The Other Side of the Glass

Part One was officially released June 2013 in digital distribution format. To purchase to to www.theothersideoftheglass.com If you were a donor and want to download your copy send an email to theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com.

The trailer

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Mother's Day: Originally a Day for Peace

Mother's Day: Originally a Day for Peace

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sun May 13, 2007 at 12:03:00 AM EST Tags: (all tags)

"Mother's Day was originally designated as a day to inspire people to work for peace. It was conceived after wars at home and abroad by American abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe."

RediscoverMothersDay.org.

Besides initiating the tradition of Mother's Day, Howe is best known as the author of the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". As a pacifist during the Civil War, she witnessed the devastating effects of the conflict through her work with widows and orphans. In 1870 she wrote the "Mother's Day Proclamation," a call to women to oppose war and to convene to promote peace and be the architects of their family's -- and their own -- political futures. She presented it at international peace conferences in London and Paris , where she lamented the atrocities of not only the American Civil War, but also the Franco-Prussian War.

Howe envisioned the first "Mother's Day" as a time for women to gather, grieve and determine a peaceful solution to war.

Howe's 1870 "Mother's Day Proclamation" reads:

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means / Whereby the great human family can live in peace, / Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, / But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask / That a general congress of women without limit of nationality / May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient / And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, / To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, / The amicable settlement of international questions, / The great and general interests of peace.


"President Woodrow Wilson declared an official national Mother's Day in 1914, approving the Congressional resolution to celebrate the day every year on the second Sunday in May."

If women ran the government, there would be no wars of aggression. Women, for obvious reasons, have no need to prove how big their "equipment" can be.

My oldest grandson is 3-1/2. A year ago, I feared he would end up being drafted to fight the War in Iraq as it entered its 20th year. Now we see "a light at the end of the tunnel," Henry Kissinger's famous words as the War in Vietnam dragged on.

Today, as Bush's poll numbers equal Nixon's at the time of resignation, the President should quit lying to himself and the people and tell us what we already know: This war is no longer winnable because your gang botched it from the beginning.

You, Mr. President, have no credibility left. As a nation, we have little credibility left, thanks to you. We have squandered almost all our goodwill, and over what?

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

And how many soldiers will die on Mother's Day? How many mothers will lose their sons and daughters in Iraq that day?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/5/13/0014/33123

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Baby Keeper: Here, Here!! Bless all our soldiers who must carry out the atrocious orders of a power monger, and bless their families.

I caravaned to the St Louis airport with the family of one of the members of my military family support group yesterday to greet the arrival of one of our precious family members. As people left the security section and passsed us more people than not looked away. Some on their cells phones connecting with loved ones were unaware of how precious that gift is -- to talk to their loved one and to live in America and have a phone or the opportunity and income to fly. A few spoke and said thanks. One pilot made an effort to acknowledge us and one woman stopped to watch our soldier in embrace with his wife and daughter. She looked at us and said she had chills.

What a joy to see my friend -- one of my sweet sisters on this journey -- and their three-year old daughter reunited with him - and to be with his mother, step-mother, father, aunts, childhood friend and family, neices, nephews, and grandparents as they welcomed him home. What a great mother's day gift -- to see a soldier reunited with his wife and child. One hundred and thirty-two years after Howe wrote her proclamation spurred by the impact of war on families, the US is gravely affected by war (while many don't feel it), but one family is reunited.

I was particularly touched by the huge embrace with him -- a man I had not yet ever met but felt so much for and for whom I had prayed so many months; a man the age of my oldest, in his military fatiques, shaved head, and sun-reddened face. Of course, he was clean, not fresh from the desert, but with the overwhelm of my senses, I felt the fall of the 6000 miles between me and my son, if for just a brief moment. A blessed moment for my soma and my heart and mind to take in. Today, I am very tired from the emotions of it all. I cry less these days and I play and work more. Earlier, I would have been in sobs by the end of these two post. Right now, one huge tear has welled up in my right eye. It fell and rolled down my cheek and I felt it land in my lap. Wow.

My GI Joe is over half way home -- seven months have passed. It's hump month in the year long deployment. I have been more likely to be appreciating the gifts of my experience with my son -- as a mother of a son a war; and a mother opposed to war and who has sought peace. And, I know to prepare for hard days in September and October -- the coming home is so stressful. God keep you safe, my baby.

Here come the others -- these join together and slowly roll down my cheek and neck. Have you ever noticed your different kind of tears and FELT them? It's one of the blessings for me.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I'm so happy to see so many blogers discovering and sharing the radical truth and history of mother's day!
You can check out my stuff on mother's day here:

http://sazziesblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/mothers-day-capitalist-crock-or.html
http://sazziesblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/mothers-day-consumption-of-femininity.html
http://sazziesblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/cratively-subverting-capitalist.html

"Soft is the heart of a child. Do not harden it."

A public awareness reminder that things that happen behind the scenes, out of our sight, aren't always as rosy as we might think them to be. Perhaps its a restaurant cook who accidentally drops your burger on the floor before placing it on the bun and serving it to you. Here it's an overworked apathetic (pathetic) nurse giving my newborn daughter her first bath. Please comment and rate this video, so as to insure that it is viewed as widely as possible, perhaps to prevent other such abuse. -- The mother who posted this YouTube. How NOT to wash a baby on YouTube Are you going to try to tell me that "babies don't remember?" There is no difference to this baby's experience and the imprinting of her nervous system/brain and one that is held and cleaned by the mother or father either at the hospital or at home? By the way, this is probably NOT the baby's first bath. The nurse is ungloved. Medical staff protocol is that they can't handle a baby ungloved until is has been bathed (scrubbed if you've seen it) because the baby is a BIO-HAZARD -- for them. Never mind that the bio-hazard IS the baby's first line of defense against hospital germs.

