Sacred Birthing

"Bonding is the parent's opportunity to preserve their baby's loving essence and to offer a foundation of emotional safety."

Sacred Birthing Insight

Diary of a Spiritual Midwife (part 5)

September 14, 2009

The lake is awesome, but you can only camp in a campground with others and I am looking for some silence. I go down to the river 2000 feet below and find a place that suits.

Last night, I went into the mountain as if going into a huge mansion. In each beautiful room was someone else incredible to meet. I was taken again to the ‘nursery’ of souls who would be incarnating consciously on Earth. There were hexagonal honey-bee like cells. An energetic glowing oval was in each cell. Each oval’s light would fade and as soon as it did, a great radiant being would come and direct her conscious love to that baby-being-to-be and once again it would glow radiantly. Then, she would move on to the next. At about 2 months incubation time, when the soul’s light no longer faded, it was ready to be implanted in a mother who would then conceive in another 2 months. I was told that at any time in this 4 month period… if a mother to be did not want to be pregnant… she would only need to clearly state this with her partner. Then, I stood with Lord Lento behind me and sent love to baby after baby. I understood and felt the vibrational precision of the quality of this love being sent to these energetic babies. What a big gift and incredible feeling! A most incredible experience and deep honor.

September 18, 2009

Morning meditation:

Of course birth is orgasmic! When the heart opens, the yoni opens. The throat’s opening is our work during pregnancy and the crown is opened by Divine Mother (whatever name you are most comfortable with,) at the time of birth. The first chakra only opens when it is safe, so our moms must be safe if birth is to happen. The third chakra is pacified by oxytocin. However, if there is not clarity between mother and her mother’s lineage, this chakra is in a holding pattern: Is it flowing? Is it closed? Does it clench down? When all is aligned and in sync, birth is as open as a woman ever is! It only happens when a woman feels safe. And then… of course birth is orgasmic!

I go up to hike in Shasta’s Panther Meadows and I speak to a woman who is just leaving. On discovering I am a midwife she says, “I had an orgasm with my second birth!” But her next statement was, “Birth is brutal!” She kept repeating the comment, so I asked her about it. I thought it interesting to put these two statements, orgasmic and brutal, together.

She began her story, “On the first birth, the baby was coming and they held me down to give me ether. I didn’t want ether. I didn’t need ether. It took four interns to hold me down so they could give me ether! I woke up hours later and had missed the whole birth. To this day, that baby is an angry man.” Her “baby” is now 60, and she is 84.

She goes on, “For the third baby, the doctor was not there yet. The nurse at the top of the gurney said to the other nurse, ‘just hold her legs together till the doctor gets here.’ I yelled at them, ‘If you so much as touch my legs, I will kick you!'” I could tell she felt pleased that she protected her baby, but she also didn’t have the uninterrupted spiritual space to really be with that birth. S he had had to be her own advocate/guardian. She had to be on the defense, and it took her out of being with her own experience.

It was the second baby that she gave birth to in the hall of the maternity ward without the staff knowing it, and this baby was born in the midst of bliss. She had heard on TV that there was such a thing as ‘orgasmic birth’ and she knew full well that she had had one. I was sorry to hear that although she had 3 very different experiences in birth, the one with most charge was the one that was ‘brutal’. What a sad state to be in… to never have her ‘sad birth’ integrated… even after 60 years! How many others are in this predicament?

Birthing Sisters: Our Community Doula Monthly Gathering

The Sacred Birthing Community Doulas meet monthly as a way to support each other in our work and continue to learn and grow. We met last night and shared several birth stories. I see very clearly how our presence is making a difference, not only on Kauai, but anywhere we go.

Eight of the women from the first doula class were there along with our teacher, Barbara Essman, and one woman from the second class. It was a reunion of sorts as some of us hadn’t seen each other in several months. Because the course is so intimate and so much is explored, we really got to know each other and care about each other. What a great way to build community!

One of us is pregnant, due in a few weeks, and we’ve witnessed her blossoming into a beautiful, confident mom-to-be. Her blessingway was an outpouring of love and support. She recently assisted at a birth and watched with wide-eyed wonder at the baby’s head emerging from mom’s yoni realizing that soon that would be her. Great preparation for her upcoming birth.

