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EcoBirth-Women for Earth and Birth

Uniting the earth and birth movements for the well-being of our world

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Continuity of lineage-who are we related to?

My twin granddaughters are born and thriving, feeding, growing, pooping, crying, so real! I had been thinking about the unbroken lineage we all embody. I am fascinated with the history TV shows saying that the Native Americans in America are descended from 20 people. And I remember on a trip I took to Quezac in the center of the mountains in France, when I asked the Gite/hotel owner, "How long had her family been here?" She said "Always", it seemed inconceivable. But I do realize a very long continuous chain of connection and relationship to my ancestors, not just to my great-grandmothers who came to America with their warring army husbands on this western frontier, but way, way back to the beginnings. We came from Africa, we are all related, this is inconceivable, but profound to me. My relations are everyone. My husband and I were just trying to figure out what percentage these girls are of Chinese, Russian, Irish, French, German, Scots, Spanish- O it is a mish-mash! And these delineations of ethnicity and nationality are just arbitrary, not the absolute truth.

They have been given names that have Celtic foundations, seems very appropriate to me. I took out some books I had collected on Celtic art, history and spirituality. The Celts seemed to have been a curious mix of crazy, killing warriors and a strong connection to the earth and the daily miracles in the simple relationship with life around them. Their names are associated with wisdom and fire. I will tell you the names when I get permission from their parents, because I am not in charge of these precious beings, and permissions can not be given out by me for them. I have to understand that I am a step removed from them, which I am finding is quite hard to grasp emotionally. But they are in a chain of relationships that is truly immutable and I am in that chain with them, all the way back to thousands of years ago.


Now, my granddaughters will express so many aspects of their lineage and their environment. I wonder what affect their birth and first days will have? That is a poignant question for a person who is so tied into EcoBirth. I will hold this question, because I do not have the answer and right now it is too close to me emotionally to get a perspective.


I just want to make an effort to welcome these darlings to a beautiful world and I want to offer help to my son and daughter-in-law with the immediate everyday duties that come with their increased responsibilities. I want to hold the space for them of beauty and love that is hard to see in this new chaos of new life- x2!


This wonderful quote came to me today in my companionable email box and it spoke to me. Thank you Mr RLS!



WORD FOR THE DAY
Saturday, Sep. 11
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Monday, September 6, 2010

Salmon Creek Falls Environmental Center - Where I will be presenting "A Mother's Legacy- A Precautionary Tale" on Friday, Oct 1, at 7 pm, 1935 Bohemian Hwy, Occidental, CA

Numinous time before birth of my granddaughters

I feel as if I am in a numinous space and time, waiting for my granddaughters to be born (yes girl twins, natural and fraternal-sororal, if you ask! due now). I see them in my daughter-in-law's belly and feel them move and kick . " There's the butt, there's one head, there's the other head!" Anticipation is delicious in a certain way.

But they are not here yet, even though they are alive and kicking! And I do not have the physical, embodied relationship with them, that I had with my two children. So I am not sure how I feel, but the feeling is intense and moving. When they come into this realm, I will be immediately different too, a grandmother. Our relationship will be immutable, unchangeable, and there are very few unchangeable things in this world. I cannot even call their names, and I cannot know who they will look like.

It is such a transition time, germinating, not really fallow, but yes, they are seeds that have been growing in the dark, protective womb of their mother. Right now all that they need and their potential life story is contained and held. Somehow their spark of life happened, through love, I believe. But there is the biology of it too, that manifests this mysterious life force. And this biology can be effected by outside forces, not by the conscious will of their mother, not by any truly rational choices of our culture and influenced by place and time.

I believe this changeable biology creates a responsibility on me, because I would never want an action that I do to harm my grandchildren. But I know I have done harmful things and continue to do them. I realize that how I live on this earth is what my granddaughters will inherit.  I understand that my relationship with my all-encompassing Mother Earth somehow is immutable too, just like my relationship with my granddaughters. And I feel that my Mother Earth, who holds and nurtures and feeds me is beneficent. She would not want to harm either, yet she accepts what is happening to her, with involuntary surrender.

I understand that I hurt my environment with my choices or ignorance. And those choices invade my daughter-in-law's body and my grandchildren's development.  This is not right on so many levels, perhaps that is why this is such an emotional time for me. I am so close to the effects of my actions being exhibited in my granddaughters.  Yes, that is it.

I am conscious of the delicate dance with my daughter-in-law of  being helpful, not pushy, supportive but not being a know-it-all; understanding that I have a unique relationship with these as yet unborn creatures, that confers a particular joy and responsibility that only I have. Perhaps if I keep this numinous space in my awareness, I will better understand what I can do to help my earth and my grandchildren. Then when the embodied birth happens, like my granddaughters very physical appearance in this realm, I will also realize and do what is real in this world to help all my relations and my sustaining mother earth.
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Molly Arthur's Maternal Lines digital story from molly arthur on Vimeo.

We women can face the pain and grief we have for our suffering Mother Earth and reclaim our story of creation and redemption with the power and beauty intimately held in our body’s cells from our maternal lines since the beginning of the cosmos. Our existential and communal grief heals within the loving gathering of our feminine compassion, connecting us to the truth and strength of our Mother Earth and all our kin. We start with Molly’s Personal Environmental Story-to explore the birth stories and places and times of ourselves, our mothers and grandmothers.Using the stories of our own maternal lines, with sharing, active listening and intention, we call on our ancestors, our inner wisdom and the shared circle to witness our story with compassion. Using ritual, song, movement, and sharing of our truths, in community and powerful circle as well as spending time on the land - we can acknowledge the oppression in our lives, feeling it in our bodies, grieving it, transforming it and ourselves in a safe, loving space. Our healing path connects our sacred lineage from the womb of our Mother Earth to integrate our inner and outer lives and discover our place in the connected caring cosmos. We are a part of a continuum of sacredness, lifeforce, divine energy including our Ancestors back to the stuff of the stars. We can reclaim our cells, our lineage and our legacy to the future generations. Like in birth labor, we must yield to our bodies innate knowing, to progress, to open, to birth our love. With our active surrender to fierce compassion we can restore our connection to the natural world and our own inner wisdom. We can drop our obsessive addictions to control and return to our healing, caring, befriending tendencies- innate for us nurturers. And then we can repair, regenerate, and renew our culture for tenderness and kindness, naturally embodied by us. We will be able to guard and protect ours and all descendents - becoming their Beloved Ancestors- by asking - What is possible now to transform our world for Future Generations?

Molly Arthur of EcoBirth- My Personal Environmental Story November 2012 from molly arthur on Vimeo.

Why EcoBirth’s My Personal Environmental Story
EcoBirth’s My Personal Environmental Story will help women tell their life story by considering the two primary environments- place and birth- for themselves, their mothers and their maternal grandmothers. Through this process each participant will come to realize the hazards in their environmental genealogy and realize the healing in telling their own story. And they will be empowered to affect the changes that are necessary for our Mother Earth and our children and grandchildren to thrive.
Imagine looking back to your grandmother's and mother's birth time to figure out what environmental influences you might have inherited? And have passed onto your children and grandchildren? Would you wonder what was in the air, water and food in their lives- and look twice at what diseases, birth defects, addictions there are in your family?