BHJ continued: STORY GATE TWO: RELIEF and GRATITUDE

Dear Birth Peeps,
One of the ways each of us can change birth in our culture is to listen deeply to birth stories, to understand and embrace the postpartum journey through a mother's story. Let's continue.

Within the day or two of giving birth, most mothers are chatting circles-around,or gushing through, their second birth story Gate, the GATE OF RELIEF AND GRATITUDE. This is usually a short, repeating, litany of praise for anyone and everyone who helped in anyway; it is probably fueled by endorphins and adrenalin, as well as genuine and overwhelming relief and joy. In addition, in the early weeks of postpartum, a new mother is falling in love with her baby; her
attention is naturally directed toward learning to care for her baby, getting enough sleep, and hosting a flurry of visitors. There isn’t time for reflection, yet.

For many years I used to be confused when a woman—who had just endured a terrible labor ordeal, often with excessive interventions —would be gushing gratitude and giving fruit baskets. Did I miss something? Why isn’t she traumatized, asking questions, blaming or more upset?!

Unfortunately, hospitals collect patient evaluation surveys from parents while they are still in this Gate of Relief and Gratitude! So administrators pat themselves on a job well done, verified by “patient satisfaction.” I wonder if the survey were given (or given again) three to six months later, if the satisfaction ratings would be the same. I think this timing on the part of administration is probably a combination of not being aware of how the evaluations (i.e., birth story) might/would change over time and convenience: get the paperwork done quickly.

But then weeks, months, or years later, when this mother had time to reflect on what she lived through, she would begin to put the fragmented pieces together, learn more about birth, and question what happened. It was then that her story would spontaneously change, at a time she had the time or emotional reserves to sort it out.

Any Second Gate stories to share? If you were to draw your second birth story Gate, what would it look like?

Love!
Pam

BHJ: The Return Begins, FIRST GATE

Dear Birth Peeps,
There is more that could be said about the Ordeal, but finally, it is time to begin exploring the third phase of the hero’s journey: the Hero’s Return, the Ascent. During the next week I will be explaining some of the tasks of the Return… focusing on the evolution and the resolution of the would-be hero’s (no she is not yet a hero!) Story about her Ordeal.
There is never just one birth story because the birth story evolves, organically, over time. After years of listening deeply to birth stories I observed an almost predictable order of appearance, I began to categorize “types” of stories—there are nine—and began to think of each of the nine stories as rungs of a ladder, a ladder the hero must climb all the way out of the underworld. Follow me as we climb out of the underworld on the story ladder. (Tonight is the first time I’ve ever used the ladder metaphor, it just came to me! Until tonight I’ve referred to the nine stories as Gates, in reference to the myth of Inanna who must pass through Seven Gates to enter and exit the underworld.)

First Gate

It was difficult to conjure up a symbol or an image for the First Gate, the No Story Gate. But finally this image came to me: An infant being cradled in a hand; the infant represents both the baby and the newly-born parents. Because this story arises in the deep underworld—within minutes or hours of giving birth—where everything is falling apart, the symbol is painted in dots with a swirl of dots, like steam from a hot drink, to represent the feeling of just being without a story.
In the hours surrounding giving birth, a mother is immersed in living the birth. It is not yet a story: there is no timeline, there are no words, there is no audience to hear the story.
Other people witnessing the birth, or visiting shortly after, do have words, opinions, and a story about her labor, birth, or baby. They begin to tell their story of her birth to her, and around her, and their story inevitably colors what her story will become.

But in those first hours, the mother and father are still spinning, stunned open in love or stunned by the intensity of what they have lived… they haven’t formed a story yet.

Above the First Gate you see TWO LITTLE EAGLE CHICKS IN A NEST.
There is a common belief that by giving birth, mothers and fathers instantly become full-fledged parents; that parenting is predominantly instinctive. For most humans this is not true; parenting is more than just caring for the baby, it’s also involves a complex and profound social, psychic and spiritual transformation.
When a child is born, the parents are also newly born; we could say that (archetypally-speaking) the new parent is a Child-Mother or a Child-Father.
The eaglets represent the Child-Mother and Child-Father. The eaglets, who will one day be great hunters, for now must be fed eagle food to survive and grow their wings. Might the same be true for newborn parents? For parents to make it all the way out of their underworld of labor, and to complete their initiation and the transition to parenthood —they also need to be fed “eagle food,” the Food of Life and the Water of Life by their village. It takes patience and time to grow parent-wings.

