Rites

A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a persons progress from one status to another. This seems a clear and simple definition.

Birth is both amazing and powerful, it is mystical, and sacred, and for most, it is the most significant and profound rite of passage in their lives.

Natural childbirth is slowly becoming endangered, being lost to technology and modern obstetrics. Lying in bed and conceding to every medical intervention in the book can be very overwhelming. This is not to say that some interventions are not medically reasonable such as blood pressures, where as a saline lock all though policy, may not be. How and with whom we give birth, are and always should be up to the birthing family and not industrialized. Families need correct and current information, autonomy, and choice, regarding birthing decisions. *** This opinion is taking into consideration a healthy, non~ high risk pregnancy and labor, I am grateful for medical intervention when necessary!

INTERVENTIONS:

Shall we begin simply with the hospital gown? A woman’s clothing is as individual as her personality; it is markedly hers. When we take this away we remove part of her. The message is clear that her autonomy no longer matters. The gowns tie at the neck and are open in the back. This openness also intensifies this message. It creates a belonging to some institutional inference of illness; exposing intimate body parts, lessening control of self. (Davis-Floyd, R 1992)

This principle, autonomy, or respect for people, has deep roots in our society as well as philosophy, and is synonymous with self-actualization concepts. As well as the right to refuse medical treatment, this form of autonomy is not only well established in medicine, it is established in law.

The bed: Restriction, back lying, non-movement, institutional handling and control. These are two standard hospital interventions that begin to set the tone for the westernized “ritual” of birth. There is a laundry list of about twenty more interventions that are deemed medically necessary for providing a safe birth. Safety is ambiguous, is it safer for the hospital, or for the mother and baby about to enter this world? It can not be ignored that we live in a litigious society, and have to provide safety for our patients at the best of our abilities but where do we draw the line, when do we start to not only listen, but hear the masses?

There is evidenced base research that supports movement during labor as well as position changes, and delivering babies in other positions than lithotomy are not only more effective they are healthier for the mother and the baby. The lithotomy position is convenience of the provider, and not effectiveness of labor.

I often wonder and question why is it in America that we have the highest rates of post partum depression, I question if it is our advanced technology and reporting systems, or a much simpler explanation, interventions. Is it the technology, which underlies the depression? Is it the way we labor and birth that may be an implication of our postpartum trajectory and consequences there of. With all of our interventions are we interrupting not only our rite of passage, but our baby’s rite of passage as well.

Inspired by Lauren & Jenn, Thank you ladies for the honor of attending your births

The Joneses

 I recently watched a movie titled “The Jones” A movie about a too “perfect” family that moves into the perfect neighborhood, that resembles the perfect definition of Affluenza. Why is it so important that we keep up with the Joneses? Why do we put ourselves in dept, hurt those we care about most? Labels consume us in our over consumption and capitalistic society. We crave recognition and are willing to pay the price; but at what price? We wear the label that we paid top dollar for, yet the designer should be paying us, we are advertising their name; the athlete gets paid to impress us with the designer goods so we become the label whore. The portmanteau, Affluenza is the perfect term for our over consumerism. My nine-year-old child proudly expressed to me that if we don’t recycle we will ruin the ozone and the sun will burn us like lava. How do we recycle ourselves? Is bigger really better? My heart is who I am not the name printed across it, or the car I drive.

Sea Shells

She sells seashells, as they come with pleasure and despair.

She sells seashells, tossed by the waves some broken some survive.

The heave and tug of the moon wax and wane, slowing, tiresome.

Her womb distinctively her own; haunted by the reaping of harvest not yet ripe. The right of choice distinctively hers, mourning the decision. There is no talk of the aftermath, the broken seashell. Tossed by the waves, lost forever. Intertwined in the matrix of politics, her God(s). US out of my uterus, rolling through her mind like the tiny shells undulating on the shore. Somehow the soul is lost, set inside a paper cup. No ethics lives. Here to heal, love, warm, birth, re birth, she sells seashells by the sea shore.

Barbie Doll

Barbie Doll This girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy. Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs. She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity. She went to and fro apologizing. Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs. She was advised to play coy, exhorted to come on hearty, exercise, diet, smile and wheedle. Her good nature wore out like a fan belt. So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up. In the casket displayed on satin she lay with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on, a turned-up putty nose, dressed in a pink and white nightie. Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said. Consummation at last. To every woman a happy ending. --Marge Piercy Copyright, Middlemarsh, Inc.

