Tag Archives: mother

Parenting with Indigenous Science

Culture, decolonising, Indigenous Science, relationships, spiritual skills, values, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Blog by Valerie
 
There’s so much parenting advice, and so little I resonate with, so I thought I’d share my perspective.
 
Parenting is about building relationships through developmentally appropriate leadership (which is related to a previous post on governance and the YouTube video below on sacred leadership/eldership by Tjana Goreng Goreng, PhD). Kids, whether our own, family, or community, challenge us to confront triggers, fears and insecurities, as well as allow us to more clearly see our strengths, values and capacity to connect. 
 

 

When babies cry out we give them instant attention and soothing, but that is not always a good idea with older kids, much less adults! Often we set patterns into motion because of our own limitations (read about some of mine here). I knew a mother who considered her adult daughter mentally and emotionally fragile (which I didn’t). She martyred herself to avoid her daughter feeling pain and experiencing certain struggles. But some of that seemed to me (and the daughter’s therapist) necessary growing pain for the daughter’s development. And I felt the mother was projecting her own mental and emotional fragility onto her daughter because she felt unable to hold space in certain ways. They both seemed a bit stifled. 
 
I say that with deep compassion, because we all have limits and struggles. Part of the fulfilment of any spiritual work, and certainly parenting, is bringing our deepest challenges to the surface so we can make peace with ourselves (and our ancestors, younger and older!) to become even better leaders — i.e. more powerful, grounded, centred and humble human beings.
 
When I look at my child, I see some struggles she’s come here with, some that feel linked to her father and that ancestry, some linked to me and mine, and some connected to her context and the land and ancestors where we live. (Ie ancestors of spirit, lineage, and land). When I am able to shift something that she’s also carrying, I expect her to have a big emotional response because we are connected with very open hearts. My shifting innately moves her heart and affects our shared ancestors, and she has to process it too. All of that emotion is likely to also affect my husband, because we’re all very sensitive. So when I feel something shift, I both feel excited and tend to brace myself to be able weather some emotional storms that my leadership has set into motion. 
 
I’m very aware that being committed to deep spiritual work asks a lot of myself and people who choose to be intimate with me. I don’t feel like I have a choice, though, in the way a singer can’t (or ought not!) stop themselves from busting into song throughout the day. To stifle it is to self destruct and snuff out my life force. Parenting feels the same in that it’s not a choice, it’s an honour and responsibility that defines the structure of my life.
 
I remember a book that made news years ago about parenting being all joy and no fun. To me, that says the parent is overwhelmed and may not know any other way to lead and set up their life. I’ve seen quite a bit of a so-called ‘gentle parenting’ approach, which feels like a reaction to authoritarian parenting and actually seems to me to stress out the children by giving them too much leadership space and not enough containing and consequences to uphold values and norms.
 
I appreciate some elements of the ‘sturdy parenting‘ approach and agree that there’s a big difference between punishment and consequences (Image from here).
 
And I add to that an Indigenous worldview in which there’s a huge difference between deeming behaviours as unacceptable and judging a person as unacceptable.
 
It seems to me in an effort to limit the destructive impact of the existential judgment and punishment wound in the western worldview, there arose a popular idea that yelling at kids destroys their self esteem. I do not agree. I think expressing anger and showing that it’s an intense emotion that we all experience is part of healthy leadership. And after I express anger, I offer a cuddle. I tell my child that I love her no matter what I’m feeling, and that there’s nothing wrong with her. (And if I was angry with someone else, I make sure to tell her it wasn’t about her and still offer a cuddle if she wants.) She now says to us, ‘Sometimes we get angry’ with the same tone as ‘Sometimes we get sad’ or ‘Sometimes we get wrinkles’ (referring to what happens in the bath). It shows me she feels that it’s okay to experience intense emotions within herself and with others in her environment (Image from here).
 
Recently I sat down and cried before bed and told her that I felt sad because she had been very hard on me that day. It was the highest defiance and worst day of listening yet. I could tell she felt bad. She came over and hugged me and said, “It’s okay, I love you no matter what, Mommy.”  That helped fulfil me both as a parent and helped my inner child feel safer than I had with my mother.
 
