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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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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We will start with an introduction to one part of a framework from US philosopher Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory that I have adapted for birth, and explore all the many elements that come together in the dance of birthing out our babies. But the truth is, as we become more and more familiar with birth,…
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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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Birth is inherently a physical process, but that physical process is interwoven with the other elements of the experience of being alive, both seen and unseen, objective and subjective, external and internal. Each element is affected by the next, and affects the next in turn. The physical process of birth is in such an intricate…
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WE ARE CONNECTED. INTERCONNECTION SHAPES THE UNFOLDING OF PROCESS. Let us take two acorns, dense with the same potential to become oak trees. The first acorn sprouts into life on the shaded forest floor. It shoots up, spindly and pale, to the light at the canopy, where it leafs out, catching what sunlight it can.…
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There is no getting around it; our babies are born from us into this big, hard, beautiful world through our hard work and going deep. In valuing birth in all its muck and glory, we value all the flavours that Life brings, even as we bring new life into the world. Further than this –…
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WE ARE PROCESS From nothing comes something. From out of profound NOTHING comes suddenly an incandescent, dense explosion of matter, space and time – the Big Bang’s rupture of exceptional heat and protons proliferating into a space expanding through new time. If we look with a long eye, stand back far enough, we can trace the…
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