The Story Midwife

Politics, Walking Trails, and more thoughts on Community

 

Tuesday night Richard and I sang at a Grassroots Democratic dinner in our county.  What fun!  Met lots of candidates, sat next to our Representative at dinner, and we got to sing all our favorite songs from The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, Simon and Garfunkle, The Indigo Girls, and some fun tunes from the 40s and 50s.  Even though I'm a very post-modern girl, I love that old music.  You?

The next night I attended a town meeting with the City Council.  Ugh. 

The short story:
Seven years ago a group of community-active individuals decided to pursue the idea of a bike trail that would connect us to the local State Park (folks from all over the country tell us they know of this park -- it's amazing) on one end, and the Mississippi River on the other.  Quite an undertaking, to say the least. But ever inspiring!  After getting the go-ahead from the City Council with the absolute admonition that the City would NOT contribute ONE DIME to the cause, the team spent the next seven years getting over a quarter of a million dollars to complete the project in three phases. Not one penny came from the City.  In the meantime, some political rifts have infiltrated the community.  And while no one can be absolutely certain that the rifts are connected to the ultimate decision on the trail project, it's certainly in the mix. Three of the five current council members have adamantly turned against the project and have decided to put and end to it.  And they did. 

On Wednesday evening over a hundred citizens of our fair town gathered in the community center gym to share concerns and hopes for the trail project. Only one person declared her absolute opposition to the trail. Most who had opposing remarks did so in the form of opposing additional taxes from their own pockets, and asked about liability and other logistical concerns.  Many, many individuals (myself included) rose amid applause to speak about the benefits of such a community addition and tourist attraction, their excitement and desire for the trail, and perhaps most pertinent -- a reminder that not one copper cent would come from the City budget.  All funds have come from donations and grants, and all additionally needed funds would come from the same sources. "Please! Just give us a chance!"

In the end, the vote was 3-2 in favor of "terminating the project and sending back all grant money."

Sigh.

I was shocked.  Not just at the ruling (which is unbelievable -- what rural town with a declining population of 1400 people turns down one-quarter of a million dollars? For anything?! The chance will likely never come again...), but at the strong, unkindly-spoken words of some of the council members.  To be sure it was a tense setting.  I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.  Yikes.

Now.
Where. Do. We. Go. From. Here?  How does a little community like ours move forward after such a loss?

I'm not sure.

When my husband was in seminary a few years ago one of his co-students said that politics is all about relationships.

In the last four days I've had two new-to-me experiences in city and state politics, and literally rubber shoulders with some amazing local politicians (some of whom I will tell you about later). Each time I feel this longing inside myself to Do Something. To join them.

I think it has something to do with relationship.

I've decided to write a letter to the city council as a whole. I need to voice my disappointment in their final decision, while cluing them to the fact that I will continue to explore ways to bring this to fruition - even with the return of the grants and donations. AND I need to address each council member and the mayor in a personal note: acknowledging their service, recognizing the difficult decision they needed to make, thanking them for making choices toward the betterment of our new sewer, the maintenance of the water tower, our gorgeous new downtown sidewalks, etc.

One member is especially important: my neighbor a few houses up the street who vehemently voted against the project as if his very life depended on it. Maybe it did. In my letter to him I wish to make a special note of thanks for his neighborly friendship and the warmness I feel knowing we can wave and make neighborly small talk as I pass by his house with my dog. I don't want that to change. (I don't want to be at odds with my neighbor, for heaven's sake.)

Then I'm going to start talking. Not in gossip or vindictiveness. I want to see if the folks in town know what they've lost. Do they even know the trail project existed? If so, do they know it got voted down? I broached the subject with Sammy's teachers this morning. One didn't know about the meeting, the other said this was the first she'd even heard anything about any trail at all.

Granted, I'm coming into this as the newbie on the block.  I've only been here for 2 years. Maybe it's a liability. Maybe it's just that sort of young, post-modern, excited energy that is needed right now.

Is it possible that simple community members can overturn a ruling?  Regroup and go again?  Educate the community?  Raise enough funds? 

Boy, I'd sure like your input.  What do you think?  What stories of hope can you tell me?  Any ideas on how to navigate the local political system?