In-Love on the Ladder!
Pam

BHJ continues: Shaman-artist and Spider Woman Labyrinth

Dear Birth Peeps,
It has been easier for me to paint than write of late, so the painting has progressed. This week you will see many new images. Thank you for your patience.

Yesterday I showed the mandala painting to my friend Alberto (for the first time). We exchanged few words as Alberto looked long at the painting, taking in all the details. Later he said that this painting was not meant to “hang in a gallery. It is a power piece… for healing.”

Yes, it is meant to invoke a turning in of the mind, a healing; it is meant to be a psychic map. Even the painter’s mind is turned inward and taken on a daily journey.

Some years ago I happened upon an exhibit (at the Albuquerque Art Museum) of about four to six intricate pen and ink drawings by an African shaman. If memory serves me correctly, the shaman-artist would sit with a patient and patiently draw an incredibly elaborate, detailed drawing for hours; judging by the detail, it seemed a drawing might take days… The shaman’s “medicine drawing” was a wildly labyrinthine visual journey, including many intricate “Celtic-like” knots, and what drew me in to the drawing were the almost hidden little faces and tiny figures. I wondered who were these characters throughout the drawing? Were they spirits or ancestors peering out from within the loops or little windows and caves? What were they doing? Perhaps they were trapping, taking, healing whatever illness had taken over the patient’s body and mind.
I sensed how healing and calming the presence of an artist-shaman, who was absorbed in his/her own drawing trance, might be to a patient watching the drawing emerge.

One of the Tasks of the Ordeal is to confront Change, Death, and to anticipate and prepare for "Rebirth," i.e., one's new role as mother or father, all the changes that follow giving birth. The Great Myths, rituals and initiations are rooted in reenacting the inevitable tragedy, fear of, and Mystery of Life and Death.

Part of how we can change birth in our culture is to dare to prepare parents for this inevitable confrontation and change within themselves, perhaps within their relationship as they transition from being a "couple" to being parents.

In my new book, The Labyrinth of Birth, page 81, I describe Spider Woman's Drawing in the Sand. It is partially visible in today's image...

"When death comes to the stone-age people on Malecula, an island in the South Pacific, the dead person's soul approaches the entrance to the underworld and finds it guarded by Le-Lev-Lev, the Spider Woman. Le-Lev-Lev draws a single unbroken line in the sand, then erases half of it. The dead person's soul has to complete the drawing to be allowed to enter. If she (or he) cannot complete the drawing, she will be eaten by Spider Woman. If the lines are successfully drawn, the dead are allowed to enter the underworld where there is a beautiful lake representing the Water of Life."

Initiation involves preparing for and experiencing symbolic death and rebirth. This initiation myth and ritual of the Malecula points to conscious Preparation for Change, for Death (death of a belief, expectation, how the relationship was, and sometimes death of the baby, or the mother, or a loved one during the time of birth). In this mature way of holistic preparation, the initiate learns the pattern of Spider Woman's labyrinth before death or the trial comes.

Birth attendants are trained and trained to know what to do when the unwished-for happens in birth. Even if a birth attendant has not encountered a certain complication before her training is complete, her role-playing, tests, and conversations about that possibility have allowed her to memorize the path she would take should the emergency arise. So when this complication arises, like the half-drawn labyrinth in the sand, a well-prepared birth peep can do her part, she can complete the other half of the drawing.

In a similar way, parents deserve to be prepared before their Ordeal, so they have a clue how to "complete their drawing in the sand."

How is this done? This is the Task of the new Elders, Birth Peeps and birth mentors, to figure this out.

Warmly,
Pam

PS... You can order a copy of the beautiful Labyrinth of Birth book from our online store. This makes a wonderful gift for anyone you know who is about to give birth, and any birth peep who wants to learn how to teach this process to parents.