Parenting, like other forms of leadership in Indigenous science, is an exercise in unconditional love and existential acceptance, while embodying core values and cultural norms and creating consequences for breaching them. I hope it resonates with you, and thanks for reading!
 
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Birth as Ceremony

Culture, Healing, Indigenous Science, , , , ,

Blog by Valerie, following recent presentations with breastfeeding and pregnancy groups

We do ceremonies at important moments in our lives, such as weddings, graduations, and funerals. Ceremonies support us to gain knowledge, purify our spirits, and honour life. They can be as simple as a small act done with sacred intention, or as elaborate as a religious confirmation.

“In traditional practices and rituals, birthing involved more than the physical health of the mother and baby. Giving birth was a process of initiation and belonging to the culture that created spiritual links to the land and the ancestral Dreaming.”—Best, O., & Fredericks, B. (Eds.). (2021). Yatdjuligin: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nursing and midwifery care. Cambridge University Press.

The birthing journey, from pregnancy to postpartum it is seen in Indigenous science as a time of spiritual initiation for the new mother. Initiations are transitional ceremonies that lead us through Earth’s cycle from life to death and rebirth into a new identity. For first time mothers, this journey is a profound shift from being a maiden into be-coming a mother, and for all mothers it is a journey of be-coming a mother within a new relationship.

Initiation ceremonies have three phases:

  1. Separation from daily reality;
  2. Ordeal or trauma; and
  3. Return or rebirth.

the tree of life ( our roots in life) | Creative Projects | Arte da ...In an Indigenous worldview, the mother is seen as a conduit between the spiritual and physical worlds, and birthing trauma as a meaningful initiation into spiritual adulthood. In fact, many Indigenous cultures have initiation rites only for young men, because childbirth (as a birthing mother, through miscarriage, and/or through supporting birthing women) is considered to be the initiation process naturally built into women’s bodies. (Image: Natural Birth Art Print by Sean Frosali, Society6)

Phase 1: Separation from daily reality – being pregnant

The moment a woman is pregnant, she and everyone she meets is in ceremony…The womb is our first orientation on Earth.–Patricia Gonzalez, Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous rites of birthing and healing

During pregnancy, traditional ceremonies are based on:

    • Mothers and elders sharing wisdom about birthing, breastfeeding and childrearing;
    • Cleansing the mother’s space, including her body and home (i.e. massage, smudging);
    • Community support with certain tasks around the house for the mother;
    • Taboos and norms about foods, drinks, and activities a mother ought to do or avoid;
    • Honouring the babies’ soul entering the womb and protecting the mother and baby (i.e. with amulets, prayers, and rituals, and avoiding aspects of life such as funerals);
    • Helping to welcome and support a new baby (i.e. to ease a first time mother’s anxiety, baby showers).

Why we need to support Aboriginal women’s choice to give birth on countryThere are of course many cultural variations on such ceremonies. One example is in parts of India where there is a sort of baby shower called a Valaikaapu in which the mother-to-be is sung to by other women, adorned with bangles, soothed from anxiety with herbal treatment on her hands and feet, and fed traditional nourishing foods. After this ceremony in the third trimester, the mother-to-be traditionally stays at her parents’ house until the baby is born. Another example occurs in parts of Indonesia also begins in the third trimester with the mothers’ parents bringing food to their son-in-law’s family, and the mother ceremonially feeding her pregnant daughter before everyone else eats. The parents-to-be are then given blessings and encouragement by both the whole family, including being wrapped in traditional fabric as a symbol of strength for their union through the birthing journey (Silaban, I., & Sibarani, R. (2021). The tradition of Mambosuri Toba Batak traditional ceremony for a pregnant woman with seven months gestational age for women’s physical and mental health. Gaceta Sanitaria, 35, S558-S560.). (Image from here)

