Venus of Willendorf carving

Look what was waiting under the tree for me from my lovely husband this holiday season!
Isn't she lovely? I was so happy to get her. I have quite a collection of birth/pregnancy/mother related art now and I've been prompted to start a new blog specifically for sharing pictures of birth art. I am all excited to get going on it, but need to pace myself as I am not sure I have time to keep up with another blog, even a mainly pictures one. I'll keep you posted!

The Sacred Path Companion

For Christmas I bought my mom the book The Sacred Path Companion. After she finished reading it she lent it to me and I finished reading it yesterday. This is a book of ideas about walking the labyrinth "to heal and transform." It was interesting overall and I want to try the exercise she suggests about working with perfectionism (and maybe the one about "critical voices" too). For perfectionism, she suggests an "amplification" technique in which first you walk the labyrinth tempting yourself to stray outside of the path, but not actually doing so--experimenting with balance, etc. so you almost leave the path. Then, she suggests walking it again though this time walking all over it randomly without following the path. This is a dramatic concept for me to consider since I would never consider stepping out of the path. Even though the boundary is just a line of stones, it feels discreet to me--like it cannot be stepped over/breached. It would almost seem like a violation of the spirit of the place to me. But...the idea is an intriguing one. She makes the point several times that there is no one right way to walk a labyrinth.

This book is primarily focused on the Medieval Eleven Circuit Labyrinth--the type that is found on the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France (built around 1200) and on the floor of Grace Cathedral (an Episcopal church in San Francisco). My mom's labyrinth is an older, simpler design labyrinth called a Cretan (or Classical) Seven Circuit Labyrinth.

Knitted Farmyard!

If you recall, in November I posted about the winter issue of Living Crafts magazine and the glorious knitted farm playmat depicted therein. I also referenced the crafting skills of my lovely and talented mother (who is a capital K, Knitter). I confess to thinking the knitted farmyard was a little out of her range of talent, but lo and behold, what was waiting for my boys on Christmas morning?! This lovely item of beauty and joy forever!
Yes, knitted! And, knitted in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas only. Told you she was a Knitter! (In a sidenote testimony to my mom's powers of Knitting, her warmly knitted socks cured me of the chillblains I used to get on my toes each winter.)

Here are some more detail pix. The garden has little felted carrots! And yes, that is Jabba the Hutt frolicking there in the field...
Speaking of crafts and my talented mama, registrations for Shannondale Craft Camp are in full swing. We think this will be the best year ever!

I know I haven't posted about books recently, but I have been reading a lot and have a pile of to-blog-about reads. However, I also have a baby with the stomach flu and thus not much time for posts requiring thinking/analysis.

Labyrinths & Birth Art

Several years ago my mom and I attended a session about labyrinths at the Speaking of Women's Health conference in Columbia. They have a small labyrinth on the grounds of Boone Hospital. Labyrinths are not mazes. There is only one path to the center and the same path back out again (though the route is circuitous). They can be used a walking meditation, a spiritual pilgrimage, a metaphor for life, prayer walks, healing, balance, etc. There are several historic churches with labyrinths on their floors and apparently there is a move to include them on the grounds of hospitals as a tool for healing and renewal. More about labyrinths here and an example of one of the many books on the subject here.

This summer my mom built a labyrinth on their property (in a dry pond bed, which is the perfect recessed nook for a labyrinth--it has a bank around it that separates it from the rest of their place). Special people in her life have contributed rocks for it and she adds them to the "inner circle." This picture was taken shortly after she completed it and it has changed somewhat since then--different bench, etc. Anyway, she has really created something special and it has a palpable sacred energy there. It is also the most effective walking meditation tool I've experienced. Anyway, I hadn't walked it in a while because I'm always "too busy" to take a few moments to do so. Over the Christmas holiday "break" in normal routines, I was able to start taking a daily walk on it again. L made a finger labyrinth using beads and sculpey for my mom for a Christmas present. It turned out so good, I decided to make one for myself!

This picture shows the detail on my little finger labyrinth. It was really fun to make.

