Being Born a Buddhist
“The birth of every child is important….We… are sons and daughters of God and [as well] the children of our parents. We have to take special care of each birth.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh“Not so long ago I attended a birth for the first time since my own. To breathe with the mother, to watch the child's head appear, to experience the entire process moment by moment allowed me to touch a primordial element in my being. I laughed, and cried, experienced fear, empathetic pain, and deep joy. I was standing at the doorway of existence, feeling, as deeply as I had ever felt, the connectedness of my humanity to the rest of nature with her cycles of spring and winter, creation and decay.”
-Ram DassI call myself a birth advocate. I want to revolutionize the way babies are born in America. My dream is the women of the future will be empowered with psychospiritual tools which will unlock her innate ability to birth non-violently with love and conscious awareness. Both mother and child are extremely vulnerable as they traverse the mystical loka known as childbirth which is a critical juncture between heaven and earth. I want to call on Buddhists and the spiritual community to shine the light of their spiritual perspectives and refined ethical sensitivities on this critical issue. If one embraces a divine plan and metaphysics of spiritual connectedness, then birth stands at the sacred center of life. If that is true then birth matters. Consciousness in birth matters. How a woman births matters. How a woman births matters to her baby. How a woman births matters to the consciousness of the planet.
My passion for this cause has been born out of a forty year love affair with Buddhism and the spiritual life which led me on a circuitous route which is only now starting to make sense. My meditation practice is as a labyrinth walker. The labyrinth is often seen as a metaphor for life because as one walks its twists and turns only the next step is visible and the larger logic of the greater mandala is not seen. The labyrinth is not a maze and there are no dead ends although it can suddenly take a 180 degree turn which will reverse one’s direction. In my life it has often taken soul searching, healing, waiting or getting slammed against the wall of the universe before I discovered the path would open again if I changed direction. Many years ago I thought I knew something about Buddhism and the spiritual life but now after decades of being forced by life experiences to turn and start again all I can say with certainty is that humility has been helpful in deepening my understanding. The labyrinth is also the perfect metaphor for describing how perception can suddenly shift and bring to conscious awareness an overarching coherence as one will suddenly take a final turn and arrive in the center. My commitment to spiritually empowering women so they can welcome those tender buds of humanity we call newborn babies with calm and conscious hearts has become the center of my labyrinth, my seed of bodhichitta.
Labyrinth walking is often associated with the wisdom of women. It was quickly adopted by the birthing community as an apt symbol for childbirth which requires a conscious heart coupled with surrender to forces of nature beyond one's control. Just as women in childbirth often emerge humbled and in awe of the power and intelligent design of life I likewise am blown away by how my personal life story is beginning to fall into a discernable pattern. Birthing babies requires courage, spiritual strength and surrender to a larger purpose and my experiences have given me a glimpse of how possible that is for all of us. I hope my "long strange trip" will encourage those who feel they have lost their way to know that they can trust continuing one step at a time and at the appropriate moment the deeper intelligent design which supports all life will emerge once again.
I remember the sublime exhilaration of discovering Buddhism in the late 1960s interwoven with the endless sunshine of Southern California and the rising feeling of spiritual opening and unlimited possibilities which were characteristic of the moment. I was among the walking wounded having barely survived the classically troubled family with an alcoholic father and co-dependant mother. Like a horror movie my deeply dysfunctional family matrix was set firmly in the back drop of the superficial materialistic culture of 1950s America. In my teens I was eagerly dipping into ancient scriptures, wisdom traditions, discovering Buddhism and Hinduism, depth of perspective, myths, symbols and art. It felt like receiving spiritual light and oxygen to someone who had been shut into a dark and close room. I remember devouring Alan Watts, D.T. Suzuki, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The Light of Asia, Seven Years in Tibet and the Dalai Lama's groundbreaking autobiography, My Land and My People, followed soon after. As though a fresh lens had been dropped before my minds eye the fabric of life took on new tones and textures of richness.
The closing years of the 1960s were full of ease, softness and trust creating a vibrant sense of the magic of life. With no rule book to guide me, I sought to build foundations for a "natural life" with spiritual principles at the core, not knowing where to begin. I scorned college as "useless and pointless knowledge" as academia seemed empty when contrasted with the wisdom traditions of the venerable East. Hardly more than a child myself, I was enraptured with children and babies. I loved working with them and what could be more in alignment with the natural order of things than having a child? I convinced my new husband and we both said, "far out" and I became the littlest earth mother at age 18.
