Please share your magazine around to pregnant friends, family and neighbours, and in doing so spreading the important nurturing wisdom that we have collected here. I hope that the many other women, who like me, have resisted the gifts of nurturing offered by friends and family, will acknowledge the importance of saying ‘yes’ to nurturing. It is so important for us, as mothers and women, to acknowledge that we need to love and nurture ourselves, so we can love and nurture our families.

Have a nurturing and nourishing Winter … see you in Spring!

- July 2006

An extract from my editorial in the 'Nurturing the Nurturer' issue. Artwork is by DTB's resident artist, and my beautiful and inspiring friend Nickole Webb. It was the first illustrated cover DTB had had in many years. Winter 2006 is one of our best selling magazines ever!

Conscious Parenting

Parenting is an intense and often unforgiving journey, especially when we choose to traverse a path less traveled. When we opt to do things differently we expose ourselves for unwarranted and definitely unwanted criticism. Last year Sixty Minutes aired a segment on ‘attachment parenting’ and in true ‘newstainment’ fashion, went for the sensationalised jugular. Those who saw it were truly appalled and outraged. I remember facilitating support group the morning after. There was a definite need for many women to purge and debrief as a consequence. The saddest thing for me about the whole sordid episode, was that the segment gave unsupportive friends, family and work colleagues, and indeed complete strangers in some cases, the perceived right to attack and condemn attachment parenters.

Over time I have resisted the label of ‘attachment parenting.’ It has felt confining rather than freeing, and I have come to resent the undercurrent of guilt that comes with it if you don’t follow every philosophy implicitly. Instead I have tended to identify with ‘conscious parenting’. For me conscious parenting has at its heart the philosophies of attachment parenting, but is flexible in the application of those philosphies so as to meet the needs of each individual family unit. When you parent consciously with your heart, your instincts and your children as your guide, you are liberated from the potentially damaging and limiting effects of dogma; you do what is right for you, your baby/children and your family.

When I was pregnant I read ‘The Continuum Concept’ and it turned the instinctive light bulb on in my head. Pregnancy had already become an epic journey from one set of beliefs into another, and Jean Liedloff’s seminal book was an important port of call on this journey. It seemed so common sense to want to hold your baby close, to breastfeed and to do so when the baby wanted it. I was however, challenged by the idea of having a baby in bed with us and of constantly carrying a baby around - such were my Western separatist beliefs on parenting at the time. I was willing to be open to the ideas though. I read and surfed the internet. I watched and I listened to the women at the HMA support group. My ideas began to change in regards to cosleeping and baby carrying. These experiences helped me to put the Continuum Concept into a format that I could relate to, something real, tangible and practical.

Dave and I decided before Dylan’s birth that we intended to baby carry, co-sleep, breastfeed, use cloth nappies and allow our baby to have a gentle and easy assimilation into life outside of the womb through a lotus birth and a baby moon. We knew that not all babies enjoyed co-sleeping (our midwife’s second son had been one of these) that there were exceptions to every rule. We also decided that we would follow our baby’s lead as to what he or she wanted, adjusting our parenting practices accordingly. We felt that trying to force our baby/child into an attachment parenting box and ‘making them fit it’ wasn’t that much different to forcing a baby/child into a mainstream parenting box. One size does not fit all!

Our first lesson in parenting consciously came at 36 hours. Dylan was crying and continued to cry. I was on the phone to Dylan’s Goddess mother, giving her our birth story. He didn’t want the breast and I was glad of that (my nipples were already bruised, blistered and grazed) Dave came and took him off me, to give me a chance to finish my story of Dylan’s birth – who knew when there would be another chance to share it so newly and vividly. Half an hour later I came out to a very quiet lounge room. Lying on the floor, happily kicking and flicking his arms around, was Dylan. He simply didn’t want to be held any more, he wanted his own space. This was a recurrent theme throughout his early months of babyhood. If we held him for too long, or if he was restrained in anyway for too long he would first get agitated, then cranky and then it was a torrent of unhappiness.