All my labyrinth walking and sculpey labyrinth making further inspired me to draw two womb labyrinths. I have long wanted to learn how to draw a labyrinth like this and have found Pam England's LabOrinth concept a really powerful metaphor for the journey of birth. So, my fabulously talented husband figured out how to draw one of that style and then showed me how--he is a much better "visual" learner than me and he just stared and stared at one that Pam drew and then said, "I think it is drawn like this" and drew it--starting with a complicated system of concentric circles bisected by lines in a way that I never would have figured out on my own. My brain doesn't "see" like that. It was cool. I felt like he was a genius to figure it out! :-) After he showed me what to do, I caught on right away and drew this one:









And then, thinking about two pregnant friends of mine and about a song we sang at a blessing way for one of them, I drew this one:

I had SO much fun indulging my creativity a bit that week. I forget how fulfilling it it is make something. I've let a lot of my crafty-energy disappear after having children and sometimes it is so nice to create something pretty that I can hold in my hands. Of course, having children certainly requires the use of creative energy and is also creating "something pretty" to hold in my hands (and hug, and tickle, and snuggle too! What a bonus! ;-), but there is something about just simply making something you like and that you can finish in an hour or so that is just FUN. The thrill of creation AND completion!

The Wise Mom

Earlier this month I got HMN's email newsletter The Wise Mom. My member profile was published it it and a little picture of me and my boys (taken by my mom earlier this year in the same location where we had our wedding photos taken 9 years ago).

I also had a letter to the editor in International Doula this month. This was my 50th publication! (If you include letters to the editor and such.) Anyway, there was a good article in this issue by Lu Hanessian called "Don't Hurry, Be Happy." In it she asked, "Do you think your kids would describe you as a happy person?" She specifies not when you are chatting with your friends, or doing your work, or talking with caregivers or grocery store clerks, "I mean day-to-day, do we behave as happy people around our children?" So, I asked L what he thinks and he said that I'm definitely happy. I then reviewed many other adults and kids that we know asking if he thinks each is happy. Except for 5 of the kids I mentioned, he identified everyone else as happy people.

I wrote more about two helpful handouts from Childbirth Connection on the CfM blog, so I won't repeat myself much here except to say I'm delighted that Childbirth Connection has made available free pdfs of the most excellent Mothering magazine article Cesarean Birth in a Culture of Fear and also a really useful handout by Penny Simkin called Comfort in Labor.

The Mother's Guide to the Meaning of Life

Of course, I received many lovely books as gifts this year which will keep me reading and posting for quite some time to come. I got a short little book called The Mother's Guide to the Meaning of Life which I read Christmas evening in about 30 minutes. I wanted it because the subtitle is "What I've Learned in my Never-Ending Quest to Become a Dalai Mama." Dalai Mama--I love it! Aside from that little touch of genius, I didn't really glean a whole lot from the actual book. Kind of funny with a lot of cute little line illustrations (like of her "Palm Pilot"--the palm of her hand with lots of notes written on it. ;-) I have one of those too!) She talked briefly about questing for perfection--"if you really were a perfect mother, everyone would hate you"--and quoted The Mother Dance author Harriet Lerner regarding perfectionism as the archenemy of mothers. Coincidentally, I also got The Mother Dance for Christmas and later in the evening when I opened it up to skim through I randomly opened to that same quote about perfectionism. Funny, eh?!

I also read Riddle of the Prairie Bride. This was a predictable "history mystery" for preteen girls (I bought it on clearance from American Girl and gave it to my mom to stuff my stocking with). Widowed father of 12 year old Ida Kate sends for a mail order bride. She arrives with her one year old baby and it soon becomes clear that something is amiss. She does not meet her description from her letters, gives inconsistent answers and so forth. Ida Kate investigates, mystery is solved, and true love reigns on the prairie. Why am I bothering to blog about this you may ask? Because, I keep an eye out for "breastfeeding as normal" content in kids books and I loved that in this mystery the first clue that the prairie bride is not who she says she is is that she didn't nurse her baby! (and, a one-year-old baby at that! Wow!) "She feeds him milk from a cup rather than nursing him as mothers do..." (Ida Kate notices the baby patting on the front of the mystery woman's dress and instead of nursing him, she gets a cup of milk for him). I also liked the use of the word "nurse" instead of "breastfeed." Cozy, familiar, desirable, and NORMAL. (With the emphasis on the process and not the product as Diane Wiessinger would say.)

