Hellena Post-Creatrix

Chapters three and four....

2012-02-13T18:41:00.000-08:00

Here’s thenext instalment of my book. Currawong’svery concerned that people who don’t know my blog well, will come along andread the story in the wrong order, so I should tell you now, that if you haven’t already startedreading the book that I’m posting on this blog, then you’ve got to go back apost and start at Chapter 1.

That beingsaid, here’s the next bit. It’sfunny. I’m finding that I’m reallysensitive about this book! It’s such apart of me, and I guess after having gone through the process I described lasttime of birthing it, I’m as protective of it as I am of my children. I was sure that nobody liked it after Iposted it for a whole hour and didn’t get any gorgeous comments….(ha!) But then feedback started to come in, and Igot over my jitters. The urge to let itout into the world is proving stronger than the urge to be a wus J

So like Isaid before, I’d left the Blue Mountains and emigrated to South Australia, andhad been in SA for about 6 months when I decided to go back to the mountainsfor a visit, met Currawong, and then went back home to write this book. And I left the mountains cause it was alljust too confusing. In my time in themountains I’d been a fundamentalist church goer, a very unpopular school girlwith braces and glasses and knee high socks and below knee skirts and a headtaller than all the boys, a dropout, and I disappeared for 3 years after I lefthome at 15 under police escort and lived with my sister in Bathurst for awhile, then went overseas to Europe for a year to do the famous Aussiebackpacker tour, then came back briefly to the mountains to be a Council postalclerk by day, and an RSL root rat by night, then went down to the North Shorein Sydney and sold Life Insurance, got pregnant and moved back to the mountainsto become a single mother, then a goddess worshipping guided meditator, then abisexual activist, then an almost separatist lesbian, lived with my girlfriendand our daughters and wrote for the local lesbian magazine, then left her andhad a relationship with an eccentric man who worshipped the goddess Kali, atthe same time as with a woman who wanted to look after me and take me toHolland………got too confused by everything and ran into a relationship with ayoung punk fella who had a very iconic name and a sweet heart, started abusiness in the main street of Katoomba and had some very big and grandiosedreams come to nothing, and then found it all too much and decided to move withmy punk fella to Adelaide.

Pulling silly faces with my best mate at school.....after losing the braces and not wearing the glasses for the shot....

Living in Bathurst with my sister

Sitting on King Arthurs seat in Edinburgh

Selling life insurance on the North Shore in Sydney.....

Being a single mother with a daughter

Being a lesbian at the beautiful Avalon restaurant in Katoomba

At the end ofmy time in the mountains, I could walk down the street and meet someone fromchurch, then someone from the lesbian community, then a council worker whoremembered my time there, then someone I’d slept with from the RSL, then aclient from the business I was co-operating, then one of my single motherfriends, then a fellow goddess circle member……..and it was just all too much. I decided it was time to go somewhere andstart fresh, without all the baggage of my past. And Adelaide was about as far away as I wasprepared to go. The punk with the iconic name and I didn’tlast long, so there I was in a new state (literally), on my own with mydaughter, and trying to work out who the hell I really was after all.

One of thefirst things I noticed was how I didn’t have any healthy relationships with menin my life. So I spent some ratherintense months trawling singles sites and having phone sex and talking to menon the internet to the point that I couldn’t talk to people in real lifeanymore. So I cut all that out, andtried to make friends in real life, and my next big realisation was that I didn’tknow how to fit in and be ‘normal’. Aftersticking out so much my whole life, it had become my comfort zone, and Ifreaked out as much about being ‘normal’, as a lot of normal folk would freakout about being ‘different’.

So I decidedto go undercover, don some ‘normal’ clothes, get a ‘normal’ haircut, try andslide into the reality of the majority of the people around me, and enrolled inCommunity Services at TAFE. I gossiped, Italked about boring shit, I didn’t tell any stories about my life, and blendedin quite nicely. And all was going well,and the strain of being ‘normal’ wasn’t too bad, and I was getting great marks…….tilltwo strong personalities in my class started pushing my boundaries. One of the girls who was verging on being abit of a bully came out with her homophobia, about how she thought AIDS was agood thing, and the class clown decided to come out with his racist dislike ofour indigenous folk, and I just couldn’t hold my tongue. I literally stood up in the class with thegirl speaking homophobia, and bore witness to my experiences and why I thoughtshe was wrong. And I also spoke verydeeply about the racist fella’s opinions and what else I thought he shouldknow.

My cover wasblown.

And would youbelieve it, they both thought I was awesome for it and all of a sudden I wasthe most popular girl around!! Sittingnext to me became a privilege, I started clubbing with the more open mindedex-homophobe, and the ex racist fella did an essay on the indignities sufferedby black fella’s! Since there was nopoint pretending to be normal anymore, I just moved towards wearing clothesthat were comfortable for me, and celebrated getting over my normalphobia byjust being me. And people loved me forit. And I wasn’t reacting anymore. And I started feeling really good about who Iwas. And decided it was about time to goback to the Blue Mountains and catch up with old friends and let them know howsuccessful I was being in my new life.

Little did Iknow that I was about to meet my soul mate……..

CHAPTER 3 - That first glimpse.........

She’d briefly seen Balthazar that age before when she’d been walkingthe street with her young male lover. Her Adonis, young and strong, full of testosterone and laughs, smooth ofskin, hung like Pan. She’d glimpsed hima few times and watched her Adonis grow in battle of preen to outshinehim. They were similar, these twomen. Similar in style and cover andshow.

She and her Adonis had walked together down the busy street. Busy with gossip, busy with conversation,busy with sights and sounds and smells, busy with memories, busy withenergies. They walked the street whereeveryone met whatever from their past, whichever ghost they most needed tosee. They walked and she held to hisarm, his brash young innocence, his muscled good looks, his sliding blend ofmale and female, his love of her dominance, his obvious difference, and shewatched quietly from within. She watchedthe reactions to her, to him, to the couple they made, she watched theassumptions made and judgements reached, she watched the souls of others fly byher in eyeballs, she watched what people wanted from her or from their beliefof who she was. And she watched for thequalities she wanted in her next lover, as indeed she knew she’d have one, forthis young one, this Adonis, this fear of invisibility, this run away from herpast, was a boat that was ferrying her to the other side. To the shore she knew she’d seek before toolong, that would welcome her as its own, and show her the map to herself. So she watched from her safe place by hisside and she’d noticed him......Balthazar.

She saw his eyes and felt consumed by them instantly to the pastthey’d shared, the wealth of love, the tangling images one upon the otherflickered inside, and she felt drawn into the whirlpool. She’d seen him, known him, loved him, fearedhim, felt him, taught him, learnt him, burnt him, claimed him sometimebefore....but not in this lifetime. She wrappedhim around her like a warm cloak of sanity and peace and the dark......and knewthey’d meet again.

...........

He’d seen her strength and soul but couldn’t look, as he was notquite ready to see her yet. There were afew resolutions just made that he needed to put into practice before meetingher. He had some patterns to clear, somehabits to destroy, some judgements to challenge, some thoughts to stretch. After a history of enslavement and fear andbloodshed, there were some wounds to heal. Some salve to supply.

He started heeding that voice from across the gulf when it whisperedto him. Started seeing other selveswithin. The strength and bones of hisbeing. He traversed the gulf and beganbuilding bridges. And finallyacknowledged the mother.

He looked around him and surveyed the damage he’d wrought in hisbattle lust. He mourned the dead, beggedforgiveness from the wounded, and set about paying recompense. And looked to the mother to see trulywithin. All she’d ever asked was that hesee her in himself. See her and love herpart in him. This was all she’d wantedall that time when he’d bullied and railed against her to tell him hersecrets. And even though he thought he’ddestroyed her, she existed still in every separated particle, for each particlehad once been part of her.

He wept at the waste and bloodshed caused, and the information hecould have gained, insights grown, had he only asked respectfully for what hehungered.

And he knew that this time he’d hold her hand. Respect and love her. Treat her as divinity. Share knowledge and support and growth and learning. Revel in her power and sex andintellect. Roar with her humour andpassion and anger. And he recognised heras Nimue. He knew he’d see her soon.

CHAPTER 4 - One year later......

She shed her young male lover, and her hatred of mankind. Shed the skin of who she’d been. Traversed the underground and died toherself, then rebirthed into who was within. Shed her childhood, her rape, her lost innocence, her wounds, and grewinto her whole self. Her arching sweetlysexual side. Her dreaming shadowedpassionate side. Her amazon leatherbound worldly side. Her darklydespairing alone side. Her philosophicaltruth searching theory side. Her strongjoking tough side. All were her, allwere loved, all were divine. She wasGoddess incarnate and spent time on herself and her senses.

She created ritual and body scent, inner clothes and outer clothes,stories and experiences, mind stretches and style. She shed her past and stepped in the flow anddecided it was time to return to the street. To bring with her the new clothes she’d fashioned in the hills. The new tools she’d learned to wield. To marry her worlds and heal her past.

So she’d come to the street, to bounce energy down the sidewalk, andenthral with her raptures. Willing andable to engage in life around her, and draw in a partner, wrapped to the soulin hunger for learning and life. Sheknew her partner would be a man.

And then she saw Balthazar.

.........

He’d walked through fire and found his own insides, his poet anddancer, his singer and wit. He’d mappedthe depths of the empty hole his anger had nestled in, and drawn up plans forit’s renovations. But he was stillmoored to his past in the form of a girlfriend. A ‘you’ll do for now cause I’d rather not be alone’ companion who hadcome to him in shared desolation. They’dhuddled together against the storm of the wild around them, and now when hestepped out she told him to close the door against the wind. But the outside to him was full ofwonder. Bright with promise and newfaces and inner insight. The harshjarring of his two lives was stringing him tight, tuning his bow. But he didn’t know where to aim yet so heawaited the sign.

And then he saw Nimue.

.........

It was in the local pub, inured against the cold with warm clothesand a mellow joint, cold beer by the fire. She walked round to the back room to sit with her friends and sawBalthazar sitting there, perched on a stool. Waves of emotion washed her and she went to strike up conversation. Told him how her young lover had beenintimidated by him. Laughed about theyoung male pride, gazed in each others eyes. Communicated without words or mouths or moving. Balthazar sat with Nimue and their worldsbegan to collide.

And then another day, on the busy street, they’d chanced to pass,and stopped and enticed, and went for a coffee. Lazily conversed on spirituality and horses, sex and iniquity....andsent out fine tendrils of lust and promise. That night at the pub again, inured against the cold by sexual hunger,they’d chatted, then sitted, then glittered their way to a hotel room to shedthe clothing of outside.

Love story

2012-02-11T17:24:00.000-08:00

13years ago Currawong and I began our journey together. We’d seen each other around before that, andcasually wondered about each other from a safe distance, but 13 years ago iswhen I was back visiting the Blue Mountains - after having emigrated to South Australia a year earlier in search ofchange and adventure – and we clapped eyes on each other for the first time…….

Andit was a serious event. The fullstereotypical catching of eyes from across a crowded pub, and neither of uscould look away. I’ve never, by the way,done such a thing with anyone else……..a moment of recognition, and spark, andmelting into deep blue oceans, and time…..just…..stopped. Only with my bird man have I felt like therewas a body sized magnet within me that dragged me towards him whether I wantedto or not.

Itwas the beginning of a long and winding path towards each other, through trust,and hurts, and pain, and fear, and all the other feelings a human often feelswhen taking up the challenge of merging into another human. Into and around and under and behind andthrough. After this initial meeting ittook us over a year to actually start living together, and about 5 years beforewe really started to see each other for who we truly were.

Butafter that first meeting, I went back to the Adelaide Hills and decided Ineeded to write what had happened, and remember it. Because truth be known, I’ve been a bit of awild thang in my youth, and decided the best way to get over the sexualrepression of my fundamentalist upbringing was to root my way out of it. So I did with massively happy abandon forquite a large percentage of my 20’s, which resulted in me realising quiteclearly that there is a dearth of women role models in our culture apart fromthe Madonna or the Whore.

Towardsthe end of my sexual exploration of the world, I’d reclaimed the title of whorein the old matrifocal sense of the world, and had proclaimed myself a ‘HolyWhore’. And with this came a certain expectationof stereotype from the people around me. I was fun, but not the sort of girl who got brought home to meet theparents. Never taken seriously as I was‘too easy’. Or strong, whicheverdefinition you prefer. Anyway. Currawong was the first man I’d ever comeacross who treated me with complete and total respect, and without everalluding in a sideways manner to my sexual past. And I wanted to remember it.

SoI started to write.

Iwas living in a blue slate mansion surrounded by cliffs with my mother anddaughter, and studying Behavioural Science at Flinders University, but somehowI sank into a complete parallel reality, and for 3 months I disappeared into myroom, and stayed up till 4 every morning writing, and slept in till 2 in theafternoon. And went out on mad dashesinto the city to have a few drinks and remember I was part of a biggerworld. And received visitors at thestrangest times. And through akaleidoscope of other men, experienced a complete trip as I was writing, whereI didn’t know if I was writing the book or the book was writing me. Misty otherworldly snippets and people andstories coursed through my body, and I felt like I was channelling a wholeother reality, and what came out in the early grey light of dawn, through myfingers tapping on my computer………was quite amazing. I’d read it and think ‘who wrote that?!’ andget just as surprised at the outcomes, as I would if I was reading someoneelse’s book. It went from being an accountof our meeting, to becoming an autobiography, self help manual, science fictionfantasy, and visualisation of what I wanted to manifest. And after a few chapters, these ancestorsturned up……….

Andwhen it was written, I bundled it up, with a bunch of crystals and velvet andcandles and sacred objects and clothes and a tent and jumped in my littleHolden Gemini of 1984…….and drove off into the sunset of the Australian desertin the peak of summer, playing and driving through temperatures of over 50degrees, and decided I was going to face all my fears, and run into the arms ofmy Saturn Return, burning my book at the beginning to release it all to theuniverse, let it go, and call in my future.

Whichis a whole other story.

Buton the way home, I stopped in at the Blue Mountains again, after not havingseen him after our movie stare and first meeting for a year, and just as I wasabout to leave and drive back to the Adelaide Hills, he walked into the pub Iwas sitting in, and where we’d first met, and our eyes caught each other again.

I’dwritten a book about him, and he’d written a song about me, and everything thatI’d written about in my book had happened. And when eventually we got together and continued our journey leading usto where we are now, we started off by completing all the other things I wroteabout in the book, and fulfilling the manifest destiny that was written on thewall the moment we met.

Nowthat book has been largely buried for the last 12 years, and I think it’s timeit came out. Just after I wrote it, Ishowed it to lots of people, and read it to folk all the way through my desertjourney, and I had incredible reactions to it. One amazing man, who was a very hard man with a very soft centre, andwho I met in Alice Springs had tears in his eyes after I read him the secondchapter about Balthazar. He couldn’t believe that I was a woman, and I’d writtenso clearly what happened in his head. How did I know how to write like a man? Some people said it was one of the best books they’d read. And only last year, a woman I hadn’t seen in10 years and I bumped into each other, and the first thing she said to me was‘have you got that book published yet?’ No I didn’t. But it keeps jumpingaround at the back of my head and reminding me of it’s existence, and this ideajust keeps playing hopscotch in my mind of serialising the story here for apart of the book………and then selling it complete on a memory stick in a cutelittle crocheted pouch for anyone who wants to know what happens.

Andall you gorgeous people who are reading my blog now, might do me the favour ofgiving me some feedback about it………and maybe it will finally get published,even if I have to self publish it, which I suppose I am in a way really. It occurred to me only the other week, thatthis blog is truly a living book. A bookthat’s being written as I live it, and stories coming hot off the press of myreality.

Sohere goes. I called the book

“Balthazarand Nimue – A Love Story”

CHAPTER 1 - She Wakes

Once there was a woman who’d lived many lives, and her name wasNimue.

She tumbled from lifestyle todefinition to attitude to face, amazing herself at her flexibility. Then one day she noticed that she never quitefinished anything, or stayed anywhere long enough, or knew anyone deeply enoughto actually let anything or anyone in......realised she’d danced through lifeas a shadow, miming the actions and staying cold as ice inside.

Then she got pregnant from a one night stand and had herself a babygirl. Discovered her woman power, foundher witch self, and startled onto knowledge of women’s hidden past, shuntedfrom their glory by a jealous, angry, one god. Roared at the injustices and suppression railed against her kind. Went through a time of near separatistlesbianism, rattled feminist theory, women’s literature, and her mother’shidden faces. Tried the multitudinousforms of alternative therapy and scourged many demons from her past. New realisations began to emerge.

She started looking. Peelingpieces off her skin and examining what lay beneath.

