by Pandora Peoples
Indigenous people have developed an intuitive relationship with the earth that has proved beneficial to humanity and has developed over many thousands of years of human evolution. They understand the intelligence of the earth, and respect the consciousness within the natural world. They see how gratitude helps crops grow and know how singing to plants makes them grow faster. They see how the deeper their connection to the natural world, the more they can influence the events in their lives. Using ritual and ceremony to elicit helps from spiritual influences combined with the power of intention they manifest outcomes for individuals and for their communities. Honoring the cycles of the year and the life cycles of the human life, helps people to feel a part of the divine scheme of life and that their lives are in perfect harmony and syncopation with all that surrounds them. Seasonal festivals and rites of passages are vestiges of age-old understanding of the Cycle of Life.
In the last hundred years in the Unites States, agriculture has transformed from being predominantly composed of family-farms to being almost exclusively commercial and corporate farming. With this advent of the industrialized farming culture, new generations have quickly forgotten the importance of connecting to the earth and looking to the natural world for comfort and understanding.
In my practice, I have seen many depressed and melancholy clients come away from the cloud hanging over their head into the sunshine. Spending more time in natural seems to be the single most important factor in bringing about an immediate and striking shift in mood, which fosters positive feelings of self-worth and renewed sense of life purpose. Whether they walk in the park, sit at the beach, plant in their garden, swim in a pond, bike a wooded path, or hike in the mountains, spending time outside is more than simply absorbing vitamin D.
Connecting to the Natural World is often superior medicine to pharmaceutical drugs. Many so-called chemical imbalances can be cured with some combination of sunlight, dietary changes, herbal supplements, dance, making music, or a yoga practice. Could doctors or the medical industry make money if this was widely practiced and understood? Anything that you can do for yourself at home or in natural isn't profitable for the big business that is the medical industry. Sunlight is free. Dance is free. Making music is free. You are free to move your body how you choose. When you take your health in to your own hands it is a very powerful and rewarding experience. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for people to break through their inhibitions and fears of being present and moving in their own body. The uneasiness of self-consciousness and the awkwardness of self-discovery is a small price to pay for journeying on the path toward optimal health.
The natural world teaches us about regeneration. When we live in cities and spend most of our time surrounded by man-made structures, tools and machines, we are surrounded by things which weren’t pure creations of the Universal Intelligence. Theses objects do not vibrate at the same level of the natural world and they do not reflect back to us positive affirmations about life. In fact, cell phones, computers hum, lamps and other electrical devices, create audible and inaudible noise, which affects our brain waves and our nervous system, leading to stress, lowered immune response, and disorganized thought processes.
The natural world, teaches us about ourselves. Humans are animals, but we tend to forget it. We belong with our feet in the earth, our hands in the water, our hair in the wind, playing like dolphins and monkeys, and huddling together around campfires and the hearth. We belong to one another, as resources of our communities. It is our duty to ourselves to be diligent in striving to find our unique life purpose, and it is our duty to others to stick with our skills and talent to improve the lives of others. It is the duty of every person as neighbors, friends, and coworkers to help support others in finding that place in the community where they can contribute from the heart and offer their unique skills and talents.
Being status-driven and driven by individualism, many people have become so self-focused, that they have forgotten to share. The difficulty sharing seen in young children is a reflection of the adult world they mimic. It is endemic only to industrialized cultures. Most families do not share meals on a daily or weekly basis. Most families only share meals at holidays. Most people go out to eat when there is nothing in the fridge, instead of going over to a neighbor of friend’s house. Most people buy things they will only use once instead of borrowing.
What would the world look like if instead of buying snowsuits and power tools, we shared them? Would we start trading? Would we discover our own values over those sold to us in magazines, television, and film? Could trading services and items ever be a trend? If there were no advertising for it, if no corporation could profit from it, would it catch on?
How different would you feel about your neighbors if you could stop by their houses every time you needed something, such as sugar, butter, an ax, a chain saw? How much gas and anxiety would you save without gratuitous trips to the local stores? How would you feel when you could help a widow, a single mom, an unhappy couple, or an over-worked family by giving them potatoes, bread, a bushel of wood, scotch tape, a dozen nails, or an electric heater you never use when they are in need?