The children's books the Royal Diaries and the other historical fictional diaries in that series of books also often mention breastfeeding and I like that about them (I appreciate it because it is NOT necessary for the content of the book, but it adds a nice touch of realism and normalness). Also, I just remembered that in one of the AG short stories--Josefina's Reward I think---her older sister has to hurry back from what she is doing to "nurse the baby" (who is also over one year old and walks and talks in the book).

Happy Holidays!

We had a thoroughly lovely Solstice and Christmas this year. Really great. We have a family joke of sorts about "this is the best Christmas ever" (ala St. Pat's is always the "best ever"), but this one really did feel like one of the best ever. We went to my parents house and my brother and sister were there too. Everyone got along really well. The mood was peaceful, joyous, and fun. L is at a fun age for enjoying everything and being SO excited. Z didn't really get what was going on, but was as adaptable as ever. Still a boy of few words, he did let out a "wow" every now and then that was pretty cute. He also snagged a lot of candy from other people's stockings and scarfed it down.

On Christmas Eve, we played our little game where we each write down two things and then randomly draw them and sing the 12 Days of Christmas using what is written on the paper (i.e. "Five Ewoks Dancing...").

On Solstice (this year the Sat. before Christmas), we open gifts as a nuclear family and then the extended family comes over in the afternoon and I plan some meaningful family activities for us to all do together--the kinds of things that are lost under the commercialism of Christmas. So, we share solstice goals with each other, reflect on past goals and the things that have "bloomed" in our lives over the year, make ornaments together, light candles on a Yule log, that sort of thing. I usually do a few things differently each year and a few are traditions year-t0-year. We started celebrating the Solstice they year L was born. It seems to mean something even to my teenage bro and sis, who each made a special effort to be present (sis with boyfriend along as well who was good spirited about everything and made a felt Ninja Turtle for L to stick to our wall--side note: we discovered that the walls of our straw bale house are like a giant felt-board and if you make things out of felt, they stick to the walls of their own accord. Pictures will follow when I get my camera's batteries recharged).

One of my solstice gifts from M was a pelvis model from ebay. Yay! I've wanted one for a long time! (The ebay seller's store is vanscience if anyone out there is also coveting one of these beauties. It is exactly life size.) The other thing in the picture is the uterus cutaway model thing that it comes with, but it isn't very cool. I'll stick with my big knitted uterus lovingly made for me by my mother.

I have more to say and more pictures to add sometime soon!

Midwifery Today Prenatal Yoga Article

In August, Midwifery Today accepted an article I wrote about prenatal yoga. I was incredibly excited about it then, but I didn't tell many people just in case they never actually published it (I didn't even tell my parents until October!). Then, last week the issue finally came in the mail with my article published in it--Incorporating Prenatal Yoga into Childbirth Education Classes. Woo hoo! I was re-delighted anew and now I'm telling all kinds of people and hoping I don't sound insufferably braggy about it. This feels like a lifetime goal (of sorts) realized. If anyone had told me last year that I would have an article published in Midwifery Today I wouldn't have believed them (too "big league" for me!). I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this, since every time I think about it I get a little thrill of excitement and disbelief. The article is placed right next to one by Michel Odent, so I've been joking about how we just overlap SO much, people confuse our work ALL the time (LOL!). They published the photo I submitted with it in the middle of the article, which was a nice layout (my mom took the photo of me when I was pregnant with L in 2003. The pose is called Proud (Birth) Warrior). There is a little synopsis of the article on the current issue page of MT's website.

I have so many more ideas for articles and essays ALL of the time. It is a constant flow of them. I wish I had more time to actually *write* them. Sometimes the most I get down is just the prospective title. Oh well. I have all the time I need (right?!). The idea for this prenatal yoga article actually came to me several months before I actually wrote it. It floated around my head for a while germinating and then refining and then one morning I woke up and said, "bring me my notebook!" and the whole thing came out basically fully formed onto the pages while Z and L were still sleeping. This helps me see how "writing in my head" is actually real writing and real work--even though I'm not actually putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, something is being created that can be born when the time is right. I hope the next article that happened like this is also published soon...I'll keep you posted, of course ;-)

Breastfeeding as Radical...

