Mothering as A Sacred Calling

Now that You are Pregnant......

2009-09-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Have you thought of your self as a Bodhisattva?

As you carry your beautiful Buddha belly have you stopped to acknowledge that you hold the future of humanity in your sacred womb and gentle heart? We appreciate all that you are giving back to humanity by taking inspired action toward nurturing your unborn child and planning to receive your baby by the most gentle means possible. For great detail on how to prepare for a gentle birth or "softbirth" as midwife, Sunni Karll termed in her very inspiring book on pregnancy and birth refer to her work @ www.Sacred Birthing.com

Pregnant Women Have Great Responsibility
Few stop to ponder the irony that many people will go into debt for wedding expenses (most of which is to entertain and impress others, but only lasts one day!), and then bemoan the price of paying for the gentle midwifery or holistic Doula care that leads to upholding the sanctity of one of the most precious days of their lives, the birth of their own child.

How much are you willing to investing into creating a beautiful and sacred journey of pregnancy and birth? Whether it be research, time, money, self care or all of the above, surely our baby's birth has at least as great significance as celebrating the love and commitment between two lovers!

Have you wondered how you can infuse greater consciousness into this sacred rite of passage as you are prepare to partner with the creator to bring a new soul to the planet? What mission does your child have in the conscious evolution of the planet? How will you ensure that your child's first experience of the world, namely his or her birth is one where he/she feels welcomed and embraced?

We are coming to an age where we can no longer assume ownership of our children. We must acknowledge that how our choices affect the incarnating soul in turn affects the planet at large. What kind of birth do you want for this child? How will your child's first embarkation with life mark his/her soul? What patterns are being wired in your child's brain even now while in the womb?

As conscious parents, we must begin to ask ourselves how our actions, feelings, experiences and intentions are affecting our womb baby..."parenting begins before conception"(Carista Luminare-Rosen)

Our Birth is Significant for Life
It was once thought that the newborn does not feel pain and that their amnesia about their own births meant that we need not concern ourselves with how they feel. Science has long proved that premise false.

"The truth is, much of what we have traditionally believed about babies is false. We have misunderstood them and underestimated their abilities. They are not simple beings, but complex and ageless-small creatures with unexpectantly large thoughts." David Chamberlain, Ph.D.

In fact, the field of pre and perinatal psychology is telling us that the moment of a child's birth has great significance for the rest of their lives, setting up unconscious patterns that play out again and again to call our attention to their need for healing and resolution.

While pregnant women hold the continuation of humankind literally in their wombs, they also hold the key to the future of world peace. Whether children are harmed or unharmed is carried forward into their adult lives. While all of our dysfunctions as the result of our past traumas can be be healed at any moment in time, it is better to be born gently and peacefully so we can each bring our gifts to the world with ease rather than the insecurity and pain of trauma that masks our potential in fear.

How we mother matters.

Mothers Matter
If you are reading this and you know a pregnant woman, honor and celebrate her for what she represents and can embody fully with the help of her community. Uphold her for by her love and selflessness as she gives of her body, heart and soul, she is ensuring a beautiful world not only for her child, but for all of us. Nurture the pregnant women and new mothers among you. Joyfully give of your time, energy and attention if you feel called and inspired! Could she use a wholesome meal, a foot or back rub, a mother blessing, babysitting of her other children so that she can refuel and continue to give of herself? Maybe she could use a gift certificate for a non-toxic cleaning company (work with her partner to get her out of the house for such a surprise)! Send her a surprise anonymous self care package to acknowledge her profound gift to the world! etc. etc.

When we give to mothers, we give to children. What children are given, they reflect back to us and re create in the world. Love a mother and her child today!

A Quote

2009-03-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

"Your children are not your children, they are sons and daughters of life's longing for itself, they come through you but not from you and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you, you may give them your love, but not your thoughts for they have their own thoughts, you may strive to be like them, but not seek to make them like you, for life goes not backwards nor terry's with yesterday."

The Prophet- Kahil De Brahn

Quote from "Parenting With Spirit" by Jane Bartlett

2009-03-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

"Parenting is a spiritual path, as noble and as near to God as that walked by any monk or nun. Mothers and fathers are the sacred portals through which a human soul is born. We are blessed with a treasured companion, our child, who is alongside both as our guide and as a person we have a responsibility to lead. Children come to teach us new things, just as much as we try to teach them. If you want to be more creative, more playful, more present in the moment and alive to the wonder of the world, you have given life to the best teacher of all these things you will ever have".

