You know how there’s so many things that need to be done, changes that need to be fought for and designed and implemented and evaluated and tweaked, on so many fronts, all at the same time? Systems and policies and models of care and access and research and – and – and…? All desperately needed…
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The same four quadrants can be a useful touchstone to check in with ourselves and how we are nurturing ourselves, both those working with birth, and new parents. We can check in with each quadrant and make sure we do smaller, self-nurturing things often, and larger self-nurturing things regularly. As new parents in particular, in…
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As I write, Australia is on fire. Lives, homes and precious ecosystems have been destroyed. There were barely any Christmas beetles this year, and I just saw only my second bogong moth this season in my smoke-dim garden. My kids are playing lego inside, and inside it’s smoky. This is human-made climate change in real…
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LOVE & WARMTH AID BIRTH ALONG. FEAR HINDERS BIRTH. If the acorn requires soil, rain, oxygen and sunlight, what can we extrapolate from the process of birth to understand its needs? The matrix it presupposes to exist for its best unfolding? In essence birth requires love, safety and warmth. This means birth requires respect, admiration,…
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EXTERNAL INDIVIDUAL Birth is a gloriously physical process: mucky, primal and powerful. It is in the woman’s body that all the elements of birth come together in shaping the physical process of birthing this baby. The EXTERNAL INDIVIDUAL is the measureable, tangible, woman’s body, and also elements of the baby’s body in relation to its…
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EXTERNAL COLLECTIVE Where we give birth matters. Where we give birth holds how we are able to give birth. From an evolutionary perspective, we know that when women feel safe and loved, they birth better. This presupposes that she is giving birth held in love and safety by her community. But fathers also have a…
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INTERNAL INDIVIDUAL Elder midwives say that labour happens here: in the woman’s mind. The Taoists said that a woman being present in her birthing was worth seven years’ meditation. I have teased out the threads within the INTERNAL INDIVIDUAL further to identify EMOTION, INTELLECT and SPIRITUALITY. At base, this is how we and the woman…
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INTERNAL COLLECTIVE OR, CULTURE & SYSTEMS This quadrant is the ground for all the others, coming to birth. If the EXTERNAL INDIVIDUAL is where all the quadrants manifest their influence on the woman’s body as she births, this quadrant is the root of all the others – it is the way we value women and…
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Ken Wilber’s model is called AQAL, or All Quadrants, All Lines, and is a way of observing the various aspects of life. I will apply my understanding of the quadrants to birth (any mistakes in interpretation are mine alone!), as a useful way of mapping the various influences on birth’s unfolding, so that we can consciously…
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HOW DO WE IDENTIFY THE CONNECTIONS? HOW CAN WE BEST LEVERAGE THE CONNECTIONS FOR TRUE HEALTH? When we stand back and appreciate all these things that interweave for birth’s unfolding, we can be overwhelmed by our responsibility to the complexity. How can we discern the patterns that we can usefully work with, to serve women?…
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