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Images of women, birth, magnificence and fighting the wrong shadow.

3/16/2015

19 Comments

 
Pretty broad topic,  not one of the kind of things i usually talk about here.  Not always part of my mindset when i talk about Love and how it comes to me.  

But integral to my understanding the source of our origin is the Numinous is that because we contain a spark of the Divine, our truest nature is Magnificent.  We, as flawed and muddy humans don't always show up in that magnificent state. I think a lot of us spend most of our adult lives with that magnificent part of us whispering urgently to us, waving to us just in the corner of our sight.  We become hungry for a return to it and if we find a way to do our work, we spend much of our time clearing away the debris left by our culture, lead on by peaks at our own numinosity, the memory of home, our own magnificence which we carry in our cells.

One of the places i have glimpsed my own numinous nature is in birth.  

My story of my own birth was always told with a full sense of disaster - lucky to make it here at all.   As a young woman I worked in a hospital where i did not see one normal (uninterrupted) birth.  I thought disastrous and birth were synonymous.  And probably would have carried that story with me for good if it wasn't for Vicki.  I credit the possibility of another birthing paradigm to my darling Vicki who had had homebirths and was sane.  

Because of her, i arrived pregnant and terrified at the local homebirth group. There i met local women and midwives who also appeared sane and believed birth to be an amazing and life enhancing experience. I voraciously read birth stories; funny, sad poignant and always tear-inducing, each one the story of an ordinary miracle.  Not sugar coated but whole and nourishing.  i fed my heart with these stories, antidoting the horror stories with these powerful stories of grace and guts until my understanding, bone deep, was that i too was capable of birthing my baby.    Perhaps the antidoting was not quite strong enough -my first child was born in hospital... the fear and rules around slow cooked babies and my good girl/nurse paradigm lead me to have an induction which i believe set my daughter up for issues we are still unravelling today.  My second, gloriously born in the front room at home (in a manner that still confounds my mother because the baby did not cry til about two hours after she was born when the midwife wanted to weigh and measure her and all she wanted to do was snuggle and my mother can't imagine how the babe was properly born unless she cried).  Sacred and profane.  The miracle in our front room.

This homebirth group wove together a community of women, some of whom are still my dearest friends after 14 years.  This community fostered a belief that our bodies may be capable of miracles beyond that which we have been lead to believe.  In fact i reconnected with one of these women after about 11 years on facebook (ironically enough) only two days ago and the sense of joy because of our shared experience is hard to describe. I am loyal to that community and continue contact via Facebook.

And there is the pivot for this story.  Facebook.

Yesterday i saw an image that epitomised birth for me.  Taken from above it is an image of a woman birthing her baby into water.  Her tummy taut, her hands holding her babe's shoulders as they appear from the mother's body, babe, eyes open under the water, Dad's legs open making a diamond shape with Mum's, he looking down, holding the baby too.  It was miraculous.  It was soul filling.  Shared with the Homebirth Aotearoa group the photo received a rush of support.  From the comments women felt inspired and elated by the beauty of this photo and the obvious miracle in action the image captured.

This is what art and the archiving of images like this allows us to to... to hold visible the miraculous in life.  To focus our attention on the fleeting beauty that is available to us and yet is all to readily swept away in a life of timetables and busyness.  That image changed me.  Reminded me of the numinous.  Helped me stand alongside women before me and after me who remember their Divine spark in that moment, that process of birthing.

And Facebook banned me for 24 hours for posting it.

This image that is so powerfully about the profound and spiritual nature of one of the essential acts of being a human, which was in no way sexualised or denegrating, in fact it was uplifting in the most powerful of ways was banned.


An inspiring image of a woman was offensive apparently.

I am appalled that i live in a culture that demeans women.  I am angered by the trivialising that happens to women.  How frequently our images are used not with the purpose of expressing power but with the purpose of minimising via sexualisation.  I am becoming more aware of how the depths of misogyny in our culture supports this way of robbing women of the common image of their power and yet... and yet this smacked me in the face with it.

Have an image of women in minimal clothing shoving their arse in camera (a la Nicki Minaj) and it is considered fashion or a statement of power.

Have an image of a woman in the nude but no genitalia or even full nipple showing in her most powerful life giving magnificence and it is obscene.

Our thinking is broken.  

I DO NOT WANT TO BE PART OF THE PARADIGM THAT MAKES THAT OK.