Scratched at old wounds and picked at oldscars and started to dive beneath the surface of the emotional stability she’dset anchor in. She examined anew themultitudes of one night stands and sexual encounters and serious relationshipsand friendships she’d set up through her life. Realised the stories and fabrics and lies and deceptions she’d beenfed. Stepped from the front of themirror of the reality she’d looked at all her life and saw the great worldsbeyond.

She’d been spawned by denial, grown on guilt and fear, and weanedearly on a diet of loneliness and self hate, managing her shackles as well asable, shrugging her baggage on her back. She’d begun life alone, kept from social circles by her glimpses ofhidden knowledge. Knowing thatsomewhere, somehow, it had to be different. It took her a while to find where to look. She delved into her childhood and discoveredsome ghosts. Some hidden evil deadly ghosts. Some give you nightmares ghosts. Some wreak havoc and ruin in your relationships ghosts. Some nasty, never live men ghosts. She recognised the underworld of her fathersand brothers sexual fantasies. And shefinally remembered her earlier entanglement and childhood rape. All the denial and suppression and energy andpassion it had taken to keep these memories from her were unleashed. She felt emotions she’d never before felt, shockedinto feeling the world around her. Stepped from the wrap she’d been held in, numb to her power and life.

She shed her lesbian skin and entered the shadier waters of thebisexual realms. She mixed through thesilky liquid of ambivalence and suppleness, paradox and ambiguity. The light above the murky waters she’d swumall her life was becoming stronger. Hermind and instinct swam before her, leading her onwards and upwards, towards herown truth.

She remembered who she was underneath all the layers of skin thathad kept her iced in self defeat. Sheshed those skins and discovered magical facets inside her, privately polishedto glorious shine by earlier invisibility, ready to glow to the world shecreated around her.

She realised she’d never had a father, brother, uncle, malefriend....she’d never let them in again after her childhood realisation thatall men were fucked and would only feed you betrayal and lies. She’d avoided any reminder that a part of herlay in her enemy, and a part of them in her. She’d worshipped the mother and ignored the consort. She’d slept with her anger at night.

She whirled from her altered perception and fell into love and lustwith a young Adonis, an unthreatening androgynous man with which to test outher new knowledge. She used him as herescape from her home, the street which held such memories and ghosts, to run tothe hills to shed more skins. Not longafter, she shed the young Adonis, and began afresh in a crystalline settingwith her mother and daughter. Thetrinity of womankind that rocked her through life waters.

CHAPTER 2 - He Searches

Once there was a man named Balthazar, who knew there was a flowsomewhere, but everytime he thought he’d entered it’s waters it turned to mudand broken shells slicing his feet and crawling up his shins in sludge andmurk. Inside lay pure light of truth andwhole that struggled to shine but instead got snuffed by the death andstupidity around him. He tried to be hisbest, tried to give his best, tried to show his best, but when faced with peoplethat let him be his worst and still adored him, he refused to unfurl. He knew he could grasp the clarity ofwholeness but saw no reason to reach it with such blindness around him.

He fucked people over and stole their hearts, and stomped on theirentrails in defeat. He shoved his knifeof light into the innards and annals of the life around him and held his bladeup despairingly, bloodied with fear and grief. Searching always for the limit, the boundary, the quiet and calm ‘no’ tolet him stop.

In the quiet times he curled inside to see his heart and the griefknee deep and warm. His wound, hisbloody sore, his gaping hole, his soft and lightly beating mass of ache. He cried for his scars and the pain heinflicted, and knew somehwere that things could be different, but how?

He’d educated himself in his cruelty, knew that his culture ofphallus worship was a relatively recent upstart, shattering the hold of themother. Knew that woman held the powerof life that he held in death. Knew thatthe customs and rituals he saw around him were mere shadows of what had beenand could be. Knew that somewhere heheld the role of consort. But when he’dfirst tried to share and show his learning’s he’d been disgusted at the meekobedience of the women around him. Repulsed by their slavish devotions and ‘fuck me’ ways. Horrified by their ignorance of power and howit worked, and their refusal to accept and wield responsibility andstrength. And even more sickened by thewomen who hated his kind, but struggled to become him.

So he kept to his ways, cheating on his women, drinking to oblivion,shattering love’s hope and grinding it to mush. Forgetting small pleasantries, ignoring soft feelings, spitting in theeye of feminine wiles. He createdchildren to grow in the womb of the world and then left them crying in hiswake. He pushed and ground and kickedand stabbed and crushed and bruised and spat. He created a religion of cock for his women, then fucked them into despair.

Till one day it stopped. Hecould feel no longer. In his rage at hisworld he’d destroyed even his own anger. He suddenly saw with thumping clarity his own stupidity and fear. Saw how he’d destroyed others in arrogance,and not realised till now how they reflected him. Understood that even in his seeming rebellionagainst the way things were and could or should be, he’d actually played a parthe didn’t choose. He’d pillaged andraped his own life and become a puppet for those he despised. And he’d let his own despair fashion him atool of hate and given his life to it. He was an empty shell. Thepassion he could have moulded and fed and grown had been used up in death, withhooded skulls and blood.

A quiet, wry, deep voice somewhere at the back of his mind startedwhispering over the gulf. Told him hewas at a crossroad. He could fill hisemptiness with himself and green shoots of growth, or fill it anew with thedeath and gore he knew so well. He couldbed his anger or let it translate itself into passion and direction. The choice was his......

Celtic knot picture from http://www.spelwerx.com/celticknots.html

Do pictures really speak a thousand words??

2012-01-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

So the photos.....

Here are the ones we took, of which there really weren't many at all.

I figure that after the photo bonanza of the twins birth, you can just imagine

that it was all very similar...

minus the water of course

This is later on the morning he was born, trying to make sure to keep spending time with the other babies so they don't feel too left out.....and the others are getting eyefulls of their new brother

A very brand new Zarrathustra Cyrus Wildcat

And one of the only photos we've got of the beautiful Annetta.....love Currawong in the mirror :)

Most of us sitting round adoring him...

Can you spot the baby??

A happy Currawong and Max with a stethoscope

Beautiful little Zarra with the vest I crocheted just for him.

The white spiral is handspun bunny fluff.....the softest thing in the universe!!

Looking very regal

Beautiful boy

I know it's probably overkill, but what the hey :)

Three little angels....especially when they're asleep!!

The thinker.....I think his name is apt!

Beautiful big sister Tiger Lilly

Meanwhile, out on the verandah.....

Looking a bit serious....

Ah no!!!! Call off the hounds!!!

The magical Currawong multi-tasking....reading the big kids Harry Potter,

whilst also being a bed for the two babies that he got to sleep at the same time.....

What a man! :)

Hope you enjoyed!

The baby that came bearing gifts - Part 2

2012-01-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

So I've made a bit of an executive decision........due to flooding and my crappy satellite connection, getting it together to upload photos is proving too tricky. And I know there's people itching for the rest of the story, ( and there's no photos of this birth anyway, just the afterwards ) soooooo, I'm gonna post the rest of the story, and then when I get near a computer that uploads again, I'll post a stack of photos. Happy with that? Good.

A bit of a recap…

After a day long but empowering trip to the hospital, to findout that my dating of the birth had given us the gift of two extra weeks whenwe thought our baby was premature, then flying emancipated from the hospitalback home, birth was progressing all stately and graceful towards a conclusion,then stalled completely. After anotherempowering act of creating the birth space that I needed surrounded by thepeople I needed to be there, a deep spell of sex magic with my Currawong, andanother serious chat with my birth helper Annetta, I headed into thesecond night of this birthing drama slightly oppressed with worries aboutfuture possibilities, but feeling like I at least had a clearer idea about whatwas going on. I climbed into bed andcuddled up with Currawong, glad that I could finally sleep.

And then woke up again at quarter to 12 that night. Yes, this was a good time to start labouringI thought, as I had an intense contraction. I went out into the lounge and gently cleaned the space between tightenings,and lit some candles, and thought they were coming closer. I woke Currawong, who was in an intenselygrumpy mood having been woken after so little sleep, and we sat and grumped ateach other about how little sleep we’d had and how grumpy and unready we were,as the contractions slowed down again….. Then we both pulled each other back on track, and shook off ourgrumpiness, and decided that if the time was now then of course it wasperfect! Till we were sitting in a lovely,dusky, candle lit room, with nothing happening again, and decided we’d go backto bed and sleep while we could. Therest of the night was a strange world where I had strong uterine contractionsevery hour or so, and would jump out of bed to stand knees bent, in theposition that I’d worked out relieved them, while Currawong jumped up equallyquick and rubbed my lower back. Surprisinglyenough we woke up well rested, and I at last had made up for my sleep deficitover the past few days, and was feeling unexpectedly fresh and optimistic.

A sleepy Annetta, and a Currawong expecting the worst buttrying to be positive, both looked at me to see what the mood was, and maybeboth were thinking that now was the time for the dreaded talk abouttransferring into hospital again, to see what was going on. And I surprised both them and me, with aPollyanna-esque proclamation about how regardless of what else was going on andhappening around me, I couldn’t help but think that there was nothing wrong withme or my baby, and that it was a normal birth, though strung out over a fewmore days than is usually expected, and the time just wasn’t right for my bodyand baby to engage in the birthing dance, and I really wanted to give them theopportunity to get there in their own time. Any drugs that they gave me in hospital most likely wouldn’t work, asthey are designed for healthy women giving ‘normal’ birth and to quicken theprocess up, not at all likely to work well on a ‘grand multiparous’ woman(which means a woman who’s birthed more than 5 times) whose uterus needed a bitof a help to contract enough to birth, or to create that unidentifiable sparkfrom a baby that triggers off the birthing process from within. I would be likely to be unresponsive tointervention, and maybe even become part of that cascade of intervention dramathat folk talk about. Again it’s likelythat most roads in hospital would have led to another caesarean, consideringthe ‘risks’ that surrounded me, and I would probably have been best off to justrequest a caesarean straight off, rather than mess around getting tiredagain. And I was fully prepared for allof this, and had thought my way and approach through it, and would be totallyinto engaging that path………..if I could have shaken the feeling that this was anormal, healthy birth that was drawn out because of the plug leaving a bitearly, and having an overwhelming and compelling feeling that I really wantedto give my body and this baby every chance to come into birth in their owntiming…………..and that it would all be allright.

“Fine! fine….” Said Annetta, and Currawong had a look ofdelighted surprise on his face, as we all felt this birth swing along apositive road again, and we could all leave behind the dire possibilities andworries for a little bit longer. “If that’show you feel, then that’s what we do, and if you’re feeling okay with it andthe baby’s doing well, we can take a week if you need to!” Bless her heart, and her intuition, and herexperience, our Annetta was totally into acknowledging how I felt and regardingthat as important, and heading down the groove we were laying out. She asked me if I’d be into going to see anacupuncturist friend of hers who was known for helping birth along, and who didhome visits, but we could also go and see her if all was well. I jumped at the idea, greatful for anyexternal stimuli that could help us along. So we organised for Currawong to take all the kids into Nimbin forsupplies, while Annetta and I went to visit Ingrid in her home on acommunity.

I got to have a drive in the 4WD home on wheels, and chattedwith Annetta, as we drove up to a tranquil garden, with tropical plants lookingloved, and a small wooden studio with pot plants, garden, artworks, and rawwooden beams spilling round. One of thefirst things Ingrid said when told about how many births and babies I had, washow she thought the world was overpopulated. I really love that kind ofhonesty. Gave me the opportunity to tryout some of the justifications that sit in my head as a result of copping criticismin the past, and she laughed when I told her my kids were here to help wake usall up so we could share and respect our planet again, as there’s more thanenough for all of us if we lose our greed and materialism and stop spending allour resources on war. And then the threeof us proceeded to spend a divine time together, chatting about art, and lifejourneys and children. I could feel theneedles working on the energy in my body, and then she hooked up these littleelectrodes to make them ‘zing’. And atone point, as I lay there with these two gorgeous, vital, compassionate andloving, wise German women on either side of me, chatting about this littlebaby inside me, and Annetta telling Ingrid how she’d noticed that when she laida palm on my belly, the little one inside kicked her hand to let her know itwas there, and the wonderful warm smiles on their faces as they indulged in amoment about the wonder of birth with their hands on my belly………I felt like theluckiest woman in the world. WhenAnnetta and I told Ingrid how we thought this baby was a girl, and that she’dbe called Batsheva, the little one inside kicked Ingrid’s hand, and we all tookthat as another positive sign, and an acceptance of the name. ( HA! ) The treatment over, Ingrid invited us intoher haven, and we sat drinking herbal tea and eating German sweet breads. All around was an orderly, organic, sweetscented arbour of grape vines and plants and a large indoor outdoor deck. Artworks and amazing gifts from naturedisplayed on warm wooden walls and a sweet little kitchen sat at the back withthe sitting room and bedroom, as the only walled rooms in this gorgeoushome. I felt like I’d been plucked outof a busy and noisy existence to spend a sacred and precious little rip in the timespace continuum with these two stunning and graceful women, and a bit like thekid who’s been allowed to stay up late all on their own, to sip tea with thegrown ups. We chatted, and snacked, andI was full to overbrimming with love for the creativity around me that keepsthrowing such beautiful moments at me, and my extreme fortune with the wondrouspeople that keep coming into my life.

And it came to me. With a bit of help by Annetta and the conversation and the period ofgrace in the middle of our birthing proceedings. I felt like I understood why it had allhappened this way. As an excuse andreason for empowering events first up, but also, as a chance for me to finallybe pregnant……for a moment. What withdealing with our collective past, and then fleeing to the warmer climes of thesub-tropical north, and then finding a home and setting it up and then gettingvisitors……I hadn’t even had a moment to really sit in myself, and with my body,and say ‘yes, we’re pregnant again aren’t we. And who do we have inside? Andwhich particular fears are we going to face this time? And how is this baby going to come into ourlives, and what are the stories going to be around this birth?’ Hadn’t quite caught my breath again since theplug came away either. Hadn’t really gotto the point of knowing that the time was NOW! Annetta drove me a large bit of the way home, while we continued totalk, and I was blown away by the big heart of this amazing woman. Over the last two days she’d observed, andasked perceptive questions, and was piecing us all together in a ratherintricate amount of depth. She wastelling me all the pertinent stories she had in her birthing tool box, andsuggested I go home, clear myself a birthing space, and just focus on me andwho was in my belly for as long as I could when I got home. Lock all the kids out for a bit, and justreally sit in my experience.

So I did. I cleanedthe room, and layed all the (all three of them!!) clothes that I’d collectedfor this baby out on a space in the studio, and cut up some cotton materialthat would work as wrapping cloths till later. And the other blankets I could use. And the nappies that I’d bought earlier. And I’d been worried for a while about wherethis new baby was going to sleep, as the twins slept next to my side of thebed, and Balthazar slept next to Currawong’s side of the bed…..that was untilwe’d got our new beds, and scored a king sized bed for me and Currawong, andthrough serendipity and experimentation, worked out that with the crates wehad, we could arrange a bed next to Currawong’s side of the bed that was theperfect height, and had room for all three little boys to lay sideways insteadof longways. So on a wooden table, andtucked in by walls and the door, I made another little bed with a stuffedalpaca mattress next to my side of the bed. A little nest by my side for our new baby to land in. Currawong made a bed for Max, Merlin andBalthazar in Griffyn’s room, between him and Jess on a mattress on the floor,so that if birthing did happen, I could do it undisturbed by babies in ourbedroom. It’s the most comfortable,sacred, and cave like space in the house. I figured if babies like best coming out inthe same conditions as they went in……there was no better place to birth on landthan in our great big bed. And I wasgoing to sit in my clean bedroom baby space, with my baby altar all set up, andcrochet a pair of pants to go with the vest, and the hooded sleeves that I’dmade for this baby for winter. When Iwas worried about where and when we were gonna find a house, and worried aboutdire predictions, and just worried because I was pregnant, I’d been making avest and a cute little pair of sleeves with a hood, and it was almost like Iwas crocheting this baby into a healthy existence. All that was needed to complete the outfitwas a pair of pants, and I was imagining that I’d finish them, and this babywould come, but it wasn't to happen that way. Duringmy nesting, I’d had a few more intense uterine contractions, and then somelight, moving, dancing contractions started to come, that felt completelydifferent to the expansions I’d had before.

And then I remembered my previous twin birth, andhow after Max had come, and we were waiting for Merlin, I had a visit fromRussel the Ayurvedic Masseuse and Alison to help us along. Andafter Russel had left, I’d had some really intense uterine contractions, thatwere a case of trying to stand still and in a certain position to makebearable, and then when the uterine contractions had finished, I’d moved intobirthing contractions, which were different positions and movement was neededto assist with them. I recognised thedifference, and on feeling the change, and needing to move about when theyhappened, I realised that birth might finally be on the way. No time to crochet pants.....