BHJ: The Ambiguous Gatekeeper Within

Greetings Birth Peeps!
Last week I told you we would take another look at the Gatekeeper, the Guardian of the Threshold. It has taken me longer than usual to compose this posting, partly because I am possessed by the Gatekeeper of my Kidney, and everything takes longer these days. Tonight, I had a window of clarity and am eager to write you.

GATEKEEPERS are ambiguous, archetypal figures in myths, fairytales, and most importantly within our psyche. A Gatekeeper might be represented as masculine or feminine, human (e.g., Bidu in the myth of Inanna) or animal (e.g., Cerberus, the three-headed dog in the myth of Psyche). It may be protective, benevolent, or fiendish, and ultimately has the power to turn away the journeyer who is not ready to pass, or let through the one who is.

Meeting the Gatekeeper at a Threshold represents a psychic confrontation with an unconscious force that has previously held us back; it represents the embodied, almost ritual, experience of a mini-death, a mini-initiation.
You do not have an ordinary conversation with the Gatekeeper; the Gatekeeper is not your pal and will not be swayed by small talk and bargaining. The Gatekeeper must be given Something—something symbolic and specific, something hard to come by—that represents Knowledge, Sacrifice, and Readiness. This exchange is the Key that allows the journeyer to pass, e.g., the small cake Psyche gave Cerberus.
Or, perhaps as in the story of Inanna’s Descent, the Gatekeeper, Bidu, “takes” Something from Inanna--without bargaining and without her permission—not once, but seven times! At no Gate does Inanna ever “get it” and willingly “give up” her attachment to her identity, power, protections, and treasures. She believes she can have it all because she “believes” she is special, the master of her destiny, and uniquely deserving. Power and time have confused Inanna; she has misidentified what she knows and what she does with who she is. So, each time Something valued is seized, Inanna’s sense of self and the order of things is deeply confronted, and she shouts, “What is this? Give it back, that is mine, that is me…!”
Each time Inanna is further disrobed and walks away from a Gate, she must inquire, “Who am I without my ‘crown of beliefs’?,” “Who am I without my birth plan [being followed or honored]?” It is only when things fall apart and we are confronted by the illusion of “choice” that we find out who we really are.

As the initiate, the would-be hero, travels deeper into the Unknown, into the Ordeal, she will pass several, Seven, thresholds. Seven represents hardship, endurance, and determination.
In modern day birth as a hero’s journey, an essential part of the would-be hero’s preparation includes gathering up seven Things and Beliefs she believe will protect her in the Unknown of Labor. On some level, mothers, fathers, and birth peeps all must do this.
When the Child, the would-be hero, Prepares for her Ordeal—for her long-awaited Day—part of that preparation involves daydreaming, creating an “intention,” a do-able fantasy of how it is, will be, or should be; this is how the “birth plan” fits in. This fantasy, imagining, role-playing is part of the Preparation.
We cannot try to be superior to other hapless would-be hero's (who planned and brought all their stuff and ideals only to lose them) by not gathering our seven Things and Beliefs of Protection. Even having that thought, that self-important strategy, to outsmart the Way is the gathering of at least one prideful Belief… “I” am so clear and fearless, “I” do not need to bring along any intentions or secret hopes, or beads, or anything.” Hmpf.
If there is a "plan" to not have any such “plan” that means there is still a bargaining “I,” an identification with “I,” and an idea of what it means to be a good enough, smart enough, strong enough, loveable enough “I.”
Can you see that the power of the hero’s journey is here… in the “disrobing” of our illusions and masks at these Thresholds?

Can you see that the Thresholds we are talking about here are not built by the institution in a place “out there?” No! These illusive Thresholds are constructed, and maintained, by our own minds.
We have all spent time, often years, being “locked out,” left out, waiting at a Gate for the Gate to open, for someone to open it, waiting until we knew enough, made more money, until the time was right … and then one day, in a moment of Clarity… we laugh to realize that all along it was a Gateless Gate, it was open all along. We laugh and weep: the cosmic joke is on us. Then the inquiry begins: What kept us from passing through? Something “out there?” No! The mind. The heart.
This week the soul elves and Gates began to float between the two worlds, naturally blending into the background as layers of dots appeared…but the Question Marks remain, the Deep Questions are still being asked, whispered…..