My young healthy body found it easy to conceive and carry a child but the natural childbirth revolution of the 1970s was still in the future. I combed the library and found books such as Grantly Dick-Reed's Childbirth Without Fear but without a community of support ended up at the mercy of the conventional medicine of 1969. When the nurses in the hospital saw my books they openly belittled my intentions, deflating my confidence and setting the stage for the fear and agony they assured me was the norm. Although I was thrilled with my new little girl the harrowing experience of the birth sent me limping home from the hospital to be slammed into the relentless 24/7 demand of a new baby. With no hands on experience in caring for a new infant and no living tradition of women's wisdom to guide me, I purchased Dr. Spock's well known manual of baby care and launched into motherhood alone.
I was 20 years old when my second child was born in 1971. I had hoped the birth would be easier and by then Lamaze breathing techniques were beginning to become available. But as fate would have it my child chose to arrive on a Sunday. When my labor stalled mid-day I saw my doctor begin to pace the floor impatiently. He was visibly annoyed he would have to miss a scheduled golf game and recommended my slowly progressing labor be artificially augmented. I have always been unusually sensitive to medications and I descended into a unique region of hell as the jagged, chemically-induced contractions literally rocked my body. With my concentration shattered, I quickly realized my long practiced breathing techniques would not be equal to the task. Within adequate time for the doc to hit the links by late afternoon, I was rushed into the delivery room out of control, in agony and terror. In the final minutes as I labored and pushed my little boy into the world the two male physicians in attendance animatedly reeled through a play by play of a recent football game. The side-effects of the medications would keep me in bed for several days. Once again I returned home to care for a newborn not only with physical trauma to heal but sick at heart as well. It was considered the standard experience. Pre-feminism we women never complained, our concerns were unseemly in the face of men's important business of running the world.
By twenty years of age I had two little ones and a very young husband to take care of. Once again I found a reliable source of nourishment in the classical spiritual traditions and my new family enthusiastically jumped into an intentional community led by a charismatic and brilliant Oxford educated East Indian. Under his tutelage we embraced an eclectic mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, mystical Christianity and Judaism, Native American spirituality, and the inner teachings of all the world's spiritual traditions. Our guru steered us into a monastic life-style of renunciation and service to his vision of a better world. My love of children which had prompted me to leap into motherhood so early recommended me as commune childcare provider. I loved all the children and seemed to have a knack for understanding them. We were encouraged to work in the world and start families like lay disciples in other traditions but every available free moment was to be devoted to service, study or inward reflection. Later as my children entered elementary school I moved on from my childcare responsibilities and took an entry level office job with a corporation that offered advancement potential. The teacher coined the phrase secular monasticism to describe this unusual lifestyle. The vows of the bodhisattvas declaring an undying commitment to assist in the enlightenment of suffering humanity spoke deeply to my heart and I found solace in an austere life through these noble truths.When I hear the cooing of the morning doves at sunrise I am still often flooded with memories of ardent moments sitting on my meditation cushion. As if it was yesterday I recall a lecture I gave to our assembled sangha of 200 souls called the Seed of Bodhichitta. It is the seed of enlightenment I explained, weaving and touching the elegant wisdom of simultaneously embracing suffering in oneself and in others, consciously opening ones heart and using it as a locus of transformation.
Our teacher openly scorned the language of modern psychology saying it was founded on narrow categories and limited assumptions about human nature. It's language was verboten as if our community had elected to live in the 14th century. For a decade I had approached the teacher to complain my husband was physically abusing my children and verbally abusing me. The teacher said if I became "spiritual enough", if I could become like the classic Hindu wife of pure renunciation, the abuse would stop and the situation would be alchemically transformed. As if returning to a jail cell I remember returning home after these meetings trying desperately to find some lofty theme to leaven my natural sense of anger and injustice laced with a deadening disappointment. Others struggling with alcoholism, marriage and money problems--even unexamined childhoods of incest--were similarly dismissed out of hand. As if trying to cure diabetes by changing ones mental attitude the only tools we were offered were overly large universal truths which became platitudes in the face of the practical need. "Try harder", we would be told which anyone knowledgeable in the dynamics of addiction or trauma can attest is not a viable way to get traction on those issues. Life started getting dicey.
As years became decades the teacher's once brilliant lectures on universal ideals laced with philosophical profundities became tirades on his exclusive possession of the right outlook on all matters practical, political and metaphysical. It slid so slowly it was difficult to see. His claims of omniscience became inflated and he became obsessed with secrecy, status and hierarchy. I remember vividly a visit to our religious community by the Dalai Lama in the 1980s. We prepared for weeks, our little meeting hall scrubbed to perfection with flowers and candles exquisitely arranged for the big day. With several lamas in attendance and Geoffrey Hopkins translating his presence was like the coming of spring. Our guru insisted before the Dalai Lama arrived and after he left that he was his spiritual superior but the still and light darshan of his Holiness trumped the day and many of us remembered something by then almost forgotten.
