Breath of Life

The feminist critique of pornography is not that the female body is ugly, or shouldn't be seen. The feminist critique of pornography is that it reduces women to their body parts and erases their individuality. Instead of treating women as persons, pornography treats them as objects for male enjoyment.

-- Amy Tuteur, MD

This is exactly the point of natural birthing advocates who believe a woman has a right to her body, who touches it, and how, and where and with whom she will birth. Our human body is our temple. It is where one lives, the place in which the soul occupies. From before birth the human body and soul deserve to be respected and treated as sacred. These are the old messages from previous times when women had domain over birth and the human body was revered, not seen as puritanically impure and a medical crisis.

Meanwhile, these feminists will go lay down on a table, hook up to the narcotics, and allow whatever anyone wants to do. Three nurses and two residents learning cervical checks, resident getting to his first birth, an anesthesiology and a pediatric resident or two all standing by? I doubt all that many feminists really agree with the treatment of womens' bodies in medical care, especially birth, is really inane.

Where are the feminists when it comes to Victoria Secret commercials of scantily clad women writhing on the bed or stairway during prime time commercials when my fourteen year old was watching television -- after being indoctrinated with "Just say no" and abstinance programs, and religious sermons about purity? Our society is over-sensitized and de-sensitized at the same time. Makes for great commerce in obstetrics and in consumer trade. So, how about the commercials using sex and women's bodies to sell unrelated household products? The woman in the shower making orgasmic sounds while her husband looks dejected in the bedroom (Herbal Essence Shampoo.) Or, the man and woman getting physical while Uncle Ben's rice cooks quickly in the microwave. Working women, with so little time, are reduced to messages of sexuality and intimacy in five minutes waiting for the rice? We are bombarded by the messages with women's bodies and sex that human sense of loss, lack of intimacy, and lack of respect for women's bodies -- and men's too, for crying out loud.

Feminism -- who even knows what that means these days. Traditionally, it is the hard-core women whose focus in on career and being equal to men in a world where no one is really happy because of their career and amassing money and things. Some of the greatest "feminists" I know are women who are IN THEIR BODY, living a spiritually, emotionally, and physiologically evolving life -- finding her real worth and her work -- usually healing decades of buying into the myth, the cultural mental virus that sold them (and their children) out. Taking back her body and her life, that's what natural birth and healing birth is all about.

Acknowledging the extraordinary divinity of being a life giver, a woman of the species, doesn't have to take away from her other abilities and glorious aspects of being human -- brilliant, mathematical, scientific, motivated, industrious, contributing to the world through other aspects other than being a mother. Feminists are not immune from the angst of multiple conflicting desires and from guilt of decisions that seemed right at the time but are later hard to live with. Women whose self-esteem comes from career accomplishments are stressed and tired and they live the myth of having it all -- satisfying work and career and a relationship, family, and being a good mother. Any woman of age, with children especially adult children, knows she can have it all, just not all at the same time. She also knows the price paid for focusing on the world rather than herself and her children. I don't quite get the feminist writings today against the natural birth beliefs that medical birth controls the physiology of women. You'd think they'd be the first to identify being controlled by the male oriented obstetric, medical care of women's bodies. And, they don't see the poor research behind the propagation of "maternal choice" as leading women by the nose to the slaughter. So weird -- I'll have to ponder this some more. Hey! I wonder if it is the effects of generations of drugs , tied down, and maniupulated that numbs emotions and clouds the view?

Throughout history, that natural birthing returns to in many ways, was a time of revering the cycles of women's lives. Young girls were revered, not jeered at and molested. Women were honored for being the bringer of life and in nurturing and mothering those souls she brought for. When that cycle of feminine life was finished she was not castigated as worthless, but rather she was supported to enter into HER time and HER work. The culture revered the older women who finished mothering and moved into her work. Sure, it's glamorized these days. Who knows, maybe the man beat the crap out of his woman then, raped young girls and boys, the women demanded to be hunters and not stay home in such an unappreciated role.

Whether we are male or female at the end of the day, and life, the spiritual teaching of every religion is really love. And, our measurement of good life is about how much one loved and was loved. In the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke our breath is our connection to Source, to Life, to God, and every other living thing. One of the teachings puts a new perspective on "inheriting the earth" and that is that at the end of the day all one really has, no matter what they have accomplished and gained in the world, is their breath. Breathing has to become a intentional practice to feel connected on the level we seek. Nursing doesn't do it. Service work doesn't do it. Winning the lottery or working oneself to death to earn six figures doesn't bring the happiness and feeling of love. It's all within, is the teaching of every religious, and in our connection to others. In Jesus' native language, the connect is throug breath. In six minutes without air anyone of us is gone from this existence and it is our breath that takes us there. Whether one is Dr. So-n-so, or Oprah, George W, or Bill Gates who has more money than three combined countries in Africa, or whether one is a child in Africa or the homeless person one passed by today, it doesn't really matter because all ANYONE really has is their breath.

A day of meetings, or patients, shopping, or performing "life-saving" surgeries after inducing a baby's labor (and all the riches it brings) just never compares to being in the arms of a loved one, or watching your baby or child or lover with deep love for them, or watching them sleep and just taking in the beauty of it, watching them breath, taking them in. Finding yourself insinc with them. It's usually a moment of pure joy -- that we seek in every breath.

Breath is about life, about connection to the mother, and to the Source. Our life here, our view of the world here is created during the birth experience. Our first breaths are critical to how we will live and love. STOP CLAMPING THE CORDS OF BABIES and LET THE MOTHER'S BODY SUPPORT HER BABY TO TRANSITION AND RELEASE THE PLACENTA. Is that so friggin' hard and does it really take a medical degree to know this? Does it really have to become a "FEMINIST" issue? Whatever that is?

BReeeeeeeeATHE, everybody .... but don't push until YOU feel YOUR urge to do so ........ if there is not a man there to catch, not to worry .... catch yourself.