I finished reading the fall issue of Utne a few days ago and marked the following quote to share from K.C. Compton in an article about baby boomers:

"We discovered firsthand the radical nature of simple acts: Sit in the front of the bus, ask that your husband be present during his son's birth, decide to feed your infant with your own breasts, refuse the nuclear power plant being built just up the road. We also learned how much more effective those acts can be when compounded by the hundreds and thousands, their feet on the street..."

This reminds me of a powerful editorial by Peggy O'Mara that I read once in Mothering, urging women to see their mothering as a political act.

Also, since I'm posting about breastfeeding, I wanted to mention that I got the new LLLI catalog last week. It has been *completely* redone and the layout and appearance has received a total makeover. The results are great. I love it! It is "pocket" guide style called "Breastfeeding Guide: tips & products." So, instead of being a catalog, it is actually a helpful little booklet first and a catalog second (the products come in the second half of the booklet, after the tips. 26 pages of questions answered and then 25 pages of catalog--pocket sized though, so maybe 3 x 5?). For being so small, it covers a remarkable amount of territory and gives lots of good information--from "How often will my baby nurse?" to "When will baby sleep all night?" to "Is it possible to breastfeed twins?" Like I said, it is a great little *book* not just a catalog. I love it and think it was a stroke of genius to reach out this way!

Eat, Pray, Love

Tonight Z was being somewhat difficult and not going to sleep, so I spent a long time in bed trying to put him to sleep and consequently finished reading Eat, Pray, Love. I have wanted to read this since a friend of mine told me about seeing the author on TV and also because every time I search for or buy a book on Amazon, it says something like "people who bought that book, also bought Eat, Pray, Love." The third reason is that I like the cover--it is cool. The Eat is made out of pasta, the Pray is made out of prayer beads (japa mala) and the Love is made out of flower petals. And yes, I did count all the beads in "Pray" to make sure there were actually 108 (there were). This book is the chronicle of the author's one year spiritual journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia (Bali). She spends four months in each country living among the people and discovering what the country has to teach her.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book for the most part. The author has a light, engaging, conversational style. She talks about how she can make friends with anyone and she does sort of "make friends" with her readers as well. I had this feeling of knowing her--though I didn't know I felt that way until I read some of the book reviews on Amazon and felt sort of surprised like, "these people know her too? My pal Liz?" I did notice that for someone seeking spiritual insights on a solitary journey, almost all of the book involves her relationships with the people she meets. Goes to show that no woman is an island, of course, and the power of relationship, but it seems different than what she says she has set out to do. Also, I only marked two pages which is a sign that I did not gather anything particularly lasting from this book.

One of the two pages I marked was this:

"I should say here that I'm aware not everyone goes through this kind of metaphysical crisis. Some of us are hardwired for anxiety about mortality, while some of us just seem more comfortable with the whole deal. You meet lots of apathetic people this world, of course, but you also met some people who seem to be able to gracefully accept the terms upon which the universe operates and genuinely don't seem troubled by its paradoxes and injustices."

My husband is more of the second type (graceful) and I am more of the first (mortality anxious).

I have long felt an urge to more concentrated attention to spiritual seeking, but have trouble actually getting devoted about it. This book made me think about that again and the development I could do...

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Last week I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's newest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book was unique amongst all the Barbara Kingsolver books I've read to date in that it was a chronological, autobiographical narrative. Her other personal nonfiction works are collections of essays that are not chronological, but are organized instead around a theme. This book is the story of one year of her family's life. As such, it is not particularly glamorous or exciting. Indeed, it is kind of mundane and the pace is pretty slow. Yet, it is REAL and very personal. Written with inset boxes by her husband about specific environmental issues and chapters closed with recipes and thoughts from her oldest daughter, this book was a family effort (just like the year it describes).

