Birth has taught me some of my greatest lessons in life. My others, not surprisingly, have been learned through love and parenting. But today, today I want to talk about birth.
Since I started birth work in 2002, I have come to view all naturally occurring things in the world through the eyes of birth. I look at butterflies and think of birth, I look at trees and think of birth. Everything has a beginning, and all beginnings are a birth. Something I figured out almost instantly doing birth work is that we live the way we are born. And why wouldn’t we? Our entrance into this world is the first imprint on our consciousness. As hokey as it may sound, we spend the entire rest of our lives trying to recreate this first imprint in some way or another.
Because I am adopted, I didn’t know anything about my own birth until a little over 5 years ago. Then I found out that my biological mother had to push a long time with me and I just wouldn’t be born. Then I decided to come and came all in one fell swoop, so quickly that the doctor almost didn’t catch me. Now, ask anyone who knows me well and you’ll find out I’m eternally late, and I am incapable of making a quiet entrance. I always arrive with a gust of energy surrounding me. Likewise, I go through life in much the same way. I procrastinate to the point of it being scary, then at the last minute, I frenzy it done.
Some things about birth simply cannot be changed. Some babies will make whatever entrance they are going to make, we cannot control that in any way (nor should we want to). But why on earth do we feel the need to control so much about welcoming a tiny soul into our lives? When did birth become so unnatural that we feel the need to rush into the gloved hands of the doctor and the monotonous sound of the machines that go beep at the first sign of a contraction?
We must protect birth. Because we live how we are born. Because peace on birth begins with birth. Because babies are incapable of protecting themselves. Because it’s time we took our power back. Because birth is the most powerful healer in our realm. Because She-Ra woman power really does exist. But mostly…
Because birth is sacred…