We heard about two hospital births where doulas were welcomed, moms were fully supported in their wishes and the birth experiences were very positive. Happy moms, happy bright-eyed babies. Good news!

We talked about baby whispering and how responsive babies are to our communication with them. Telling the baby what’s going on at all stages of the birth and postpartum is really helpful and brings peace.

We heard about placenta previa and placenta abruptia – how to recognize them and their repercussions.

One doula, while visiting a pregnant friend who lives in a rural area on the mainland told of a community where several miscarriages have taken place recently and the concern on the part of women who live there. This real-life example got us talking about the environment and possible reasons why this might happen.

One mom was having problems breast feeding due to inverted nipples so this sparked a discussion of methods used to support lactation from nipple shields to breast pumps to formula feeding combined with nursing.

Barbara reminded us that it’s a privilege to be at a birth. It involves a lot of trust on the part of the family to allow us into their homes and their lives. What we’re doing as community doulas is a spiritual practice. We must let go of any attachment to outcomes. We bring an energetic infusion that will be there after we leave so we must take great care in preparing ourselves before we enter.

The next doula training program begins on January 8. Please see the calendar for a course description and details. I look forward to our next community doula gathering. Will you be there?

Diary of a Spiritual Midwife (part 4)

My spirit loving, traveling gypsy of light, friend Celeste

September 12, 2009

Camping at Castle Lake. I meet up with Celeste, a gypsy for years, roving to various places in the country and out with many other single older women who move by the call of spirit. She answers some of the questions I have been sitting with regarding food and vibration- living on Light or becoming “White Fire,” as she calls it. This is how she does her inner work: she stops eating and lives on light, without even water. Then, as she takes in food or water again, she feels that it introduces the duality of the world and so she sees whatever comes up as her work at this level of vibration… that’s her inner work. I am especially interested in the idea that introducing water brings duality. She also said that if she is not drinking, she is warm. It is water that seems to put out her “fire.” Where are you now Celeste?

She hands me a fabulous book on birth trauma and the Reptilian brain! (Don’t you love how life is orchestrated?) Feelings Matter, Keys To The Unexplored Self, by Ceanne DeRohan 2007. This is the basis for all we do in Sacred Birthing and why we do it. The text is redundant, but she is making a string of points to understand the workings of the newborn brain and how important it is to fulfill the needs of a newborn in those first hours. A must read for all of us. We should carry it in the Birth Store.

Birth trauma is the imprinted road map to healing for this life, and it is what we must unwind before death. We connect to Divine Mind and discover Self Love when all is healed or; in the absence of trauma, we are Divine Mind and Self Love. What do we choose for our babies? What do we choose for our next lifetime?

Our ignorance of newborn trauma has created 3 generations ruled by their reptilian brains – competitive, aggressive and manipulative. It makes me want to cry. What can I do? For ourselves, we ask for Limbic renewal – a baseline of calm. For our babies, we explain and remind the parents about the importance of the fulfillment of all needs, and protect the space for parents to fulfill them.

There is an amazing part on Circumcision and how it debases the original harm at birth. It is crucial to men, far more than I even realized. Without circumcision, ease and trust is found in all relationships or; with it circumcision comes feelings of betrayal, suspicion, defensiveness or outright hostility/violence. Our babies’ birthright of trust is ruined. Circumcision is not about what our baby’s penis looks like. It’s about protecting our baby boys and allowing and supporting the trust and kindness inherently in men. How can we have sacred sexuality and sacred conception when we circumcise our baby boys? Women, that means us! We are the ones to protect. Don’t back down. Make sure your partner understands this emotional result. Help him reclaim who he rightfully is by re-experiencing his circumcision. Who can lead this for the good of all men? Jason? Nick?

The closer circumcision is done to the time of birth, the deeper the imprint. The book illustrates that man has three ways of taking this trauma into the baby body: expressing it through sadness and withdrawal, through fear and defensiveness or through anger and lashing out. These three things are a good illustration of the state of men in America.