Phase 2: Trauma/ordeal – birthing

In the Mohawk language, one word for midwife…describes that “she’s pulling the baby out of the Earth,” out of the water, or a dark wet place. It is full of ecological context. We know from our traditional teachings that the waters of the earth and the waters of our bodies are the same.
—Rachel Olson, Indigenous Birth as Ceremony and a Human Right

During and immediately following birth, traditional ceremonies are based on:

    • Birthing sites in sacred spaces indoors (e.g. sweat lodges) and outdoors (e.g. natural pools);
    • Taboos about labour being quiet or loud, and women’s positions (e.g. squatting);
    • Norms about partners being present at birth, or having their own tasks to do for the baby;
    • Use of traditional herbal steams and poultices to cleanse the womb, stop bleeding, and help milk start flowing following the birth;
    • Protecting the baby and mother;
    • Umbilical cord ceremonial clamping and/or saving, or lotus birthing;
    • Sensual imprinting for the newborn through wrapping them in traditional clothing, jewellery, fur, and/or blankets; and
    • Body wrapping and womb re-warming practices for the mother after birth.

How Natural Birth Became Inaccessible to the Poor | by SAPIENS ...There are also many cultural variations for these ceremonies. For example, in Japan umbilical cords are saved and presented to new mothers in keepsake wooden boxes at hospitals. This tradition is meant to keep a good relationship between the mother and baby, and sometimes the box is given to the adult child when they leave home or marry to symbolise a separation in an adult-to-adult relationship. In Australian Aboriginal cultures, cultural birthing areas utilised natural depressions and sacred spaces such as rock formations, caves and water holes, to spiritually connect the child to their Country and their ancestors. Women followed ‘Grandmother’s Law’ which often included practices such as squatting over the steam of traditional medicinal plants after birth to prevent infection, how to name the child, and when the child would meet their father (Adams, K., Faulkhead, S., Standfield, R., & Atkinson, P. (2018). Challenging the colonisation of birth: Koori women’s birthing knowledge and practice. Women and Birth, 31(2), 81-88). (Image from here)

Phase 3: Return/rebirth – becoming a mother

We believe in waiting until 30 days after the birth for any celebrations. In our tradition, we believe that the unborn child has a guardian angel, who is the previous mother of the child. If we celebrate the pregnancy publicly, the spirit of the previous parent might come and reclaim her child — so that the new mother loses her baby!—Vietnamese grandmother quoted in Cusk, R. (2014). A Life’s Work. Faber & Faber.

In the postnatal months, traditional ceremonies are based on:

    • Protecting the baby and mother;
    • Naming and welcoming the baby to the land and family;
    • Building the newborn’s resilience with elements and weather;
    • “Firsts” (i.e. baths, foods, laughs, rolling over, walking, etc.);
    • Mother’s rest and recovery from birth (often 40 days); and
    • Placenta ceremonies.

Pin on PinturaA sweet example of such a ceremony comes from the Navajo/Diné people of North America have a ceremony to honour the babies’ first laugh, and the person who gets the baby to laugh throws a party where guests are given salt on the baby’s behalf as a symbol of generosity since it was traditionally valuable and hard to get (Brown, Shane. (2021). Why Navajos Celebrate the First Laugh of a Baby. https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/blogs/news/why-navajos-celebrate-the-first-laugh-of-a-baby). Across the world in Egypt, on the child’s seventh day after birth, a Sebou’ ceremony welcomes the baby with a number of traditions related to the cultural meaning of the number seven, such as placing the baby in a sieve and shaking them to symbolise life becoming more dynamic outside the womb, then stepping over them seven times saying prayers for protection and obedience to their parents; a candlelit procession of smudging the house; and a drink to increase breast milk production (Gamal, A. (2015).  The Sebou‘: An Egyptian Baby Shower, https://www.madamasr.com/en/2015/11/02/panorama/u/the-sebou-an-egyptian-baby-shower/). And in Nordic countries, babies are traditionally left to nap outside no matter the weather to build their resilience to the earthly elements. Called friluftsliv it translates to ‘open-air life’ and represents cultural importance of enjoying nature and the outdoors all year round (McGurk, L. (2023). Creating a stronger family culture through ‘friluftsliv’, Children’s Nature Network, https://www.childrenandnature.org/resources/creating-a-stronger-family-culture-through-friluftsliv/). (Image by Joey Nash)