The author and her family decide to move permanently to their farm in Kentucky (previously only their summer home) and to attempt to eat locally and to grow and harvest as much of their own diet as possible. Forced to acknowledge that the food available in Tuscon is unsustainable at best and environmentally disastrous at worst, they could ethically not live there any longer and so set out to provide for their own gastronomic needs (as organically, harmoniously, and peacefully as possible too).

I must confess that this book did not snare me as completely as all of Kingsolver's other books have. I consider her one of my favorite authors of all time and one of the most masterful and gifted writers I can think of. Towards the end of the book, her stirring descriptions and explanations of the reproductive saga of her domestic turkey flock actually brought tears to my eyes. That is some gift! ;-D

Other random thoughts from this book:

• I loved her concept of (and accompanying illustration of), the "vegetannual." The way of looking at vegetables as all pieces of one plant (the vegetannual) providing edible goods at different points of the year (different parts of the plant's life cycle) and continuously. Beginnings with the spring greens and crowned with the "flower" of a large pumpkin, the vegetannual continuously meets our dietary need for fresh produce!
• She makes me wants to raise chickens! (heck, and maybe turkeys too...)
• And I want to grow stuff! Lots of stuff!
• This book came to mind day-to-day and made me reflect on my own food choices and the localness, or not, thereof. She talks about being a "locavore," which is a cool concept.
• We do eat primarily in season and my observation is that local grocery stores (even Wal-Mart!) make it easy to do so. Towers of produce during any one season are most often seasonably appropriate (though very often not local by a long short). This seems different than her assertion that Americans eat whatever they want, whenever they want it without consideration for, or indeed awareness of, whether it is in season. Maybe it is a function of our fairly rural, Midwestern location, but I think people here would hard pressed not to "get" that some foods are in season and some aren't (based simply upon the abundance of apples in the Wal-Mart produce department right now and the utter--and totally appropriate--dearth of, say, strawberries. No watermelons now either or mounds of peaches, just as there will be no grapefruits in Wal-Mart in July).
• She also has some good insights about the simple pleasures of food preparation and providing for your family instead of viewing cooking as drudgery or a chore to be got through.
• I made Camille's (Kingsolver's daughter) zucchini orzo recipe for dinner last week and it was delicious!
  

Information Overload? (and...this is my 150th post!)

So many good causes! Maybe too many?

A few days ago I was reflecting on the many sources of written information flowing through my life. I made a list and *not including personal information sources* (i.e. email from friends or conversations with people) or actual people, I have well over 100 things coming into my life over the course of a week, month, or quarter that demand my attention in the form of me reading them. Mostly email or print newsletters, action alerts, that sort of thing.

I am a dues paying member of at least 17 organizations (I might have forgotten some). All but two have a publication that I receive (though another one of them has more than one publication). Then, I subscribe to 10 different magazines/journals. Then, because I'm an alum of that school or because I donate money to that organization, or because I'm a member of that electric cooperative, or because I filled out that card for a free subscription to Energy Times from the health food store (which I really like, by the way), I get an additional 10 or so publications. And...I read them all (even the ones I get not by my choice, but alumni pubs or whatever. Though, not necessarily all through, cover-to-cover all the time). I've referenced before the difficulty I find in NOT READING. This is something that is really hard for me. LOL! If it is written and I see it, I read it. For better or for worse. I also read like 10 blogs and I am on about 30 email lists. Are you starting to see a problem here? When do we draw the line at how much information we bring into our lives? Is it possible to be so full of other people's opinions that it becomes impossible to hear your own still, small voice within?

Yes, I am an information junkie, but I'm also passionate about many causes, want to be an informed citizen, and want to have evidence based opinions. I also like to be "in the know" and I like to be a well informed, reliable, accurate person. However, I sometimes feel like a slave to the printed word! Or like I've gorged myself upon it. I gobble up writing like a starving person and there are always more words right behind them. I also gobble them with gusto--I LOVE to read. It is very important to me. Heck, that is why I even have this blog. It is about me and reading and how the two intersect to form the texture of my life.

So, I decided that this word-fest of my life could be viewed through two lenses:

1. The depressive lens: Each of these information sources chips off a piece of my life energy and diminishes my time. Fragments and splinters my attention, my energy, my focus (and my sentences ;-).

