‘I have often thought, that one day, under a special dispensation, I should have received the secret of life.’ http://www.barelyimaginedbeings.com/2013/01/early-morning.html
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/
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
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
write until your words are stars and light arrives on parchment scars
if beauty were then beauty be and not one of us lament, so ugly is as ugly does and not one of us content