Sponged placenta print to celebrate the tree of life. www ...Placental ceremonies are based on traditional understandings of the placenta as a spiritual twin, a baby’s guardian angel, a ‘death’ gift offered to the Earth to give thanks for a healthy baby, and a carrier of a holographic imprint for the baby’s life on Earth. Most cultures bury the placenta (a few even give it funeral rites), some burn or eat it, and a few do lotus births (where the placenta stays attached to the baby until it dries out and falls off). The Hmong people in Laos believe a person’s spirit will wander the Earth and not be able to join their ancestors in the spirit world without returning to the place their placenta was buried and collecting it, and the word for placenta in their language translates as ‘jacket’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_women_and_childbirth_practices). In Maori language in New Zealand, ‘whenua’ is the word for both ‘land’ and ‘placenta’, and after childbirth the placenta is buried on ancestral lands to strengthen a child’s connection to culture, often beneath a tree (Soteria. (2020). Māoritanga: Pregnancy, Labour and Birth. https://soteria.co.nz/birth-preparation/maori-birthing-tikanga/). Placentas are dried and eaten to support the mothers’ or baby’s strength in many places, from China to Jamaica to Argentina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_placentophagy).

Today, it might be hard to decide what to do if you don’t know your Indigenous roots and their cultural traditions, and when because many of us birth in hospitals. I suggest relying on your intuition, and what resonates with you. Some ceremonies common across cultures that you may wish to do for yourself and your baby may relate to:

    • Prenatal blessings to keep the mother and baby safe;
    • Connecting the baby to the land and elements (earth, air, fire, water);
    • Postnatal rituals to keep the mother and baby safe;
    • Placenta burial; and/or a
    • Naming ritual.

Keep in mind that you can’t do a ceremony wrong if your heart and intention are in it. The way you feel during and after the ceremony will show you how it went. For my child, we did a prenatal baby shower/blessing with friends and family in person and on Zoom, and we printed out the blessings for our home-birthing space, then ultimately buried them with the placenta a few months after the birth. We chose our baby’s first sensual experiences – sight, smell, touch, and hearing, as her first taste was breastmilk! We brought earth inside to touch to her feet to connect her to the land as she was born in winter, and her placenta burial ceremony was on land where her great-great-great grandmother was buried.

I hope this has given you some things to reflect on and ideas for celebrating your journey into be-coming a mother in a way that feels sacred and special to you and your family. (Two other blogs you may find interesting about my birth and early mothering experiences are: about spirit babies, and mothering amidst intergenerational trauma).

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Mothering amidst intergenerational trauma

Healing, Relationships, , , , , , , ,

Blog by Valerie

Breastfeeding art . mom and baby . motherhood illustration . | Etsy in ...‘We are cycles of time’ stuck in my head after reading a Chinese astrological perspective on the lunar new year before bed. I couldn’t sleep, and my seven month old has been struggling before bed recently too, getting a burst of energy after indicating she’s sleepy. Though neither of us knows quite how to best help her settle, we’re getting there.

I knew in my pregnancy that my nervous system was overloaded. I spent the first few months exhausted and unable to get out of bed, processing a load of grief, only some of which felt like mine. I felt the absence of my mother, grandmothers and wise aunties in a deeper way then. I lost them all to trauma. No one in my family has accepted that I was sexually abused, because no one can handle their own triggers and emotions around that being true. Their paths of denial have, from my perspective, all been painful and tragic.

My dad died from a repeat bout of cancer soon after I told his whole family that one of theirs was my abuser. One grandmother had multiple nervous system disorders, the other lived under such oppression that her back was curved into a C shape from the weight of what she carried on her shoulders. My mother increasingly took so many psychiatric pills to numb her pain that she could no longer be human with me.