Or...

2. The optimistic lens: Each contributes its own piece to the complicated whole of me, my life, and my life energy and helps inform my thinking, expands my worldview, and enhances my ability to be an informative resource in my own right.

I guess it could be both too!
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For whatever reason, this reminds me of another note I wrote in my notebook a few weeks ago when I got all of those publications in the mail on the same day. I was driving home and the following thought popped unbidden into my brain: "I am connected in an extraordinary web of human relationship." I like it.
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P.S. Would you believe that in this, my 150th post to this blog (!), is the first time I've used "reading" as a label for my post?!

Heartsongs

I didn't read as much as usual this week. I did quickly read through three volumes in the Heartsongs series. These are slim volumes of poetry by Mattie Stepanek, a child with muscular dystrophy. I remember seeing him on Oprah years ago when I still had TV and still occasionally watched Oprah. I have a boxed set and so read Heartsongs, Journey Through Heartsongs, & Hope Through Heartsongs (which was definitely the best of the three, I thought). I just googled him and saw that he died in 2004. :-( The idea of a heartsong is, "all people have a special song. Inside their hearts! Everyone in the whole wide world has a special Heartsong."

Reminds me of one of my favorite reminders from Wayne Dyer: "Don't die with your music still in you." I used to fret about this quite a bit--I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't letting my "music" out. Then, sort of accidentally, I started writing again and in earnest this time (articles, essays, blog posts, journals) and later realized I don't worry about dying with my music still in me anymore. During my original frets, I felt like it was other "music" that was needing out (mainly that of service to my passion for birth), not words necessarily, but I've realized that maybe it WAS literally my words dying in me that gave me that feeling. They needed to get out. I've spent a lifetime writing various essays in my head, nearly every day, but those words always "died" in me before they ever got out onto paper. Now, I get them out and it feels SO much better. Even if they don't go anywhere other than a note in my notebook, I feel so almost physically relieved when they are out and gone.

Reflux & Rice Cereal

I read the winter issue of Parenting magazine this week and was really happy to see the following snippet in their brief article about reflux/GERD:

"Leading experts no longer recommend thickening bottles with rice cereal, especially for regular spitup. One reason: A new study in Pediatrics found that this can lead to overfeeding, which only makes spitup worse."

I was SO glad to see this in mainstream print. Breastfeeding advocates have known this information for some time, but in my experience many doctors still recommend thickening feeds. I even talked with a mother who had been told to pump and exclusively bottle feed because her baby "had" to have rice cereal in every feed and there was no way to get the rice cereal into her breasts so it would have to be fed by bottle. I did suggest that as a compromise maybe they could feed the cereal to the baby by spoon before or after nursing, rather than pump and mix the cereal into the expressed milk. These kinds of situations make me want to tear my hair out in frustration and dismay :( So, I'm glad to see it in readily available public print that rice cereal additions DO NOT help.

Living Crafts

My aunt bought our family a gift subscription to the new magazine Living Crafts for Christmas. I saw this advertised in the last Brain, Child issue and was instantly intrigued. Anyway, the premiere issue did not disappoint. I loved it! Then my mom borrowed it and loved it too. My mother is perhaps the most skilled and multitalented craftsperson I've ever met, so I wasn't sure much could impress her, but she really loved the magazine a lot as well and wants it back from me to look through some more.

The centerpiece of this issue for me is the uber-cool knitted farm playmat. Oh. My. Goodness. A total masterpiece (a tribal masterpiece as 12 women collaborated throughout the country to make it). Fascinatingly cool. My grandma was visiting for Thanksgiving and took home the pattern, so I'm crossing my fingers for future knitted farm coolness for my boys to play with! ;-) (they referred at the article's end to this The Knitted Farmyard book). There was also an interesting and inspiring article about prayer beads. I have more beads and charms than I know what to do with, so I sense a new project in my future!

There was also a pattern for a Waldorf-ish valentine doll that made me consider trying my hand at making something like that again. My past attempts have been pathetic, but I really think it is because I have never used the real tricot fabric you're supposed to use for their faces--I always just use some random knit and it doesn't work right at all.