Diary of a Spiritual Midwife (part 3)

September 4, 2009

At 2pm I went to have an appointment with Nicky. I was to journey (in the shamanic sense) to receive how I would use the ankh, and she was to scribe for the session. Thoth had been with me all morning; and as we sat in the gazebo of her luscious garden, Cobra came in as well. Cobra me the same pathway of energies that I had witnessed in the days before and much more. I was blown away to hear what I had seen, to learn more in depth, and recieve acknowledgement that what was coming through me was spot on. Oh why do we need acknowledgement so?

September 6, 2009

David, my birth partner who conceived Sacred Birthing with me and took it on the road as Sacred Birthing Seminars, calls me in Eugene and said he may not be going to climb the sacred Shiva mountain in Nepal because of intense headaches that he has to stop denying. Something is going on. He didn’t know what, and I may not be able to stay at his house for the 2 ½ months while he was gone. I want to camp and lie on the earth to let go, but other than a renewal, am not sure why else I am going to Mt Shasta. Suddenly the questions come, “Is he on this deathing path? Is he to be included too?” It’s difficult to think that this man, such a dear beloved of mine, is to transition. I have lots of work to do to be able to come to grips with this one. There’s lots of love and lots of history here. Can I be present? Is this really what is calling me here?

September 11, 2009

From Eugene to Mt Shasta. Its amazing to just drive distances after living on an island for 11 years. The mountain is as it has never been – without snow on it. Even in summer there is still snow, but not this and last year. What a shock. Global warming. I t does not seem right at all. It is not right at all, but that’s what is.

I drive up to my favorite place, Castle Lake, and camp for the first night right on the earth with the Milky Way stretched out, reflecting over the water. Wow.

David had a very infected tooth pulled out and we are hoping the infection has caused the headaches and that all will subside. He said that death has been dancing in the trees outside, not menacing, just there.

Diary of a Spiritual Midwife (part 2)

My dearest friend, Ani, picked me up from the train station in Eugene. She took me to sit with a friend whose father was dying. Oh my goodness. I went right in to introduce myself and let him hear my voice. Looking at him, I saw colors I didn’t expect in unusual places: lots of dark yellow around the heart with a tiny pink core of lace around the edges of the heart, blue in his gut and red-brown in his head area. “Was he an angry man?” I asked. Yes. I asked to release his worldly burden from his shoulders and as those were released, life’s experiences were drawn into his heart and his heart let go of the sorrow-full yellow and the pink glowed brighter and puffier. There was a black writhing energy showing itself coming out of the gut. I teased it out and offered it as energy to the Earth Mother. As his daughter came in the room, a light shot out of her 3rd chakra to his 3rd chakra and I understood that her energy was holding him here and pulling on him. No wonder she was exhausted. This happened every time she came in and it seemed to me that it was causing him to stay embodied longer than needed. She constantly called to him to acknowledge that she was there by squeezing her hand, which he did, and then to indicate if he was in pain by another squeeze… Which he never did. I suggested she sit with him 2 full hours and tell him everything she could think of. She let out the love when she was with him; but she was also full the anger and pain of growing up with him. She let that out with us.

The next morning, much had shifted. He was peacefully in his deathing process. There was no more squeezing. His colors were swirling. An energy came into his crown and went to his throat and swirled like a whirlpool there. From the throat, the energy moved and then made a figure eight in his 2nd chakra. When it left there, it went to his kidneys moving in circles around each one. Then everything stopped. I felt that was all for now. The daughter was so full of her own pain that she saw pain on the same face that I saw total peace. She was insistent that morphine and tranquilizers be given to him each night. So, who was it for?

That night Ani and I went to Nicky Scully’s once a month open house. Nicky leads trips to Egypt and writes books on it too. Who better to ask about the ankh? As I pick it up, I hear, “Ask her to activate it.” So she does, then rubs a beautiful oil into it. I receive it back and she suggests we have a journey on Friday.

We go back to the friend and her dying father. We find him at that place in the deathing journey where you feel that it might be forever, yet you know it can’t be. I spoke to the daughter about how death creates our birth and how allowing him to die a conscious death without drugs would offer him a birth without drugs; but she was defensive and said that she was going to do what the hospice team said, drug him. Her daddy left his body Thursday evening at 7pm. What he showed me two days before would help many others. What she showed me was the answer to a question I had long held.