Tribal wisdom also understands the value of developing a relationship with the natural world, instead of attempting to control it. Their respect for all life, all plants and animals and elemental forces, gives them humility, which keeps them from living in a paradigm where they are motivated by greed and the desire to subjugate and exploit the resources and suffering of other people.
There has been a campaign aimed at convincing industrialized nations to see all indigenous people of Third World countries as impoverished, in an effort to justify bringing big business to countries with unexploited potential workforces who are sitting on top of numerous natural resources including rain forests, oil, gold, diamonds, coal, and the list goes on.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Ecstatic Birth: In the Company of the Goddess
Five years ago I gave birth to my son at home, surrounded by my midwives, a doula and my husband. Our tiny Venice Beach apartment was filled with hanging ferns and heart-shaped jade pothos vines. Beeswax candles flickered next to my supremo labor lemonade on a makeshift altar which displayed an array of herbal concoctions for which any witch doctor would be proud. My head sank back into the inflatable pool we bought at Target for $29.99 off a summer display. We'd been tipped off by a Malibu couple in our birthing class that this Rainbow-Brightly-colored, clover-shaped kiddy pool was the secret to success for their ecstatic home delivery, and we were determined to do the very same.
“To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16
The belief that childbirth is a painful sorrow we must bare as women as a punishment for Eve’s original sin, is a belief that is imparted through tradition. The vestiges of that belief can be found in most images of birthing mothers in film and television.
If at one time it was known that childbirth could be pleasure-filled, women must have felt rather self-possessed and empowered by their life-giving experience. Were women empowered life-givers, would they submit easily to being subjugated and governed by their husbands?
In much of the bible, God rules man and man rules woman. In that paradigm, there is an implication that women do not have as direct a connection with God. Their rule comes second hand, giving men a higher spiritual status. Within the above quotation, why are these three ideas linked together? ‘God will intensify pain in birthing your children. Your desire will be for your husband. He will rule you.’ Is it possible that there is a message here meant to control women with fear? Does this message reveal a fear of desire being felt during the birthing process? Is this perhaps a desire which would make a woman rebel against the rule of her husband?
Perhaps it is a desire felt during childbirth for something more divine and enigmatic than a husband? Perhaps it is a kundalini upwelling of life-force energy surging within the birthing mother as she releases and surrenders to the pure ecstasy of her own body as she inhabits the spiritual territory of Life Giver? Is birth such an empowering experience that a woman may remember that she can rule over herself or that she is connected to a divine feminine force? Perhaps she may even feel that she herself is created in the image of the forgotten face of the Goddess?
Before God was a man, God was a woman. In indigenous cultures over the globe, the image of the goddess giving birth to humanity abounded. What kind of differences in female self-esteem are there between women growing up with the idea of being ruled by their husbands and their single-parent Father God, and those growing up with the idea of answering to a Mother and Father, God-Goddess team?
Not having a divine female role model, has a lot of implications. This relationship to God described in the above quotation, implies a huge inequality in the status between men and women. It automatically puts men in an authoritative role over women, and diminishes the role in creation women play in their own lives. Would this kind of value system put women at risk for physical and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of their spouses?
What unconscious programming is operating in the self-esteem center of the modern birthing woman? Is she able to access her inner Goddess? Is she able to intuitively find the point where pain stops and pleasure starts? More and more women are finding doctors and midwives who understand the need for peaceful low-lit environments where women have control over who is at the birth, how they move and the positions they take during labor. Music, aromatherapy, quiet spaces, and unhurried low-lit environments found in birthing centers, at home births and with mid-wife or doula- attended hospital births, produce more successful, ecstatic and non-medical births. When birth is treated like a medical emergency or a medical procedure, the body tenses up, and natural birth becomes much harder to achieve.
The most effective birthing postures are active. The squatting position opens up two more inches of space in the pelvis of the female anatomy. With a catheter inside a birthing mother cannot walk around, and follow her natural instinct to contort her body. Hanging from a bar, rolling on a chiropractic ball, walking, being on all fours, sitting on the toilet, and sitting in seiza between contractions are all great positions which help the birthing process along, and relieve pressure and tension.
The hormones released during transition, free the mind to connect with the spirit world as the world of the baby
Personally, I can attest to an ecstatic birth being a rewarding experience. As soon as I surrendered my fears, listening to my body, I began trusting that I was being protected by the energy of the earth Mother and guided by my spirit helpers. I rocked back and forth in my birthing chair into my husband’s arms, and suddenly pressure was released. It was like scratching an itch, it felt good. My son was born with his hand first, not an easy birthing posture! He was also one in four babies who is occiput posterior, facing my abdomen, causing back labor which is said to be more difficult.