Okay, sick-Molly does not a fascinating blogger make. Time for bed!

Providence

Let me begin by saying, I am STILL sick and thus not in a very read-y or bloggy frame of mind this week (actually, I've been blogging like crazy on the new CfM blog, so maybe that is where that energy is going). So, anyway, whine, whine. I've had a nasty cough since Nov. 3rd. I can't shake it. I also feel like my head is underwater (and thus have trouble hearing people when they talk--feel sort of separated from them by a bubble) and I have almost no sense of taste (which is too bad because I've been making some tasty foods lately and then wishing I could actually enjoy them). WAH!

Okay, so I did read Providence by Daniel Quinn this week. He is the author best known for Ishmael, which I read as a young teenager. I remember considering it to be a life changing and fascinating read, but it has been a LONG time since I read it. So...it is now back on my to-read shelf. Anyway, Providence was less illuminating/interesting. It was primarily an autobiography with an emphasis on how the author developed Ishmael (which went through more than 6 versions over a period of like 13 years) as well as an exploration of his religious development (which includes some time spent in a monastery and ends with animism).

While he was writing his book, he worked in educational publishing and I appreciated several of his comments about education such as:

"One of the great, persistent myths of education in our culture is that children become reluctant learners as they grow older. In fact, what they become reluctant about it going to school, where they're bullied, regimented, bored silly, and very effectively prevented from learning...We know what works for children up to the age where we ship them off to school: Let them be around you, pay attention to them, talk to them, give them access to as much as you can, let them try things, and that's it. They take care of the rest. You don't have to strap small children down and teach them to speak, all you have to do is talk to them. You don't have to give them crawling lessons or walking lessons or running lessons. You don't have to spend an hour a day showing them how to bang two pots together; they'll figure that out all by themselves--if you give them access to the pots. Nothing magical happens at the age of five to render this process obsolete or invalid."

I think ideas like this were the underpinnings of my mom's approach to homeschooling. Thanks Mom!

Birth as a Healing Experience

Early this week I finished reading Birth as a Healing Experience which I had borrowed from a doula friend of mine. I'd never heard of it until I spied it on her shelf and asked to borrow it. Maybe I'm not in the proper mood for birth books lately (I'm certainly in a mood for blogging about birth though!), but I didn't feel like I got anything new really out of it. I do like books that focus on birth as an emotionally and psychologically significant experience, so maybe it IS mainly my mood that kept me from really enjoying this one much at all.

The author did quote midwife Penfield Chester's explanation of holistic childbirth care. I really liked it:

"The holistic model holds that birth is a normal, woman-centered process in which mind and body are one and that, in the vast majority of cases, nature is sufficient to create a healthy pregnancy and birth. The midwife is seen as a nurturer."

Simple Pleasures

My husband makes me a mug of tea every morning and leaves it by my side of the bed so that it is waiting for me when I wake up. When I get out of bed, it is the perfect temperature to drink. No matter what kind of tea is in the mug, it tastes like love to me. Lately, it has been Bengal Spice tea--this tea is seriously delicious and I love it deeply! This morning, I took my tea and my notebook and sat on our newly built front porch with roof (thanks, DH!). It was foggy and not too cold. Remnants of rain dripped from the edge of the roof. The ground was covered with orange and brown leaves. I felt surrounded by quiet peace. Inside and outside. L was still sleeping inside and I was watching Z play outside in the leaves (the reason I went outside in the first place--he got both of our shoes and then went to the door and pointed expectantly).

It felt like life could not get more beautiful than this.
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(I wrote this paragraph in my notebook on 11/13 when we were still experiencing several days of pleasant, warm weather. Now, it is freezing and there have been no more porch reflections for me lately! No Bengal Spice tea either as we used up my box and the grocery store does not have it any more!)

Operating Instructions

Continuing my mothering memoir kick, I finished reading Operating Instructions for the second time last night. I consider this a classic in the field as well--Anne Lamott's journal of her son's first year. It is quite funny. This one IS a lot about the baby--a memoir of him as well as of Anne's experiences in becoming a mother (some funny, some sad, some painful). In her acknowledgments that open the book she quotes a line she says is from an old New Yorker story: "we are not here to see through one another, but to see one another through."

