Wednesday, May 21, 2014

STRENGTH & FLEXIBILITY

Long ago I became infused with a passion to learn midwifery. It was 1979 in Missoula. I dropped in on a home birth conference that hooked me up with a teacher. These were the days of lay midwives and homebirths were a-legal in Montana. In the next few years I helped some 60 women have babies, some that came at home, and some in hospital. To add to my understanding, I asked a friend who is a stunning sculptress, if she'd make a pelvis for me. She later said it was the most difficult piece she had taken on! Plus, it shifted from a "normal" pelvis to an "anthropoid" pelvis during the firing. Nonetheless, I labeled it,  memorized, and adored it all the years I assisted at births.  I came across it last week cleaning out an old trunk full of past lives, obscure poetry, and precious creations from my kids.

It is worth a minute or two to worship the amazing structure that allowed each of us to be here, and now allows us to maintain forward (and backward) motion by transferring the weight of the heaviest parts of our body skillfully to our strong legs. Remembering that when we evolved from four-leggeds to two-leggeds, our pelvis shifted a whole 90 degrees! Within this beautiful basin our reproductive organs lay, protected by quarter to one-half inch walls, skillfully turned to avoid fracture. But how many of us know someone who has fractured her pelvis, and healed to be fully functioning again? Amazing! Bone loves growing, intertwining, weaving, locking, protecting our most intimate places.

When you are stressed, upset, confused, frustrated, it is well worth a few moments of laying on the floor appreciating the solid structure of the pelvis, silently working for you. Remember that your mother's coccyx, ishial spines, lesser sciatic notches, and ishial tuberousities guided your soft head on your way into the earth plane, and you emerged to air, sound, light and love. Whatever you are struggling with now has similar, though invisible, guides to move you exactly where you need to be. Finding your way with strength and will is your inborn job! You might need to accept a little guidance from a helpful friend, but the way, and the will is there, thanks to our ancient mothers.

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