Something shifted for me when I realized "there [was] no going back". Letting my inhibitions go, I decided to elicit the help of oxytocin. Oxytocin in the "love hormone" occurring naturally in the body, which increases with the distension of the cervix and uterus. I added kissing my husband, making eye contact, and hip circles to my formula, strengthening my uterine contractions and dilating my cervix.
Gradually, the rocking of my pelvis (led by my yoni) turned into an exciting and deeply satisfying sensation. It was a kind of sexy feeling that went deep through me. It was a timeless ecstatic sensation as the kundalini surges moved through every energy center of my body. I gave birth to my son ten hours after contractions started in a $20 child’s pool I got from Target. The water was tepid and there were rainbow stripes around its edges.
With all of the wonderful hormones coursing through my body, I finally fell asleep 36 hours after my child's birth. Getting stitches didn’t faze me one bit, as I belted show tunes and all of my favorite songs at the top of my lungs through the suture done by my midwife’s assistant. I spent all my post-birth time bonding with my baby, watching him sleep, nursing and "making sure he was breathing". In my practice I have met many natural-birthers who have had similar experiences to mine. For those to whom natural childbirth is available, consider reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. Meditate on the subject and see what you feel drawn to do.
The most important and empowering element of the journey is that you know your choices and do what feels best for you. Connect to your baby’s spirit. Go with your instinct. Make that telepathic connection with your baby and you will begin connecting on a deeper level with your own soul.
Let go of all the baggage which keeps you from feeling empowered in your life before the birth. I rifled through ten boxes of writing, letters and diaries, before throwing seven of them away. I realized I was holding on to old stories, personal mythologies, and beliefs which were limiting me from reaching my full potential. I didn’t want to pass this legacy on to my child. With my pregnant intuition, I examined old letters in a new way. I had new insights, new forgiveness, new self-love and new acceptance. I felt in harmony with the universe. I walked in nature every day, connecting to my body and the elements, the earth and the sky, in a deeper and more aware way than I had before.
After crying at the ocean during a final emotional release, I asked for assistance from the universe. During prayers and meditations I connected with my guardian angels. I asked for assistance from the divine Mother, from God, from my ancestors. Weeks later during labor's transition, I felt a cold water washcloth on my forehead. Peace enveloped every fiber of my being. A silent message of love and courage overcame me. Opening my eyes I realized I was alone in the room, alone with my angels, in the company of the Goddess.
It's quite empowering to know that we are capable of breaking through fear into a pleasure-filled and joyful experience of birth.
“To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16
The belief that childbirth is a painful sorrow we must bare as women as a punishment for Eve’s original sin, is a belief that is imparted through tradition. The vestiges of that belief can be found in most images of birthing mothers in film and television.
If at one time it was known that childbirth could be pleasure-filled, women must have felt rather self-possessed and empowered by their life-giving experience. Were women empowered life-givers, would they submit easily to being subjugated and governed by their husbands?
In much of the bible, God rules man and man rules woman. In that paradigm, there is an implication that women do not have as direct a connection with God. Their rule comes second hand, giving men a higher spiritual status. Within the above quotation, why are these three ideas linked together? ‘God will intensify pain in birthing your children. Your desire will be for your husband. He will rule you.’ Is it possible that there is a message here meant to control women with fear? Does this message reveal a fear of desire being felt during the birthing process? Is this perhaps a desire which would make a woman rebel against the rule of her husband?
Perhaps it is a desire felt during childbirth for something more divine and enigmatic than a husband? Perhaps it is a kundalini upwelling of life-force energy surging within the birthing mother as she releases and surrenders to the pure ecstasy of her own body as she inhabits the spiritual territory of Life Giver? Is birth such an empowering experience that a woman may remember that she can rule over herself or that she is connected to a divine feminine force? Perhaps she may even feel that she herself is created in the image of the forgotten face of the Goddess?
Before God was a man, God was a woman. In indigenous cultures over the globe, the image of the goddess giving birth to humanity abounded. What kind of differences in female self-esteem are there between women growing up with the idea of being ruled by their husbands and their single-parent Father God, and those growing up with the idea of answering to a Mother and Father, God-Goddess team?