A simple life focused on spiritual pursuits was being quickly left behind as the decade of the 80s progressed. After years of studying classical texts which extolled the virtues of guru-yoga, unconditional devotion to the teacher and the lineage, we disciples struggled valiantly to make the inappropriate behavior into crazy wisdom. Our teacher was not just an avatar but the avatar of all avatars that curiously smoked Madison cigarettes and guzzled cups of East Indian coffee each with three heaping spoons of sugar. Although it would not come out until later, as time wore on as if consulting the "cracked guru rule book" he struck up a secret affair with a beautiful disciple. My children and all the children had known all along something was amiss. We spoke of eloquently universal themes but lived disconnected from common sense and pathetically out of touch with the changing culture they touched daily in their schools and other outside activities. The refined and noble ideas of the ancient wisdom traditions had needed soil in which to put down roots and the missing water of psychological honesty and authenticity could not be replaced by mythic images of universal heroism.
Group think is subtle and pernicious and the old fairy tale the Emperor's New Clothes contains a truth which is relevant to many an organization, club, church or sangha. It took every shred of courage I could muster to finally speak the truth as I saw it and formally break with the group. Within a few months I moved away from Southern California to live intensely alone in Seattle, a city of sharply slanted sunlight and endless rainy days. My younger teenager went off to live with his father who I had long ago divorced against the protests of the teacher. My elder daughter went off to college when I struck out profoundly lost at age 39 to start all over again. Night after night I dreamt of abandoned buildings, large, ornate, elegant buildings all empty and still or sometimes with a slight breeze blowing the grasses that grew up between crumbling walls. As I approached my fortieth birthday I didn't have a clue who I was.
As I ventured out alone for the first time in my life I sensed I needed to do something simple for a living. I remembered decades before being the commune childcare provider so I threw away my business resume and applied for a $5.00 per hour job working in a childcare center. I immediately landed a position working in a large facility where 85 small children under the age of 5 spent their days while their parents worked at consuming professional careers in Pioneer Square near the Pikes Place Market. I requested and was placed in the infant room where 16 babies under one year of age were cared for. I felt immediately at home. As I did not know a single soul in that part of the country my best friends for those early years of solitude were all less than one year of age. I wrote long letters to a friend living in another state with pages of anecdotes about each of them not realizing how it seemed both humorous and poignant to be so absorbed in such tiny ones but I came to know each of them intimately and the babies and I understood each other perfectly.
I couldn't look at a spiritual book that first three years as I continued to discover the healing balm of my own innate knack with babies. If someone mentioned Eastern philosophy or Buddhism I felt nothing as though drawing a blank card out of a deck--no images, no thoughts, no feelings presented themselves to my weary soul. Finally a copy of Bo Lozoff's book, We Are All Doing Time about his work with prisoners convicted of violent felonies living in hard-core penitentiaries fell into my hands. It was gritty and real and no bullshit. That part of me which I know now could never really die began to stir again.
Although it would take years to develop an emotional maturity appropriate to my chronological age, the sifting process of an aching spiritual disillusionment had begun in earnest. My experiences were not unique. I met other refugees from other groups, other cults, other dead-ends. The paradox of sublime spiritual teachings and genuine spiritual experiences having been contained in a hotbed of nonsense naturally led to deeper questions. Things can be true at one level and false at another. Spiritual truth and psychological integration, affirmations and embodiments were both required for the rubber to meet the road. The cross-pollination of the classical East with its mythic themes and emphasis on selflessness and a collective sense of self were juxtaposed with the emerging values of the 20th century West with its insistence on the integrity of the individual, psychological honesty and clear self-definition. These issues were pressing and had affected many groups of spiritual devotees. They were not unique to my group and others had likewise suffered on the cutting edge of a new historical experiment as deeply divergent cultures came to know and understand each other. Questions emerged and were discussed to the enlightenment of us all. Was the slide into religiosity and dogma the responsibility of the disciples or the responsibility of the teacher? How were we all complicit? A new spiritual language was evolving. We now often speak of American Buddhism and its unique contribution to the perennial wisdom tradition. It is a living stream of wisdom that has morphed as it has traveled from continent to continent over the long arcs of centuries. Each new land has left a mark and a richer and more diverse application of its wisdom has emerged.