This jumped out at me, because when I worked at the domestic violence shelter in Columbia, we had a modified version of this quote on the wall and I also used it when I taught volunteer trainings. I thought it was part of the DV prevention movement, not partially plagiarized, LOL! Ours was: "our job is not to see through women, but to see them through." We mainly used this as a reminder if we felt like we were being lied to.

I also quickly half-read, half skimmed another of my Goodwill books: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work.

Memories of Postpartum + Mother Knot Thoughts

Instead of adding to my previous post about The Mother Knot, I decided to go ahead with a new one. It is fitting because the thoughts I feel like sharing are less about the book than they are about my own memories of life postpartum. Lazarre's book is one that gives voice to the "ugly," to the "bad mother" within. I craved books like this postpartum and devoured each book about motherhood that I could find (I didn't find this one). Unlike Lazarre, who explicitly *hates* her baby at times, I never felt I hated my baby. Yet, as I adjusted, I felt at times that I hated being a mother (heck, I still feel this way sometimes! Though, not with the painful sense of shame and failure at being "bad" enough to have that feeling. I've realized that the experience of mothering and one's feelings about that role is separate and distinct from the actual baby or child of which you are the mother). My "bad" feelings postpartum (and now) were all turned inward, not directed at the baby. I felt suffocated, chewed up and my bones spit out, erased, deconstructed, worthless, and useless. In hindsight, I see the PPD-ish glint behind these feelings, though some of these feelings also featured in my pre-motherhood neuroses as well. Postpartum was the most vivid and painful transition point of my life.

The author of What Mothers Do specifically critiques the ambivalence that Lazarre describes in her book. Aside from this, I adore the book What Mothers Do, it is one of my very favorites about this subject. I think we can look at the cultural elements contributing to that ambivalence rather than view Lazarre as somehow less developed of a mother (or wrong for her ambivalence). I think it is sociocultural, not personal (I also don't think it is "natural" or inevitable, which is where Stadlen of What Mothers Do and I agree and where Lazarre and I would disagree). I don't really think I feel, or felt, ambivalent exactly (at least not in the angry way that Lazarre describes). I definitely turned any hostility inward and felt badly and negatively towards myself rather than towards my baby.

I felt slapped in the face by postpartum. I was triumphant and empowered in birth, but diminished, insecure, and wounded postpartum. I had a difficult and complicated recovery due to unusual labial tearing (unrepaired, because the damage was not really acknowledged/noticed in time for a repair). Maybe this contributed to my difficult adjustment to early motherhood. I've long tried to analyze the difficulty, concluding that it is not uncommon in the least, but wondering why/how others survive without mentioning this pain. How is anyone doing this? I would wonder, concluding that I must not be "cut out for this" and that I was the only one feeling alone, stifled, shut down, and unheard. As a consistently overachieving type, it was humbling as as well as psychologically painful to not "get an A" on this new "assignment," my baby. Each time he cried, I felt it was evidence of failure, failure, failure. I would see women and couples without children and think, "it isn't too late for you" and "if only you knew." When I would see women who were pregnant I would feel a sense of grief for them--"just wait. You have NO idea what is coming." (Again, hindsight shows me a little touch of PPD-ishness here...)

I felt silenced, muted, captive (and yet captivated!), squelched, and denied. Maybe these feelings mean I'm egocentric, selfish, or immature (I certainly lectured and berated myself about that!), but they were my reality at the time. The experience was so scarring to me that for about 18 months after my first baby was born I considered not having any more children--not because I couldn't handle pregnancy, birth, or even the mothering of a baby and toddler, but because I could not stand the idea of experiencing postpartum again. I came to realize that my only regret about these days of early motherhood was not in how I related to my baby, or in how I took care of him, or loved him, or appreciated him, or marveled in him. My regret is that I was so very mean to myself the whole time I did those things--in reality, I was actually fairly skillfully learning how to mother. I was responsive, nurturing, kind, and loving and I took delight in my baby, but I was cruel to myself almost the entire time and failed to appreciate or notice any worth I had as a person or to accept and have patience for my birth as a mother.