Not having a divine female role model, has a lot of implications. This relationship to God described in the above quotation, implies a huge inequality in the status between men and women. It automatically puts men in an authoritative role over women, and diminishes the role in creation women play in their own lives. Would this kind of value system put women at risk for physical and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of their spouses?
What unconscious programming is operating in the self-esteem center of the modern birthing woman? Is she able to access her inner Goddess? Is she able to intuitively find the point where pain stops and pleasure starts? More and more women are finding doctors and midwives who understand the need for peaceful low-lit environments where women have control over who is at the birth, how they move and the positions they take during labor. Music, aromatherapy, quiet spaces, and unhurried low-lit environments found in birthing centers, at home births and with mid-wife or doula- attended hospital births, produce more successful, ecstatic and non-medical births. When birth is treated like a medical emergency or a medical procedure, the body tenses up, and natural birth becomes much harder to achieve.
The most effective birthing postures are active. The squatting position opens up two more inches of space in the pelvis of the female anatomy. With a catheter inside a birthing mother cannot walk around, and follow her natural instinct to contort her body. Hanging from a bar, rolling on a chiropractic ball, walking, being on all fours, sitting on the toilet, and sitting in seiza between contractions are all great positions which help the birthing process along, and relieve pressure and tension.
The hormones released during transition, free the mind to connect with the spirit world as the world of the baby
Personally, I can attest to an ecstatic birth being a rewarding experience. As soon as I surrendered my fears, listening to my body, I began trusting that I was being protected by the energy of the earth Mother and guided by my spirit helpers. I rocked back and forth in my birthing chair into my husband’s arms, and suddenly pressure was released. It was like scratching an itch, it felt good. My son was born with his hand first, not an easy birthing posture! He was also one in four babies who is occiput posterior, facing my abdomen, causing back labor which is said to be more difficult.
Something shifted for me when I realized "there [was] no going back". Letting my inhibitions go, I decided to elicit the help of oxytocin. Oxytocin in the "love hormone" occurring naturally in the body, which increases with the distension of the cervix and uterus. I added kissing my husband, making eye contact, and hip circles to my formula, strengthening my uterine contractions and dilating my cervix.
Gradually, the rocking of my pelvis (led by my yoni) turned into an exciting and deeply satisfying sensation. It was a kind of sexy feeling that went deep through me. It was a timeless ecstatic sensation as the kundalini surges moved through every energy center of my body. I gave birth to my son ten hours after contractions started in a $20 child’s pool I got from Target. The water was tepid and there were rainbow stripes around its edges.
With all of the wonderful hormones coursing through my body, I finally fell asleep 36 hours after my child's birth. Getting stitches didn’t faze me one bit, as I belted show tunes and all of my favorite songs at the top of my lungs through the suture done by my midwife’s assistant. I spent all my post-birth time bonding with my baby, watching him sleep, nursing and "making sure he was breathing". In my practice I have met many natural-birthers who have had similar experiences to mine. For those to whom natural childbirth is available, consider reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. Meditate on the subject and see what you feel drawn to do.
The most important and empowering element of the journey is that you know your choices and do what feels best for you. Connect to your baby’s spirit. Go with your instinct. Make that telepathic connection with your baby and you will begin connecting on a deeper level with your own soul.
Let go of all the baggage which keeps you from feeling empowered in your life before the birth. I rifled through ten boxes of writing, letters and diaries, before throwing seven of them away. I realized I was holding on to old stories, personal mythologies, and beliefs which were limiting me from reaching my full potential. I didn’t want to pass this legacy on to my child. With my pregnant intuition, I examined old letters in a new way. I had new insights, new forgiveness, new self-love and new acceptance. I felt in harmony with the universe. I walked in nature every day, connecting to my body and the elements, the earth and the sky, in a deeper and more aware way than I had before.
After crying at the ocean during a final emotional release, I asked for assistance from the universe. During prayers and meditations I connected with my guardian angels. I asked for assistance from the divine Mother, from God, from my ancestors. Weeks later during labor's transition, I felt a cold water washcloth on my forehead. Peace enveloped every fiber of my being. A silent message of love and courage overcame me. Opening my eyes I realized I was alone in the room, alone with my angels, in the company of the Goddess.