As the years passed I moved back to California and continued working with children and babies. I thought I had reconnected with my spiritual quest as I actively attended meditation retreats and satsangs with numerous spiritual groups in the San Francisco area. Older and wiser I joined new dharma buddies in what I thought was a place of unassailable authenticity. But the deeper design of life had a further level of surrender in store for me and when my son died of an accidental drug overdose shortly after his 29th birthday when I was 49, I was lost once more. The fabric of life was torn and the pain of grief would take me on a journey no words, no practice, no fellowship could touch. I screamed out in denial at first, there must be some mistake. He had moved to Seattle soon after I had returned to California and at the time of his death worked as a chef in an Irish pub that was only one block from the baby room where my individuality had been reborn. There are no words to capture the broken heart of a mother. Buddhism's perspectives opened the door to solace and by "tuning in" to mothers everywhere who had likewise lost their young I felt the substance of our collective grief support me. I discovered love is immortal and partakes of the deeper unity which supports consciousness whether it is in a physical body or not. I turned to Sogyal Rinpoche's, practical and illuminating Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings from the Vietnamese Zen tradition which speaks of ancestor worship or our connection to our relatives who are currently disembodied comforted me. Ram Dass's simple no-nonsense words once again rang like a bell as I slowly felt my way into a life altered forever.
Time and space are no constraints to the spirit realm and in the first few months after his death I would feel my son's presence in my apartment in Northern California. He would often ring my telephone in the night or set the lights to flickering to tell me he was okay over there on the other side. He often spoke to me in dreams about our past lives together and reviewing what had led to his tragic death. In time I took my grief to the labyrinth and it gave me a place to commune with the other side and to send my love to ease his journey unwinding what had been a challenging life. We had always shared humor and we would joke and laugh at life's profound ironies as I walked the curves of the labyrinth learning how to live one more time.
As my affinity for the other side grew more pointed I felt my attention shift from children and babies to pregnant women and newborns. One day while walking the labyrinth I was flooded with the memory of a powerful dream I had experienced many years before when I was working in the baby room in Seattle. In the dream I saw the birth of children as a wave of light eternally nourishing the earth in a manner similar to the perpetual breaking of the dawn. The little ones come with the pure light of consciousness unmodified in their new eyes and the hope and promise which naturally arises for all people in all cultures when a new child is born universally renews us all. The portal of birth began to fascinate me and the more I learned the more I felt compelled by it. At first I naively thought my traumatic birth stories of so many decades before must be ancient history by now. Much to my horror I discovered the natural childbirth movement of the 1970s was considered a quaint joke in the world of obstetrics. In fact the evolution of birthing babies had taken a huge step backward as materialistic medicine stamped out any last vestiges of seeing childbirth as a normal human function and officially christened it a "medical event" to be accompanied by drugs, surgery and interventions. Each decade seems to have escaladed and further institutionalized the fear around birthing. Although only a miniscule percent of births require life saving interventions the medical community has created a culture of worst-case scenarios where the tail is wagging the dog. All births are now considered high risk and teetering on the brink of disaster at any moment. While integral medicine with its respect for the mind, body and spirit of the patient is quickly making significant inroads in most branches of medicine, obstetrics almost more than any other specialty seems stuck in a 19th century paradigm of the body as a machine.
Birth is a subject which instantly evokes uncomfortable feelings in many not unlike the subject of death although for different reasons. There have been strong taboos around both subjects which social decorum has dictated are indelicate to speak about frankly. The subject of birth is wound into subtle and complex cultural prejudices regarding women and touches on hot button issues of long standing social reserve involving sexuality, menstruation and the primal act of childbirth itself. On more than one occasion I have felt the energy in the room freeze when I have told new acquaintances about my work and my devotion to transforming childbirth. "It is really about consciousness in birth", I'll say to soften the blow. But the old rebel in me wants to add, "and the reason many don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole is because the subject involves unglamorized female bodies and it is sexual and primitive with sweat, tears, blood and vaginas!"
Buddhism’s teachings on death and dying were life-saving to me after my son’s death. These perspectives regarding death can equally apply to birth and are critical to my commitment to revolutionizing how we welcome souls into incarnation. My hope is the spiritual wisdom of the ancient traditions can provide guidance for the troubling realties of birthing babies in the 21st century. Every spiritually sensitive and socially responsible individual should know how souls are entering earth life in the hands of mainstream medicine. It is a pressing spiritual and social concern few are informed about. As Buddhists we are committed to ahimsa or loving and non-violent treatment for all living things. The passage through the mystical loka known as childbirth is more often than not a sentence to physical and psychological distress for both mother and child which is completely unnecessary.