And hey. If you're ever in town with your bike wishing you had a trail to get you to the state park, please write a letter or stop in at City Hall to express your desires.  I'll get you the address.

Motorcycle Greetings and Community

I'm thinking a lot about Community tonight.  This morning on the way to a worship service at a Big Church in a nearby Big City I saw something brand new.

The hills of Iowa are as filled with motorcycles as they are with tractors in our fair weather months. I was driving behind two motorcycles, each with two riders. As a pack of 4 approaching motorcycles passed, I saw each person on each motorcycle stretch their arms out to a 45 degree angle, fingers pointing to toward the yellow center line on road.

A greeting.

Such a simple gesture, but I was flabbergasted. My heart leaped. Tears sprang to my eyes. For several moments I could only tip my head to the side in wonder at what I'd just witnessed. 

Here was a silent symbol of welcome. Of recognition. Of community. A super-secret, no-contact handshake. Likely, these riders have never run across each other before, likely never again. Yet the act of welcome and community is important. Who first thought up this sign of welcome? Does every cyclist on the planet know this welcome code?

I wanted to belong to this club.  I wanted IN.  I wanted to be seen and recognized and welcomed.

I followed along behind these lovely riders all the way into Big City. My heart traveled with them.  My prayers, too.

Later, as I sat in the very front pew of Big City Church with my very wiggly son I felt left out. Excluded. Not welcomed.  Tears filled my eyes here, too, but not for the same reasons.

I'm not sure exactly why this was my experience.  I am pondering it.  Lots of ideas are floating through my active and analytical mind.  But nothing is yet blog-worthy. I'll keep you posted.

Question of the day: What was your last visit to church like?

Happy Solstice

 

Welp.

Today's the Summer Solstice.

For awhile now it's been important to me to celebrate earthy-based seasons such as this in our home.  For instance, at the Winter Solstice we celebrate with a yearly Dark Party, where we invite friends to come dressed in black and bring dark foods and a candle. After we much on the Edgar Allen Bean Dip and Fear Not the Valley of the Fudge and sip on the blackest red wine in town we gather in a circle. We invite the stories from the last year to unfold. People share poetry, songs, dances. They reveal where darkness has lived in their lives, and where they have or have not felt God's presence in the midst of that. At the end of the evening, those in the circle are invited to light their candle - signifying that God's holy light shines even in the midst of our darkest stores, or to leave their candle wick dark - signifying the barrenness and longing for God we can experience in that darkness. Either choice is okay. Either choice is honored.

The Winter Solstice is my absolute favorite day of the whole year.  Just thinking about it right now makes my tummy dance with expectancy. It's the day I feel most alive. I've written several songs in honor of this darkest day. The Winter Solstice and its accompanying Dark Party has been such a powerful ritual for us and for our circle of friends that my husband and I even made a whole CD about it all: Behold

Today is the Summer Solstice, the earth's and sun's opposite expressions of my favorite day.  I am decidedly less drawn to its energy.  I wonder why. It's not that I dislike light. Perhaps it is simply that I have known Great Darkness in my life. Seasons of no-light, isolation, and terror were many in my childhood and early years. No one ever acknowledged - much less honored - these seasons for me.  Darkness has gotten such a bad wrap in our culture. We'll do almost anything to not feel sad, lonely, confused. But what if those seasons hold great wisdom? What if their very presence makes way for the resurrection of light?  Understanding and participating in earth-based and pagan experiences of spirituality has been part of the journey of learning to open  w-i-d-e  the doors to honoring all my stories. And naming them holy.

The earth turns. The seasons shift. The soil freezes and thaws. So it is in our lives. Paying attention to these seasons can be a lovely mirroring spiritual practice for the interior experience.

Tonight you'll find us in our backyard with a big bonfire celebrating the generosity of the sun and "boosting" its energy. (That is if the current torrential downpour doesn't persist.) Fiery, bright foods will grace our meal. Together with a couple of friends from a nearby town we'll gather around the fire give thanks for the blessings in our lives, for the abundance within and around.

As for me - I want to dedicate this coming season to honoring all the places, relationships, and expressions in my life that are gloriously light-filled. And I want to drink it in.

So let's raise a toast to the sun's incredible generosity, for the abundance that lives in every cell of every being. Lift high your glass of sun-colored orange juice and drink to the light within.