Motherhood as a Bodhisattvic Path- Originally Published by Kindred

2009-03-01T23:08:00.000-08:00

During the birth process, we transform at the cellular level and become the archetypal bodhisattva. The process of being aware as we conceive, gestate and open our wombs to the creative force or the all that is, becomes our attunement as woman healer, giving rise to the higher functioning that we need to mentor our children into their vast potential and greatness. Parenthood is a spiritual path and awareness is the practice.As mothers, we have great honor and great responsibility.The consciousness and tone with which we conceive, gestate, birth and parent our children, becomes the fabric from which they create their very lives. We come to conscious awareness through mindfulness meditation, although it often looks different for the householder. "Householders are challenged to watch our natural attachments to our children and let them be manifest in their fullest and purest sense. It is a goal to revision this attachment with eternal eyes, not just with temporal sight”. (Jeannine Parvati Baker). On the spiritual path of parenthood, we do not go to the ashram or to the monastery. We instead make our homes a Sacred Space and the practice most often looks like kneading bread, shelling chickpeas or washing dishes and sweeping the floors. We sit in awareness for 15 minutes at a time, rarely longer with little hands just begging to pull us off the meditation mat. We breathe deeply when we notice our self about to rote respond to the discomforts, whining or misbehaviors of our children; instead we stop in that moment of awareness and we respond to a child, rather than to a behavior.We know that our relating to them comes first and that right action follows, never the other way around. We are connected so deeply to our children that we feel their pain to greater degrees even than we feel our own; and our love for them is eternally unconditional.

The actual process of opening to give birth is a gateway for complete transformation on all levels of our being. Inherent in this transformative process is the awakening of dormant capabilities that give rise to expanded states of being and self empowerment that include knowing how to raise this child. We come back to relating, just as we come back to our breath. This relating informs our way of being with our children. As mothers we give up the freedom to live by our impulses, yet what arises in its place, is awareness and expanded states of being that could not be experienced by any other means or path! No other practice but motherhood could conjure up the sensation of a heart beating inside our wombs or the experience of feeling love again as though for the first time; and even again with the subsequent birth of each new child coming thereafter. From feeling the life force move through our yonis as we give birth, to the awe that comes with seeing our babies for the first time outside of our bodies and simultaneously getting that, it was this baby that we nurtured in our womb for nine moons. There are so many altered states of consciousness inherent in co creating, carrying and birthing a child; right from the time of conception and before that, as a women’s climax coaxes the sea-Men into her watery depths. The whole journey of Motherhood is an altered state of consciousness that is informed by the birth process; just as the birth process is informed by who we are, that life is. The altered states that we experience are unique to motherhood; there is no other path by which to attain such incredible states of being and awareness.

As pregnant women and mothers who have taken great care to nurture the souls that gestate or have once gestated within our wombs; we are privy to the very sacred task of mentoring the evolved souls who come to us disguised as children. Yet in the modern context of motherhood, we are often not acknowledged or celebrated and rarely apprenticed and finally initiated into the bodhisattvic path of service called motherhood.

Mother as bodhisattva, is a very real, honoring and empowering archetypal image in which to view motherhood in the modern context. The path no longer chooses us, for today we have the freedom to choose not to mother a child. Let us acknowledge ourselves and one another for putting aside our own personal nirvanas, to instead merge in service for the highest good of our children, and subsequently for our planet. As we choose to offer ourselves up to mother in awareness, we consciously raise the consciousness of our children, and ultimately we generate the enlightenment of humanity as a whole.

Quotation:
http://www.birthkeeper.com/WomanIsShakti.html

Celebrating the Gift that Motherhood is to Humanity

2009-03-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

We are raising the consciousness of the greater community to recognize, honour, nurture and celebrate the gift that Motherhood is to humanity. Creating a context in which raising children is recognized by the community as a societal contribution of the highest order; one that empowers and supports new families to embrace parenting as a sacred calling. As each mother is nurtured and uplifted by the community, so will she nourish and nurture the developmental and soul needs of her child. A village is called into being; one that cultivates each child’s vast potential, thus creating a harmonious world born of a spirited family and community life.

www.earthmotherbirth.org