We were grateful for the early lesson. Had we been completely rigid in our beliefs about what was best, we may have spent weeks, or even months with our son in a sling, walking the halls with a screaming baby – just because we had been told that was best. My midwife agreed that it was counter intuitive for a small baby to want that. We’ve grown to understand, that Dylan is his own person. Even as a small baby he knew what was best for him. He was, and continues to be, the expert of his body, his emotions, his thoughts and his sovereignty. As parents its is not our job to force our ideals onto him, we are there to love, nurture, guide and support him on his journey.

Following Dylan’s needs as our guide, we decided to teach him baby sign language. It was an instinctive choice. We felt being able to communicate would be important to him. It has always seemed to me a terrible irony that toddlers are able to understand language long before they have the physical capacity to make themselves heard and understood. When we spoke to one friend about our desire to teach Dylan sign language she asked us, ‘How does it fit with the Continuum Concept?’ Both Dave and I were taken aback. We hadn’t seen the book as a blue print on exactly how to raise a child in a modern society, but a good basic philosophy from which to begin a thoughtful and respectful parenting journey. We thought it would work for our family and our situation, and that was all that really mattered.

Our punt paid off. We had a unique window into the important, the fascinating and the exciting aspects of the world according to our ‘Goobah’. It was a world full of hats, balloons, dogs and bikes .., buses, planes, biscuits and the list went on. Once Dylan could walk and sign, around his first birthday the terrible tantrums and general unhappiness he had been experiencing previously dis-appeared; he could get wherever he wanted under his own steam finally and he was able to communicate in a fairly coherent fashion. Isn’t this about what parenting is all about, to create a safe, supported and happy space for a child to be in?

The one size fits all approach to parenting, seems to be the standard official approach from our Government. While Mr Costello wants us to even out the negative population growth, he’s certainly not interested in the logistics of raising kind, compassionate, respectful, responsible and empathetic individuals. It’s very easy for our Treasurer to encourage Australian families to have ‘one for the country’, to tack on $4000 (which as homebirthers, brings us back to zero once we’ve paid our birthing bills!) as a baby bonus and then promise expansions in childcare without really ‘getting it’. He is apparently divorced from the turmoil in many families, when women are needed at home by their children, when childcare just doesn’t salve the wound of separation or financial distress. What happens if childcare, even with a caring and empathetic family daycare provider is not the right option for your child – that they want to be with you! I know full well that Dylan would not have coped, let alone thrived in any sort of childcare arrangement. He needs to be with me, his Mum, and while I wrestle with that at times, I know that won’t always be the case.

Over the years of working with children and teenagers, I’ve seen a definite trend towards a trade off of ‘rights and responsibilities.’ Both primary school and high school children will passionately vocalise their ‘rights’ to certain things, but fail to acknowledge, let alone accept, that with these rights come responsibilities. This applies to us as parents. While we all believe that we have the ‘right’ to children, the growing majority of parents no longer believe that the responsibility of raising their children is theirs. Instead they are handing over this responsibility to ‘professionals’ and for profit organisation. Perhaps this is a hangover effect of handing over the responsibility of birthing to a ‘professional’ rather than accepting the responsibility of birthing our babies ourselves?

If we want to raise children who are balanced in their relation-ships with rights and responsibilities we have to walk our talk – we have to show our children that we have accepted the responsbility to care and nuture them through their formative years, as part and parcel of exercising our rights to become parents. And this needs to be supported as a politic-al and social imperative by all levels of Govern-ment.'

The following articles are not an ex-haustive exploration of the issues confronting parents who wish to parent consciously, or a hard and fast ‘how to’. They are instead an interesting starting point to explore further. There are several articles that also explore the darker side of parenting; when a baby does not sleep, you are forced to parent in isolation or have a sick child.
Conscious parenting is not the easy road. It is often hard work, as it demands a redrawing of our personal boundaries. It also requires previously untested reserves of physical and emotional stamina. I believe though that the rewards in the long term far out weigh the perceived short term hardships. Yes! It is the road less traveled but I swear it ensures a constant challenge to be present, empathetic, imperfect and true to yourself. Who could argue that as a better role model for our children?

Published as the Editorial of Down to Births 2007 Winter edition

Photo: Peter and Sabriyya Kennedy (my little brother and goddess daughter) - taken by Karen van Harskamp (my soul sister). She also took the photo used on my profile.