So I danced and I moved and I breathed and a smile didn’tleave my face, and I felt like we were actually getting to the space where we’dsoon be meeting our new one. (again…) Steady as a creek heading into a river itstarted flowing towards the evening, till the magical time when our babies goto sleep and dark and peace descend. Itwas all green lights this time, with no hitches in the proceedings, and we allknew that this time it was really going on. Children had been well fed and peacefully went off to sleep, the threelittle boys in with the two biggest. AndI rang Annetta to tell her that we were on again……….and how the contractionshad changed. She got here and we allsettled into the birthing space. Storieshad to be told about the artworks in our bedroom, and birth expansion stationshad to be set up. Positions tried outand suggestions given. Instead of movingabout the space between contractions and standing still to have them, I wasresting between contractions and moving with them. And then it just happened.

I settled into one of the most amazing birthing places I’veever been in. Dim candlelight andtranquillity sat in the background with initial panic turning into delightedknowledge in front of them. Birthexpansions out of water were fun. Ifound myself in all these intensely sexual positions, totally unashamedly, asthey all decreased the levels of intensity. Stances I’d only ever seen other people do, far too self conscious to dothem myself, were all of a sudden the most comfortable ways to be. And having Currawong, or Annetta rub my lowerback was just incredible. It wasstronger and more intense all at the same time as being quicker and somehowmore complete. All consuming and allinternal……..juxtaposed with deep perspective and external conversationsbetween. So many things were makingsense. Fears were being explained, andunderstandings were being had. Legsspread, and back arched, and bum out and off we went. Currawong really loved standing behind me,getting wafts of birth, that was a smell he was really getting to know well,and rubbing my back while I rocked through contractions. And we were kissing lots in between expansions, and all of it felt like a prolonged love making session.

Then Max woke up. Currawong was the only one who could calm him, and he was gettingprogressively more pissed off the more time it took, and at how he couldn’tleave Max without him crying again. Annetta was giving me amazingmassages and catching the expansions with me, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted my Currawong with me. So in an inbetween moment I stormed in theother room and informed him that Max was just going to have to cry, or maybeJess could take him for a walk, but he wasn’t missing out on this birth, and INEEDED him with me. Empowering momentno. 42…….. Jess got him quiet andsleeping, that also kept her occupied, which was kinda good, as it was hottingup on all sorts of levels. And I had myCurrawong back, who was delighted with how different this birth wasprogressing. On all fours on the bed itreally started to get intense.

How can one truly express the intenseland that is transition? And what woulda more human friendly term for it be? The world between worlds where I'm shocked out of and into my bodyall at the same time. No room exists foranything else to be happening, heard, seen, felt or any other bloody thing atall, to have any sense of solidity or reality. A place where if I could turn my torso one way, and my legs another toescape the crunch I would. A placewhere what’s happening in my body is so incredibly huge and real and full on,that if I could climb out of my body I would. A place where I feel like every nerveending is being pushed to its extreme limits of coping. A place where I say ‘oh my gawd, we’re HEREagain, and how did I knowingly as a mother make a conscious decision that wouldbring me HERE again, didn’t I remember how it was last time, and how I didn’tthink I could cope anymore when I was HERE again???’ It’s not exactly painful in an ‘ow I’m hurtright here and the rest of me is okay’ kind of ache, as in a whole body callingon all it’s resources to manage and sustain and survive. But also a place where I can feel like aviking valkerie, or a screaming banshee in the wind, or any other mythicalgoddess or woman role model I care to create for myself. Standing on the otherworldly battleground inan ancient tryst for my soul, and the continuation of the flow of evolutiontowards a magical future. And a placethat I've got to know quite well having lottsa babies. The pinnacle of the experience, is also thebreaking of the wave, as I've learnt that HERE is also when it’s nearlyover……….

Or at least should be, if you don’thave something like a lip of your cervix, just holding back a little on thehead, and just enough to keep that head behind skin……..which I had. And that little lip was just enough to stallthe whole show at that intense transitionary, initiatory space. 'Oh fuckitall' I thought, I remembered thatfeeling when birthing Merlin, and how it went on for hours, and was the hardestand loneliest work I’ve ever done in my whole life. ’Ohshit, not here again’. Irolled over on my back and Annetta just knew what was going on. ‘I think you have a lip…..would you like me to move it?’ she asked. I couldn’t believe it, and I straight away said yes, and I lay on myback for a moment, and she moved her fingers into me as I had acontraction. She warned me it mighthurt, but it didn’t, and within seconds I had to get off my back and turn aroundonto all fours again on the bed. Onealmighty push and his head was moving towards the world, opening me in thatgorgeous vulvic, yoni like, curved and angled oval shape of a head comingoutside. Annetta grabbedCurrawong’s hand and put it over me, and over the soft soft head of our babycoming through. And for weeks after, andto this day if he ever tells that story he cries…..and notes it as one of themost amazing moments in our birthing together.

Two more pushes and our baby was outat five minutes to one in the morning, and Annetta guided Currawong’s handagain, as they both swooshed the little person under me, Annetta saying ‘hereis your baby girl!’ ‘Are you sure?’ Idrawled, as I moved the umbilical cord away to see a little penis and testicles…….gotthe gender wrong againJ I sat up and huggedhim to me, and Currawong laughed, and even though now we didn’t have any clueof a name, I didn’t feel disappointed for one second. Instead I got a rush of a rememberance ofsitting with my 4 big strong brothers either side of me at church, and lookingat them all and being so proud of my beautiful brothers. And realised that one day I’d be standinglooking at my big strong and beautiful sons, and hopefully in a functionalenough relationship with them all, that I’d get to be with them for life! And share their lives and loves andexperiences, and be with them through their trials, and for the births of theirbabies if that’s what they want. Howcould I be disappointed when this little boy had given me such an easypregnancy, given me the impression that if we just let him be, and come intothe world, he wouldn’t be any problem…..’promise!’. Had given me a real rush when I laid my handson my belly, like he was charging me up from an incredibly strong internalbattery. Had lain inside so quiet andpeacefull…… And had just come out in the quickest, most sexual birth I’ve everhad. A few days afterwards, Annettasaid that I was ‘the epitome of the volutptuous, sexual, birthingfeminine’………and you know what? It reallyfelt that way from my perspective as wellJ And Currawong’s……….

Meanwhile, I was losing a lot ofblood. One of the risks for which thedoctor suggested I stay in hospital for. There is a tendancy for a woman to bleed a lot after having had twins,especially a ‘grand multiparous’ woman like me. Annetta quickly helped me push the placenta out, to aid the uterus incontracting to control my bleeding, and Currawong cut the cord, as we’d alldecided this time, with the newness and the weather and the cuddling factor,that this time we’d forgo the lotus birthing……which was just as well nowlooking back on it. Cause a lot ofbleeding was a full on thing for my body to cope with, without having to dealwith washing and salting a placenta as well. As it was, when I’d tried feeding our beautiful little boy, and then satup, I was feeling a bit woozy, and all the family were awake now, as they allrealised that our newest member of the clan had arrived. They all gathered round to oooh and aaaah,and stroke his little head, and giggle about how another boy had beenborn. Griffyn smilingly admitted thathe’d never really thought it was going to be another boy, but had been sayingit the whole way through the pregnancy just to be different to everyoneelse. But he was glad nonetheless. Annetta pulled out a turquoise blue cloth,and weighed him – seven and a half pounds of baby flesh. We all sniffed and watched him up, and I wassurrounded by eight bodies that had all come out of my belly. Always trips me out when I have those momentsof realisation!

And then Max spewed all over the boysbed. Which made sense of why he’d beenso awake and unsettled earlier in the night. Poor little cherub had a sore belly. So Currawong and Annetta cleaned up, and Currawong went off for a showerto clean it off him and Max, and in the process realised he had a paralysis tick in hisgroin. Swearing lilted from thebathroom, and he removed the little parasite, whilst still cleaning him andMax. Meanwhile, it was important for meto get off to the shower, and I found myself very dizzy on the walk there. I had to stop halfway and have a lay down onthe lounge, with my new baby nestled into me, and as I heard a buzzing in my earsthat wasn’t the vociferous nearby frogs, and my vision started to blur, Ithought ‘oh no, don’t make me have to go to hospital after all this!!’, butdidn’t faint. Laid for a bit and atesome toast and had a drink, and then Currawong held our new baby while Icrawled to the shower.

First thing when I got in there was abig release of blood clots, and then an instant feeling of getting better. My uterus had contracted down nicely,(Annetta said later it contracted back into place as good as a twenty yearolds!) and the worst was over. I gotclean, and felt more human, and rather than over exert, I got to kneel on a rugand get a magic carpet ride back to the bedroom, as Annetta and Jess pulled andpushed me down the hallway. I got mybaby back and snuggled him between me and Currawong, all the other babies wereback asleep, everything was cleaned up and orderly, and we all went off toblissful sleep, while Annetta went off to her magical 4WD home outside thehouse, so she’d be there as soon as we woke up.

And now a little aside. I’ve been rather vocal in the past about theneed for internals, of which I was positive there wasn’t any. One of the only things that freaked Jess outin her witness of all the births I had after her, was me being giveninternals. Despite the blood, and theyells and screams, she had a big problem with someone putting their fingersinside me. And I agreed with her. It had never felt nice, and always a bit odd,and like the information gained from it wasn’t really necessary either, if youwere just gonna take the birth path and trust the timing, rather thanover-medicalising your experience anyway. Other midwives I’d birthed with had to be almost begged to check me outinternally, as they really didn’t like to interfere in any way, an approachthat I was completely in approval of. ButI’m here to tell you sisters and brothers, that a sensitively performedinternal, from an empathetic birth helper, is a whole other kettle of fish. A birth helper with midwife skills, who can do such a thing as push alip back so your babe can be born in minutes rather than hours…….can be a realgift.

Morning came and we all awoke tobeing well rested, with a new family member, and me feeling tremendously betterafter my blood loss situation. But I stayed indoors and quiet with my new baby boy for 2weeks just to make sure that his entry to the world stayed healthy andwholesome. And to keep him safe from thetwins. Max’s welcome was an attemptedgouge to the eyes, while Merlin just wanted to cover him with kisses and pathis head. A bit later on the day he wasborn, our guest with two girls who’d been staying elsewhere came to pick up therest of her stuff, and delivered a few packages from the women of Nimbin. When I’d gone to hospital I rang the dearfriend who put up our guest so we could have our birth space, and she’d askedme if there was anything I needed. Itold her that I had no clothes or wraps or anything like that for a new babyyet, and unbeknownst to me, while all my other birthing events were evolving,she’d sent an email around to her friends, and was busy picking up donationsfrom all around the area. Touched andfeeling special doesn’t do the awareness justice, when I realised how familylike our new home was.

And there’s more to tell, but thatcan come a bit later. This is the bare bones of the story of the birth ofZarathustra Cyrus Wildcat. Born on the19^th of December 2011, at 5 minutes to 1 in the morning. The baby that came bearing gifts……..

The baby that came bearing gifts - Part 1

2012-01-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

It would be easy to assume on the birth of my eighth childthat I am a veteran of birth, a knowledgable birthing woman in tune with herbody and the rhythms of birthing, and secure in my role as a mother and loverand creatrix of little people. But to betruthful, the more I birth, the more I realise I know nothing about birth, ormore to the point – I could birth another eight times and still feel like I wasstanding before a limitless vista of birthing potentials andpossibilities. And lessons to learn andfears to face. Attachments to let go of,and sacred cows to murder…… I had somuch more to say about what was ‘right and true’ when I was just beginning mybirthing career. And now I find thateverything just is. Take out thejudgement and it’s all just lessons. Themore I birth, the more I realise there is to know about birth……

So to set the scene for this recent birth, we’d all just gotto a really nice place with each other, after a long long time of beingobserved and judged and in other people’s spaces, and sorting through recenttrauma’s, and were all cohesively living and loving together and playing andhaving fun. The description of this time was in my last posting about Love….. Lastedabout a week.

Only thing we needed to settle us, and before we got seriousabout baby preparation, was beds, cause the rest had been catered for. So one day we get beds, the next day we driveto get our big girl from the airport, and the next day a friend turned up withher two young girls. That same night afellow community member dropped in too, and it was all of a sudden too manyother people in our sanctum. We slippedinto our bedroom that night and felt overwhelmed and like we’d made a bigmistake. We’d finally got to a good andprivate place and then invited the world into it, and gave it away, what thehell was with that? When were we gonna be free to be ourselves in our own homeagain? Went to sleep feeling slightlysilly, distraught and ominous, after lots of activity and socialising….

And then woke up at 3am that morning, went for a wee, and hadamniotic fluids running down my legs. Shock, denial, fear, disbelief, horror, and panic played poker forcentre stage, and I woke Currawong up to tell him, so they could tap dance inhis head as well. We decided to hope forthe best, believe that my bladder had finally and all of a sudden sprung a leakafter all these birthing years, and go back to sleep. I woke up at 7 in the morning, had anotherwee, and this time the plug came away, with a whole heap of fluid, and I knewthat I had to face up to it. I was 35weeks pregnant, which many people would agree is far too early to beconsidering birthing at home, and going into premature labour which isassociated with lungs not yet ready, and a hospital birth with lots of backup,care, and postnatal attention. Aftertalking to my birth support person, Annetta, we decided that it was safest tojust ring the local hospital and go in for their help, so sadly and miserably Ipacked my bags and asked my big daughter and our friend who’d just turned upthe night before, to look after all our babies, while we went to the hospitalfor who knows how long.

We got there, and I mistakenly expected all the flurries andattention of the hospital folk that you’d see in a tele drama, and instead wegot mostly left in a room for hours on our own. One of my first thoughts wasabout a midwife friend…….who had greeted this pregnancy with a seeming prophecy(that really messed with my head throughout the whole pregnancy), about how ifthis baby was to be stillborn, or with special needs, or needing intensivemedical assistance, then that would be fine……and I told Currawong that she’d beenright. Here we were in hospital. Feeling really depressed. A hardened midwife of many many years was ourtour guide into the system, and at first she was horrified that I was so farinto a pregnancy at my age and with my history, without having had any tests,or ultrasounds, or doctors appointments….. She wanted to kick us out and stop us wasting her time, so we could goand do paperwork and blood tests with a doctor instead of her. It’s a tricky thing to try and explain to ahospital based midwife that I trusted my body and the process of birth, andhadn’t seen the need for medicalising my experience or getting information thatmight haunt me, especially considering that we wouldn’t have aborted this childin any case. She put one of those machines on me thatneeded strapping in two places to my belly, and that recorded my bloodpressure, baby’s heart beat, and contractions. Currawong and I chatted and told stories, and asked her questions aboutherself, till she started to thaw, and realised that we weren’t homebirthextremists, and started making comments about ‘some alternative people whoaren’t as open minded as you two….’ and the like. A sad chapter in the warbetween homebirths and hospital births is, this woman was bitter from theattacks she’d felt from ‘alternative’ types while she was doing her job to thebest of her ability over the years……and if we had reacted to her reacting tous, we could have had a very different experience.

A young doctor came in and asked a whole heap of randomquestions in the hope we wouldn’t notice he was checking us out, and that wasthe last we saw of him. Then there wasjust hours of us sitting in an unused and sterile birthing suite, chatting,making phone calls to the kids and friends, Currawong popping out for fruitcake and bottled water whilst pouring money into parking meters, looking aroundat the standard fare in surroundings for women and families who birth in hospitals,and having moments of tears and disappointment, as we thought we were watchingour homebirth sail off into the distance. About 5 hours later and after not seeing a doctor or having anultrasound or having anything really checked out, our new friend the midwifecame in with a pill to stop labour, tags with my name on it for my wrist, and ashot of steroids in my bum for developing the baby’s lungs, as it waspremature. 6 hours later another midwifecame on duty who we connected with straight away, as we all told each other howjudgement was futile, and it was far easier to make peace with your owndecisions, and accept other people and the choices they made, rather than fightabout it. I had another 2 pills over thenext hour, and time for a huge hug and cry with Currawong, as we realised thatthis was really it, and I’d be staying overnight in the hospital on my own, andhe would go off to spend the night with the kids. We really don’t dig spending time apart……

7 hours after getting to the hospital, a wild eyed doctorcame in, asked about the dates, and within minutes had ascertained that I’d gotmy dates wrong, because I’d counted from conception, rather than the two weeks before it, when the egg haddescended and become ‘alive’. Or inplainer language, I’d counted from conception, instead of from the first day ofmy last period, which is when the rest of the world considers the beginning ofpregnancy to be. I wasn’t 35 weekspregnant, I was 37!! We looked at eachother horrified, and thoughts jockeyed in my head about how I’d robbed us of ahomebirth, how stupid I felt, how I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life,and all sorts of other barbs. But in mydefence, we’d counted it from conception because we both remembered so clearlyhow this baby was made! And the date ofit. It was a memorable event. Other people remember holidays or outings,but my love and I remember conceptionsJ So as we sat there looking shocked, the doctor tried to joke us out ofit, asked us about our birthing history, and got very serious when I told himthat our last birth was twins born at home in water and two days apart, andtold us a few times in a tut tut kind of voice that we were very very luckythat it had worked out well for us. Healso told me that I was high risk anyway because of my age, and how many babiesI’d had, and because I’d had a caesarean and twins most recent. And then finished up by saying that I may aswell stay in if I was already there, and spend the night even though there wasno risk and we weren’t premature after all, and have an ultrasound in themorning so they could see what was going on. Of course they wouldn’t be giving me any more pills to slow it down, orthe other shot of steroids that was coming.

