“It is possible to have an ecstatic birth-in fact, that is the best- natural high that I know of. And these states of consciousness are best reached when a woman is fully aware and fully awake. Women don’t have a way to know how their body works until they really try it out in birth. I think that women can be just completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth- you have something powerful in you -that fierce thing comes up-and I think babies need moms to have that fierceness-you feel like you can do anything and that’s the feeling we want moms to have.”"

www.orgasmicbirth.com

I’m leaving my husband. I’m leaving my home. I’m leaving my dogs. I’m leaving the small community of friends I have in Phx-town. I am leaving all the errands, the routines, and big box store shopping plazas. I’m leaving the low desert, the saguaros, and octillo. My girls and I are going goat sitting in the rolling mountains of California. We’ll be gone fo 6 weeks. I’m scared shitless.

When my friends told me they needed a goat/cat/garden sitter while they journied throughout Mexico and Guatamala for their honeymoon, I thought: how cool, wish I could do it. I absolutely love where they call home. They live in a funky manufactured home, painted bright yellow, on a 5 acre farm with horses, chickens (owned by the landlord) and goats (well, 3 goats and 1 fella that looks like an Impala imposter who has knocked up 2 of the ladies). The farm is located in Ojai, CA a tight valley that looks like The Shire and smells like wild white sage and floating sea air. It runs about 35 minutes inland from th beaches of Ventura and Santa Barbara. It is 49 miles from Los Angeles. There is a small market there that sells local produce and meat. As far as location goes, it’s close to heaven for me: mountains meet ocean is my dream-place. And more than anything, it is not Phoenix in the summer.

But is also a place where I know not a single soul except my friends who will be frolicking in loving positions throughout the Americas below us. I will be parenting alone in a space that is not my own. Our routine will be to feed the goats in the morning and night, take care of the cat, tend the garden, and perhaps leave out honeysuckle juice for the fairy population that flies low over the swimming whole in the back of the property. Some days we might just go to the beach and play in the sand for hours. There will be no banking to do, no meetings with insurance agents, accountants, or realtors. No bills that are my responsiblity to pay. There will be basically none of our personal possessions to upkeep except for some clothes and some books and some art supplies we will bring.

Sounds good. But lets cut to the chase. I will be totally and utterly single parenting 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for 6 weeks. I will be sleeping with the girls like always, but Bill will be a 6 hour drive away. I will be taking Mia away from the her favorite park down the street (though our window of outdoor time is shrinking as the temperature increases in the valley of the sun), her friends, swim lessons, dance lessons, her sunflower garden, her daddy, her dogs, and her bedroom. I will be bringing my girls to a semi-strange place where packs of coyotes scream and hoot and yelp around midnight every night at the base of the mountain, surrounding the farm, trying to sniff out the chickens and the goats for late night snacks. Coyotes in the middle of the night scare me. Being away from my husband scares me. Taking care of the girls alone scares me. Therefore I must go.

Bill will miss us. he told me he could already taste it in his throat–the longing to be with us while we are gone. But I think the absnce will be good for us. He will be able to complete house renovations, kick up dust and smash up cecilings. He’ll be able to spend nights finishing up the recording/musical work that he is unnable to spend long stretches of time on because he is a father with a day job. He will also be forced to once again pay bills, do laundry, put dishes away, water a garden, pick up socks and create grocery lists all on his own. I will be able to eliminate the day-to-day chores of my life that tend to bore me when done for long periods of time. I will be able to create a leisure-like schedule for the girls involving animals, mountains, hikes and beaches. I will learn to take the garbage out. I will learn to put gas in my car and check the tires myself. I will learn to sleep without the safety and security of my big strong man I will learn to be brave despite the noices in the dark of the night.

I will be, for a short time, an independent woman. Living on a farm in Ojai.

I like the feel of that. After 3 years of only working inside the home, I need this empowerment. I need this escape. I need the solitude. I need to face me fears of being without my man. I need to face the fears of being alone with myself….no friends…no community.

