It's A Free Country and Other Random Thoughts

We had a bunch of snow a few weeks ago and I was driving to work one morning when I saw what, to me, was a typically Canadian sight. A man in a little car had failed to turn left and he had pushed his car deep into a snow drift that was right in front of a construction site. The guy wearing constructions clothing - orange mostly and many layers so he looked huge - was trying to push the car out of the snowbank. The man driving the car was pedal-to-the-metal and spinning his tires in reverse. He looked confused. Traffic was at a standstill. Another car, a larger one, behind the stuck car, stopped and the driver put on his flashers and ran to help Construction guy push other guy's car out of the drift. The light turned green so I had to go but I'm assuming all ended well.

I saw a photo the other day of some young Afghani girls who are just starting to be able to attend school again (online of course). When Canada pulled its military presence from Afghanistan, they had no idea that the Taliban would regain power so quickly, or maybe they didn't care. Anyway women and girls there certainly took a beating, but hopefully we will see some change one day so that education will be available for girls and boys both.

Meanwhile, every step I take while training for a half marathon in April and a marathon in October is a step towards raising money to support Free to Go, which is an organization that provides girls and women in war-torn areas the opportunities to participate in sports. Running, hiking and learning about other sports help girls and young women to develop their independence and give them the strength and endurance they need to grow into strong, healthy adults. 

A final thought for today: be kind to each other, don't try too hard, let life unfold as it will, keep the peace, don't forget to laugh.

Decluttering and Re-Imagining

I have been de-cluttering my spirit over the past few months. I had descended into some bad habits over the years. If it only takes 30 days to initiate and maintain a habit, imagine how difficult it is to shed twenty years worth of bad habits!

But I realized that the best way wasn't in fact to navel-gaze for the rest of my life and try to figure out what I should keep and what I should throw out. The best way, for me, was to grab the toilet brush between my teeth, and to turn my back on habits that didn't make me happy, and to march into the sunset, toilet brush firmly held to remind me.

De-cluttering can mean anything at all! For me, it means moving towards play and saying "YES". It's so important to play. Ooooh, we are taught to feel so guilty all the time. I'm trying to break down my deep feelings of "having to be busy". If I'm not busy, what the hell am I taking up space for? What a silly idea. Plants aren't busy. But I'm not a plant. hmmm. 

I'd like to do these things: 

• freedive in beautiful water
• climb Mount Kilimanjaro
• work as a midwife again
• go into space and see the blue jewel of earth
• kiss my grandchildren as often as possible
• run long, long distances
• organize all my books into subject
• learn more about birds
• go dancing
• visit all my friends all around the world
• learn about the constellations
• spend months in the desert

What do YOU want to do?

Birthing in Love with MBC Radical Doulas

"attending a birth is a political act"

Montreal Birth Companions 

radical doula organization

In 2003, I started a doula training program with my then business partner, Lesley Everest. Over the first year, I realized that our volunteer requirement had the potential to change the lives of women, and I founded Montreal Birth Companions. During the summer of 2003, two of our first doula course graduates attended 14 births. These doulas accompanied women to the hospital to give birth throughout that first summer, without any compensation except the experience and the knowledge that they were honoured guests of the families that were bringing a new life into the world. Montreal Birth Companions, or MBC as it affectionately came to be called, was a radical, unique, inspiring organization that survived for 13 years because of the power and love of the women who served there. We never got funding, although occasionally a private client would give us an extra bit of money and one of our hard-working doulas would get a small stipend. Over the years, we served hundreds of families who would never have been able to afford doula care if we had not provided it. We accompanied many women who were completely alone, and others whose partners needed to stay home to care for other children, or who needed to work. As time passed, we started to gain recognition in the non-status communities and we served many, many women who were living without legal immigration status, and hence without health insurance. It was essential for these women to have the support and guidance of a doula, so they could give birth with as little intervention as possible and thus avoid huge charges (our most expensive birth was $30,000, which was the culmination of an induction, several days in labor, an epidural and various other interventions and medications. Of course this money couldn’t be paid up front, and the woman spent months trying to pay it back.) MBC fell apart in 2016, after some internal arguments about political views. It turned out that some of the doulas wanted a traditional organization with a board, meetings and all that. My view was always that the only mandate was to provide free doula service to marginalized families in need. So what was the need for having meetings or creating unnecessary structure? Well, it turned out, the need for structure is so that if a crisis occurs, you have a predesigned way to deal with it. Starhawk talks about this in her book Truth or Dare, where she explores all sorts of things, anarchist organizations being one of the oxymorons she shines a light on. Because when two of our doulas were sexually assaulted by one of our client’s “friends”, we had no structure to deal with the fallout; no one person who was in charge of crises; no list of things to do. And so I took it all on, and decided that I had failed everyone, and I stepped down. But now, looking back, I realize that it was an amazing moment in history! We accompanied women to have their babies in love, with companionship, within a circle of care and held space that they would not have had otherwise. We did this out of pure love, a dedication to women, a desire to give the marginalized folk amongst us the same basic rights (yes, having a circle of caring women around you when you give birth is a right!) that we affluent women do. We did all this without money or financial support from anyone, which gave us the freedom to do what we needed to do. It was a fine time, and I am still getting calls from women without health care who are seeking that support. I spoke recently with Julia Gordon, who was one of our volunteers, about what it meant to be part of such a life-changing, radical group of women. Here is our chat:

Baby Magic Montreal Birth Companions

COVID19 in-house Day 43: Normal? Who Needs It!