He left the room and I wailed to Currawong about what anidiot I felt. And then I rang Annetta. “Get out of there! And I’ll come visit you tonight, and we’llsee what we do from there” was her advice. And big old strapping hippy me, the alternative lifestyler, the anarchist,the system questioning one……really needed somebody else to give me permissionto go. Afterall, once I was booked in and had the tags on mywrists, wasn’t it a given? And a reallysad consideration that was probably one of the main reasons I was in hospitalin the first place, and yet another casualty of the war between homebirth andhospital birth, was the knowledge that if something ‘bad’ happened in hospital,it would be considered par for the course, but if that same ‘bad’ thinghappened at home, as the writer of a blog that was rather public about myimpending birth, I’d most likely be hauled before the coroners court anddemonised by the mainstream media and a horde of anti-homebirthing internetactivists who’d doctor my photographs so I looked like Charles Manson…… What a shame politics has entered the arenaof a woman’s personal choice for a place to birth. So I needed permission. All of a sudden this was a totally normalbirth, and it was safe to do at home, and I could exercise my rights andjust…..walk…..out…..of…….there…….

The nice midwife came back in with a very unappetisinghospital version of spaghetti bolognaise, and with tears in my eyes I told herthat I wanted to be back with my family, to which I was overwhelmingly happywhen she totally agreed, thought it would be best, and I’m sure she gave me aveiled message to stay the hell at home, when she told me about how I couldcome back in the morning, and sit around on my bum for another 8 hours tillthey could get around to giving me an ultrasound….or stay with my family andsee how labour progressed at home. Shewent and worked it out with the doctor, and before you could say ‘Homebirths-R-Us’we were getting shooed out of the room, and I took those tags off my wrists,and we scampered out of the building to the big sky, and the fresh air, and ourwonderful magic bus that was going to spirit us back home. The feeling of reprieve from impending doomwas immense. The reminder of howunspecial a hospital environment can be, even when they’re doing you thetremendous favour of helping you or saving a life, was timely. And maybe that doomsaying midwife friendhadn’t been right after all!! Maybe wereally could pull off another beautiful homebirth.

And as a little aside and to skip to the present, it’s only afew weeks after our birth, and already the story has spread round the area likewildfire, and friends have already heard a few times how “That woman who has SOmany children, didn’t even get her dates right!” Reminds me of when I had an emergencycaesarean with Balthazar, and “that woman who’d had all those natural birthshad to have a caesarean, so you never can tell!!”, and there were also somenastier comments about how the ‘mighty homebirther had fallen’. And it sits in a funny place within me. Like a slightly uncomfortable itch thatintermittently annoys. A bit of awrinkle in my birthing fabric. I alsogot my dates wrong with Spiral-Moon, because the first day of my last periodwasn’t actually the first day of my last period…..it was a miscarriage of hertwin. And I only found out that I’d gotmy dates wrong because I was going to freebirth her in a town 250kms away fromAdelaide, and thought I should at least make sure that the placenta was in agood place and everything was going well before we did. And you know what? Sometimes the medical system and ultrasounds getit wrong too. I’ve got just about everydetail possible ‘wrong’ throughout all my births, and hardly ever predictedcorrectly which gender they were going to be. But what I’ve learnt from my ‘mistakes’ could fill a book, and has taught me far more than being ‘right’all the time could have. And in gettingso caught up in getting it ‘right’, we can get so swept up in using otherpeoples terms and talismans that we can miss the subtle little nuances thatwere meant just for us. Like how ingetting my birth dates ‘wrong’, we ended up in hospital for a day, and got toreally live out some of my most dastardly fears about the birth I was about toengage in the Tango with, and to really sit with them, in the hospital, withall the staff around us, and then get the incredible opportunity to break free,fly the gilded cage, and empower ourselves towards the birth that we reallywanted. What an amazingly emphatic wayof working through some last minute fears and creating some clearing aroundthem so that the forthcoming journey was made all the sweeter and stronger!!

And (to get back to the story), the first thing we did was goshopping. I was so unprepared for thisbirth, that I didn’t even have a pair of knickers! Let alone something to bleed into, or soak upmy excess breast milk, or baby clothing, or wrapping cloths, or a birthingpool….. I was especially worried aboutthe lack of birthing pool. Annettacouldn’t get her hands on one at this short notice, and how could I birth outof water! Surely there was a kids poolto be bought in the megaplex that would do? But they were all too shallow ortoo big, and I calmed myself with the knowledge that we had a bath at home thatwould probably do. Getting back homeagain was like a homecoming scene from the Waltons……hugs and tears and manychildren draped all round me asking for the story, and telling us how glad theyall were that we were both back. Wesettled them all down, and got them into bed, our visitor and her girls went tobed also, and Currawong went to bed early too, after our exhausting andemotionally roller coasted day, while I sat up to wait for Annetta.

She drove up in her awesome 4WD home, and parked outside,walked into the front door, gave me a huge hug and kiss, and then scooped up ababy bat that was sitting in a corner between the bathroom and hallwaydoors. “You’ve got a baby bat” she saidas she held the little one up, and we looked for something to hold it in. I brought out a basket that I’d made as ameeting between crochet and basket weaving, nice and wooly like a mamma bat,and we popped it in there, till I could pass it on to my big daughter and theother kids to look after later. We bothdecided it was a good omen, bats being considered good luck by many peoples,and a baby bat to boot….. And I told Annettaabout how we were all sure that this baby coming was a girl, and how Currawonghad liked the name Batsheva for years, with it’s meaning being ‘daughter ofseven’ which we all thought was apt. Wechatted, I told her the story of the day, we had cuppa’s, and then she checkedme over, felt the head that was down in my pelvis nicely, heard the baby’sheartbeat, and checked me on the inside to see how I was going. The only danger now was one of infection, asthe plug was gone, but if I kept clean, drank lots of water, and showeredregularly, all that risk should be avoided. Everything was tickety boo, I was so relieved and greatful to be homeand out of the hospital, and we smilingly went off to bed, hoping that the nexttime we saw each other would be early in the morning while I was in labour, andcould ring the hospital and cancel that ultrasound, as my baby had come and wassafe at home.

3am in the morning I woke up and started having tightenings,sat up for a while on my own, and then Jess, my big daughter, woke up andjoined me. We had a lovely time out oftime together, in the endless seeming hours of the early morning, as I told herstories about how horrendous I felt when I realised that I was 37 weekspregnant in the hospital and thought I’d ripped us all off a homebirth, and howglad I was that we were home, and how strange it was to be birthing without mymother around for the first time, and how freaked out I was about birthing outof water…… A really bonding andconnecting time. She started timing thecontractions, and they were very nicely and evenly heading down a narrowingtunnel of focus towards contractions close together and getting moreintense. In between them I keptchatting, and was getting more and more excited and empowered as I realisedthat I could manage my tightenings out of the water! I was finding a position that tucked my bumin, while hanging my pelvis in as relaxed a manner as I could, rubbing the topof my bum, breathing out through a wide open mouth, and rubbing just under mybelly all at the same time. Currawongwoke up feeling well rested, and joined in the dance I was creating through thehouse and the verandah, and we were both feeling happy and like we were goingto meet our baby soon. The contractionswere getting closer and closer, and Jess went out to wake Annetta. She came in too, and the dance kept windinground the house, and in between contractions I was brilliantly alive, andintense, and telling them the magic of this baby. This new baby was all about letting go of theold and my attachments I decided. I’dlost my birthing necklace with the Kali cow bone bead that I’d had sinceGriffyn’s birth, to Balthazar bashing it to smithereens early on in thepregnancy. I’d left my breastfeedingdressing gown at my mum’s house. I wasbirthing for the first time without my mother around, and interestingly, wasout of the water and out of my traditional birthing position on my back, thatwas the same position that my mother had birthed me. I’d been into the lion’s den of the hospital,thinking that my anxieties and that dire prediction had won, but had beenreleased to birth at home, and was finally able to shrug off all those negativeomens!! I was standing on two feetstrongly grounded, and looking birth in the eye! I was wearing a lanolin soaked, handspun,bird cape with a raw fleece bustle that I’d made for Tribal Fibres, as a wrapto lend me power and magic. I was meeting birth in a different way thanI’d ever met it before, dressed in power clothes, standing tall and strong,perching my pelvis in a way that relieved the pain, and with my Currawongfirmly at my side, instead of running around boiling water and making sure thatthe bath was the right temperature. Hewas just as delighted with the new fangled way that this birth washappening. I was grinning and smilingand laughing with delight at the fears I was facing, and the new birthing pathsI was treading. It looked like we wereheading nicely towards birthing in time to ring the hospital with our awesomeresult, and then get on with the rest of the day…..

And then our guest woke up. She had breakfast, and was telling stories of herself and herrelationship and her births, and chatting to all my people who’d been dancingwith me, and the contractions started to slow. I tried to entice her into the birthing cocoonwe’d been weaving, and she joined in the dance for a moment. But then we were hearing about her plans forthe day, and her daughters woke up, and my expansions virtually came to a stop. I was bereft. We were heading so cleanly and strongly towards birth weren’t we? What had happened? How could it have gone away so completely? I came to the conclusion that I needed to askour guest to leave. I needed to reclaimmy birth space, and keep it sacred and for the people who were in on the dancewith me, and immediate family and my birth support person only. Our guest didn’t take it too well, and feltlike she was being kicked out, and was very pouty about it, but I stayedstrong. Which was actually a really bigthing for me. Underneath the strong alternativeexterior, I’m actually quite a wus, and have often given what I want over inthe face of opposition. I’ll compromisewhat I want to make others happy before just sticking to what I want andexactly how I want it. But I wasclear. “This isn’t about you, it’s aboutme, and what I need for this birth, and who I want around me, and it has to befamily only. Bummer about the timing,and thank you for your help yesterday, but that’s just how it is.” Iorganised with a dear friend closer to Nimbin for our guest and her girls tostay in their community house for a few nights, and after packing up she wasgone. And so was my birthing processthat had felt like it was coming to a conclusion.

We sat around for a bit, I had a few spasmodic contractions,and tried hard to not feel like I’d failed in some way. Annetta decided to head off for the day,advised me to rest, and said she’d be back later that night after the babieswere asleep, and we’d see what happened then. We all agreed that we’d give it till the next morning, and if nothingwas happening then, we’d have to consider hospital again. That day was a bit despondent. I tried all the things that I knew couldbring on labour….walking around, squatting, and other positions to give my bodyevery chance to kick back into the birthing process. The hospital rang to see how we were going, andCurrawong told them that birth had been happening and then stalled, and we werewaiting to see what the rest of the day brought, and if nothing had happened bythe next morning we’d be considering coming back in. But the highlight of the day was Currawong’sfavourite birth starting procedure…..making love. And this was the first time in our birthingcareer that it actually worked. All theother times we’ve tried it have been with lots of people around, and as apurely mechanical antidote. Currawong’senjoyed it, but I’ve been unimpressed, unfocused, and interested in what itmight do for my body only. But there wasno-one around, the kids were all off on a walk, there was nothing elsehappening, and our lovemaking session did kick off a few contractions, but thatwas not the main aim of the exercise anymore. We actually had the time and space to melt into each other, and visitedthe special place we create together, with the added spice of immanentbirth. I climaxed quite a few times, andCurrawong was crying as our bubble of us drew to a close, telling me thatwatching me love him was what he was born for. That moment he was watching me, was the moment he was born towitness. Gotta love a romantic bird man.

Birth meanwhile, had gone on a very extended coffee break,and wasn’t coming back into the space anytime soon. The day dwindled into the night, and well fedkids went off to bed, and Currawong again went to bed early with them. I sat alone and waited for Annetta again,sad, and depressed, and tired after two days now of little sleep and bigstress. She came in again like a breezeof hope, and just hugged me and let me hold onto her. And then she checked me over again, checkedthe baby’s heartbeat and position, and we sat as she explained what she waspiecing together. After having so manybaby’s, my uterus was looser than normal, and hadn’t quite contracted tightenough to start pushing out a baby. My body had been taken by surprise by theplugs defection, and a bit like my birth preparations, just wasn’t quiteready. There was nothing wrong with thebaby either, and it seemed like the little person inside had been caught on thehop as well, not quite ready to shimmy down my birth canal. The culprit it seemed was the fact that mycervix which, again after having had so many baby’s, had been dilated and openfor quite a while beforehand, and had left the plug vulnerable and exposed tothe hungry bacteria that live in every healthy vagina, which had snacked on thesweetness of my mucus plug. And thenstresses, and moving, and cleaning and the like had helped weaken it, till itcame away earlier than my body and baby were ready for. So there was nothing wrong with us, except amechanical fault that had thrown a spanner in the works…..so to speak. And we seriously spoke about how getting thisfar from the plug having come away, there was still an increased risk ofinfection to me and the babe inside, and I had to finally and completely let goof the idea of a water birth, as water increased the risk of infectiontoo. I went to bed despondent and tired,but I felt like I at least had a clearer picture about why this was happening,and that there was nothing wrong with my body or baby.

And guess what……..I’ve reached my self imposed limit for ablog post, so I’m going to finish the story in another post. We have another situation of a ‘to becontinued’. It may not be twins, but itgoes over days again, and a lot can happen in three and a bit days!! And sorry, but this birth was far tooengaging and intimate for any of us to have bothered with taking many photo’s,so you’ll have to imagine how it looked in your minds eye………….

Love

2011-12-02T02:16:00.001-08:00

We’ve just enacted our shivery skinned, soft lipped, sensualsupplication to love…….love that leaves a big hole when it goes on vacation,and fills the house to overflowing when it returns. Love that turns a potentially tragic lifeinto a dream. Love that makes sense ofeverything, imbues with meaning, and can turn every action into purpose. Love that reminds that everything iseverything, connected and created, following the slip threads of every otherthing into love……..

Kids safely bribed with cups of tea and a cartoon, we close thedoors and settle into each other again. Hello eyes, and lips, and that strong band of arm, and our hairentangling, and that warm, moist place where only we connect……the electricaltouch, the building friction of warm soft skin. Hello again my love, wrapped in this cocoon of us for a snatched momentin a life surrounded by younglings and small limbs and fractious cries andnappies and feeding frenzies and tiny fingers and border disputes and infectiousgiggles and the elephant stampede of small feet bounding and rebounding overbouncy wooden floors. Hello again to thepull of our bodies that created so much life shimmering through the corridorsaround us. That unrelenting sinking intoeach other that never seems to have an end. The plummet into eyes and skin and lips and limbs and soft hair and hardman……. The ancient magnet of mammals tocreate life in the cycle of birth life and rebirth, ever rounding circle oflife through it’s stages, the young, the fertile, and the diminishing. And then bodies sated and satisfied fittogether so snug that there’s no beginning or end, limbs draped gracefully andsharp shoulders so soft a pillow, no slight movement is required to make itmore comfortable. Everything slows tominute detail, the blood gently lifting a pulse in a wrist, cool breezedrifting through the window, bird calls clear as a bell ringing outside, body’ssanguine reposing in layers, the slow drift of a dust mote, resting in thatendless moment. All of it makes sense,all of it has meaning, all of it is perfect if it led us to right here andnow. Of course we love, and we love sodeep, and there is no end, and there can be no withholding of the great biglove that we have for each other and our lives and our children and ourfriends. Nothing can damage or stop thestrong driving river of our shared experiences and lessons of each other andour places in the world.