And with a genuine change of mind, a change of heart, suddenly the Gate does not open, it literally disappears. There is no leap across the Threshold, it’s just that the illusion of a separation disappears and we are of new mind, of new knowing, new stature, role, or service in society.

Some people think of the underworld as dark, cold, cruel, or punishing (and they don’t want to go there, not in their imagination, not even with me in this painting), but I do not find it so. In the underworld/ innerworld our sense of perception heightens and priorities shift. When things are not as they seem, when we play a game where we are blindfolded, suddenly we hear more acutely—not only with our ears but with our body, too. The rare light in the underworld allows some things that had been in the foreground of our plans to fade into the shadows while mysteriously illuminating, enlarging, and making to sparkle small things and moments that would go unnoticed in our hectic, have-it-our- way lives. In the altered state of Laborland and other underworld journeys, time changes, the future is out of reach, and we cannot mentally or physically function at full speed. Suddenly, cracked open, we want to, and we must, see and to hear deeply, take in and savor the moment whether it is one called bliss or one …. completely and digest each bit slowly. Here we see and feel what we overlook in our ego-driven, full-speed-ahead lives.
I was thinking about all this when I covered parts of the underworld in dots the same color as the “underpainting”—so you could see the object or figure, but if you look closely, it is all held together by separate dots.

“If we look only at our problems, our inner world dissolves; if we look only at the world, it begins to dissolve. If we want to create art, we have to stitch together the

inner world and the outer world.” –Robert Bly

OUR TASK, BIRTH PEEPS, is to prepare women and men for birth in our culture. This taks is unique and complex; both parents and professionals desperately need soulful preparation and initiation by those who have done their work, who have been scattered and mended, who know Great Stories and who have come to know their own hearts and stories during their own Return. There is a great need for mature childbirth mentors and birth story-listeners who can simultaneously embrace and present the physical/medicalized worlds of birth and, at the same time be immersed in, and grounded by, a rich inner world.


A personal note about the process of painting in the last two weeks: When I began this mandala painting, I was not well, but I was not yet immersed in the “underworld” (or my inner-world) of uncertainty. Before last week, I had been feeling that the underworld figures, colors, symbols, and images in the Ordeal phase were initially flat and too rational. In recent weeks, inspired by a new descent into my own health/medical underworld, I am sourcing from my immediate experience and painting more authentically, not so much from what I know but what I am feeling into.

In-Love, in Celebration of your Personal Freedom,
Pam

2 Bly, Robert (1986). The Winged Life. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Pp. 3-5.

BWJ Continues: Meet the GateKeeper of the Descent

Dear Birth Peeps,

This week I painted the GateKeeper of the Descent. She is not quite finished, but close enough. Today I am uploading two images. First, a small updated image of the center of the mandala so you can see that Asclepius, a Greek healer and Masculine seated figure, occupies the “Gate” on the Ascent, or Return (left side). So, the GateKeeper of the Descent on the right, had to be Feminine, standing, and not “human.”

I don’t know her name. The GateKeeper of the Descent emerged from layers of loose paint. … and we “talked” as she made her appearance. She kept moving her hands, she was a difficult "model" to paint! She said,

“

My Eyes are wide open, to See you, to See through you, to See Who You Are and what you don’t need any longer. My Mouth Sings to you the Deepest Questions in a Golden voice, ever-asking, “Who Are You? … Why have you come to this place at this time? ... What must you do? .... What price are you willing to pay?

”

“

My Hands are big because their Job is to Give and Take. Sometimes they will Give you a Gift you need on the Descent. Sometimes they Take from you an old habit, a burden, a belief … My Feet are big, they have wondered all over the worlds and underworlds… it’s a long Way. I have a Key. But you do not need My Key. The Door is Open whenever you are ready…

“

We need to prepare innocent, trusting, planning parents (if their labor/birth is meant to initiate them)--before they meet their GateKeeper in Laborland--that Life and Laboland GateKeepers don't bargain with you or let you "choose" or trade what will be Given or Taken. When it is time, it is just taken. Poof! Then you get to find out Who You Are Without that thing, relationship, belief...