I hope to come back with a clearer view of my place and destiny in my AZ community. I have held back from being really a part of this city and I think that leaving it for a bit for a mountain haitus will put some things into perspective, give me an opportunity to chronicle our adventures and hopefully come back to town refreshed and renewed.

Anyone want to come visit me for a weekend?

these will be my temporary adopted kids.

Stay tuned for adventures with pregnant goats…

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My friend once called the birth of her child a paradox because of it’s bittersweetness. I think birth in general is a paradox. As life is. The experience—either sides of the extreme to that opposing mirror that lives near the middle— of that paradox is what keeps us alive and active. Interested. Connected. Would a life epidural make life all the more bareable? I don’t think so. I think is would make it rather dull, disconnecting us to that spirit of being human that is so sensational; the highs and the lows, the deep cuts and the light massages, the sweet kisses and the sharp slaps. It would be like being awake and walking without feeling your legs move. To live lacking sensation.

I fear too many people have been convinced that birth hurts too much to handle. I am grateful that help in labor is there if needed, of course. This is a good thing. Actually it’s more than good that there is a choice, because all people need different things and all women have their own unique lesson to learn within their birthing experience. We need to have the choice to birth the way we want, drugs or not. But we all should also have the choice to easily and readily learn more about birthing so the myths surrounding it can start being wiped away (like my favorite birthing quote: ‘their is a secret in our soceity…it’s not that childbirth is painful…it’s that women are strong”). We deserve the choice to learn about our birthing selves without the Medical World’s tight grip on the majority of information dispersed to us through not only the media but through doctors, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, technology indutries, universities…etc.

We deserve to NOT be mis-educated on the culture of birth, the pain of birth, on our bodies that birth.

I may get the opportunity to watch two goats give birth. I was thinking this might offer insight on these questions I have on the painful ecstacy (?) of childbirth. Perhaps watching other species birth will give me a new and fresh perpective. Maybe it will offer me new tools to use this writing thing as a way to cut through the mis-information and myths. Maybe the goats will let me in on their secrets to birth and I can share continue to share.

A friend of mine is having surgery today. To honor her and to ask the universe within and without to tansform her into the light she needs to safely get trhough it, I offer up the Gayatri Mantra. These vibrations have been said to be older than the sun. It does not go back in history…it is history. It awakens the intricate, all powerful divine intelligence we are able create within ourselves.

Remember that this explanation is not even a fraction of the profound possibilities lying in the secret recesses of this mantra. The Gayatri Mantra aligns precisely balanced energies, unobstructed and distinct, to generate currents, which act like lasers. Intoning a true pitch, word and meter (Sanskrit) translates sound waves, one retrogressing into another. You can visualize a still pond and as a pebble touches the surface on its way to the bottom, rings are formed. If you watch these rings for a while you would see them moving out and in at the same time. This is an illustration and not truly the pattern of Gayatri’s yantra but it gives you an idea. The mantra’s potency becomes more and more rarefied until it reaches a frequency that carries the inherent message within the mantra to its proper place. These sound vibrations are encoded in electromagnetic waves. They rarefy to finer and finer frequencies until no frequent vibration or information is detectable. Though no frequency is detected, information is still present (like in the case of homeopathy) on the subtlest level. The more refined the mantra frequency moves into the field of sound, the greater its power. This is true for enlightenment as well. A very subtle perception can powerfully awaken you to the “Truth”. The Gayatri’s message speaks of being deeply focused on that which illumines the whole of consciousness, and ultimately realizing enlightenment. Its reference is plural and impersonal. The mantra when chanted properly is indeed magical. It’s a beauty. It is a joy. -Shanti Mayi

OM BHUR BHUVAH SVAH

TAT

PRACHODAYAT

one of many translations:

Throughout all of existence

“That” essential nature

illuminating existence is the

Adorable One.

May all beings perceive with subtle intellect

the magnificent brilliance of enlightened awareness.

om shanti, shanti, shanti om