Which isn’t at all how it felt only a few days ago. Stopping still in a home at last, after along and arduous journey through fear and betrayal, judgement and heartache, jealousiesand intrigue, threat and defensiveness, deep and gnarly patterns surfacing dueto the stress. Ugly bits of ourselvesthat we didn’t want to show, dragged out by excruciating circumstances. Long hauls of personal strength and heroicefforts done alone. Isolated feelings ofbeing unappreciated. Unloved down in themarrow of childhood aloneness. Hidingbehind the barricade of our battered love, till great tidal waves swept overthem, and split us apart to battle the waves on our own. Enacting the rituals of the love that feltfaded, hoping that pretending would bring back the strength. Pushing and striving and hurting to leave theplace where all the pain focalised. Toleave the people that looked at us with grim eyes and snappy mouths. To leave the arched eyebrows and slimlydisguised taunts. Pushing againstinvisible and seemingly insurmountable barriers that constantly seemed to be infront of us, blocking our escape.

Till we did. Escape. Run fleeing from the harsh and lonely desert thatwas aching all around us. We ran and westumbled and we fled through the bitter cold and the sultry heat. Cloaked in a magic tent that shipped us throughthe salty rocking waters. Bits of ourlove bumped back into each other, and we started remembering who we were beforethe heartache, but the moments retracted like eyes on a snail, whenever therigours of the journey became too taxing. Easy to take it out on each other. Easy to blame one another. Easyto think that without that other, life may be easier. Wouldn’t have to remember so much. Wouldn’t have to try and keep healing thosewounds. Wouldn’t have to be surroundedby children full time. Staying in otherpeople’s houses, and on other people’s floors, and in other people’s campsites, and on other people’s land, and in other people’s headspaces…….quietkids, and don’t swear in public, and stop hurting him, and don’t ask for food,and stop playing with their special things, and don’t keep asking questions,and stop stop stop and squeeze yourself in so youdon’t……take…..up…….too…….much………space. Dreaming of a sanctuary and a private space, and blaming ourselves andeach other for being this old, and still not having all the ticks and ribbonsthat we’re meant to have as grown ups in our culture. Still not having a home. A safe place to be who we are and take off themasks. Let the kids swear. Let them make mess. Let them yell and scream and bounce all thefloorboards. Let them sound like harpiesat each other, let them eat with their hands, let them, let them smile.

Then we finally get here. Our home. Snuggled in by theowner of our home, who hugs us and kisses us, and thanks us for being here, andhas left fragrant snippets of her life to surround us, and seat us, and feedus, and clean us, and keep our food cool. A sweet wooden sanctuary, perched on a hill, surrounded by colourfulfolk and rainforest, tree’s dripping with life and surging green. A home and private space at last. The journey from heartache has finallycompleted, and found it’s solution in a place to finally let….it…..all……go…… Now that the fleeing and survival is over,there’s time to lick wounds again, and to finally feel into the new one wecreated, that’s been sitting inside quietly, silently promising to be noproblem. Our new child cradled andbiding it’s time, the time that’s drawing nearer with every breath. We finally have the time to turn ourattention inward. To redress what wecan, and let all the ragged bits of skin that had to be pushed down unfurl, andset about soothing them. And then allshould be better shouldn’t it? Allshould magically fix itself when the home’s been found? And it is and does…….toa certain point. We know that we’relucky, and we know that we’re doing the right thing, and we know that it willstart to get better. But unnoticed by usthe heat keeps rising, and the humidity sweats on our lips and drops from ourbrows, and feels like walking through water. Our internal temperature gauges start to boil. Insides feel like they’re slowlycooking. And it feels like I have aheavy hot water bottle strapped to my middle. For weeks on end it builds. Andbuilds. The heat. The sweat. Unrelenting apart from brief downpours of sub-tropical intensity, andthen the continued build up of heat.

And unnoticed by us the rise in temperature mirrors the rise inour unease with each other. I rememberthings that hurt. I spend hours intears. All the hurts and pains comebubbling up simmering to the surface, feeling so so alone and betrayed andwondering how to forgive. Can Iforgive? Has something been broken? An unbroachable gulf between us? And with the bleaching of love, the childrenseem harder, and more difficult to deal with, and the reality of another onepopping into our nest starts to seem silly. Like we’ve gone too far. Goneover the edge of practicality and manageability. Everything seems difficult, in the sweatyreality of a beautiful home that’s void of all of our personal treasures thatwe left behind in our dash to get away. Taking love out of the equation leaves a dusty, slightly macabre andmessy life between two former colleagues. Two ex best friends. Two comradeswho lost faith with each other in the battle’s dying glow. Love leaves a sad ship wreck on the sandydesert floor.

On the last night of heat, I slip away into town on my own. To a women’s dinner. He’s been trying hard to mend the gaps andspaces between us. Asks me if I’m goingto be swept away by a long haired lovely and back into the arms of awoman. And I throw a “I wouldn’t leavethe children” over my shoulder, as I shimmy out the door in my red velvet pantsand drive through the cool evening breeze and thank everything I can think offor this break in the sultry heat. Driving on my own feeling sad for my hurt bits, and glad to have thismoment of my well known company all to myself. I remember me. I’m alwaysthere. Always willing to make the bestout of everything. Always wrylyobserving myself and loving all my bits. Loving the sense of me. Drivingthrough the uber green I feel a sense of peace and ease. Forthcoming adventure. Sliding down the road into town I slip intothe hall and haunt around, looking for a familiar face. A few women who have met me take notice andintroduce me around, seat me with them, wrap me in friendship, touch myburgeoning belly. A string of talentedand passionate women perform for us, sitting sweating in our seats, by ourtables, with our plates of food and glasses of wine and water. Poems and songs and words of women and theirplaces and their skills and desires and attempts at finding….love. And stories float round me from the tablesnearby, and faces speak tomes of love held and lost, and optimistic lovespreads it’s wings over couples, and all seems to be a promise and faint hopeto the potential of love. I listen towomen talk about how they’ve been loved for a year and it still keepsburning! I listen to how they’ve decidedthat love has become a worthwhile and surmountable path to follow. I hear the reasons why they think love isworth the gamble. And the hollow achethat sits beneath the surface for the ones that have given up thechallenge. Decided the odds are toogreat. And I sit, hiding the blood redheart of a love that’s been burning hard and singing our skin regularly withlust for a full blooded 12 years of lovemaking and yearning and babies andbirthing and erotic dreams and fantasies lacing each other in the quietunobserved moments between child interruptions. Knowing that I have it. I havethat love that gets songs and poems and yearnings aching for it. A bit of perspective is always a goodthing…….

Andthe next day, the heat breaks, and clouds hover, and suddenly everything seemsbetter. I hear mention of how people gotroppo in the buildup to the wet, and how extreme behaviours come bursting outin the heat. And I wonder how much apart that heat played in our drama. Andwith my newfound perspective, and remembrance of how lonely and desolate lifecan be without our love……………we bribe the kids with cups of tea and cartoons,and submerge ourselves in our love renewed. As it always will be. As it alwayshas to be. As I will ever keep it. Untattered. Unbroken. Bouyed by the longdistance haul of shared experiences and traumas and birthing and babies andwalls scaled and hurts healed. Loveis. And always will be. Even if sometimes it seems to go onholiday. Love wont let us down. We wontlet love down. It’s ours for life.

Trust birth? Well mostly..........

2011-11-25T13:09:00.001-08:00

A little while ago on Facebook, when I was talking about thesearch for a home, a midwife, and a doula, a woman asked me why I wasn’tconsidering freebirthing. As she pointedout, I’ve got more experience in birthing than a lot of other folks around, andhave thought very deeply about it all, so why do I feel the need to have amidwife? The question really sat withme, and I wondered why myself. I’vealways had a tremendous respect for women and families that freebirth, and forthe last 4 births Currawong and I have tossed around the possibility offreebirthing……..but it never really materialised into a realistic propositionfor me. But I’m really glad the questionwas asked, as ever since it’s been sitting at the back of my brain pan,tumbling around with all my other thoughts, and it’s been an interestingjourney following all the threads that come from it.

In my toolkit of experiences, I’ve had a few run in’s with homebirthingmidwives that were less than empowering, and a few with doctors and hospitalsas well. I’ve read books from theChristian fundamentalist right wing about unassisted birth, and how midwives,doctors and all other birth workers just get in the way of what shouldnaturally be a magical experience shared by the mum and dad alone. And I really related to what waswritten. When the books drew attentionto the observation that many women focused their oxytocic love, thanks andbonding on the midwife, rather than their mate, I could really see what theywere talking about. There’s so manybirth stories I’ve read, where women talk in loving and glowing terms abouttheir midwives, and all their other family members kinda take a back seat to theshow. And there’s a lot of interventionthat some midwives get into that is totally unnecessary and just gets in theway, like giving internals, and cutting cords quickly, and catching the babyand ‘giving’ it to the mamma. And afterhaving a less than positive experience with homebirthing midwives, I really gotinto this way of looking at midwife led births for a while…….only to getpregnant again, cleanse a lot of my negative juju about midwives by meeting onewho listened to me rant and agreed with me, and then was present at our birthin the most unobtrusive way possible, and gave me the gift of ‘catching’ my ownbaby. I then went on to become a bit ofa homebirthing and midwife advocate, till Balthazar came a long and introducedme to the blessings of western medicine. And of course in my most recent and publicised birth of twins, Lisa wasan integral, necessary, and much loved part of the process, and I definitely hada lot to say about her in my writings.

And while I know the statistics of caesareans in hospitals isincredibly alarming, and I get the whole interventionist dance that often leadsto caesareans, as well as the scare mongering that happens from doctor folkswhen homebirth or natural birth is suggested…..I’ve had some really empowering,respectful, and peaceful births in hospitals too. My main beef with hospitals has been theiroverwhelming attitude that birth is fraught with danger, and that birth belongsin the same corridors as deathly illnesses, physical trauma, great sickness andslow death. I’ve got a bit of a problemtoo, with how the trend in hospitals at the moment is to separate mamma’s andbabies, and that whole invasive separation they do with cleaning, testing,jabbing needles etc. Kinda doesn’treally aid in a gentle welcome, compassion for a little being who’s been livingin a controlled, peaceful and watery womb, and bonding. Also, how it’s really hard to feel safe andcave like, and tap into a woman’s mammalian brain, in the sterile and brightenvironment of a hospital ward. But then again, if a woman is really afraid ofbirth and what might happen, maybe for her a hospital is the safe place thatshe needs to be able to fully relax into the birthing process? Afterall, even though much ado is made ofinterventionist practices in hospital, there are still a huge amount of womenwho birth naturally and without drugs in them.

To be brutally honest, I don’t think either camp has all theanswers, or even all the questions, and I think that both homebirthing midwivesand their supporters, and hospital birth workers and their supporters are twohalves of the same whole. Veryantagonistic and despising of each other halves, but halves nonetheless. And while they’re stuck in this anti eachother and polarising dance for the soul of birth, a lot of women, children,families and individuals on both sides of the track are being overlooked,seriously neglected, and damaged in the process. On the one side we have the birth trusting, allwomen have been beautifully designed to birth naturally, and by the way we’vebeen doing it for thousands of years, so hospitals and doctors should just getback in their boxes, and take their hands off birth, and leave us all to do itpeacefully at home approach, that also makes a fair deal about thescaremongering of doctors and obstetricians, and how a lot of their ‘facts’ arelies. And then on the other side we havethe medical approach that points to the harm that can come to unprepared womenand families facing an emergency situation at home, and perhaps a long way froma hospital, as well as some of the dangers that can be faced when there’s anun-regulated body of birth workers attending births at home. There’s also the body of information they holdabout the dangers of birth, and how fraught birth HAS been in our history. Yes many women pushed out babes on the fieldsand kept going, but a lot of them experienced babies getting stuck, and dying,and cords around necks stopping them from being born, and a hundred otherpossibilities that can and do happen even in these days of improved diet andhygiene and birth trusting. Butunfortunately, it’s the mainstream medical model that has the weight of thegovernment and legal practitioners behind them, willing to send the horses ofthe apocalypse after homebirthers, and resulting in an unfairly balanced wareffort on behalf of the hospital birthing scene.

And the result of this antagonistic polarising dance in myopinion anyway, is causing many a casualty in the self esteem and bonding offamilies and birthing women across the board. Unsuprisingly, with the amount of kids bounding around us every timewe’re in public, a lot of my conversations with people we come across revolvearound birth and kids. And I’m reallysaddened that a lot of women respond to my stories with half ashamed accountsof how they weren’t brave enough to try birthing at home, or they tried andjust couldn’t cut it, or they used every drug they possibly could because theywere so afraid, or they didn’t have any option because their pelvis was toosmall, or they had health complications, or they had a natural birth and ittraumatised them, or they suffered post natal depression, or a million otherreasons why they didn’t give birth in either the wholistic, alternativeaccepted manner, or the hospital, mainstream accepted manner. And these women all take it onto themselves,as their own fault, as their own body failing them in birth, as their inabilityto birth ‘properly’ being all their own doing, as an experience that happenedto them that was less than they hoped, the result of which, can put someserious bricks in the wall of their lack of self esteem and body confidence,which then leeches from their parenting confidence, and sense of connectionwith their families, and becomes part of the general body of stories aroundbirth that go unacknowledged from either side of the polarised fence, as itdoesn’t fit appropriately into their accepted picture of what birth is.

I see so many women and families in pain around theirbirthing experiences, that I’ve taken to saying something like this tothem…..

“Ya know what darlin? There is no ‘perfect’ birth, birth just is what it is. Every one is different, and every birth isperfect if you let it be, no matter whether it was at home or in thehospital. And we haven’t been designedperfectly to give birth, cause we CHANGED OUR DESIGN!! When we decided to grow our frontal lobes andwalk upright we changed our design from the less problematic mammalian birthcanals that were straight, and we turned them into this twisty birth canal thatcan really cause problems. And babies had to be born a year premature,which meant they couldn’t walk like all the other mammal babies, so mothernature had to create a tricksy system of oxytocic rewards if we held them to usand fed them when they were hungry, so they weren’t eaten by dogs or stolen byother tribes. You just need to be trueto yourself and do what feels good for you, cause that’s all that countsreally. Trying to birth or parent in anykind of way because that’s what you’ve been told is ‘right’ is never gonnawork, cause it doesn’t carry the weight of your belief and lifeexperience. Don’t let anyone tell youwhat to do, and listen to yourself and your new baby whose instincts haven’tbeen convinced otherwise yet, and all will be fine…”

Or something like that anyway.

Cause the biggest casualty in the war over birth is birthitself. And it is a war, and quite avicious one at times. Nastiness andpersonal attacks are hurled by both sides, personalities especially associatedwith either camp singled out for horrific attention, and it seems that no-one’sgetting the law of attraction proven by quantum physics, that you get more ofwhat you focus on! And my own personalexperience that you become what you hate is also coming into thisequation. No one is winning anything,except for long drawn out battle plans being enacted, and a lot of energy beingspent on the fight. And a whole lot ofpeople are losing, their integrity, their passions, their experiences beingvalidated, and their sense of self worth. Sometimes it seems to me that the fight just takes up too much space.

In an ideal world, both halves of birth would come togetherand hold hands instead. Doctors andobstetricians would study their own sciences, especially that ofEthnopaediatrics and the beautiful works of Dr Sarah Buckley, Leboyer, MichelOdent, and all the others who’ve championed gentle and welcoming births, andprovide birthing centres all over the world that allowed lesser and greaterinfluences of homebirth and hospital birth depending on the blend required bythe families that use them. And homebirthingmidwives who feel drawn to the trade, will work co-operatively with them inpartnership and backup, so that all the potentialities of birth can be dealtwith effectively and cohesively. And thewomen and families entering the mysterious world of birth will have equalaccess to all the different perspectives and possibilities available, and havefree access to whatever option works for them, based on their life experienceand deeply held beliefs. And imagine whatwe could do with all the energy focused on this war if the war dissolved!! If the polarity that exists melted into awhole, there would be no ‘taboo’ subjects left anymore, so women walking intobirth for the first time could explore the possibilities of natural caesareansfor example, and alternative forms of pain relief, and maybe, just maybe, wecould also focus our attention on what happens AFTER birth, a largely ignoredrealm in many birthing circles. We focuson the conception, the pregnancy, the hormones, the birth and all it’s possibilities,but what happens after? What about theimportance of bonding? The exhaustionmany women feel after entertaining family hours after birthing? How to foldcloth nappies? How to deal with siblingrivalry? How to deal with the issues ofstep parenting? How to address problemsthat occurred during the birth and set up patterns that aren’t lifeenhancing? How to ‘unlearn’ survivalskills that we’ve been taught by our parents that don’t help us survive, and infact may be really stuffing us up? I canthink of worlds that we could be spending our collective energy on that wouldbe far more rewarding than the argy bargy between hospital and home birthing.