Here, here!

A Feather on the Breath of God

The Best Thing About Wind

The best thing about the wind
is the way it plays around. How wind
toys with the dust and drops it, waltzes shirts
hanging out to dry, so they dance,
like goofy scarecrow ghosts.

How it lifts the hems
of green things, high-fives the pineconed crowns
of spruce.

The wind is always switching,
dropping off, coming up, dying down.
We fall for it every time. . . .

For frivolous wind,
we open our windows, forgive
everything. We wait,
like lonesome candles,
for a spark from the wind
on its way somewhere else.

-- Susan Steger Welsh from Rafting on the Water Table

The wind is whipping through Strawberry Point today. Displaying its frivolity in laughing leaves, in dancing curtains, on the faces of relieved survivors of the weekend heat. It's like the whole town is taking a deep breath.

If someone interviewing me for a large, international magazine said I must declare in one word for their millions of readers the heart of my spiritual life I would offer the word Breath. (It's never happened, but who knows?) As one who practices sitting meditation the breath is my companion. Without deep inhalation and rationing the breath, every song I sing would fizzle out and fall flat. It's the breath that gives a singer her oomph.  Oojai breathing in yoga creates heat in the body, brings oxygen-rich blood to the internal organs and muscles, and provides focus in challenging asanas. As a spiritual director it has been my continual experience that most women would give almost anything to feel that they had a few more moments each day for a deep breath in solitude, for wider spaciousness and expansiveness in their lives.  When sitting with one in spiritual direction, my calling with a new client is often to simply remind her to breathe. As a retreat leader, worship leader, and maker of ritual and song this theme appears over and over again from within me and from those whom I serve. It's like we just can't get enough. Even my email address quietly proclaims this love and longing: BreathingSpaces.

To me, breath is the center point of the Sacred. I am ever breathing in the absolute essence of all that is Holy. I cannot escape it. Even when my mind is feeling anything but still and my heart is all a-flutter, my breath continues. It sustains me and gives me life. It does not come and go with my attention.  It is steadfast and constant.

Hildegard of Bingen, a kick-ass healer-singer-mystic woman ahead of her time, knew about breath. She likens us to a feather on the breath of God. Such a lovely image: our lives floating on the grace of God's sustaining wind. God: a singer singing her most passionate, most life-giving, most celebratory song. Us: the feathers dancing on the strains of her melody.

Oh, let us open our windows to this frivolous wind that blows where it will! Let us lift our hems a little higher to feel her breath caressing the tiny hairs of our skin. Let the curtains veiling our hearts flap, flap, flap and part to make way for the peace flags within to kick up their heels, high and rowdy and whipping in the breeze. Let us fall back into the breath of God and let our lives float in release and grace. Let us finally invite in forgiveness.

Let us, let us, let us.

Steadfastness

It's been one of Those mornings. The sort of morning where you wake up thinking the day has limitless possibilities for exploration, fun, and adventure. And it does, of course, as all mornings do. How is it that in one tiny little moment all internal hell can break loose?

Richard left early in Rattletrap Car #1 to tidy up some last-minute Sunday details at his new Church Job. Sammy and I would walk to Head Start preschool, and then I would hike out to the car dealership to pick up Robust Gas Hog Car #2 from the shop. Yes, this walkabout life is a supreme advantage of small town living!

All was going well until I decided to answer an email that had been ripening in my inbox all week. It was only going to take a moment, but it took a wee bit longer. Now we were late.  Sammy was outside, sweetly watering my flowers with his water hose. I emerged from the house feeling rushed but lighthearted, ready to skip our way to school. Not Sammy. He was Mad that he needed to close up shop on the flower watering project. Rather than responding with his usually sunny disposition he slammed the hose down on the grass and made growly noises from his scrunched up face. For whatever reason, it pushed my "This is not okay" button. He yelled something at me and I ordered him in the house. (Mostly so the neighbors didn't get the pleasure of reporting the Mama-Son squabble at the weekly Bible study. Paranoid? Perhaps...)

I made my way into the house. Sammy reluctantly followed, stomping and howling all the way. It was Time Out time. Then, in the midst of Sammy's yells and cries and my "stay in here for 2-minutes" the phone rang. It was Richard from the road. Rattletrap had died and he was stranded 45 minutes from home, 35 minutes from work. Ugh.