I understood C-sections better now. I felt this was a C-section death. Just like so many C-section births: this was a death that did not consider the “baby,” but more the caregiver’s needs. He did not need her pulling him back to comfort herself. He could have gone quite consciously had the caregiver not been in such fear, he did not need to wait for her schedule. Nor did he need the morphine. On one hand she was exhausted from the three weeks of constant care, but she did not attend to her own inner work, that would have freed him in a more conscious death, and therefore a clear and conscious birth. Oh, that we do our own work. Help us truly see who the one before us and not our own pain.

Diary of a Spiritual Midwife (part 1)

It all started the 3rd week in August when I was at Tara Camp. Bonnie asked me what the vision of Sacred Birthing was. I described seeing a community of little round houses or pods where someone was waiting to be born or to die in each. She asked, “So you work in death too?” “No.” I said, “That has not opened up yet…” Well, that night came the download. I was to help people make a conscious choice to pass without the body needing to be decrepit, turning off the organs in a certain progression. I was shown there were many, many people who were in continual excruciating pain yet they could not let go and die. I could help that process happen so that the aura of a city would not hold such pain. This was necessary before Master Souls would be born here.

The morning before I left Kauai, I sat on the beach with old friends, Peggy and Joe. Peggy channels Sananda/Magdelen and Joe channels dirty jokes. This morning she was feeling a presence as we sat down on the beach. In came Thoth, who let her know that the ankh she was given more than five years ago was to be passed on to me. The ankh had been sitting in her glass living room table. It was carved from wood by a man under the guidance of Sai Ma, who told the man it was not his personal offering but was to go to Peggy on Kauai when it was completed. The ankh did not mean much to Peggy, other than as an Egyptian symbol of life, so she knew she would be it’s keeper until for it’s rightful owner appeared. The ankh did not mean much to me either; however, I knew something was cooking when I learned that the man who carved it was the same man who gave me herpes 11 years ago. I knew then, “This is my ankh and it is important,” for I had been consciously working to dis-create the dis-ease for the last year and a half.

Two hours before getting to the airport, a neighbor’s husband who had Parkinson’s Disease died. I walked in on her when still in her altered state and she told me about his death and how they had practiced for it the last 2 years so that he could leave his body through his crown. Hearing her story made it very real that my work had begun. I rendezvoused with Peggy and Joe to receive the ankh, and got on the red-eye to Seattle follwed by a train to Eugene to sleep it off.

What Is Healing? A Treatise

In my nearly 40 years of studying mind/body/emotional and Spiritual healing and the interrelationship of the parts to the whole, the simplest answer that has come to me is: Healing Is Remembering Who We Are.¹ This thought first came to me in 1971, after my first dip into the realm sometimes referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul. I was lost and afraid; my body, mind and emotions were behaving in unfamiliar ways: all systems clutching and chaotic. I was staying in a safe house with people I had family ties with but only knew briefly. They opened their hearts and home to me in this difficult time. The youngest of the family, 5 year old Kennon, slipped a piece of paper under my closed door the first day I arrived. On that paper was written, “Remember Who You Are”. I carried that paper with me for many years. Needless to say, this time placed me on a path I never would have found if I had not been in this mysterious, frightening, and very uncomfortable state.

37 years later, there’s a lot more to the story through which I have gathered quite a few more pieces to the puzzle. The story is only important as would be the chapters of a book in which pertinent knowledge is may be gleaned, integrated, put to use and finally transmuted into wisdom. I began with the study of Nutrition: “What you eat can affect you thoughts”² Sounded good to me. Ultimately this brought me to realizations around eating garden or nature fresh organic whole foods that fits each person’s unique constitution, as well as the influences of where they live, their stage of life and lifestyle. (Ayurveda: The Science of Life).