So to get back to the original question, I guess that on deepcontemplation, I’d have to say that I trust birth implicitly metaphysically,but not completely physically. I’m awareof the things that can go wrong, and that HAVE gone sideways for me in myexperiences, and when I’m in that intensely vulnerable and ‘elsewhere’ state ofengaging in the age old dance of birth, I really like someone around to hold myhand, and who I know will cover my back. Someone who isn’t Currawong and my family, who are caught up with theirown experience, but who is there to just focus on me and the baby inside mecoming out safely. Someone who knowsenough about the intricacies of birth to be able to fix any solvable problemsat home, and also to get us the hell out of there and to a hospital on time ifthat’s what is needed. And I’m so greatfulfor the folk that spend years in university learning how to help me and otherswhen we really need them in hospitals, as well as the midwives who dig into thepast to find old ways of birthing, as well as making alternative informationavailable as well. I’m greatful for allbirthworkers really, and see the value in all their work and ideas. I just wish it was something that they andothers could see mutually and in themselves as well.

But that’s just my perception of birth, and the best way todo it, and when it comes down to it, I’d argue for anyone else’s perceptionstill I’m blue in the face, cause that’s what it’s all about to me. The combination of all our experiences andperceptions are equally valid and enhancing if taken that way, to the whole. And if we put em all together and respectthem all, we have a really healthy blueprint for the evolution of us all andour consciousness so we can USE those frontal lobes we traded easier birthsfor, to help our planet and ourselves move beyond this warring and fightingover who’s right and wrong that happens in every sector, and move into anevolution of love, respect, peace and freedom for every single thing in theuniverse. I’ll keep dreaming it up………

The power of birth, and sub-tropical storms.......

2011-11-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

Life’s been a bit like trying to do a tangoon a highwire razor edge just lately. Our time of house sitting the wonderful Ariad’s home is drawing to aclose, and we’ve checked out houses and had lots of offers and possibilitiescoming up, but no conclusive home was solidifying. We were all putting a lot of weight on theimportance of finding a home. For me, Ifeel like finding a comfortable home up here is the difference between being acomplete hippy nutter who’s dragged her family across the country to behomeless and have a baby in a caravan park, and one of the arseiest acts ofmagical manifestation and creating a better paradigm for having another baby Ican think of. On a razor’s edge. We had a serendipitous meeting with a couple intown who wanted to rent out their house on a community, and it all seemed good. They asked us out to see it and chat, carefully watching us the wholetime we were talking, and the house was lovely, and they were going to leavesome furniture, and all was good…..till they told us how much rent theywanted. Right out of our price range. Far too expensive for us mob.

We made these cute little hand written signsasking for sanctuary, nicely finished off with drawings of home by Lilly andSpiral, and put em up in all the places that we want to live, and we found thishouse that was heaven on earth, and we all did the silly thing of falling madlyin love with it and not holding any cynicism in reserve to protect our heartsin case of rejection. It was snuggledinto the rainforest, with a composting toilet and solar power, lots ofrainwater and a fenced natural pool using reeds for filtering, a chook houseand a big fenced veggie patch, and a beautiful beautiful home with bigverandahs and an underground room that stays cool in summer and warm inwinter. There was also a big bindi freelawn, and a sandpit for the littleuns, an outdoor bath as well as an indoorone….in short….everything we had on our list for the home we wanted tomanifest. And it was affordabletoo. And when the landlady heard we hadsix kids, she said that was too many people, and we couldn’t move in. Razor edge snapped to the ‘oh my god whatidiots we are to be on this mad journey in late pregnancy with no haven to landin!!’, and we both got instantly sore, tired and grumpy. We’ve been hearing all these stories aboutfolk who got here and stayed in the caravan park for 18 months till they founda house, and other folk who took longer than that even, and have been living insubstandard accommodations for years before they found a place on one of themultitudinous Multiple Occupancies or Communities around here. Everyonewe’ve been talking to has told us how hard it is to find somewhere to live, andhow you’ve gotta pay a fortune to rent a chook shed and the rest. And we were getting more and more worried,and our optimism was flagging…….

Till the power of birth stepped inthat is.

One thing Iknow from all my babies and pregnancies, is that there’s a magic that is thecombined alchemy of our family and the new baby to be, that attracts in what’sneeded at the perfect time, and we’ve experienced it every time. Griff’s birth was an amazing and perfecthospital birth in Mt Barker, that was a gentle entry for Currawong and I intowhat we didn’t realise yet as our birthing career. He was born in his sack, with no-one aroundbut my support people and Currawong and I in the spa bath (which they wouldn’thave allowed if they’d known he was going to be born so quick). In a bit of a tizz when they realised they’dmissed it, a whole stack of nurses and our doctor made it just as he was born,and they clapped and cried and welcomed him to the world, and were blown awayby witnessing an ‘angel birth’. Thefirst thing I said was “That was so easy”, as I picked him up and strode to ourhospital room, pushing the bed to the side, and laying out our futon, so we could all sleep together. We went home later that day, and had a gentleand welcoming baby moon in our campground house that was just perfect.

Lilly’s birthwas at my mother’s house, and the birth itself was absolutely divine, and thephoto’s were great, but afterwards a series of separating and anti-bondingevents happened, that taught us all valuable lessons about the importance ofbonding, and in a funny way, everything that happened kinda suited Lilly, andthe person she’s become. Her birthexperience also taught us how phenomenal the healing abilities of young one’sare, as we healed the disrupted bonding, and watched her relationships with usall change overnight.

Spiral’sbirth was incredible……and worthy of a post all to it’s own, which I’ll get toone day. We bought a house to have herin, and even though we were 250kms away from our midwife, she was on perfecttime for the birth, I didn’t scare the kids with yelling and instead toned andchanted her out, and we had an amazing lotus experience and baby moon, far awayfrom another disintegrating community experience that happened at the sametime, and learnt the true value, beauty and magic of bonding done well. It literally changed our lives and ourvibrations and increased our collective love.

I’ve alreadywritten on this blog about Balthazar’s birth, but what I didn’t make too muchof a fuss about, was that we had actually moved to Victoria when I was pregnantwith him, and were living in a house on land that was about to be ravaged byhorrific fires, during the time that we would have been freshly out of hospitalafter having an emergency caesarean, with no family or friends around, havinghad major surgery, and all the rest. Wewould have been evacuated about 7 times from that house. Instead we were back in Adelaide, withfriends, family and community nearby, had two wonderful midwives to help usthrough the process, and the perfect healers for afterwards and to help dealwith post natal depression.

And with thetwins, we were in the perfect place again, with the perfect midwife for thejob, the perfect healer to help Merlin come not too long after Max, and theperfect situation afterwards to highlight some deep held patterns that keptleading us to rejection by our communities and never having a home. All the people we really needed weremagically attracted to us, and I’m still realising lessons that I learnt aboutmyself and our family dynamics and patterns from the experience, that are absolutelyessential to our growth and the ongoing process of enlightenment that’sunfolding from our lives and births together.

And now wefind ourselves in a place where we feel like we’ve finally found our tribe,where people look at us deeply and listen to our words to judge us, rather thanasking us for references and resume’s, and a serendipitous little thread haspicked us up at the last minute, and is working it’s magic in our lives.

To rejoin thestory again, we were losing hope, and getting grumpy, till we woke up last Sunday,and Currawong declared that we were going to find a house that day, thatsomeone was going to walk up and say “I’ve got a house I want you to live in”and all our worries would be over……..I was cynical to put it mildly.

We got toNimbin, and I was all sad with pregnancy worries and skeletons in my headcloset that need clearing for this new baby, and I told him I wanted to avoidthe market, and go to the bush theatre instead. He was happy to oblige me, but also really really wanted to go to themarket, so we agreed that we’d go where the parking was easy, which ended upbeing the market. And within moments ofgetting there, I sat with a midwife we’d met the week before, and I really fellin love with her approach and herself and her attitudes. We had so many common thoughts about birth itwas silly, and so many ideas poured out of us both about birth and familygroups and big birthing concepts that my head spun. She’s a real midwife. There’s a special kind of energy that only areal midwife emanates, a glowing vitality that comes from witnessing birthregularly, an openness to just about any concept or attitude from the dancethey do with birth and thereby sex and death as their trade, and a deep loyaltyand caretaking attitude towards birthing women and their families. Not to mention she’s just drop deadgorgeous. When I was first told abouther, and how she was a grandmother, I had a picture in my head of a silverhaired crone, and when a tall, lithe, tanned and stunning woman in a mini skirtcame walking towards me, I wondered briefly if that was the midwife I’d beentold about, but dismissed the idea, cause she didn’t have silver hair. But it was. She’s also got a lot of experience, and was trained in Germany, and isfirm in her beliefs that sex plays a huge role in birth, and all it’sattendants. And she also straight awayset about trying to find us a home, and hooking us up with people who mighthelp us, and using all her knowledge and contacts to try and ease our birthinto this community. It seems we’vefound a ‘birth worker’, and I’m absolutely thrilled and delighted at who sheis.

She said ifthe worst got to the worst, she’d just create a meeting of the locals, so wecould be looked after and found somewhere to live, because the community wantedus to stay, so they had a responsibility to help us! Another woman who we’d met 6 years ago whenwe first met Nimbin was also around, and between the two of them they swappednames and possibilities, and cooked up a scheme where Annetta, our birthworker, was going to ring all the people she knew, and let us know later whatshe turned up. Currawong went off to getthe bus so we could head for the pool and wait for her, and bumped into thewoman who owned the first house we’d looked at that was too expensive.

And guesswhat.

She said thatthey’d had other people come to look at their house, but after talking to usand observing us carefully, they wanted us to be the ones to move into theirhouse, and they were willing to take what we could afford, plus a day a week’swork in exchange. Currawong wasright. And very intuitive. And I’m glad that he got us to the marketinstead of the theatre! So within 4weeks of starting our earnest search for a home, we’ve done it. And it’s on a community with an old friend ofCurrawong’s he hasn’t seen for over 12 years, who we bumped into a few weeksago, and who I instantly loved and felt like we’d known each other for years,and another amazing woman that we met when we were here last. A safe and comfortable home has been found,and my faith in the power of birth has been confirmed.

But that’snot all, because there was a gap between the house sit ending and our new housebeing available, and thanks to Annetta’s networking, we drove off from the pooland met the most awesome family we’ve met since the last time! Another homeschooling mob of 4 kids, livingin an amazing home on a community, all totally gorgeous both inside and out,and we all liked each other so much we ended up staying for dinner. There’s a community house on their communitythat they can give to people for short term stints, and they’re doing theirbest to organise it for us to live in it until our new house is ready toinhabit, and we’ve made some awesome new friends to boot.

And on theway home we experienced our first real tropical downpour. It was awesome, and scary, and huge andintense. Sheets of water so dense wecould barely see through them, and hailstones bashing the roof of our van, andlightning and thunder so close you could almost touch it. Tree’s were falling by the sides of the roadand we had to stop four times while Currawong and another fella clearedthem. We had to pull over and stop in aservice station while the storm was at it’s zenith and hailstones were peltingall around, and all the kids were a bit scared. I just thought the raw power and energy of mother nature was absolutelyawesome, and was thrilled at the intensity of it. And Currawong was worried about his van, andgot us as carefully and safely home as he could.

But thebiggest thing we realised was that we were really really glad that we wont besleeping in a tent in Nimbin Caravan Park afterall, especially when it comes tostorms like that. Cheers birthenergy. I’ll never underestimate yourpowers……..

Coming home.....

2011-10-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

So I got this little theory bubbling round. About doing the geographical, and the natureof the human animal spirit, and a deep wondering about whether beingsemi-nomadic is actually an essential aspect needed for general peace andequilibrium in my life..... I’ve beenfortunate enough to have lived in many amazing places, and different parts ofland on this incredibly alive country, that have rich indigenous heritages ofcommunity, or trade, or magic. And in myexperience anyway, they can suck you in as strongly as they can spew youout. Call it destiny, fate, or dancingthe song lines of the earth, but during my life, it’s seemed quite apparentthat I’ve needed to be some places at certain times, to meet certain people andget certain lessons. And then when thattime is over, all the attraction and wonder and serendipitous occurrences stophappening, and if the message isn’t received, then bad shit starts happening,until I get the point, and move on to the next place where the land and thepeople welcome me and my clan with open arms and it seems like everything I dois touched with gold. And on this recentgeographical, I can recognise the elements and the signs, and how often thishas happened to me before, and I’m starting to think that the land and thepeople are indivisible (obviously), and if it’s not the land giving me themessage, or if I don’t hear it from the land, then people will start giving itto me, till it gets bad enough that I just have to get out of there. And I’ve tried to take it personally in thepast, but this time, with all the familiar events going on, I reckon I can letgo of that perception, and just realise that every place has it’s time, and ifI can learn to read the signs a bit better, maybe I can avoid the nasty expulsionaltogether.

But apart from all that, let’s get back to the story.

After hanging out with the illustrious David Birch, and blissing out in the rainforest at ProtestorsFalls, we stopped in at the Weave and Mend Festival in Nimbin that I heardabout 6 years ago when it very first started, and I was asked to come along,but I couldn’t, and I always wondered what would have happened, and what itwould have been like. (And we wouldn’thave been able to make it if we hadn’t got chicken pox and missed out on theRainbow Coroborree…) So we rocked up there after our very first night in theNorthern Rivers Region at Protestor’s Falls, (which is where I left thestory). After blissing out at thefragrant air, and the amazing semi-tropical rainforest all around, and thentelling the kids ‘I told you so’, about how colourful the shops in Nimbin are,and muralled, and totally unlike any of the monocultural shops that we’vepassed through in town after town after town on our thousands of kilometresjourney, we totally loved getting to a place that’s obviously run and createdby people and community rather than corporations. And the people walking around are about aseclectic as I reckon you could ever get, from tourists, to backpackers, toskinheads, to hippies, to druggies, to alternative healers, to punks, totattoed folk, to piercing addicts, to indigenous folk, to just about everyother nationality you care to name, to the elders of the area who are stillfairly straight and into farming, to artists, to Goths, to wood fairies, toactivists, to just about any other minority group you care to mention. And we wove through the street on our way tothe festival, the street full of bright colours and rainbows, and we got to theschool behind the street where there was a quiet little sanctuary of tents andtipi’s and rugs and basket weaving materials, and colourful dreadlocked folksitting in groups learning about basketry and rope making and weaving andmending………. At first we felt a bit likegate crashers, cause the festival had been going for three days already, and itwas very intimate when we got there, but before long, I recognised a womanwho’d shown me how to be beautiful to indigenous folk in Alice Springs, and shewas making an amazing rug, and we chatted for a bit. And there were two amazing, empowered, sexy,tattooed, striking elder women, one with dreadlocks and one with leonine hair,who kind of observed us all for a while, and then slowly but surely, startedchatting a bit more about stuff, and connecting more, and slowly slowly webecame part of the intimate gathering, and eventually got to the point where wewere raving about the world and it’s vagaries, and giving each other hugs, andGranny Breath Weaver (what a fantastic name is that!!) who was one of thefounders of the group, and an inspirational basket maker, ended up letting usknow we were welcome at any time, and that she’d been calling for folk like usto come to Nimbin, and she got into this amazing game with Max. Ya know that game you play with kids whenthey’re being held by their parent, and you duck around behind them and playpeek-a-boo? Well Max grabbed her withhis eyes, and she started playing that game with him, except he kinda played itback at her, and surprised her around the other side, and played the game backin a way I’ve never seen any other kid do. And she was totally entranced. They connected in a human to human way, and it was a delight to behold. And in our time at the festival, we managedto start some gorgeous new friendships, and meet some powerful people inNimbin, and have all our kids off and playing and totally embraced, and evenhad some offers from folk with places for us to camp for as long as weliked.

And then we headed off for Mullumbimby, where none of us had beenbefore, and as it was a Sunday afternoon, and we didn’t realise that there wasa Woolworths tucked away and hidden behind the main shoppingcentre…….everything was quiet and closed and there was no-one on thestreets. We didn’t realise till laterhow cool that actually was. We’re soused to shops shops shops being open 24-7 from Monday to Sunday regardless ofholidays and human animal friendliness, that it was quite weird to be in a bigtown that was closed. And then we headedup the Main Arm Road and started preparing ourselves to meet Ariad and clan, ofRainbow Love Farm. Which was quite nervewracking really. It’s a wild situation –to have read about someone’s life for over 3 years, and seen photo’s of themand their family, and have had an internet friendship that grew – and then bepreparing to meet them in person……I think we were both wondering what the otherwould really be like, and whether we’d be the same or different to how we’drepresented ourselves on our blogs. Sowe got there…….and she wasn’t home. Hadn’t thought of that eventuality! So we decided to drive down to Uki, and check that place out, and on theway a really kooky thing happened. Wedrove over the ridge of Mt Jerusalem National Park, to survey the vista on theother side, and there was Mt Warning, big, and bold, and striking, andobviously a powerful mountain. Westopped the van to check it out, and Currawong pulled out the camera to take aphoto, and we both saw it tracking tracking tracking with Mt Warning in the middleof the screen, and he took the photo………and it was completely white.