It's quite empowering to know that we are capable of breaking through fear into a pleasure-filled and joyful experience of birth.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Emotional Detachment and Intellectual Rationalizations
Emotional detachment is a breeding ground for intellectual justifications, from which depraved rationalizations spring forth. When we fail to listen to signals from our emotional bodies, we become numb to our primal and survival instincts. Our bodies fall into disrepair when our mind/body/soul wisdom is not integrated and in syncopation.
If we hold back on speaking the truth, our throats tighten and sore throats manifest. If communication is too long repressed over years or decades, thyroid conditions may form. If messages from our heart centers are ignored and unheeded, tightness in our chests occur, and breathing may become belabored. Over years, sublimated or stifled feelings may lead to the build up of fats or calcium deposits in the arteries, high and low blood pressure, or even heart attacks. You may just wind up with pig valves at the helm.
The thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (who represent a global council of each original tribe), have been warning that during this spiritually pivotal time, heart attacks will be significantly on the rise. This has proved to be so, and it is a leading cause of death in industrialized nations.
When we become detached from our hearts on a soul level, we forget the feeling of being connected to life, humanity as a whole, and all our brothers and sisters on the planet.
Failing to listen to the wisdom of heart, paves the way for rationalizations which devalue the quality of life of others, allowing justifications for the inhumane treatment of others, be they of another religion, culture, economic status, or country. National policies would be quite different, were there not huge divisions perceived between countries of different faiths, or world leaders and the working and poor people. A sense of entitlement over the welfare of others cannot exist in a world where both our unique essences and our collective consciousness are honored.
It's a small planet, a living ecosystem, an organism. When we pollute the water and air in one country, it becomes a global problem. With all this war and defiling of the earth, we are collectively acting like an organism with an auto-immune disease, trying to slough off the very aspects our system which keep us alive and regenerating.
If we hold back on speaking the truth, our throats tighten and sore throats manifest. If communication is too long repressed over years or decades, thyroid conditions may form. If messages from our heart centers are ignored and unheeded, tightness in our chests occur, and breathing may become belabored. Over years, sublimated or stifled feelings may lead to the build up of fats or calcium deposits in the arteries, high and low blood pressure, or even heart attacks. You may just wind up with pig valves at the helm.
The thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (who represent a global council of each original tribe), have been warning that during this spiritually pivotal time, heart attacks will be significantly on the rise. This has proved to be so, and it is a leading cause of death in industrialized nations.
When we become detached from our hearts on a soul level, we forget the feeling of being connected to life, humanity as a whole, and all our brothers and sisters on the planet.
Failing to listen to the wisdom of heart, paves the way for rationalizations which devalue the quality of life of others, allowing justifications for the inhumane treatment of others, be they of another religion, culture, economic status, or country. National policies would be quite different, were there not huge divisions perceived between countries of different faiths, or world leaders and the working and poor people. A sense of entitlement over the welfare of others cannot exist in a world where both our unique essences and our collective consciousness are honored.
It's a small planet, a living ecosystem, an organism. When we pollute the water and air in one country, it becomes a global problem. With all this war and defiling of the earth, we are collectively acting like an organism with an auto-immune disease, trying to slough off the very aspects our system which keep us alive and regenerating.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Is It Medicine?
When in doubt ask yourself, is this medicine? The effects of everything you encounter can be broken up into two categories, medicine and not medicine. Is this food, exercise, music, hobby, or relationship "medicine" for your being, or, does it in some way impede, impair or create undermine your psychological, emotional, mental or spiritual well-being?
Living in Your Signature Key
The universe is full of music. The melodies of the cosmos can be heard through shimmying leaves on a tree, the tapping rhythm of the rain on a window, the clanging of a bell on a buoy, and the sizzling of sap in a fiery log. Our hearts keep the beat and our breath keeps the tempo. Our fingers tap, our heels click. We sigh, we moan, we groan and laugh in rhythm with the world around us.
Everyone is born with their own authentic voice. With both our biological inheritance and spirits as unique as symphonies, we each come into this life as elaborate tapestries of consciousness and information. Living authentically is vibrating in our own key signature remaining true to the music in our hearts and enjoying the music we create with one another.
Everyone is born with their own authentic voice. With both our biological inheritance and spirits as unique as symphonies, we each come into this life as elaborate tapestries of consciousness and information. Living authentically is vibrating in our own key signature remaining true to the music in our hearts and enjoying the music we create with one another.
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