Did I mention that our day was jam-packed scheduled with everything from a lunch-time picnic at Sammy's school to my brother's wedding rehearsal in another town -- at which my husband is presiding and I am a bride's maid and soloist of a song the happy couple commissioned me to write?  There was no wiggle room scheduled for this!

After Sammy and I made up with hugs, I love yous, nose-in-the-neck nuzzles, and we both apologized for the mistakes we'd made with each other. We started out skipping to school. Until Sammy had a major wipe-out which included blood.  Now I know why mothers all over the planet carry some sort of tissue/handkerchief/sarong on her person.

I dropped Sammy off into the care of his Wonder Women teachers and hoofed it to the edge of town to pick up Vehicle Strong and Robust.

March, march, march. Walk, walk, walk. Think, think, think.

Thoughts from every corner of my being marched along with me, lining up to say their pieces, harping about my impatience. My disorganization. My body. My fears about money and car repairs. My longing for - but utter lack of - compassion for myself.

By the time I got back to the house to gather a few things before heading to fetch my husband, he called to report that the repair shop that towed him fixed the car and price tag was Way Reasonable. Whew! I could stay home and get my crap together for the weekend. 8 minutes later came the call that he and Rattletrap were again stranded. Tow truck en route back to him. No picnic for Daddy.

What’s going on here, I wondered. And why exactly am I letting this rule my day? I don't know. But I do know that my mind was flopping around from judging mind to anxious mind to critical mind and back again. Just like a little fish. And my heartbeat and breath took the cue and followed along.

All jumbled up inside, I walked to my book shelf and pulled Gunilla Norris' book Sharing Silence from the shelf. Bask in these words with me, will you?

Steadfastness

How do we sustain the courage and the will
to continue our practice when the going gets rough?

We may find strength to continue
by taking the long view: recognizing that bliss and pain
are part of each other, that both together are more
than either is separately. Together they form reality,
the only thing that truly satisfies us...

Alternatively, we may look closely enough to see
that perseverance is also a matter of valuing
what is happening now -- for its own sake.
Moment to moment, we continue by engaging fully
in the rich, dense, prolific dance of life.

Taking the long view and looking closely. . .
background and foreground.
By perseverance -- through perseverance --
we become steadfast and sturdy.
We become present.

Ah. Grace. This is just the perspective I needed.

Yes, of course this is the path of healing. This is the path of recognizing the Holy’s presence everywhere. This is the everyday, sacred, nitty-gritty glory of life. As a wife and a mama I know that Family is at the core of my spiritual practice. Over and over it is my experience that I grow wide-open spaces of compassion and love in my core through every interaction with my husband and son, dog and three cats. And convenient or not, this is especially true in the bumpiest of storylines.

What Gunilla’s words reminded me of:

·     Perseverance means valuing the Now, and engaging the loamy richness of the my life. Even bowing in gratitude to those Marching Voices, for they offer me the opportunity to say yes – with compassion - to my unfolding story. 

·     I love this family I get to share my life with. I am grateful I am the one my husband calls when he's on the side of the road -- literally as well as figuratively. 

·      Finally, nose-in-the-neck nuzzles are more than enough to make up for those little hell breaking loose moments. They are simply divine.

It's preschool picnic time.

Here I go -- steadfast and sturdy, prolifically dancing the riches of my exquisite life.

Come along?

The Placenta and the Snake

On the day following my last post, Sammy's fifth birthday, Sammy and our neighbor Ev, Sammy's 74-year-old best friend, found a dead snake near our home. A birthday snake! I LOVED this! Sammy did too and decided to take the snake for "sharing time" at his preschool the next day. They never know what he'll bring in the door for sharing time. A stellar week of sharing items from Sammy might look like this:

• Day one: Horse-hair nest
• Day two: Tiny cocktail umbrella with the narration that "it's just so cute!"
• Day three: "Lightening Drum" that Sammy and Daddy made out of 2x6 boards and clear packing tape
• Day four: His "walking stick" -- a mini-blind turner wand that fell off the mini-blinds
• Day five: Dead snake in a zip-lock bag

He's very multi-dimensional -- what can I say?