We both went ‘ooooohhh’ and thought that wasa bit wild, and then within minutes, Mt Warning was totally shrouded in mistand cloud, and there was no peak left to be seen, and I decided then and therethat Mt Warning was an elusive and mysterious mountain, an opinion that hassince been played out on our trips around it in the last few weeks. A very powerful mountain indeed….and in goodcompany with a lot of other amazing rock and mountain formations aroundhere.

So we kept driving down to Uki, and turned towards Murwillumbah,wondering where we were going to spend the night, and then decided to head backto Uki, doing a big u-turn. AndCurrawong saw a van of waving people heading back into town, so he pulled overafter they’d done a u-turn to be behind us, and it was Ariad and family who hadseen us drive by and chased us! Ariadcame straight up to me and we had a huge hug, and then we stood around for abit, introducing ourselves, getting eyefuls of how we all looked in personafter seeing photo’s of each other for years, and chatting by the side of theroad. We all agreed it was a pretty wildsituation, knowing so much about each other without actually knowing eachother, and then Ariad invited us back to her place to stay for as long as itwas groovy for us all. Which turned outto be a week and a bit. And we’re all inher beautiful house right now, house sitting while they’re all inThailand. But before they all went, wespent a lot of time hanging out with her and her beautiful clan, talking aboutour lives, swapping stories and philosophies, and generally all getting to knoweach other and finding out how much we had in common. Which is a lot. There’s something so soul satisfying aboutcoming across other humans who have lived a different life to the mainstream,and come to similar conclusions, and have similar ideals for their children,and where we can all talk and feel heard and acknowledged with a total absenceof judgement. We were all so used to apologising, hiding, or glossing over ournatural learning or unschooling philosophies, that it was an incredibleliberation to be with folk where we could celebrate the bits that weredifferent about our approaches!! It wasalso truly inspirational to see her children and their skills and talents souniquely expressed – a veritable showcase for the Unschooled!! And so wonderful to have an internetfriendship that proved true and grew in person. And I’m so incredibly greatful that she’s given us this time and graceto be in her space while she’s away, and the time to check the area out withoutthe necessity of finding camps and packing and unpacking……not to mention thatthis is the first time in 4 years that we’ve been alone as a family andunobserved…… Ariad, you’re beautiful, your family are gorgeous, you’re anamazing woman, I love you, and I’m so glad that we’ve met in person, and willbe living in the same areaJ

Have you ever experienced times in your life when you’re in a newplace, and everything is fresh and unique, and the people seem all glamorousand interesting, and the world seems full of magical options, and you maybeeven think that this time it will be different, and the patterns that you’vebeen working on through life will mysteriously fade away, and a whole new lifefull of loving friends and passionate and fulfilling life will rollercoasteryou away to a whole new reality??? Andyou’re in that open, ‘who know’s WHAT might happen’ kinda space, where everynew person you meet might be your next best friend, and any kind of magic mightbe possible…..

And all these ‘coincidences’happen, and stuff like, we have lunch at a park and a woman we’ve never metbefore walks past three times just to check us out, then stops to chat thefourth time, and asks the whole family to her place for tea and nibbles, tohave a peek at a house she conceived, created, and lives in. And it turns out she’s a Jungian Analyst, andher curvy, rammed earth, stone and wood home, is an enchanted metaphor of ahuman mind that Jung would be proud to introduce. Beautifully gracefull doors and windows satsnug in a hill covered with tropical plants, food, and sculpted wrought ironlamps and railings. Circular staircaseswith handcarved wooden doorways following the curves flowed round the housefilled with treasures and memories. Sheand her partner were shiny and happy as they showed us around and received ourpraise and honest awe with shy smiles. Huge timber beams and an old and gracefull wood oven, a loft with atricky ladder and artistry imbued into all the handmade and lovedfeatures. And we all sat and drank teaand ate nibbles, and you would have hardly known there were 6 kids squeezed inthe kitchen, cause they were all so engrossed in spotting groovy things andasking questions that got thoughtful answers. It was a true inspiration to be inside another person’s home. Real home. That private sanctuary where you can drop all guises and just be safeand warm and home…….

And there’s this thing that’s been happening, especially in Nimbin,where we’ll stop to talk to someone on the street, or in a shop, and end uphaving the most amazing deep and meaningfull conversations about life, theuniverse and everything, as if we’ve been friends for years……I was used to onlygetting those conversations rarely back where we were, and now they’re a dailyoccurrence! There’s no polite chit chat,it’s just down to the essentials of existence, and real life stories, and Ijust love it. We’re meeting people everytime we go out, mostly new friends, some old acquaintances, and there’s thisbig thread of déjà vu running alongside the whole time. And I swear there’s a big convergencehappening unconsciously around here, the amount of people that we’re meetingwho have only been here for 6 months to a year, and felt pulled here for thesame reasons as us (escaping the great monotheistic monoculture that’sswallowing anything different) is astonishing. There seems to be a subconscious gathering occurring, and I’m realcurious as to what’s gonna happen next.

About the only stone in my shoe so far has been the lack of anythingregarding homebirth…… I realise now Iwas in a blissfull homebirthing bubble in SA, with the amount of midwives I wasfortunate to count as my friends, and The Birth Place being there asinformation and referral centre, and a huge group of homebirthing mamma’s andbaby’s around that were easy to find……it’s all going underground here!! One of the best midwives in the area has beende-registered, and apart from 2 other birth workers I’ve heard tell of, (one ofwhich being the lovely Majikfaerie who also has a blog and who I’ll meetsomeday!!) women are calling themselves doula’s and birth workers, and thescene is very very quiet. Kindadevestating, since this area was one of the forerunners of homebirth in the70’s, and there was that amazing book “Birth at Home” by David Miller that soinspired me, that was written about this area. I was expecting some of our homecoming in this area to involve big mobsof homebirthers and midwives being powerful together, and am a bit heartbrokethat it’s not the case. There’s a verypublic doula in the area who’s never had a baby and runs a group for first timemothers, and thinking it was for everyone, I went along with only ONE of mybabies, and felt very unwelcome and out of place. I kinda skulked up the back while the womanwho’d never had a baby was talking about labour land from what she’d read, anddecided that I didn’t need to pop anyone’s bubble, and that gig really wasn’tfor me, and ran away! I was pretty sadthat night, and really missing my favourite midwives and their awesomeness, andwoke up crying, so the next day Currawong (bless his heart) went up to thefirst pregnant woman with dreadlocks he saw, and told her we were new to thearea and his wife was pregnant too, and needed to connect with otherhomebirthers. So we were all going tothe same market, and ended up sitting together and talking for hours, and itturns out she knows of a wise crone midwife who’s a grandmother, and we’regonna meet her soon, and this pregnant woman is also a spinner and crocheter,and her partner is Fries (!!) and there may even be a space to rent in themultiple occupancy that she lives on, so we’re finding a path in thehomebirthing direction afterall. ThanksCurrawongJ

We also went to The Channon market one weekend, and bumped into thebeautiful Megg of the Artnomadix Wearable Art blog, who we met in Alice Springs 7 yearsago, and who showed us how to live in our van. And met up with old friends and new and had a blast. And then the next day happened to be driving throughthe incredibly beautiful Tyalgum, and happened to bump into Megg again, and hermother, who lo and behold has exactly the same very rare army edition of ToyotaCommuter van as us! (There’s three of our ex-army vans in the area that havebeen turned into hippy vans…what are the chances of that?!) We checked out Meggsgallery, and had a cuppa in their beautiful home on a hill, and had a lovelyafternoon in the caldera of the massive volcano that birthed this area.

And I’m aware that I’m writing a lot now, and there’s a bit of a lackof photo’s cause we’ve all been too busy doing it, to remember to take photo’sof it, but I’ve just gotta finish this thought…… That thing I’ve been talking about inprevious post’s about ‘blending’………all I’ve got to say is Nimbin. I love Nimbin. In fact we’re all head over heels in lovewith Nimbin. It’s bright. It’s brash. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s colourful. It’s sweet and friendly. It’s community living at it’s zenith. It’s local and honest. Even the pimply bits are honoured andacknowledged. There’s a big open gustywind of acceptance of diversity thatseems to thread it’s way through everything. I didn’t realise how often we were given the message that we wereuntrustworthy back where we were, based on our ‘difference’ and how we looked,until I find myself surprised at how unjudged, accepted, and trusted we feel bycomplete strangers, that we feel we’ve known for years. It’s awesome. And always effervescently engaging. We took Spiral-Moon into the Tattoo and Piercing Studio for her fifthbirthday to get her ears pierced, and were totally entranced by theexperience. The gorgeous woman who wasgoing to pierce her ears, sat with her and for ages on the couch, browsingthrough her box of jewellery to find something ‘bling’ enough for Spiral. While the rest of us were standing by and chattingwith the other friendly tattooists and customer, answering questions about ourclan and how they came to be, getting fed fortune cookies and glasses of mangojuice, while the other workers were increasingly surprised at how calm andunfussed Spiral was by the process. Theyreckoned that adults have been known to cry when they got pierced, and Spiraldidn’t even bat an eyelid. They kepttelling us our kids were fairy’s, and we had a mutual friend with one of thewomen that left us all feeling happy, and another woman gave us a book onalternative parenting that had been written in Nimbin. It was such a friendly, honourable, and rosyexperience, that when we were walking back down the street and I saw the earpiercing sign at the chemist, I just laughed, and was real glad I hadn’t seenit on the way to the studio, cause the experience we had was a special birthdaypresent for our Spiral. Then we stoppedin at the gardening group that was happening at the community gardens, where myfavourite crones hang out, and took the groovy kids we’d met there down to thefree municipal swimming pool for her birthday lunch! Coolest pool I’ve ever seen, it’s a bigcircle, that’s all shallow around the edges, and deep right in the middle, andthe locals have got together and put in barbeques, and shade, and seats, and hangout there a lot. Not to mention theskate park that’s just across the grass, and right next to the kids play park,and also not to mention the Lawn Bowls club that’s right next to the pool,where a whole heap of young folk (compared to the serious white suited prim andpropers you see in every other lawn bowl club around the country) play lawnbowls while smoking and drinking beers with their bush beards, listening to theSkyhooks and other groovy music…….did I ever mention that Currawong and I haveharboured serious fantasies our whole lives about playing lawn bowls? And always been put off by the grumpy whiteclad old folk? How cool is that. Remember that post when I was talking abouthow you never see kids out playing or on the streets anymore, cause they’re allat home on their computers?? Well that’sdefinitely not the case in Nimbin. Thepool, skate park, kids park and lawn bowl club are always populated andthriving and happily occupied….such a relief! And folks here don’t even look twice at me in my hand made pregnancyclothes, and Currawong strutting his stuff in his platform sneakers and yellowvelvet pants with the leopard spot racing stripes down the side……they’re a bitspun out about how many kids we have, but I think I’ve got to own up to likingbeing different in some way, and being a bit glad that there’s still somethingabout us that is strikingly unique……. And just to finish that day of Spiral’s birthday, after getting her earspierced and hanging with the locals at the pool, the twins fell asleep and wegot to choose between the two jam sessions that happen in Nimbin every Fridaynight – the quiet acoustic and interesting instrumented jam at The Oasis, orthe big, loud, amplified jam on the main street of rock and roll and blues andthumping drums……we picked the quiet oneJ Just ataste of the magic of Nimbin……

There’s more stories to tell, but I’ve run on a lot now, so they’llhave to wait for later……. And I'll do my best to take some more photos!

The further adventures of the big little mob……

2011-10-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Sofala was absolutely beautiful…..gorgeous river with smooth stones and a long long riverbank to explore, stone skimming skills to be developed, a huge hill behind the camp for the kids to practice their rock climbing skills on, no neighbours (we’ve been really lucky with that aspect so far), and beautiful plants that we hadn’t seen before………..but absolutely freezing!

Mornings till about 10, and nights from about 6 were hellishly cold. I reckon hell would have to be freezing if you believed in hell, cause there’s no more intricate punishment than cold fingers and toes and head and that strip of your back between your pants and your top. But it wasn’t just the cold, it was having 2 crawling babies that woke up at the crack of dawn and wanted to be out, out, OUT! first thing every morning, and my frustrated maternal instinct that wanted to keep them warm and cosy and safe…which led to screaming babies and a very grumpy mum. And I took it personally!! The cold, my protesting pregnant body, and the cold were specifically aimed at me!! I had more than a few tantrums, as I went to sleep with 3 layers of everything, and my woollen hat underneath a ridiculous amount of bedding that I could barely move under. And as I woke up having to keep two crying babies in and warm till the sun started to unfreeze us. I told Currawong in no uncertain terms that I wanted a house with walls and a roof, and a fenced yard for the babies to crawl around in safely, and WARMTH!! Regularly. Poor fella was so busy feeling happy and free to be away from all the stresses we’ve had around us, that it took him a while to realise that I wasn’t deliberately trying to piss him off by feeling differently.

We spent three days and nights in Sofala, and then drove out to see the town where I’d spent my first 7 years. Took some photos of the house where I came after I was born, and it was really weird. I so wanted to go in, and was about to knock on the door and then lost my bottle, so didn’t.

Then we headed into Kandos, where I went to school for the first time, and my family shopped, and everyone seemed happy and smiley! We had a pub lunch on a verandah, and the woman gave us a blow up jumpy castle to play with at the same time. Saw a groovy rainbow clad woman and her daughter in the supermarket, and then we chatted in the op shop, and she tempted us back to her place with an offer off a baby holder, a cup of tea, and a place to camp. And there was Jules, living in a tiny country town in the land of my birth, totally awesome, living in an amazing space, and we very quickly realised we had a lot in common.

The place to camp quickly turned into a granny flat to stay in for as long as we needed, and not only did it have walls and a roof, but it also had a fence to keep the boys in, not to mention the most awesome kids toys I’ve come across, as she was a day care mamma!! She also had two gorgeous daughters who were around the same age as Spiral-Moon and Lilly, and they all set about playing and getting on like they’d known each other since they were born. And Jules spread light, love, and laughter as a healing balm all round us, like a walk in a springtime forest. We’d all been through a similarly tough time since about March, and helped, listened and talked to each other in a way that made us all feel better. You know how good it can be to talk to someone outside of your friends and family about a situation?? Someone with no agenda, and no knowledge about the intricate details? Not least, in telling someone else about a situation right from the start, it can help you gain some insight, by telling the story in a different way than you would to someone who already knows bits…. And also, to meet someone so groovy must mean that we were back on the groovy train again. Thanks Jules for all the wonderful things you did for us! She also has a circle of amazing friends, and we were honoured to get an introduction to the alternative side of the land of my birthJ Kinda did something really special for me and the little girl inside, to be around the land where I was born, and bumping into awesome colourful folk, having an amazing adventure.

But after a luscious five day break from the road with Jules, it was time to continue our journey, as the Rainbow Coroborree was calling. So we drove through Mudgee, stopping to talk to a groover in a wheelchair with the most awesome attitude….he reckons the doctors told him he’d never move, and were totally stumped by his amazing healing – he said it was all in his head. He said there was never a horse he couldn’t ride, and he had the same kind of attitude towards his healing. I told him about what my mate Daniel had written on the back of his wheelchair years ago…..”My only disability is your inability to see my ability” and he loved it. Not far from Mudgee we drove past the largest open cut coal mine in the country……we were all quiet as we drove through the surreal scene of massive vehicles on mountains of black that they’d driven from the huge gashes in the land.

Then we drove through the incredible land with epic rocks and breathtaking vistas on the way into Scone – the horse capital of Australia – and Currawong made a bizarre little movie about the road we were on. We stopped that night in Gundy, a little showground up in the hills surrounding Scone, with the most awesome facilities we’d ever seen….and the bathrooms had showers facing each other which meant that we could chat as we showered and washed babies. We were almost tempted to stay another night, but again, the road was calling.