Diet alone clearly was not enough however. Thought forms, belief systems, fears, life traumas, karmic and/or ancestral imprints, soul design or purpose; the sense of disconnect from Nature, Source and Self; all these and more play major parts in our state of being. To me this is the adventure of Life; to be open to explore the unknown or forgotten wisdom of being Spiritual beings in human form. This “Remember Who We Are” has turned much more into “Re-Member Who We Are” for as the adventure unfolds, we discover we are carrying within us huge amounts of collected illusion, that which is not the truth of our essential selves. This collection of accumulated dross adds weight, density and distortion to our other wise pristine nature. If we could look at our lives through the lens of our soul, we might see an amazing tapestry spanning millennia portraying all the experiences through time that has brought us here with all the baggage we have gathered. We identify with the energetic, physiological, psychological and emotional responses to all this, which is why we become unconscious and numb to recognizing the subtle and not-so subtle communications that our being sends through our bodies, minds, and emotions in an attempt to bring our attention to not only the imbalances forming in us but to the wisdom that is wanting to come to the surface and be integrated through the release of those imbalances. This unconsciousness is what is sometimes referred to as being asleep and what disables us from our capacity to see ourselves for who we really are. It is what creates our suffering while at the same time, creating the challenge, the clues and the opportunities to stop looking outside ourselves and turn within for the answers to our life problems and the question “Who Am I?” The journey back to remembrance begins with opening and this opening often comes on the heels of deep illness or other types of suffering creating enough of an inner force that it catalyzes an openness otherwise not awakened. Once there is openness, the task is to allow for expansion rather than contraction and go into that vast inner frontier to find that which is not us, learn from this and then release it and watch the pieces of our wholeness re-member or reconnect and come into the light. It is then that we get to see that through all time, not only have we been gathering encumbrances, but wisdom too has been gathered and as we release, we get to harvest that wisdom. Finally, joy of joys, we get to share that wisdom.

Some scientific and spiritual teachings tell us that our bodies were never meant to have disease or age and that death is something outside of Creation’s design. Mostly we don’t believe in such “nonsense”. Where’s the evidence to substantiate such a statement? I don’t claim to have the answer to this but what I have seen over and over and over again within myself as well as in others, is people’s innate capacity to revitalize, regenerate, re-awaken and even re-create their bodies, minds, emotions and spirit as they use their courage to take full co-creative responsibility for their health and well-being on all levels within which we have existence. Imagine what life might be like if we were to completely clear all that isn’t who we are! Our bodies wouldn’t grow tired and weak or sick from the exhaustion of carrying energetic distortions out of harmony to our essential being. This is what finally brought me to transformational clearing work; first for my personal healing and then as my life service. There is no more joyful experience than to witness a person come back into alignment with their True Self with all the fringe benefits that go along with that: joy, clarity, vitality, divine capabilities, health, purpose and a deep sense of union with something so vast, unlimited and loving, our minds have a hard time believing in the possibilities. It is within our hearts, the seat of the soul, that we find that which propels us toward self-realization or wholeness. As we turn within and begin to trust the inner voice of heart and soul, we move beyond disbelief and fear into trust and openness and that is when life shows itself to be the greatest gift of all.

37 years ago, I had no reference points with which to understand what was going on within me, but my eyes had begun to open. Over the next 30 years, I gathered pieces to the puzzle. Then, nearly 7 years ago a degenerative condition came upon me. I know now that this condition was my opportunity to put into personal practice all that I had gathered prior to this time in the way of mind/body/spirit tools in order to heal myself. I had to put myself as top priority in all things, and this was new to me. I had to trust myself and Creator deeper and more tenaciously than ever before. Where I have moved from and what I have learned and continue to learn has come from within myself, from indigenous cultures, the courageous people I have worked with and unique teachers and healers from antiquity and within the world today that have constellated my path. I have reached and found help within various outer modalities as well as those within. I am grateful for every step. My intention; and gratefully I am far from alone in this, is that we can now be those role models offering the love and support that each of us need to make the journey to remembrance and wholeness. As the current saying so aptly implies, “We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For”.

¹ Healing is Remembering Who You Are, a book by Marilyn Gordon, founding director of the Center for Hypnotherapy Certification in Oakland CA.

Ronda was an instructor at this school for 7 years; offering the class “Accessing Your Inner Healer”.

² Eat Right to Stay Fit; a book by Adele Davis