Over our backyard dinner of roasted hot dogs and s'mores, Richard and I chatted with Sammy about how cool it was that he found a dead snake on his birthday. That some Native Americans believe Snake comes at a time with lots of change. Shedding skin, new skin, and thoughts of kindergarden filled our conversation for a bit before heading in for bath time and bedtime.

I knew I wanted to bury my placenta that night after I tucked Sammy into bed. I'd pulled it out of the freezer that morning and had dug the hole in the afternoon. At points in the day I felt like I was preparing to bury a girl-child -- a daughter I had once delivered but that had not survived. Then the feeling would turn and it seemed as though I would be burying my womb. Very disorienting and surreal.

Once Sammy was all tucked in I returned to Placenta Cove in the ancient lilacs to find the next-door landlord mowing the grass. He'd have had a perfect view of me and my placenta. Um, no thanks. The town of Strawberry Point is already talking...

Xeborah called. Goddessy friend of shamanism and symbol, and a spiritual director herself, we agreed that Sammy's snake was a very cool gift to him, and that this placenta was very girl-like. I came to see that burying this organ from my body did represent burying the potential to bring a girl-child into the world through my womb. While lately I've been longing to again birth, nurse, and mother a child of my own flesh I'm about 96% sure I don't really want to have another baby. Guess that 4% of longing was talking pretty loudly.

After Xeborah and I hung up I meandered outside with a few simple items. I didn't put much thought into the ritual. Much of my job is centered on ritual -- making it and performing it and guiding others to it -- and I have such a passion for ritual; I thought I might make a bigger deal out of it. But instead of planning each detail I simply responded in the moment to what called to me.

On the way to the placenta site I picked a large, pink peony and a shasta daisy from their respective flower patches. Once by the hole, I lit a candle that a little girl made for me at a family retreat Richard and I led in the spring. With an Indian brass bell that is my maternal grandmother's I rang away all that was not needed and called in all that was. I brought the peony to my face, smelling its fragrance and saying goodbye. It went first into the hole, then the placenta and blood plopped in after it. I expected to encounter the stench of old flesh and was prepared to be repulsed. Instead there was just the metallic odor of blood. Not offensive to me at all. Sort of comforting and earthy, actually, like the mother of all moon cycles.

It was so dark in my cove. I worked quickly and easily, not responding to great emotion, but rather moving as a woman doing what she is called to do. I placed the dirt over the placenta, packing it down with my feet, giving thanks while taking deep breaths and ringing the bell. When the soil was hard and I was certain my husband would agree that no neighborhood coyotes could come to snatch it up, I kneeled down to pat the dirt with my hands. My fingers found a few sticks which I instinctively moved to outline the circular hole. At last, I placed the daisy in the small mound of earth. I bowed in reverence, rang the bell one last time, gathered up my belongings and headed inside.

It was simple.  It was beautiful.  It was marking an era.

The next day Sammy asked me to bury his snake next to the placenta.

I did.

You ponder the symbology.

Birthday Eve

In six hours it will be five years ago that I became a mama.

In a home water birth with a doula and a midwife present I pushed Sammy into the world at 3:50 am.  (This makes him a Gemini, for those astrology buffs out there...) 

It was about this time of night that our midwife just happend to swing by after teaching a CPR class at a local community college.  I was walking around, fiesty and agitated, REALLY wanting to have this baby already.  I'd been taking an herbal Power Labor blend that our midwife (also a Master Herbalist) had concocted for me. I was squatting and doing yoga and eating spicy food and "labor salad."  Against my better judgement Richard had started filling the birthing tub in the afternoon. For sanitary purposes, the tub can only be filled once and the water must be used within a short window of time before needing to scrap the whole thing and start over, so this was putting the pressure on.  But there were no painful contractions and no baby.  I showed the midwife the tub and asked in my best antsy voice, "What next?  Any more herbs I can take?"  She said that while she was there she'd like to check my cervix and see what was happening. 

Well.

I was 6.5 centimeters dilated!  And no pain!  My agitation turned into absolute delight!  The midwife said, "I'm going to call my husband and tell him I'm not coming home tonight.  You're going to have this baby tonight!"

