World Doula Week
I’m a doula because what I want to be no longer exists,
I’m a doula because my soul remembers when things were different.
I believe babies choose us, believe unborn souls can draw us into their initiation if we have something of value to bring to their mother.
The sensitive ones know where to look, where to find the healers and birth warriors.
These days I feel more healer than warrior
And I hope there is still a place for me, in my quiet way.
My mother said my gift is; “you reflect back to people all that is best within themselves”
And it’s true, that doulaing is shapeshifting. How much of my soul, my integrity, my journey can I bring to this woman without compromising her inner voice?
Sometimes the holy spirit sets free something from your mouth you would prefer not to have said
That you were told not to say on the training courses.
For that baby, you were in the right place at the right time.
I’ve doula’ed for families with a single sentence without attending the birth.
I’ve signposted for women the system deliberately tried to confuse and mislead.
Watched as bright young mothers-to-be left my pregnancy classes and sometimes came back to baby massage so broken from what was done to them
Helped to pick up the pieces and remind them of what can never be broken within them.
They used to burn women like us at the stake, blamed us for stillbirths and horrors against women and children, to be “with woman” was to have your life on the line.
They don’t kill us now but I see my midwife friends have their spirits slowly killed instead, unless they can find a way to conform or become sneaky as hell.
How long ‘til they prosecute a doula for trying to be something that she isn’t?
Like the seven of wands in the tarot we have our feet in both worlds, and it’s a curse as much as a gift. Know your limits and let your boundaries be the structure you need for the magic to flow. Know when to step in and when to hold back. Be a humble student of the great mystery, witness to casualty and ecstasy.
Sam said when she dies she hopes her children don’t burn her art journals, and I said “it’s likely the people of the future will use them to find out more about this doula culture”
The ones who, once upon a time, would have been midwives
The ones with past life wounds
The ones who are a visible reminder of birth as sacred
The ones who are filling the gaps of a crumbling world with sisterhood and truth
The ones who keen with an ancient grief that something is wrong, so horribly wrong
The ones who were so gentle as they held the cauldron of the culture in their laps
And sang a song of wisdom and love, for the wildish women to be guided back home.
The Annunciation
As spring is all around and I am replenishing my stocks of cleavers and nettle, I wanted to share my thoughts about the feast of the annunciation, when Our Lady is visited by an angel and asked if she will give birth to christ.
We are living in a love story. The wagtail that trills at you from the fence. The bee that moves from flower to flower, rejoicing in life’s return. The stream, full with spring rain, nourishing the soil. You, sat beneath one of your favourite trees and singing a new song you learned since you saw each other last. Each a serenade, a courtship, a devotion.
What if we were all the angels, telling the earth we love her, each in our own way?
A little poem came to me as I was walking home today
The Annunciation
The lord loves the lady so he sent her
A babbling brook
A buzzing bee
The singing birds
And then he sent me.
Nettle
Grandmother nettle, abundant and invisible, like the old wise crones that pass unseen in a society that prioritises youthful beauty. Wise, witchy grandmothers that they tried to eradicate in years gone by, for their superior wisdom and biting tongue. You never notice nettle til it bites you - then you curse it and your carelessness.
The magical herb for pregnant and nursing mothers, full of nutrients and goodness to keep your eyes bright and your energy up. What we crave most when pregnant and with a new baby is a strong dose of mother wisdom from a woman who has seen and done it all… instead we are handed ferrous sulphate that makes us vomit and Gina Ford books. The body rejects what is not good for it, and with any luck the mother will also expel the modern baby advice that asks her to kill her inner wise crone.
Nettle is like Baba Yaga who fixes you with her beady eye and raps you on the knuckles for not paying attention. She’s the crone initiation that knows you need to be cruel to be kind, that some things can only be learned the hard way. She can judge somebody’s character instantly, is fiercely protective and isn’t afraid to speak her mind.“Open your eyes!” she barks to our inner maiden “There is a price for ignorance!”
She will help us pick up the pieces when we invariably do pay that price.
She is also the grandmother that peers into the pale face of a new mother who is doing too much and mutters under her breath “in my day we stayed in bed, the midwife wouldn’t have us up and about for weeks”. She’s the grandmother who insists you look unwell and that you’re not eating enough for the milk to flow. The breastfeeding experts will say this isn’t true, but we let grandmother nourish us anyway.
Nettle oil, massaged into arthritic fingers and dry infant skin to bring relief. Nature knows that grandmothers and babies belong together. A lullaby so old it has no words, it’s simply hummed and passed from mother to daughter through gentle pats on the back.
Once we knew the power of nettle. She asks us to remember.