Missouri Senator Louden Speaks

Finally, A Birth Film for Fathers

Part One of the "The Other Side of the Glass: Finally, A Birth Film for and about Men" was released June, 2013.

Through presentation of the current research and stories of fathers, the routine use of interventions are questioned. How we protect and support the physiological need of the human newborn attachment sequence is the foundation for creating safe birth wherever birth happens.

Based on knowing that babies are sentient beings and the experience of birth is remembered in the body, mind, and soul, fathers are asked to research for themselves what is best for their partner and baby and to prepare to protect their baby.

The film is designed for midwives, doulas, and couples, particularly fathers to work with their caregivers. Doctors and nurses in the medical environment are asked to "be kind" to the laboring, birthing baby, and newborn. They are called to be accountable for doing what science has been so clear about for decades. The mother-baby relationship is core for life. Doctors and nurses and hospital caregivers and administrators are asked to create protocols that protect the mother-baby relationship.

Men are asked to join together to address the vagaries of the medical system that harm their partner, baby and self in the process of the most defining moments of their lives. Men are asked to begin to challenge the system BEFORE they even conceive babies as there is no way to be assured of being able to protect his loved ones once they are in the medical machine, the war zone, on the conveyor belt -- some of the ways that men describe their journey into fatherhood in the medicine culture.

Donors can email theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com to get a digital copy.
Buy the film at www.theothersideoftheglass.com.

The film focuses on the male baby, his journey from the womb to the world and reveals healing and integrating the mother, father, and baby's wounded birth experience. The film is about the restoring of our families, society, and world through birthing loved, protected, and nurtured males (and females, of course). It's about empowering males to support the females to birth humanity safely, lovingly, and consciously.

Finally, a birth film for fathers.

What People Are Saying About the FIlm

Well, I finally had a chance to check out the trailer and .. wow! It's nice that they're acknowledging the father has more than just cursory rights (of course mom's rights are rarely acknowledged either) and it's great that they're bringing out the impact of the experience on the newborn, but I'm really impressed that they're not shying away from the political side.

They are rightly calling what happens in every American maternity unit, every day, by its rightful name - abuse. Abuse of the newborn, abuse of the parents and their rights, abuse of the supposedly sacrosanct ethical principal of patient autonomy and the medico-legal doctrine of informed consent, which has been long ago discarded in all but name. I love it!

In the immortal words of the "shrub", "bring it on!" This film needs to be shown and if I can help facilitate or promote it, let me know.

Father in Asheville, NC


OMG'ess, I just saw the trailer and am in tears. This is so needed. I watch over and over and over as fathers get swallowed in the fear of hospitals birth practice. I need a tool like this to help fathers see how very vital it is for them to protect their partner and baby. I am torn apart every time I see a father stand back and chew his knuckle while his wife is essentially assaulted or his baby is left to lie there screaming.
Please send me more info!!!!
Carrie Hankins
CD(DONA), CCCE, Aspiring Midwife
720-936-3609


Thanks for sharing this. It was very touching to me. I thought of my brother-in-law standing on the other side of the glass when my sister had to have a C-section with her first child because the doctor was missing his golf date. I'll never forget his pacing back and forth and my realizing that he was already a father, even though he hadn't been allowed to be with his son yet.

Margaret, Columbia, MO

In case you don't find me here

Soon, I'll be back to heavy-duty editing and it will be quiet here again. I keep thinking this blog is winding down, and then it revives. It is so important to me.

I wish I'd kept a blog of my journey with this film this past 10 months. It's been amazing.

I have a new blog address for the film, and will keep a journal of simple reporting of the journey for the rest of the film.


www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com


I'll be heading east this week to meet with a group of men. I plan to post pictures and clips on the film blog.

I'll keep up here when I can -- when I learn something juicy, outrageous, or inspiring related to making birth safer for the birthing baby.

Review of the film

Most of us were born surrounded by people who had no clue about how aware and feeling we were. This trailer triggers a lot of emotions for people if they have not considered the baby's needs and were not considered as a baby. Most of us born in the US were not. The final film will include detailed and profound information about the science-based, cutting-edge therapies for healing birth trauma.

The full film will have the interviews of a wider spectrum of professionals and fathers, and will include a third birth, at home, where the caregivers do a necessary intervention, suctioning, while being conscious of the baby.

The final version will feature OBs, RNs, CNMs, LM, CPM, Doulas, childbirth educators, pre and perinatal psychologists and trauma healing therapists, physiologists, neurologists, speech therapists and lots and lots of fathers -- will hopefully be done in early 2009.

The final version will include the science needed to advocated for delayed cord clamping, and the science that shows when a baby needs to be suctioned and addresses other interventions. Experts in conscious parenting will teach how to be present with a sentient newborn in a conscious, gentle way -- especially when administering life-saving techniques.

The goal is to keep the baby in the mother's arms so that the baby gets all of his or her placental blood and to avoid unnecessary, violating, and abusive touch and interactions. When we do that, whether at home or hospital, with doctor or midwife, the birth is safe for the father. The "trick" for birthing men and women is how to make it happen in the hospital.

Birth Trauma Healing

Ani DeFranco Speaks About Her Homebirth

"Self-Evident" by Ani DeFranco

Patrick Houser at www.Fatherstobe.org

Colin speaks out about interventions at birth

Dolphins