Wahoo!

And at 3:50 AM I did.

And while it was a wonderful experience, it wasn't quite that simple. Because I was having no pain I got really sleepy midway through the night. Labor slowed and stalled at 9.5 centimeters and my water needed to be broken. THEN the pain showed up. It was a couple more intense hours of Heavy Laboring.

Something I don't hear too many women talk about is what feelings and fears accompany them during labor.  When the pain was intense and sharp and I was tired and wanted to sleep, I started to get scared.  Not scared that I didn't have the strength for the labor. Not scared that this boy would never come out of me.  But scared to be a mama.  There. I said it. Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning in the midst of pushing and breathing a few minutes before my son was born I decided I didn't want to be a mama afterall.  I liked my life with my husband just fine.  I wanted to go back to life as it was somewhere around, say, September 15 at 7:00 AM -- moments before Sammy was conceived.  Somebody pass the condom...

I didn't think it was okay to say this outloud, however. I felt like the scum mother of the earth. Instead I said that I didn't think I could do this -- "this" being the labor.  I was surrounded then by the reassuring words of Midwife, Doula and Husband. It did nothing to dissuade my unease. I guess I decided that labor was too uncomfortable to lolly-gag around. So I pushed.  And pushed. And Sammy came out.

His sweet little body was placed on my belly, his head on my chest, his big, blue eyes WIDE open. What a precious little being he was.  He still is. His naked, slippery, wet body wiggling around on mine -- Richard sitting behind me reaching his arms around to hold us both in tender kindness.  That memory still takes my breath away.

I wonder what Sammy was thinking at the time. I wonder if any part of him knew about my moment of hesitation. Do other laboring mothers feel this way?  Can we honestly begin to talk about these "taboo" feelings? I think the world would be a gentler, kinder place if we could.

Tomorrow is Wonder Baby's birthday. He'll be five.

Since he was born at home we got to keep the placenta and umbillical cord.  Strange as it may sound I still have it in the freezer. (Nope, I've never mistaken it for beef steak...) My original intent was to plant it with a tree in honor of Sammy's life.  But we've moved so many times since his birth and no home or land ever felt quite right. How could I "give" this piece of flesh that attached my son to me to just any piece of land?

Tomorrow I will bury the placenta.

I guess this means I'm rooting myself here in my little rural farming town. Last week while digging up some fill dirt from under our century-plus-old lilac bushes, I made a little clearing. Here is where the placenta will return to the earth. I will have a ritual. I'm not even certain what this represents yet. The understanding isn't as important as the remembrance and the taking time to mark this passage.

There is some amount of sadness in letting this placenta go. Strange. Most days (or weeks or months or years, even) I never think about it. But the letting go feels so significant.  I don't think another child will come from my womb. That means no other placenta will either. It's possible that to me the burial represents the period (think punctuation) at the end of my childbearing. Tonight that's a sobering thought.

My Beloved just climbed the stairs to our bedroom. Sammy's still awake. I think the anticipation of the Birthday is exciting his neurons. I hear them chatting, Sammy's sweet little voice full of inflection and Life.

God, I'm a lucky woman.

Thank you, Sammy, for coming to us. Thank you.

First

Well, hi.

Story Midwife here.

I come to you this luscious almost-summer morning from my dining room: Abby the Midwife Dog lounging on the futon, 4.9 year old son Sammy on the couch watching Little Bill on CBS, husband Richard outside chopping down a half-dead bush, Tillie Cat chasing fairies around the house, and Minuet the Matriarch Cat nowhere to be seen -- she's much too good for us all anyway.

So who am I and what will you find here?

Me:
I'm a spiritual director, musician, retreat leader, and birthing way of Metta Chanting Circle and Spirations Institute for Interspiritual Formation -- a women's 2-year spiritual direction training program.

I'll write about what I love (and sometimes wrestle with):
Sacred stories. Spiritual direction. Tea. Music. Books. Ritual. Herbs. Marriage. Motherhood. Life in a small town. Spiritual practice. Healing. Family. Yoga. Retreats. Healing. Dreamwork. Women's spirituality. The crazy ordinary holiness that surrounds us all.

Enjoy yourself here. Say hello and share your wisdoms too.

Deep bows,

Story Midwife