The inverse is also true: we don't always ask or beg for the miracles and gifts that suddenly appear. (Yet we like to take credit for these!)

The GateKeeper concept part bothers a lot of people who want to believe that they will be in-control if they just believe the right thing, and believe deeply enough, or if they eat the right food, or whatever! In examining my own life and important Descents, I must confess I did not consciously, willingly, or graciously Give Up what was to be Taken; it had to Be Taken from me. (I did not "give up" my natural birth; I did not "give up" my Dream of Marriage; I did not "give up" my kidney!)

If you live long enough, you are likely to make at least one Great Descent in your life (and it may not happen during your childbearing year). I hope Life will Gift you with an eye-opening, heart-opening Descent. Many women experience a profound descent between the ages of 28 and 30. Sometimes this First and profound initiation comes in childhood, or much later in life. When it comes, we are in a battle between ego and soul, and it is often the fight of our life. The following passage from Robert Bly, The Winged Life, (with minor changes to fit our audience):

“When we fight for the soul and its life, we receive as reward not fame, not wages, not friends, but what is already in the soul, a freshness that no one can destroy….
This soul truth (which is inherent in young people) sustains them. It assures the young man or woman that if not rich, s/he is still in touch with truth; that their inheritance comes not from their immediate parents but from their equals thousands of generations ago; that the door to the soul is unlocked; s/he does not need to please the doorkeeper, but that the door in from of [her] is his, intended for [her], and that the doorkeeper obeys when spoken to

.”

Tomorrow I will tell you more about the GateKeeper within you, and the ones in your life.

Happy Summer Solstice (this week)!
Pam

BHJ Continues: Seeing in the Underworld

Dear Birth Peeps,

It seems in our mundane, comfortable lives we can look but not see, or we are content with what we see on the surface. Sometimes we only see what we expect or want to see instead of all the vibrations and colors that are actually present. We often look carelessly in such a way that our seeing bounces off the surface instead of seeing through and seeing deeply into the matter.

In youth, ancient and modern women paint their eyes with eye shadow to be seen and adored by men. In preparation for a rite of passage or a descent into the underworld, ancient women ceremoniously painted their eyes in a symbolic gesture and prayerful anticipation of seeing what they had not yet seen… or for the Veil to be lifted that they might get a glimpse of the Holy. One of the Gifts of our descent into the Unknown, into the Ordeal, or underworld, is that in the seeming long, dark “night of the soul,” another Eye opens and we might begin to see what we have not yet seen.

So, when we begin to see birth as hero's journey, we also understand that one of the Tasks of Preparation and the Ordeal is to learn to see. How do we train young women to see both within and in the world? Once they see, and want to see, we might ceremoniously paint their eyes to acknowledge that their Mother Eye, their inner Eye, their Eyes are opening.

Eyes and learning to see are powerful symbols and tasks of this initiatory Ordeal. So yesterday I painted Eyes that are open and seeing in the Ordeal. The Eye is a universal symbol of illumination. In ancient Mesopotamia, the Eye was a motif representing holiness and a desire to see the Holy. In Egypt, the sacred Eye is called a wedjat. I like the Egyptian wedjat which resembles the marking around the eye of the falcon; I enjoyed painting this graceful symbol. Do you know the Egyptian creation myth that includes the wedjat?

The Creator, Atum-Ra created the First Children: Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture). Shu and Tefnut got together and produced Earth (Geb) and Sky (Nut). Earth and Sky then begat nine children (one of whom is Isis). In one of the stories, Shu and Tefnut were lost in the primordeal Sea. So Ra sent his Eye to search for them. When the Ey

e returned, she was so very sad to see that Ra had replaced her with a new Eye, she cried; from her tears were born human beings.