By banning this image under the guise of decency standards, Facebook are fighting the wrong shadow.  They are fighting the shadow that expresses the power and magnificence of the female body.  Instead they could be fighting the shadow that claims the naked body is dirty.  They are fighting the shadow that says somehow when women are able to birth as their bodies are designed to do they are destabilising, threatening, harming the structure of our society somehow.  They are fighting the wrong shadow.

i claim my right as a woman of power to nourish myself with images.  As someone who leans into the Jungian idea that image and symbol are the language of the Unconscious what better way is there to nourish our deepest truths than by powerful image?  I claim my right to these images.

i claim the right to flood my senses and my world with images like this....



Picture
woman babe and photographer unknown, miracle of the moment deeply known.


i claim my sovereign right as a woman to claim my magnificence in the face of whatever paradigm of powerlessness the patriarchy wants to proclaim. 

I claim my right to view women as a powerful generative force in the world and that to remember that by claiming these images as the nourishment i need to keep antidoting myself from the pernicious insidious lie that women are weak and only sexual, i claim my truth and ground for my daughters and their daughters to flourish.

I claim my right to use these images to tell a new story about what is possible for me, just as the homebirth movement allowed me to do when i learned there was another birth possibility - that Doctors did not have to be present for my children to come earthside - i believe i can tell the story that women are powerful beyond measure and that any story to the contrary is based on fear.

I am not up for a discussion about birth choices.  I am not up for a discussion about decency.  I am roaring into the world about the wound that we keep making around womans' power and i will not shut up.  

Tell me about what you know about being silenced about your power as a woman.  Tell me your roar.


as a post script here is the image that sparked this ... you make up your own mind
Picture
http://www.liora.com.br/
19 Comments
Kim
3/17/2015 07:05:31 am

Wow. Wow. Wow! All of it! Seeing you stand and ROAR! Being banned from FB, surely there is a code of honour in that shadow somewhere?! I had a small epiphany last night, remembering how when I was about 10, my parents tried to adopt my father's sister's son (his nephew). This boy's father had been institutionalized and left the mother with three young children - the oldest one a boy - no job etc., a familiar story. My father always wanted a boy, instead he got two daughters. I was a big disappointment as the second born. I never realized how deep some feelings ran, how this contributed to my own lack of value, how as an adolescent and young adult I was so needy, so desperate for that deep need for love, that I chased after it in all the forms that could never give it to me. I see now how farking needy I was, perhaps still am. As a footnote, the mother of that boy, my cousin, she refused to give up her son. Instead she got a job, found a house to rent and got on with life with her three kids around her. She taught them how to work hard and be a family. For my own epiphany, I am still digesting the being a disappointment, the less than what was wanted. I'll be just fine.

Reply
Michaela Rosenberger
3/17/2015 07:16:41 am

Wow! What a wonderful photo -- a glorious image. I don't understand why FB would ban this. It is what is for everyone of us, our beginning. Hoorah for you standing strong. I honor the Divine within. xoxo

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becky link
3/17/2015 07:44:12 am

Love this and in total agreement. I am offended by the "celebrity" ass-shots, etc. But THIS-- I can't imagine a more beautiful (and frankly, very sterile as in no blood, etc.) photo of birth. THIS I would gladly show to my two or ten or twenty year old that asks questions about where babies come from. FB is officially f'd up.

Reply
tracey
3/17/2015 08:19:52 am

I stand with you Numinous Jane, and proclaim that a woman's most miraculous and powerful event in life, is not profane, in any sense. My two birth stories hold me up when I feel too beaten back by the "shoulds" forced into my world by our current misogynist prevailing society opinions.....I have birthed two humans, I have surrendered to the divine in those moments, and it is not wrong to talk about it, or to support other women in the knowledge of its possibility by sharing photographs of these precious moments! I roar in response, and will roar alongside you, always in the promotion that our daughters may know their power, not some cardboard stereotype promotion. Kia Kaha, Arohanui, Mauri ora!

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Grace Hamilton
3/17/2015 09:54:58 am

"grace and guts... sacred and profane...the miracle in our front room" Tears of beauty and joy and connection. Life - not life as dictated by another. Jane I am grateful for your words, your magic, for you.

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Claire
3/17/2015 12:17:02 pm

Roaring with you. Always. We will not be silent or solitary. We are a wild pack of wolves. Watch us live out loud and with solidarity. Thank you for your work in this world my Sister. Thank you for sharing my Roar.

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Nika
3/17/2015 12:49:53 pm

roaring with you, whole body buzzing with the truthiness of this. Standing with you always in All Ways.