I meet women every week who tell me stories of frightening and dehumanizing birth experiences. I meet newborn babies who have been traumatized by their passage into this world, who are dazed and disoriented looking to a mother who is reeling in an attempt to assimilate antiquated medical applications doled out in unwieldy assembly line hospitals. Childbirth is among the most psychospiritually vulnerable passages in the human experience for both the mother and the baby yet it is treated with the ham-handed perspective of the medicine of the past.
The receptivity and vulnerability of both mother and child as they pass through this locus of power and mystery are akin to other passages through transpersonal realms. The care with which we seclude and protect someone on a shamanic journey, in deep meditation, with psychotropic substances or with holotropic breathwork, should be the norm for childbirth. Sadly in the hands of mainstream medicine we sever the mind body connection with drugs and keep the woman in a nightmare world of institutionalized fears supported by intrusive high-tech equipment. Birth orgasm, birth ecstasy, paranormal experiences and visions which have been reported by birthing women since the beginning of time are not even known to exist in our culture.
Our current medical culture is a toxic blend of big business and fear of legal liability. Gargantuan HMOs set the pace where any competitive OB must deliver hundreds of babies each year to stay in the game. Shockingly the United States statistics on maternal death have not improved since the early 1980s. We now stand 29th in the world! Soaring malpractice premiums and the ever-present fear of lawsuit directly impact prenatal care as well as the decision making processes in the delivery room. The World Health Organization recommends a 15% Cesarean rate as the outer limit of a responsible practice of obstetrics. In the United States 30% of our babies are surgically removed from their mother's body. Many advocates for mothers and babies have sited the one to one connection between the ever mounting C-section rate and the fear of getting sued. A million Cover Your Ass steps are injected into the doctor's and the hospitals protocols while the shear logistics of maintaining a busy practice leave the physician's exhausted and disengaged. Medications such as cytotec continue to be used routinely to induce labor although exposes on Dateline NBC and elsewhere have thoroughly documented the substantial danger which has repeatedly lead to the death of mother, baby or both. The ancient medical vow, "first do no harm" needs to be revisited with blinding honesty in the hospitals where 98% of our babies are born.
At the same time the cutting edge of medical research is converging with mysticism. Scientific research each year is pushing the boundary of our quantification of the elegant intelligence at work in the human body and as it does we are discovering the living links in our interwoven system we call our mind-body-spirit. What about childbirth? Has the economy of nature somehow left this one human experience devoid of intelligent design? Far from it! Human beings from time immemorial have considered birth a miracle and now we are finding out exactly how the subtle and delicate systems of the body collaborate in a symphony of processes to produce a new unique human life. The mystical notes touched on by scientific discoveries are mind-blowing: the first bundle of cells to differentiate when the child is conceived is the heart which immediately takes up its steady beat; the hormone oxytocin which causes the mothers womb to open and facilitates the flow of breastmilk is also nicknamed the "love hormone" because it is one of the physical manifestations of what we call bonding. Newborn babies were once thought to be blind at birth but we now know they can see perfectly at the appropriate distance to be held in arms by mom and dad. The quickly evolving language of peri-natal psychology says the pivotal human experience of giving birth creates what is called birth memory which is seared into the consciousness of the mother creating a locus of power or trauma in her psyche for the remainder of her life. Likewise the word imprinting has been coined to refer to the physiological and psychospiritual impress on the receptive brain and body of the baby created by the variables of the birth passage.
What about the pain of childbirth? Is it as unbearable as we are led to believe? Is the only humane choice to temporarily severe the connection between the body and the brain-mind of the mother? Childbirth is not meaningless pain but pain with a purpose. Medical pain is generally a signal something is malfunctioning in the body--that something is wrong. The pain of childbirth although extremely challenging rarely indicates something is amiss. There is an instinctive transpersonal zone of consciousness which naturally arises for laboring women. With adequate emotional support, using appropriate breathing techniques and mind-body medicine modalities, she will find as the pain of childbirth builds, so does the release of endorphins, the body's natural anesthesia.
Rites of passage in all cultures involve challenge, suffering and trials. Birth was meant to be overwhelming, it is supposed to shake a woman down to her roots, leave her in awe of the power of the experience and also the power in herself. To remove the challenge is to remove the potential for a unique form of spiritual learning. We don’t find ourselves when things are easy. Many cultures saw birthing as the powerful initiation demanded of women before they stepped into the revered role of mothering.
To witness a woman joyfully embrace birthing her child with the power she finds in her own heart is awe-inspiring. The entrenched cultural view of women as passive and inadequate which is subtly interwoven into our expectations around birth needs to be taken to the rubbish heap of our collective patriarchal history. The spiritual freedom to birth wisely and well is a critical element in the re-empowerment of women which will finally put an end to the diminishment of her spiritual status. Women have the innate spiritual capabilities and with training can master the tools to cooperate with the process. Logically this must be a critical link in the restoration of the power of the divine feminine on earth.
