Category Archives: Myth, Folklore and Ritual

Holy Work

By The Midwife | Published: March 18, 2012

I’ve been reading a lot of birth poetry lately.  For reasons which I can’t quite yet delve into in this moment (still keeping things on the down-low, if you know what I mean), I’ve been revisiting my calling to midwifery, and finding that it is still singing it’s siren song, as strong as ever as […]

Also posted in Birth Art, Good Enough to Share, Labor and Birth | Leave a comment

Well done, NPR!

By The Midwife | Published: August 4, 2011

NPR has a great series up on their website right now called Beginnings: Pregnancy, Childbirth and Beyond, which explores myriad aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, from cultural, economic, global and scientific perspectives.  Overall, an incredibly balanced and informative series, well worth checking out (I’m especially enjoying the Baby Project, which is a blog following the […]

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Blessingway Poetry

By The Midwife | Published: May 13, 2011

I also wanted to share the two poems which were read at my Blessingway, because they are so beautiful, and even now, just reading them will bring tears to my eyes. Mother Wisdom Speaks by Christine Lore Webber Some of you I will hollow out. I will make you a cave. I will carve you […]

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Angelina the Midwife

By The Midwife | Published: December 10, 2007

I just discovered the most amazing videos over on You Tube about a traditional midwife working in Mexico. I’m sure many of you have probably seen them already, but I was just blown away!! It’s amazing to watch the way she uses her hands to massage, assess, palpate…turn a breech baby. A midwife’s greatest tool […]

Also posted in Birth Education, Homebirth, Labor and Birth, Midwifery | 7 Comments

Female Genital Circumcision revisited

By The Midwife | Published: November 1, 2007

A few weeks ago, Dark Daughta over at One Tenacious Baby Mama asked me for a contribution to her new weekly series entitled Reloaded, which happens every Sunday and features old posts that are worth posting and reading a second time (oldies but goodies, as she calls them). She wanted posts that I was particularly […]

Also posted in Choice, Education, Feminism, Politics, Sex and Sexuality, Violence Against Women | Leave a comment

Blessingways and Rites of Passage

By The Midwife | Published: June 24, 2005

I attended a fantastic workshop last week entitled Birth Altars and Blessingways: Using Ritual to Transform Birth, which really got me thinking about the major rite of passage inherent in birth, and how our society has a tendency to gloss it over with a thick veneer of materialism and call it a done deal. While […]

Also posted in Pregnancy | 2 Comments

Gods and Goddesses of Birth

By The Midwife | Published: May 6, 2005

I’ve been writing a lot of activist, news-focused, political posts lately, so I thought I should borrow a page from Monty Python: and now for something completely different! Birth is an awe-inspiring thing. It’s one of the few moments in a person’s life when the constructs of our reality crack wide open and we come […]

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