Birth as a Hero's Journey is our Registered Trademark

Hi Birth Peeps,
About 30 years ago, I learned the story of Inanna's Descent, and it became my inner map that helped me make sense of the underworld I entered in labor and postpartum with my first birth. Following in Inanna's footsteps, I found my way out of birth and postpartum depression. The story took hold in me and has taken me on a 30-year long study of mythology, symbols, archetypal psychology, and shamanic journeys. Although not explicitly mentioned in the book, Birthing From Within, my love of the hero's journey is the backdrop, backbone, foundation, and inspiration for all Birthing From Within work and workshops..
    Some 18 years ago, I began to have enough confidence to teach parents through myths and began developing learning tasks and processes to help them cultivate an inner map and story that would sustain them through any birth that unfolded. Over the years  I have continued to develop and refine a model and philosophy for childbirth preparation based on the hero's journey. It is deceptively simple, and yet complex in its many layers, learning tasks, and exercises.
    The hero's journey is an ancient and universal story; it is the oldest story told and lived in every time, and in every place the world over, for at least four thousand years and probably longer. The term "hero's journey" was coined by mythologist and author Joseph Campbell upon realizing that many great myths shared a common "map."

   While the hero's journey is not a new idea, until I created the Birthing From Within and Birth as a Hero's Journey models, it has to our knowledge, never been used as part of mentoring pregnant women or childbirth preparation or healing in the modern era.  In about 2004, I began presenting my ideas of "birth as a hero's journey" in mentor workshops, showing our mentors how a childbirth class series could be taught as a hero's journey. Their enthusiasm has encouraged me to pursue this vision.
  
As I have been very busy with the business (Birthing From Within), teaching, and recovering my health, my new book describing birth as a hero's journey, has made great progress but is still in development. I want my message to be clear, powerful, and not rushed, superficial, or misunderstood. It is, in its own way, my hero's journey.

   Because I have been talking and writing openly about this paradigm-shifting model, we've begun to notice others referencing it. The terminology of the hero's journey is seeping into birth culture. At a DONA conference this year, Karen Brody gave a talk on birth as a hero's journey, which was inspired by Joseph Campbell's model, but has nothing to do with the model we are offering.

   This year, with the help of our lawyer, we have applied for a Registered Trademark for Birth as a Hero's Journey. (Birth Story Medicine has also been granted a Registered Trademark).

-->
I look forward to sharing the full model of Birth as a Hero's Journey in my upcoming book and workshops in 2013.

-->
Warmly,
Pam England
-->