When I think about seeing in darkness, I always think of how Jacques Lusseyran** described “seeing” as a blind man in his book, And Then There was Light. Here is a passage (I recommend you read the book):

“I could feel light rising, spreading, resting on objects, giving them form, then leaving them. Sighted people always talk about the night of blindness, and that seems to them quite natural. But there is not such night, for at every waking hour and even in my dreams I lived in a stream of light…

“As I walked along a country road bordered by trees, I could point to each one of the trees by the road, even if they were not spaced at regular intervals. I knew whether the trees were straight and tall, carrying their branches as a body carries its head, or gathered into thickets and partly covering the ground around them.”

This kind of seeing Lusseyran describes reminds me of the seeing associated with the Third Eye, sometimes called the “Eye of the Heart” or the “Eye of Knowledge.” Seeing with the Third Eye is about direct perception, intuition, imagination, inner visions and out-of-body experiences: the perfect Eye for Laborland where women are likely to have one or more of those experiences of seeing. So I painted the Third Eye.

The third eye on the forehead of the Hindu god Shiva is usually closed to gaze inward, but opens when there is need for destruction. This is a powerful symbol to contemplate.

In Love,
Pam


**Jacques Lusseyran (1924-1971) was a French political activist and a remarkable writer. He was blinded in an accident at school when he was eight years old. When Germany invaded France, he was 17 years old; he formed a Resistance group (with 52 boys), was captured and lived in a concentration camp for about 2 years until the liberation. His book and story are remarkable and inspiring.

Our Deepest Questions in the Ordeal

Dear Birth Peeps,

In the Ordeal, there is always a time (or two) when what will happen next is uncertain and not entirely in our control (which is often true in life, but in the Ordeal we know with certainty we are not in absolute control). When we face uncertainty, powerlessness, or our mortality, Deep Questions come to us, e.g.,
Where did I come from?
Who Am I?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?

In this painting whimsical figures (soul-elves?, is there such a thing, it just came to me!) begin to emerge, each with a question mark coming out of his mouth. The soul-elves are positioned near the Gates, dancing, showing the way, chanting their Deepest Question. The one by Diving Woman mirrors her--he is upside down asking her, “Who Are You? Why have you come here?”

Who Am I? is the fundamental question of every quest. If you’ve heard the story of Inanna’s Descent, you know Bidu asks Inanna this Question, and he asks her, "Why has your Heart led you to this place from which you cannot Return unchanged or unscathed?." He does not ask this just once, but seven times as she passes through each of the seven Gates. If you know the old Testament, you know the question "WHO AM I?" is in capital letters (I was told it is the only phrase in the Bible that is capitalized because it is so important). If you’ve ever been in a great descent or a dark night of the soul, you have heard this questions as you tossed and turned, as you wept, and when you tried to find a quick way out of Fate.

Soul Questions or Heart Questions are not meant to torment you, they are meant to awaken you, to free you. They are Medicine Questions.

In the painting soul-elves are asking these Questions, but really... it is You who must be in perpetual Self-inquiry. Instead of following and believing the mindless chatter of the Victim and Judge in your mind, enter into Silence and keep asking these Questions as you cross invisible Thresholds, when you feel lost, despair, fear, abandoned, in pain, and even when you feel certain and proud of yourself.

Like this:
Who is Proud?
I am.
Who is the "I" that is Proud?
(Then Listen deeply, don't answer with ordinary mind, reason, and words.)

Who is afraid?
I am.
Who is the "I" that is afraid?

And so it goes with every possible emotion or belief you can identify with. You don't have to be in an ordeal to practice Self-inquiry. You can do this all the time, it's a wonderful practice. But in an Ordeal, it is especially potent.

I had a thought, or maybe I saw an image... of the initiated traversing a labyrinthine brain in the underworld...No matter what the circumstances are, no matter what the physical environment of our Ordeal or Quest, the true Descent we make is into our own Mind.... our beliefs and assumptions. I will just have to paint another hero's journey to express this image....

I will do my best to keep up with the blog and painting. My Golden Kidney is in stress and I am not quite myself these days. Not even a stressed kidney can keep me from painting and sharing with you, it may just be less frequent! Regretfully, I am cancelling the July Advanced Doula Workshop so I can focus on getting well. "I will be back!"

Pam