She was sitting in the street near my neighbor’s house,
pausing on her slow walk, woods and wetlands a block away.
Folks gathered, gazing at turtle and wanting to protect her from passing cars.
The safest place for her would be in the woods. I picked her up by her shell,
halfway between her front and back legs. She was snapping but her short neck
could not reach back to my hands.
As I was walking to the woods with turtle, children living near by were happy and excited
to see a snapping turtle so close. In the woods I put turtle on the moist, wonderful earth,
patted her shell and wished her well.
Later pondering with a neighbor about why turtle was on McComb Street,
we both had a sense that she might have been getting ready to lay her eggs
and was heading for the woods. From past experiences with turtles,
we felt this was a real possibility.
And if so, I do believe I midwifed turtle to a safe place to give birth.
My peony is beginning to birth her buds.
Watching the buds open, I think of babies heads crowning out of their mothers’ bodies.
Birthing babies and buds share the amazing energy of creation.
As we trust flowers to open to new life, so can we trust birth.
Please check out “Of Nature and Birth“, a DVD that brings to sight the power and beauty of women laboring, opening to birth and babies being born. It begins with peonies opening.
35 years since first photographing birth, I’m still in awe of
women giving birth and babies being born.
Babe -fresh from her mother’s warm body-just several seconds old.
Breathing- reaching into her new world.
Mom and dad are newborns too-parents for the first time.
They gaze with first sight on their daughter-seeing-touching-feeling-
holding her earthly presence in their love and awe.
The Midwifery Way is abundant in daily life, even beyond the profound care for women giving birth and babies being born.
Midwifery guides with skill and expertise, attending and trusting women’s
abilities and strengths. Supporting possibilities and challenges.
Human experience thrives on such wise and wholesome energy.
Again and again cultural references to the midwifery way
are in our thoughts, words and deeds.
The metaphors are many.
Here are a few:
“The purpose of intimate partnership is for us to midwife the perfection in each other.” Marianne Williamson.
“Democracy needs to be reborn in every generation and education is its midwife.” John Dewey.
“I want you to counsel me the way you midwife birth.” K.L.
“I am a midwife, looking for the truth.” Socrates, whose mother Phainarete, was a midwife.
Have you been noticing midwifery metaphors too?
They’re in articles, books, conversations. Where else?
I am gathering these metaphors to help make more public
a cultural consciousness of midwifery.
With this work in progress, I invite you to share with me
the metaphors you find.
This project will benefit by your participation! Thank You!
With the grace of mysterious timing,
pregnancy ends and birth begins.
We do not understand what starts the dynamic process of labor,
yet the wisdom of two bodies, mother and babe know.
The uterus, strongest muscle in the human body, contracts with absorbing persistence.
In giving herself to the power, birthing woman opens fully, instincts accurate and ancient.
Intensity from this enormous effort stretches consciousness beyond language,
to a borderland marked by relentless emotional and physical sensations.
Doubt that she can do this mighty work,
and determination that ‘Yes’ she will, are both true.
Family and friends give comforting words of encouragement,
and touch her with love. Care providers offer their skill and expertise.
These sustain birthing woman in the
solitary work that only she can do.
Excerpt from Brought to Earth by Birth
Our first home was in the body of another. Mother Herself.
I love pondering that we are here on earth because women made space for us in their own bodies.
Becoming human in the alchemy of the womb, we abide in a magnificent abode, growing into our time to be born. Mothers make us all possible, with the awesome power of creation.
The Hebrew word for womb, rechem also means ‘compassion’; the German word for ‘hope’, hoffnung also relates to pregnancy. We are born from blessed space.
For Mother’s Day, I’m celebrating First Home of Mothers’ Splendid Space.
More than one day, it’s a lifetime celebration.
Let’s Celebrate Together!
Photographs from Brought to Earth by Birth
First Home…Body Itself
Please share your birth thoughts. I would
love to hear from you!
I love the title of a wonderful poem, ” A woman in perfect progress”. It reminds me of birthing women. Karen J. Hoke wrote the poem about her daughter who is excited about becoming herself, and about playing basketball. “Stronger than she knows, she is a woman in perfect progress.”
Women, whose passionate, epic efforts of opening fully, to birth their babies, are to me, women in perfect progress. Not perfect, as an absolute. Rather as “proficient, completely suited for a particular purpose or situation,” The American Heritage Dictionary.
Woman’s profound and perfect progress of nurturing life within her womb for nine months, and then releasing this life into the world,…isn’t this magnificent reality?
? Share your thoughts ?
The poem is published in at our core:women writing about power
Photographs are from Brought to Earth by Birth
Brought to Earth by Birth has been gestating,
laboring and birthing within me for many years.
I’m in postpartum awe, gratitude and delight that
this book is now born!
I began photographing pregnancy, labor and birth
in 1973, because women asked. I have continued
because I want everyone to see this magnificent reality.
I invite you to hold the photographs and poetry in
your hands. Gaze and ponder the splendid nature of birth.
See the beauty. Feel the power.
Open to the mystery. Accept its grace.
Moment by moment birth resonates on our planet.
Do you feel this alive in your own being?
“Birth is the experience of a lifetime.
Giving birth and being born brings us
into the essence of creation where the
human spirit is courageous and bold and
the body, a miracle of wisdom.”
Birth blessings~~~Harriette
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