Professionally I have done restorative justice with survivors of clergy sex abuse and clergy of integrity who wish to take responsibility on behalf of the Church. I have also chosen to heal some of my own child sex abuse trauma by doing empathic dialogues with sex offenders and their family members as research, to understand their experiences and therefore see my own in a new light. I’ve worked in child welfare and domestic violence, in developed and developing countries.

Calculating Cycle Time for Manufacturing Processes - Latest QualitySo it’s fair to say that I have seen plenty of intergenerational trauma playing out in mine and other people’s lives. It’s particularly humbling to see it play out now, as a mother with my baby. But once I realize that’s what’s happening, I know we will have to ride this cycle of time out. And I feel grateful all the trauma I inherited and grew up with led me to learning how to work with that tough, powerful energy. (Image from here)

Before feeling ready to become a parent, I worked hard over many years to process trauma and heal, to live differently than I was raised. I know from my PhD on indigenous trauma healing that altering consciousness is an important part of healing. And I still meditate throughout the day, with my baby, often when she’s feeding and sleeping on me. I know that I’m not in control of the triggers, and that working with the land to ground my memories eases my load.

This past weekend our landlords, who did some work to baby proof the house we’re renting, shocked us by giving us notice, saying they don’t feel like they can keep our baby safe on their property, and they’re scared about liability should something happen to her. I had no such fear here. We’re living rurally, and both my partner and I grew up in big cities.

This felt like a bait and switch and really surprised me, because as a mother keeping my baby safe is primarily my responsibility. I had just finished baby proofing the house and setting up safe play areas for her to crawl, buying some carpet and even paying to get the floors super clean and ready for the baby to scoot around on.

I didn’t sleep well for a few nights after the notice, wondering if we did something wrong, why this is happening, though the landlords said they have no complaints about us. And then it hit me. My first recovered memory of child sex abuse was my uncle and his wife touching me in a baby bath. I must’ve been about the age my daughter is now. And our landlords seem to be, for reasons of their own that I don’t know, playing out some of this fear and rejection energy with us.

We all attract what we need to grow and heal. Looking through mother’s eyes I’ve been finding it increasingly harder to relate to my family’s choices in caring for me. It’s hard to need support and know not only that they can’t help me, but that I need support because I now have the responsibility of both processing the trauma I carry from my childhood and inheritance, as well as trying to show up differently for my baby.

Childbirth was a clear example of this struggle for me. We planned a home birth with the support of a local doula and a virtual midwife who was on call for us during the birth. She also helped us prepare, mostly emotionally and mentally. I had done birth regression healing previously, yet ninety percent of what I experienced in childbirth was witnessing my own birth and my mother’s lack of consciousness and connection with me – not my connection with my baby, though I could feel their presence and had a knowing that she was okay.

free clip art mother and child 10 free Cliparts | Download images on ...I have felt a lot of grief that so much of my energy in the pregnancy and birth, and even as a young mother now, is about processing trauma and grief instead of just being in the moment enjoying my baby. Though I feel nervous about looking for housing, packing and moving, I realize we’re all a cycle in time. And though it’s tough, my role now is to process as much trauma and ground as much nervous energy as I can so my baby has more opportunity to be present with their child in the next cycle.

Reflecting on these cycles, I remember that the article about Chinese astrology said that the last year of the water rabbit was 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous I Have a Dream speech. I grew up in Atlanta, and he’s long been a hero to me. Yet this lunar new year cycle started with a lot of violence at it’s celebrations in California, and among African Americans in Memphis, the city where Dr. King was killed.

Intergenerational trauma plays out in so many layers. And we’re all in this together. I’m reminded of other wise words from Dr. King:

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

I’m holding steady as best I can, bringing compassion, grounding, and unconditional love and acceptance to all the trauma that shows up. And I hope one day when she’s a parent, my baby feels that I swept our street well and gave them tools to survive these trauma cycles of time.