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Barbara
3/17/2015 03:34:30 pm

Beautiful image! It astounds me that FB would consider it offensive. It speaks to how out of touch people are with the very day miracle of birth in our over-sanitized industrial world. Saddens me that the sexualized images of women, often subjugated, are acceptable and this gift of the creator is considered profane rather than sacred. Stand strong! Spread this beautiful moment of birth that also celebrates the union and partnership of parents.

Reply
Kathy
3/18/2015 04:02:01 am

I got sent this this morning, and my immediate reaction was one of sheer outrage. I don't use facebook, but most of the people I know do, and I am appalled at the sheer and blatant misogyny shown here. I am in the process of setting up a website to celebrate the Divine Feminine, where I want to collect women's stories about birth, aging, embodying the Goddess and land healing - I don't want to share the link just yet, but I have fixed on mid-summer's day to launch it, so you will be hearing from me again. Your image of birth is glorious, thank you so much for making it public. And I LOVE the roaring poem, one of the best I've come across. Go get 'em, women - time to make anyone who wants to keep us meek and biddable and quiet in the shadows start quaking a little.

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Shamsi
3/18/2015 04:16:08 am

(((Woah!))) Jane, I only just got through all of this, and had no realization you'd been banned like this! <3 I am with you. Completely. I've been dumbstruck over the last few weeks with how often I am watching/witnessing something that EVERYONE else feels is completely normal, and wondering how it has all become so completely normal. And then I am struck with the realization that I grew up without questioning so much of our 'status quo', but now it just feels to be unraveling beneath our feet. I feel by the very nature of your awareness, and opening for more awareness, holding the space for greater awareness, you are making a difference. I am filled-to brimming knowing that you won't give up. So grateful to be within range of your orbits <3 Thank you for roaring.

Reply
Gem
3/18/2015 09:48:52 am

When my youngest was being born, I banned his father from being in the room with me. He considered it his "right" to be there. I said "NO!" I told him I WILL NOT allow someone to be in the room with me, who has not been a source of support to me and the baby in any way, and who just wants to make something sacred into a disgusting story he can relate to his friends. I knew he was going to dirty the sacredness of that moment and I just couldn't allow him to do that. It was too precious for me.

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Liebe
3/19/2015 07:57:54 am

Am with you completely, The same image I reposted and I received messages from people telling me my birthing articles and photographs were confronting and a cause of offense! I was very taken aback, could not believe the attitudes that came out over something that is nothing but a miracle, an awesome thing that we are able to do, and for me that photograph of mum and dad bringing their little miracle into the world was the epitome of that honor and privilege!!
I get sooooooo mad at what makes the news headlines, these females that parade their bodies around sexually earning multiple millions and we uphold them like goddesses when its this whole culture that is destroying our little girls and the mental state toward what a female should immulate and yet like you say, you show a real image of what life is all about, raw and incredible and we cant handle it.
The only way we can change this disgraceful state is by teaching our bubbas from the beginning what is real in life, what makes life and what destroys it. Hopefully one day, the tide will change and we will get back to what's real in life.

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sorrow
3/20/2015 09:04:16 am

I live in a place where this image would be banned.
by women.
by men
because it offends.
But what does it offend?
who teaches this is offensive?
where does the light in the room dim?
some one show me..
I will just light a match, hold a mirror, something.
how can joy be offensive? how can miracles debase? the door to my mind can not swing that way, and I have yet to hear an explanation that makes any sense to me...
I will keep listening, I will keep waiting for some one to show me where to shine this little light of mine...
:)

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Samantha
3/22/2015 06:44:34 am

The woman in this photo is Heidi Casey. She lives in Queensland Australia. The photographer is Georgia of Documenting Delight, a wonderful photographic blog. You can see the birth of Oliver on YouTube. Called Oliver's Home Water Birth.

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Samantha
3/22/2015 06:49:24 am

Please be sure to update your site and give the credit to the photographer. Mother and baby.

Reply
Heidi Casey
3/22/2015 07:36:14 am

Thank you Sam x

jane
3/22/2015 12:08:03 pm

Welcome Heidi - it is lovely to have you here. Are you ok about your beautiful photograph being here?

jane
3/22/2015 12:06:28 pm

thank you so much Samantha... i am grateful...i found the image on google search and was greatly moved by it... i did try to find where it had come from and am grateful to be able to credit the Mama and the photographer for capturing such an amazing moment of miracle <3

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Jude
3/23/2015 06:10:09 am

Powerful images for both the man and woman the appear at one neither in a position of power but of receiving fully the miricale of new life. Hell I wished I had a photo exactly like this with my 3 babies.

Awesomeness for letting us know Jane and to the photographer who took the photo and the couple so free xx

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    jane- creativity activist, synchonicity celebrator, conduit for love.

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