As a hypnotherapist and doula I work with women to prepare for childbirth, support them through the birth and in the first few weeks post partum. My history of experimentation with spiritual pursuits has led me to believe there is not a one size fits all silver bullet for spiritual aspirants or for navigating childbirth. I tell my clients to explore all the tools and all of the mind-body medicine modalities which are available. It is a statement of exactly how profound the cultural indoctrination is that women ask me tentatively if they are being foolish to even dream of a natural birth. "Is it really possible?" they ask shyly. But the dream that birthing is potentially a passage of profound empowerment seems to be stamped deeply into the female heart as it continues to re-surface generation after generation.
With my own spiritual history planted in the wisdom of the East I was thrilled to train in a method called Calm Birth which has its roots in Tibetan Buddhism. It is a comprehensive package of practices which are founded on ancient knowledge. The expectant moms are taught a method called womb-breathing which works with the energy body and chakras transmitting vitality to mother and child. It also teaches how to spot fear and diminish its power through vigilant awareness. It finally incorporates a form of tonglen wherein the mother opens her heart to all birthing women everywhere. As she takes in all their fear and pain and feels it dissolve in the light of her own highest divine self she sends her beneficent support back to them in the classic giving and receiving meditation. Among the many paranormal experiences reported by women giving birth an experience of all birthing mothers everywhere and a fundamental existential link between them is probably the most common. This meditation supports that transpersonal channel.
What could be more important than honoring and preserving the sacred pulse beat of life itself as each new human story is woven into our collective tapestry? It is imperative we as a culture begin to connect the dots and turn our attention to the very gate of life itself as it is well within our grasp to transform it into a place of power rather than a dark initiation into a mindless and crass culture lacking in basic sensitivity. Those of us who embrace the ancient wisdom traditions are taught of the connection between consciousness and form, the collective self and the individual self, between eternity and time. Thus, the vibrancy and health of the first breath of every child must affect us all while simultaneously stamping a critical signature on the life about to be lived. I feel by shining the light of spiritual sensitivity on the way babies are born in our time the physics of change will be stimulated and create a broader moral awaking which will lead to a new paradigm for the childbirth of the future.
As I push forward into my sixth decade I now have friends and contemporaries who are departing Earth life and with each new year arriving with alarming rapidity, I know I will be following them in the psychological wink of an eye. I feel I will welcome the passage when it arrives. Paradoxically I am full in my story that has unexpectedly opened one step at a time into a life plentiful with simple pleasures from the richness of being grandma to my daughter's two children to the joy of being deeply engaged in my work. I am less inclined to repeat the vows of the bodhisattvas these days than to sing along with British rocker Sting's Sacred Love CD whose lyrical refrain, "send your love into the future" inspires me. Sometimes when I walk the labyrinth I imagine I hear the whispers of the unborn and I dream of a future when women will emerge from childbirth energized and amazed at their own spiritual capabilities and the pure consciousness in the eyes of newborn babies will be appreciated and received tenderly with love.
Birthing babies in the United States has been monopolized by allopathic medicine since the early 20th century. Allopathic medicine has long defined treatment through the lens of pathology and disease. The presuppositions of this medical paradigm have curiously been overlaid upon pregnancy and birth, which by definition has nothing to do with illness. Along with this paradigm of medicine has come the long-entrenched view of the patient as the passive recipient of the recommendations of the all-knowing medical professional. Most obstetrical care, both figuratively and literally, puts women on their backs while their babies are "delivered" by their doctors. The new model of a collaborative physician-patient relationship has not seemed to penetrate obstetrical care to date.
"The perceived need for ritualized medical care during pregnancy is more cultural than medical."
Thomas H. Strong, Jr. M.D., Expecting Trouble
The cultural blind spot regarding childbirth is undoubtedly part of a convoluted story. Unfortunately, prejudices regarding women are still deeply embedded in our collective thinking. These unexamined proclivities are part of a complicated history involving psychology, philosophy and religion. Freud's theory that women unconsciously recognize and despise their own fundamental inferiority molded the secular landscape of thought for almost a century. Philosophers whose influence spanned thousands of years such as Aristotle wrote, "The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities, we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness." This perspective has deep roots in our collective cultural attitudes. Western religion contributed the view of women's existential connection with Original Sin and made birthing a painful punishment to be endured by the daughters of Eve.Although the feminist revolution of the 20th century created some in-roads into these historical perspectives, they are nevertheless so subtly buried in cultural prejudices it may take many centuries of consciously questioning and revisiting them to eradicate their pernicious influence in everything from our thought processes to societal institutions. The emerging field of social healing which seeks to deal with the wounds of large-scale oppression and identify how they have shaped consciousness seems relevant to the long shadows these misconceptions have cast.
