was Jeannine Parvati Baker's dream.....and is now mine too. What would the world look like if every mother was a midwife, if every mother was a doula? Midwife means to be 'with woman' and the greek meaning of doula is 'woman who serves'. If every woman found and followed her own way to mother, inspiring and supporting others to do the same and if every woman served with a humble heart owning her own experiences and dreams as just that. Able to utilize her burning fire to stoke the flames of others, giving them support and freedom to own their own unique experience and realize their own dreams. What would culture and community reflect through our strength and capability?
Just a little bit high coming off my first DONA International Doula Training Workshop and so inspired by Natasha, my first mama.
We collaborated on a few projects years ago, formed a friendship and are now collaborating on the most exciting project of her young life. To see a couple fall in love and build a family, to see walls shatter under the weight of truth, forgiveness and acceptance fill hearts, to see a father grown and a goddess born. What an honor to be a witness! And she's still a month away from giving birth! I don't know what exactly awaits, only that it is BEAUTIFUL.
The transformation from a girl to a woman will happen in so many more ways than one. Creativity is the core and when purposefully cultivated by her own choosing it is the most fulfilling. If that creative act is carrying and birthing a child, what is it that will make the difference in her birth being beyond physically healthy to emotionally empowering and life-changing?
It's not necessarily her birthplace or the amount of interventions, it's less about how 'natural' or how medically managed her birth was.
Respect, compassion, support, collaboration. Her relationships with the people around her, the words that are said to her, how she is touched, the satisfaction and confidence that comes from being heard and understood. No matter the outcome these are the things that matter when a woman is caring for her baby in those most delicate hours, where really there is more than one birth in the works. These are the things that build a confident mother who selflessly works though the challenges and rightly takes pride in the triumphs.
Essential tools for every life! Every mother a midwife.