Because i have somewhere to go

Has feminism become to abstract? Are we too concerned with pornography, subjectivity, objectivity? Are we objectifying our selves? Are we buying into media with our obsession with reality TV, The Housewives, the Jersey Shores, The Bachelor. We have become comfortable subverting and co~opting language to justify our voyeurism.

The media has become a distinctive sort of executioner, with its stereoscopic displays of virtuality. We buy into this un~reality all the while neglecting reality which is women still struggle, we are homeless, we are not all wearing tiaras and crashing White House parties; women who do not speak the feminist language. Words are both important as well as unimportant, in our celebration of self ~expression we must dissect what is true expression, real feminist expression is not being on Girls Gone Wild, a bikini wax, or double D implants. We are still struggling with real oppression in our economic, social, political, and sexual lives. We have so far to go, and must not forget this. I will not be a round peg round hole kind of girl, many have tried to file my edges to no avail and I will not watch my expressive manifestations come second, or never to full realization.  I know what I need, please don’t tell me what I, we, she needs. I have never asked what feminism is, I just knew innately the difference between, just, and un~just. I have been silent for far too long, and now I speak.

Discord exists; it cannot be ignored or afforded the luxury of overlooking conflict. We ourselves are in conflict with each other. Are we not ourselves, yet the forgotten women of our millennia, those who forged before us, for we ourselves? Not only are we born socialized; we are born into conflict. Are the misogynists all male? Are we truly becoming a society of female chauvinist pigs? I for one am over bored with the it is my right as a women to become empowered by flashing myself on Girls Gone Wild, I hate to break the news to ya sisters, we are raising a little heard of little piggies! I watch the moon change, becoming full and can not overcome the feeling of woman. The inner strength of what is truly feminine, what is uniquely mine, a vessel, a womb. It belongs to me and is not for display, dishonor, or sale.

So with this said, why are we fighting each other? The licentiousness has got to stop being placated, the media is its own type of executioner. 

Home & my Heart

Mamma I’m coming home, is home truly where the heart is? In a day and age of nomadic necessity where does the heart live?? Is it your birthplace? Or is it with those you have shared your heart and inner most thoughts, fears, insecurities, and dreams? My heart is bicoastal and probably everywhere but here. My heart lies within those who have held it tenderly and firm.  And home is within oneself, where the heart is. Home is the stranger inside whom changes daily yet remains the same, my mirror, my stranger. The one who now loves me the most, my home? So many years it has taken to earn that love, to find it, ignored, lost, betrayed. Yet always home. If the image is peeled free from the mirror it becomes clearer. Life is to be a feast of adventure.  Today I felt the sand beneath my feat with those who have known me most of my life and I was home.  Wave caressing the shore, trees, sky, stars, voices. WE are free; paradox and possibility, old friends are we; fine intelligence and fools. We are alive and free. As we sat around our second fire of the day our minds wandered to self, God, Buddha. Communism capitalism my ink, our ink, disease, longing, loss & love, lost & found. Healing, cleansing, silence & sounds. Sense & Sensibility. Home is where the heart is on not necessarily the ground upon which we place it. <3

I'm Tired

Excuse me, but didn’t I pay for that.

In a time of turmoil I ask the age-old question, the chicken or the egg, I think I bought them both and eat neither. In my 45 years I have lived some life, good bad and indifferent.  I am the defender of the uneducated, the insolent, the deprived. Yet I am tired. Learned helplessness.  I use this term as often as any, I defend with a sociological view, and yet I am tired. 

If you have a pack of Marlboro reds in your purse, you can pay for your pre natal vitamins, or better still a condom. AND Really Coos County,,?? Must you continue to smoke in your car with the windows up and your children with you?, yes plural.

Will I also pay for the tubes that will be placed in your children’s ears? Will I care for them in the hospital post surgery and weep silently for their pain, pain they did not ask for. 

America needs to pull up her big girl panties and stop crying. We are in crisis. Who holds the purse strings? Corporate America has had control for far to long. Home of the free my ass, more like home of the helpless and greedy. Education is our only hope,, teach them to fish.

And further more, When did it ever become ok to wear your PJ’s in public, with slippers?? Accountability &  Entitlement , Chicken or Egg?