These perspectives have been instrumental in laying the foundation for the mistaken notion that a woman's body is somehow broken in relation to birthing. Scientific research each year pushes the boundary of our quantification of the elegant intelligence at work in our interwoven system we call our mind-body-spirit. Each new discovery further confirms the subtle intelligence at work in the larger economy of the natural systems in our body. For example, only in recent decades has science quantified exactly how precisely human breast milk nourishes the human infant. Subtle enzymes (that cannot be replicated by formula manufacturers) uniquely feed the infant's brain and critically contribute to its quickly unfolding development. Meantime, as the new mother breastfeeds, the astonishingly interactive intelligence of nature releases hormones that stimulate contractions of the uterus, returning it to its pre-pregnancy size.At the same time breastfeeding itself stimulates a release of hormones in both the newborn and the mother which facilitate the flow of love and what we now call bonding. Within days after birth a miraculous dance of reciprocity develops as the mother's milk lets down in direct response to the hungry cry of her baby. As an example of our cultural confusion and its complicated history surrounding women, sexuality and birth whether a mother can breastfeed in public is still hotly debated in the 21st century. While it is widely accepted that women's breasts can be used openly to sell beer and automobiles, where and when she can nourish her infant is regulated by specific laws. In seemingly liberal Marin County, California an upscale and chic gymnasium was forced to create a private room out of the potential gaze of offended members who could not tolerate a woman discreetly putting her child to the breast at poolside.
Integral medicine has also begun to quantify the power and purpose of the body's perpetual tendency to restore equilibrium. If we can eliminate the human tendency to be our own worst enemy, to remove anxiety, eliminate stressful environments and situations and stop making life-style choices that create impediments to health, the body will find its own way to heal itself. What about childbirth? Has the economy of nature somehow left this one human experience devoid of intelligent design? Women's heath issues have long been unconsciously placed at a lower rung of priority. The notorious 1988 study on heart disease, which had 13,385 male participants and remarkably concluded women were not at risk, is only one glaring example. In 1990 the National Institute for Health was publicly criticized for devoting 13% of its funds to research regarding women. Women were diagnosed for decades with hypoglycemia based on sugar levels established in men. Only recently it was discovered women's levels are not the same. Breast cancer received the least focus in cancer research until female celebrities took up the cause, creating focus and necessary fund-raising.
The cultural blind spot regarding women's health in general is uniquely compounded in obstetrics, with its direct association with long-entrenched social reserve around sexuality, menstruation and the primal act of childbirth itself. It is remarkable how little has been scientifically quantified and researched, especially regarding the psychological dimension of childbirth. In the 1990s a study revealed for the first time that women retain a heightened memory of giving birth to their children for the remainder of their lives. This memory remains a locus of vital energy (positive or negative) in the coloration of consciousness from empowerment and pride to anger and victimization. Why does this particular memory have a unique longevity? Why do more women in the United States experience post-partum depression than any other industrialized nation? Is there a connection between a traumatic birth experience and post-partum depression? Is there a connection between post-partum depression and Cesarean section?How common is post traumatic stress disorder following birth? What is the connection between a positive birth experience and bonding? What is the impact of the birth experience on successful breastfeeding? Does the newborn likewise have a positive or a negative birth experience? How does Cesarean section impact the newborn? What is the effect of common interventions such as a vacuum extractor, forceps or internal electronic fetal monitoring on the newborn? How do newborns experience trauma? How do newborns assimilate and heal from trauma? Studies aside, it would be exciting and revealing to ask women themselves, "What is the birth you dream of for your child?" It would also be informative to ask new mothers and fathers immediately after the birth how they would quantify their birth experience.
The incessant drumbeat of birth has lead to a sense of ordinariness which no doubt also has contributed to a lack of creative questioning. Before the appropriate questions, can be raised, we need to stand back and reassess our presuppositions about the meaning of birth. What is the significance of a new human consciousness entering the larger human story and what does it mean for a woman to have life pass through her? If one embraces a divine plan and metaphysics of spiritual connectedness, then birth stands at the sacred center of life. If that is true then birth matters. Consciousness in birth matters. How a woman births matters. How a woman births matters to her baby. How a woman births matters to the consciousness of the planet. Birth is a journey across the threshold into a completely new life. It is often the single most profound psychological and spiritual shift a woman will experience in a life time. Identity, values and societal status alter dramatically and the process can re-define self-image and self-worth. A woman enters into the journey of giving birth having a mother and she will emerge being a mother. Birth is a journey across the threshold into a completely new life.An African proverb has it:
Being pregnant and giving birth are like crossing a narrow bridge.
