in search of tickling a paradigm or two

Sebastopol, California, about ’76 or ’77, I learned midwifery from two obstetricians and one glory-be midwife traveling out from their homes at The Farm commune. Sessions were 8-10 hours every day for maybe 2 weeks, 14 or 16 young students, covering anatomy to emergency but focusing on supporting newborn, mother and home, in that order. Other than the two traveling docs, I was the only male. Later, when I set up weekly classes in Marin entitled Male Midwifery I knew I’d encounter no great worries about medical practice. Of a handful of men that would appear, the curricula for men would be comparatively easy, not medical procedure but supporting newborn, mother and home, in that order.. Recently I caught a few snippets of a radio interview of The Farm’s glory-be midwife Ina May Gaskin…

Los Angeles NPR affiliate KPCC

Listen here to Sara, Mary with Ina May on the Patt Morrison show.

http://www.sevenstories.com/news/ina-may-gaskin-on-the-diane-rehm-show/  

http://birthstorymovie.com/ will be available soon.

oh the brightly burden

The Independent:

You don’t have to be bipolar to be a genius – but it helps
Study reveals that high-achievers are far more likely to be manic depressives

on the way back

Eliza Bayne writes:

I decided that I would only spend my time with people who support and love me. It was a pretty short list. But I stuck to it.

Since then, there have been some pretty lonely times. So I wrote.

There have been very painful times. So I wrote.

There have been some happy times. So I wrote.

And with each time I wrote, I began to feel warmer. I slowly began to feel my fingers again – and my hands and my eyes and my heart.

It was like Spring had finally started to melt all the ice away. And I still wrote.

Now, after a year, I have almost completely thawed out.

But I am not the same person.

I am better.

temples of smoke

I saw myself fall
Though a tumbling inferno
As if hell was where a boy
Shoveled clouds of sawdust
Into the wide mouth of doubt.

—Yusef Komunyakaa

i.e. Man is only wholly Man when he is playing