Today's gratitude letter is "y".

I was going to make "y" stand for "Yes!". I was going to write about acceptance. The beautiful messages behind the rainbows and "ça va bien aller". How we need to submit to the reality we are living, gracefully. How the very act of being grateful for what we have is a radical act.

Yes, this is all true.

But what about the "why" of Y? 

This crisis is giving some of us an unprecedented opportunity to ask "why"? Of course, people who are struggling to avoid violence, feed their families, and find shelter do not have the luxury of asking thoughtful questions. Their struggle is real, and it is getting more extreme the longer the pandemic forces them to stay home, or gives their oppressors a chance to exert power over them.

But many of us can, and should, ask why. I don't mean the little "whys". The questions about the details of our lives: the legislations, the rules, the changes, even the source of the virus and why it is happening now, in our lifetime ... these are important questions, to be sure.

Our lives right now are handing us a golden opportunity to ask WHY? What habits have I been living my life by, that I now have an opportunity to examine? What decisions have I made over the years that have left me feeling uncomfortable, and why did I make those decisions? Why have I not done what I considered to be the right thing? Why do I continue to live a life that I do not love and cherish? What is stopping me from changing my life, radically, if I decide that I want to pursue a different path? After all, we have just proven to ourselves, over the past few weeks and months, that we can actually make radical changes in our lives and still be happy, and creative, and productive.

Why would we want to go back to the old normal? Why would we want to get back on to the rat track, the spinning wheel of busyness where we don't see each other very often, we never eat together at home, we don't have time to cook, or clean, or spend time with our children, or sit and think and stare at the sky. 

I'm not talking about deciding to start a whole career change, at fifty, because you're bored. That's the easy way out. I'm talking about the more difficult questions: What does it mean that I have children and how much time to I really want to spend with them? How is it possible for me to live with this romantic partner for our whole lives if I can't stand to be stuck in the house with them for longer than a few weeks? What are my coping strategies and how self-destructive are they?  

What if you find out that you actually love staying home and you want to figure out a way to do so? What if you realize that you always find the most miserable approach to any stressful situation? What if you find out that you don't actually love being around people? What if you know, finally, what you've always wanted to do? And now that your mortality has suddenly become a little closer, you realize that you are just going to do it. 

Or not. You may decide to sit on the knife edge for the duration. Constantly reaching crossroads that you don't know how to navigate. Shooting from the hip, saying things out of turn, making new enemies and friends at the drop of a hat. 

You may decide you have had enough, that as soon as this is over (What is "this"?) you will head out, leave everyone behind, change your name and never come back. 

You may realize that everything you've been doing so far is an illusion; that life is suffering; that you have no use; that the world will continue without you as it always has. 

Think about it: what do you want to do? Shall we return to "normal"? Or shall we try to create something from nothing? 

All questions; no answers. I've never been one to tell people what to do; I was a hands-off midwife, always turning the questions of "what should I do?" back to the person asking, so that she could learn her true path. Because, really, you are the midwife of your own life. I am just here to remind you that NOW is the time that you can grasp on to a new way of being. Our window is only open for a little while. Far too soon, the world will be with us again, with its temptations of consuming and rushing and giving away our freedom. 

What shall we do?

Blessings

When I think about blessings, I think about what I've done for so much of my life. I've spent many years of my time on the planet providing birth services (love, care and knowledge) for free. So when I think about it I get sad (because I haven't done enough), and then I get mad (because for a lot of people, it's all about the dollar), then I get happy. Because when we do our work out of love for the other, we are literally changing the world. Love can change the world! Giving love, sacrificing your stuff for another, rains down blessings.

I'd love to change the world...but I don't know what to do.

There's a movement growing: the movement of regulation, of expertise, professionals. If y'all don't conform and waste your time doing paperwork and following the man's rules, then you will get smashed. Smash the patriarchy? Good luck! The patriarchy is busy smashing you, by telling you what to think and believe.

So here's a message to the young doulas and would-be midwives out there: don't get sucked in by the bullshit message that you are a professional. You're not. You are a companion, with hands, heart and kindness, and maybe a smattering of knowledge. You are there to provide comfort, love, warmth, you're there to provide a safe space. Yes, people with money should pay you. But if we let simple companionship become a luxury that's only available for the rich, then we are, quite simply, fucked.