People can accompany you to the bridge. They can greet you on the other side.
But you walk that bridge alone.
It is a boundary crossing and therefore a rite of passage.
You can't give birth and end up at the same place. The passage itself demands transformation, being among the most intense physical, emotional and spiritual experiences of life. With the proper preparation and support the passage can be joyous, triumphant, challenging, life-changing, and life-giving for both mother and child. It can be a peak experience which will eternally be a source of confidence. I have met many who have faced the challenge heroically and the glow of pride that lights up their faces when recalling their unique story, even decades after the event, tells its own tale. One mother told me, "I climbed Mt. Everest that day and no one will ever be able to take that away from me." Unfortunately our collective cultural ignorance teaches that birth is something to be feared and endured, not experienced.
What about the pain of childbirth?Is it as unbearable as we are led to believe? Is the only humane choice to deaden the body? The pain is interwoven with the totality of the experience at all levels. Childbirth is not meaningless pain but pain with a purpose. At the physical level the pain acts as a guide for the woman to respond to, she then moves in response to what she is feeling. Her instincts can take over using breathe and positions that help the baby move down and into position for its journey down the birth canal. As the pain builds, so does the release of endorphins, the body's natural anesthesia. The flood of endorphins and oxytocin will open the door to an altered state of consciousness which is simultaneously primal and transpersonal. The flow of oxytocin will increase as labor builds and this same hormone will cause her to fall in love with and bond with her baby after the birth. When the pain of labor is stopped entirely, nature's feedback system is interrupted. This is no doubt why the most common side effect of an epidural is for labor to stall. This then requires pitocin augmentation to stimulate labor and the cascade of interventions begins.
Rites of passage in all cultures involve challenge, suffering and trials. The obstacles encountered are the very things that create transformation, causing us to feel more capable by their mastery. It is by facing and overcoming a challenge that we discover who we are. The upheaval of birth is part of nature's grand design. Birth was meant to be overwhelming, it is supposed to shake a woman down to her roots, leave her in awe of the power of the experience and also the power in herself. To deny the pain is to deny the growth. To remove the challenge is to remove the potential for a unique form of spiritual learning. We don’t find ourselves when things are easy. Modern psychology defines peak experiences and flow experiences as ones involving absolute absorption, total commitment and complete concentration in challenging ourselves to stretch beyond our known limits. When we are invited to face our fears and work through them we emerge with knowledge of our own courage. Many women experience childbirth as a peak experience.
Conversely this is undoubtedly why women who are given early epidurals and manage to pass through the process without incurring trauma often feel let down, experience grief or disorientation as though the completion of the design of nature has been psychospiritually interrupted. Joseph Campbell in his consideration of the hero, says classical and aboriginal cultures saw childbirth as the heroic quest of women. He likewise acknowledged its lack of novelty perhaps detracts from the splash and dazzle of other outward accomplishments we deem remarkable or transformative for society. These cultures esteemed women's power in birth and she was often seen to be participating in the pure power of creation of a goddess. Campbell tells us among the Aztecs the mothers who died in childbirth went to the same heaven as warriors who died in battle. A critical element in his definition of heroism is it requires putting your life on the line for another which literally qualifies birth.
It is inspiring to imagine a cultural awakening around the importance of consciousness in birth. Imagine a woman who believes her body was designed to birth wisely and well. Imagine a woman who is confidant she has the psychospiritual power to traverse this extremely challenging yet rewarding passage. Imagine a woman who is trained in appropriate mind-body medicine techniques which give her the tools necessary to remain calm and conscious in both her body and her heart. Imagine a woman who can stay poised at the intersection between spirit, mind and body. Imagine a woman who can self-consciously choose to surrender and simultaneously support this mysterious juncture between heaven and earth. Imagine a woman who is able to fully embrace the heroic challenge of birthing her child. Imagine a woman who can be fully present to the sacredness of the first breathe of her baby. Imagine a woman who emerges from childbirth awake to her own power and purpose and who is ready to assume the awe-inspiring task of being a mother. Imagine a woman for whom the life-long memory of birth resonates with the confidence it has sealed into her spirit. Imagine the pure consciousness of the tiny bud of humanity we call a newborn baby being welcomed with courage and love.