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The Sacred Feminine

Decolonising, Healing, Indigenous Science, , , , , , , , , , ,

Blog by Valerie

Springtime Cottonwoods, Dunes, and Medano Creek | NPS ...In 2016 I danced a healing ceremony on Tiwa country in view of their Place of Emergence (now the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, U.S., image from here.) It was the height of summer when we arrived, easily 40C, and a few people were already hard at work building a sweat lodge. Below are my photos of the bones of the lodge, including a medicine wheel made especially for the ‘crown’ facing the heavens (as you can see in the lodge’s shadow), as well as a photo of me. 

When I started writing this blog, it was the winter solstice where I now live, and two days ago marked the Aphelion here, when the Earth is farthest from the sun on its elliptical orbit. (In the other hemisphere you had summer solstice and the Periphelion where you were closest to the sun.)

During the ceremony, which was near summer solstice, it was stinking hot during the day and quite intense to be dry fasting in the desert. But the altitude meant that it cooled down at night, so in the morning when we woke at sunrise with chants and prayers of thanks as Grandmother Moon set and Grandfather Sun rose in the sky, it was pleasantly cool out. Without giving away more than is respectful, I can share that the ceremony started with a sweat lodge, then took place in a dance arbour with a small, resilient tree at the centre. There was drumming and chanting and dancing (and dry fasting as I mentioned), and sleeping outside for a few nights. During this dance I had the most profoundly sacred feminine healing experience of my life, and as I’m writing this, I’m realising that it’s significant that took place around summer solstice, when in my medicine wheel the sacred masculine is at its height of power.

Trail and Park Reviews: Zapata Falls, Frozen Glacial ...The desert strips away all that isn’t necessary, and like the bones of the sweat lodge, shows us what we are made of. During the ceremony I witnessed layer upon layer of trauma and grief being stripped from me. This was not new, but something I had been going through for some years. But when I found myself falling to my knees at tree in the centre of the arbour, I felt something different. I felt how deeply that tree, that country and those people loved me, and how very wanted I was by Mother Earth. I hadn’t realised how disconnected from my inherent worthiness I had been, and I cried tears of gratitude for the gift of knowledge reminding me of this. I felt quite weak at that point and soon after completed the dance, breaking my fast with a cup of mint iced tea. The next couple of days were filled with play, including hiking the sand dunes and finding oases to swim in the desert, such as an icy cold waterfall (Image of Zapata Falls from here) and a natural spring pool where I rented a swimsuit for $1. I didn’t know that was a thing, but I guess a few people show up in the desert surprised to find a natural spring pool and want to swim too!

When I left the desert after this experience, I felt raw and shaky, yet stronger in my body than I had been in this lifetime. And everywhere I went I kept seeing people who hadn’t yet connected with the Sacred Feminine and didn’t seem to know their worth, or how much we are all loved by Mother Earth, even as our behaviours and lifestyles wound Her. It helped me see the depth of wetiko in the world, and it helped me find my way to people who are as grounded as I am and consciously aware of the depth of pain and disconnection we are all in with our modern city living. It takes time and effort to integrate these teachings into our daily lives, and as one of Tiwa Elder Beautiful Painted Arrow’s (Joseph Rael’s) students shared in a recent blog, Joseph reminds us in his new book that “You have to go through separation before you can go through reunion” & “If everything is considered holy you are always in training.”

cleanupyourmess

At the winter solstice, where we connect deeply with the darkest light of our being, the light from which all coloured and bright light (and life) emerges, I remember this healing experience. And I give thanks for the Sacred Feminine, Mother Earth, and all mothers within and without. I give thanks for all the work I’ve put in so far to bring that knowledge fully into being in my world, and give thanks for the humility of how much work is still needed, mirrored in moments of trauma, pain and shadow emerging stronger than that sacred knowing of the worthiness of it all. Of every struggle. Here’s to us wild and crazy humans, and to Mother Earth who’s always supporting us whether we realise it or not. And to continuing to clean up our messes to show Her that we know how valuable we all are and that we want to honour that by living well. (Image from here.)

Wishing you a meaningful solstice season, whichever hemisphere you’re living in, and deepening of your conscious connection with the Sacred Feminine over the coming months.

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