After an insanely slow drive with a massive headwind, the next stop was Bendemeer, where there was a free camping spot on gorgeous lawns near the river, and a crappy caravan park in the dirt up the hill….and you can imagine how happy the caravan park owner was about that. Our first interaction with the town was an elderly fella in a tractor telling us that we had to camp closer to the toilets and away from the lush spot we’d picked, cause of the ‘idiot on the hill’. He and other volunteers were trying to keep the free camp open, so we didn’t rock the boat, and went back where he said to camp. And had only been there a short time, when we got a visit from the local constabulary, in the form of a woman with a lady tattooed on her forearm, a rather short haircut, and you’d have to describe her as having a slightly masculine demeanour. There was obviously not much to do in the tiny town, so she was checking us out (our van does tend to stick out just a tad…), and told Currawong that she would have met us sooner rather than later if we’d parked in our original spot, as the poor ole caravan park owner was watching EVERYTHING that went on by the river. She turned out to be real friendly, even flashed her lights for the kids as she left. And afterwards, Currawong was saying he thought she was a dyke but couldn’t be sure, and after a bit of thought, I said “Of course she was!! Not only was there the short haircut and the butch effect and the tattoo of the chick on her forearm, but on finding out that Currawong was travelling with 6 kids in tow, she said he was a braver man than her!!………..” She even told me as soon as she met me, that she’d just told my husband that he was a braver man than her to be travelling with the big little mob. Made us laughJ There were swooping magpies which the kids hadn’t encountered before, and those caterpillars that clump together in the hundreds and spit at you, so the kids were totally entranced. Dodging magpies while observing clumps of caterpillars provided entertainment for our entire stay. There were also some grey-haired nomads in camp, and we kinda kept away from them, and then wished we hadn’t as we chatted just before we left. A sweet couple who had been chatting to the kids told me that our kids were absolutely delightful, and we should be proud of the job we were doing. And a Vietnam Veteran that Currawong chatted to said exactly the same thing. We left with a warm glow…..

And then drove to Armidale, where we set up camp at Dumaresque Dam outside of Armidale that had a fungal bloom in the water so we couldn’t touch it. Which was another sort of torture. Cause it was really hot the next day, and Currawong’s back was out, and we could see all this beautiful water around us but not touch it. Torture.

Not to mention, it was at this fateful dam that I had to come out of denial and realise that those spots on the kids weren’t mozzie bites, and we really did have a case of Chicken Pox. We’d hung out with my soul sister and her mate the day before we left, and their big boy was contagious unbeknownst to them, and she’d let me know early on in the trip, and we’d just kept going, hoping that it wasn’t going to become an issue. But we had em. And I thought I’d had them before, as my big girl had a mild case and I didn’t show a spot, but I got some spots on my belly that couldn’t have been insect bites and started to freak out. It was hot, we had spots, we weren’t going to make it to the Rainbow Coroborree, and I was worried about the unknown, and being pregnant, and Currawong’s back was sore, and it was time for another tantrum……

But on the happier side…..I put my spider web up for the first time in the Soul Pad, and it fit amazingly. Like a vortex leading up to the pinnacle. After living with it for a day though, and catching hair in it, and dipping down to walk because of it, I decided it was absolutely gorgeous to look at, but a total pain in the arse to live with. Currawong reckons that could sometimes be a metaphor for our life…….

So off we choofed again, heading towards Tenterfield, and we’d picked a camp in the Basket Swamp National Park in the hills behind. As we drove up there though, we noticed they were burning off close to where we were going to camp, and there was only one road in and out, and there was also a huge amount of dry wood and grass in between the fire and us. And the girl inside who grew up in the fire prone Blue Mountains said “Nooooo!!!” very loudly. Not to mention, when we finally found the campground, it was the most insalubrious camp we’d ever seen, not even remotely baby friendly, and I was paranoid about paralysis ticks….. So we headed back into Tenterfield and set up camp to much wailing and weeping in the dark, trying hard not to let our tempers fray too much and lose the plot. Having a family shower first thing in the morning kinda made up for it, but we were all happy to leave Tenterfield.

And from Tenterfield the land started showing up signs of rainforest, lush green landscape, and the semi-tropical finery of the area of the Northern Rivers that we’d been dreaming about so long. The air started to smell of ridiculously opulent bouquets of wild flowers, and you could almost FEEL the trees growing. Through Casino, and on towards Lismore, the kids were checking it all out, and Griffyn was telling me that he was wondering whether the land we were driving towards was really as lush as I’d told them, and whether he’d get there and think it was just like any other place after all. Until we started driving up the hill to Protestors Falls, into true rainforest, and they had their heads out the windows whooping and sniffing and calling out all the amazing things they were seeing, and were yelling to me that it was BETTER than I’d told them, and amazing, and wonderful, and as many other big happy words they could think of.

Now, if you’ve never been to pristine rainforest that’s never been logged, at this point I have to stop and tell you that you really really must do it as soon as humanly possible. Because it’s amazing. It’s alive, and lush, and splendid, and huge, and puts a human in it’s proper perspective…..as tiny and insignificant. The majesty of Protestors Falls takes my breath away, and has done ever since I made it’s acquaintance. If you don’t know the story, way back in the late 60’s, they were going to log the land called Terrania, where Protestors Falls is, and a group of people got together and strongly lobbied and WON!! They not only protected Protestors Falls (hence the name), but set the precedent for many other rainforests in the area to be protected as well. And I for one profoundly thank them, for what they saved and their strength. When we first got to the cool welcome of the Falls, the kids disappeared down to the creek, and as we went to check on them, we saw an amazing family of two elders and two daughters working industriously in the creek, making balancing stone sculptures from the river rocks on the shore, and on ridges, and in the water, and the effect was completely spellbinding. Currawong told me later, that the woman had told him that her squatters camp in the forest had become part of the heritage application. An archetypally magical rainforest river with stone sculptures scattered throughout became a mystical fairyland……

And then I walked over to the fella who looked like he was sleeping in his car, and asked him if it was okay to sleep in our van for the night, and it turns out that he was David Birch, not only one of the original protestors who’d defended the forest, but the fella who wrote the protest song to boot!!! He pulled out the Terrania magazine from the early 70’s that had been all about their protest efforts, and showed me a picture of him with his guitar, at the head of the pack! I was blown away, and honoured, and I figured that if that man said it was groovy for us to stay, that was all the permission we neededJ He went on to tell us stories, and play with our kids, and he couldn’t quite believe that we were all travelling in our van and sleeping in it as well, and reckoned that we came with the most amazing entourage that he’d ever come across. Which was high praise coming from such a man…… And to my great delight, he came over to eat with us that night, and sung us the song that he’d written for the Falls that they successfully protested about and saved. What an honour. And what a spectacular welcome to the country we’d driven so far to be in.

And the next day was equally amazing, but I’m going to save that story for my next post………

And on the seventh day they rested......

2011-09-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

I’ve been contemplating belief lately. A lot. On this mad meander of ours across the country, I’ve been contemplating my beliefs that have led us to this point, and the beliefs of the people we’ve had in our intimate circle for the last 3 years, and the impact that’s had on me and my family, as well as the beliefs of the ‘mainstream’ for the want of a better word. The large group of people that wear the same clothes, drive the same cars, work in the same jobs, talk about the same politicians who are saying the same words, watch the same television programs, eat the same foods, watch the same ads, shop in the same shops, choose from the same religions, have the same hairstyles, share the same polite niceties, live in the same houses, and have the same groupings in which they like to relegate people……..as all the other people in that large group. With variations of course within the sameness, but a comfortable sameness nonetheless, which lets them decide who’s ‘one of them’ and who’s not.

And as we’ve journeyed through country South Australia, Victoria, and now New South Wales, I’m reminded really strongly about how me and my family are definitely not ‘one of them’. I always used to say that folk that liked to stick out, and complained about being stared at, were like women wearing low cut tops and then getting the shits when people talked to their boobs. And because I’ve been in that really large group for a lot of my life, and can relate to just about anyone I come across, and also because I can’t help but FEEL completely normal, no matter how I may look, I keep forgetting that we stick out like rainbow canaries in more mainstream places, and that we really are very different. I’ve come to this place from a large and rambling life that’s taken me through many subcultures and mainstream cultures, on a overwhelming quest to find my own truth and become my own self. And I like how I look and the reasons that I look this way, and I like how we try to shop, and the big ole van with a cross culture of symbols and words on it, and my philosophy on life, and our media free status, and my ability to step to the side of ‘mainstream’ culture…..and observe, and try to read the winds of change, and try to translate what I think the collective consciousness is feeling and moving towards. I also like how we try to live in ways other than buying or renting a house that is ours ours ours, and there’s the bloody fence, so you know where I stop and you begin. Even though, as we drive through the country, we keep realising how massively traumatised we are on some levels, by our experience with community dwelling, and living with my mother……..we’re still in search of a community somewhere, to live with other people and ideas and kids and work skills and input and responsibility and sharing of resources and land care and animal care. And as we drive, and get stared at, and get freezing looks from people sure that we’re gonna jump up and do something ‘bad’ any minute…….I’m thinking more and more about how nice it might be to hang out in a place where there are lots of folk like us, and we can blend in for a change. Not to mention where there’s lots more free range kids and naturally learning kids and people doing all the sorts of things that we like to do. Which in this country anyway, is definitely Northern New South Wales. The mecca of the alternative, homegrown, organic, hippy, community lifestyle.

At this point I’ve gotta mention that travelling with 6 children could definitely be described as an intricate and lesser degree of hell. The two youngest are just a year old, teething, crawling, and at a brilliant height for mud, grass seeds and burrs – of which there are many in the country we’re travelling through - they don’t often sleep for longer than 20 minutes during the day, are into everything, and can wake up in the middle of the night and yell for no particular reason…...no amount of cuddles or enticements of drinks can assuage their cries. (People who believe attachment parented babies never cry BE DAMNED!) Another 2 – the lotus babies - the nearly 3 and the nearly 5 year old, have tantrums the size of Cyclone Toddler, and love to have them regularly – about all sorts of groundshaking matters like who owns that helicopter, and someone said I couldn’t do that, and someone’s threatening to wipe my face etc, etc. And the two oldest, whilst being incredibly mature and self aware in many ways, are stubbornly egalitarian, and believe that with all the babying and nurturing going on, they should have their fill too. So while sometimes they can make all the difference and almost shoulder an adult sized load, at other times they dissolve into two year olds at the worst moments, and with 6 kids around all the time, you’re pretty much guaranteed that one of them will be having a tantrum or will have one soon, or is arguing with someone else like the ugly stepsisters of cinderella. And then there’s my tired but majestic old 40 year old and 6 months pregnant body, that’s schlepping swags and clothes bags and bedding around every night and morning, and understandably a bit grumpy with the situation, which can end up in an intense mother being thunderous particularly around the packing times. My body’s regularly having conversations with me about…..”What the f**k are you doing travelling around the bloody countryside, when you’re meant to be doing restful things and thinking beautiful thoughts and NESTING DAMN YOU!!!!” and the like. To be truthful, if I wasn’t pregnant I reckon I’d be having a ball, but I’ve got this time limit tick tick ticking away, and my body’s getting tired and sore, and every little thing seems huge. And Currawong is doing his very best to try and become the incredible dividing man – creating as many copies of himself as possible to perform all the multitudinous tasks demanded by us all, and going through the same mood swings the rest of us are. All in all, depending in which mood you found us, we could either be viewed as the camping neighbours from hell, or the trippiest and happiest big family in a freaky van and tent you ever did see.

The first night we were inundated by mosquitos in Sherlock, as we left it all too late to set up for the night, and I realised that I’d worked out everyone’s comfortable bed but mine. Didn’t get any sleep, and went and slept on a rug on the ground for a while – till I thought it was getting a bit too overcast, and got back inside the van just before it started raining. The next two nights we set up in a beautiful, freezing, grass seed ridden camp spot by a dry lake in Walpeup, and slept comfortably out of the van.

The fourth night was in Nyah, by the river behind the showgrounds, where we put up the little two person tent for Currawong and the lotus babies, while I slept with the twins in the back of the bus to see if it would be any more comfortable. It wasn’t. We got there a bit late, and were still trying to set up in the freezing night. The next night was a roadstop called Birdcage, with the cleanest composting toilets I’ve never smelt, and we tried sleeping the other way (the way we always used to sleep before I turned us round thinking we’d fit in the twins better) and SUCCESS!! All squeezed in the bus in our cosy beds, we were all comfortable at last, and slept about the best we’d done since starting our adventure.

I didn’t realise I was feeling like a failure about how we couldn’t sleep all together in the van, until we managed to pull it off. And from Walpeup, we were dancing ahead of burgeoning storm clouds, being chased by a chill and persistent wind, and it followed us all the way to our next stop, which was the Bendick Murrell rest area between Cowra and Young.

We slept well there too, and got clear about how the two eldest really just needed to hang with the babies for an hour in the morning and night, so we could set up and dismantle the campsite the easiest. The wind finally abated, and we set off on the best day we’ve had since leaving home. I was getting all happy about nearing my birth land, and travelling was easy, and the land was beautiful, and we felt like we were really starting to get into the swing of things. I reminisced with everyone about Bathurst, where I spent some awesome years as a teen after leaving home. And we headed for the place that I’ve been talking about since I got pregnant with the twins – Sofala. Only a few kilometres from where I was born, a beautiful and dilapidated gold mining town on the Turon river, and the place where I came as a 17 year old to Flats Café, where we ordered a spinach quiche, and watched them walk down to the garden by the river to pick the spinach before they made it…… I spent a lot of time in and around this river both as a child, and as a teen when I moved back to the area for a while. And on our seventh night, and for our seventh day, we set up our gorgeous soul pad in the dark, and tempers frayed, and we woke up in the morning……….in totally freezing, but visual heaven.

And here’s where the belief comes into it. I’ve been freaking out, and scared, and worried that we’re damaging our kids by taking them away from everything they know, and terrified of this big leap we’re doing into the wild blue yonder, and grumpy, and fretting, and snappy, and seeing all the ways that we could be viewed as complete failures as parents, and worrying worrying worrying about this baby inside, and who’s going to midwife it, and how and where we’re going to find a place to live to birth it, and focusing on all the ‘bad omens’ that have happened this pregnancy – negative predictions from a midwife friend, Balthazar bashing the crap out of my birthing necklace and breaking the cow bone Kali bead that I’ve had since I was pregnant with Griffyn, the vague feelings of ominous portent that has lurked at my shoulder through every pregnancy, and the final straw was leaving my dressing gown behind. The dressing gown that I grew and nurtured the twins with, and that I’ve used as a bit of a security blanket for a while now…….was left behind. And all these days of travelling, I was focusing on all the bad bits of the kids behaviours, and spending a lot of time in tears, and feeling real sorry for myself……….till I had a chat with the two women I love best in the world, and felt like my world started to tilt a little into perspective, and a few choice statements that Currawong made sank in……..and I really got that it’s all about belief.

I really believe that we create our beliefs with our strength of BELIEF. We’re creating everything with our beliefs, and thoughts, a bit like the creation of Tinkerbell. The more we believe, the more real it becomes, and the more our belief is validated by what we’ve created. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have REALLY believed a lot of different and seemingly opposing realities. I was born into a fundamentalist religion full of mystical and everyday miracles, and I felt the spirit within me and KNEW that I was a member of the only true church in the world. And I was also a member of a channelling group, where I channelled a being that was part of a group of aliens, that were focusing on sending healing energy to the planet, and the other 3 members of the group were MEANT to be together with me, as we did our important work. (I haven’t often told people THAT one, cause it makes me seem like a flaky freak nutter, but I DON’T CARE!) And I was a solitary hereditary witch, and I FELT the lineage of strong women I’d come from in the Goddess times, and the legacy they’d left me. And I was a leather wearing dyke that felt sorry for all the women who would never know the completeness I felt in the arms of women, and KNEW that I was going to be a woman loving woman for the rest of my life. For a while there after all my varied and intense beliefs had kind of melted away after Saturn Return, I felt like a bit of a flibberty gibbet, a vague and valueless vagrant in belief land, and a whore to different ideals…….until I realised that all of those experiences had been real, and I’d really believed them, and gathered a huge amount of learning from them, and thrown myself completely into them, body, mind and soul, and that there was nothing wrong with that at all. At least I didn’t get cynical and think that there was no other belief for me when I grew out of the first one. Or get hung up about how there could be only ONE truth, and once I’d used it up, that was all there was. And it helped me to realise that everyone’s truth is really that – everyone’s truth – because it’s what they BELIEVE in that’s real for them, and that they’re creating as a reality in their lives. And having surfed so many different beliefs, I know a lot of different languages that I can speak with all sorts of people. And I can believe in everything. And nothing. And a combination of them both. All at the same time. And that would be my valid and proper belief. And sometimes people really need to believe in their own beliefs to the exclusion of all others, to such a degree that they feel justified to judge, or put negative beliefs on other people, to support their own belief. And their belief is such, that to acknowledge another person’s reality would cause their own to unravel, and that’s just the way it is. And I can respect that.

All that being said, we’ve been hanging round with people in our close living situations for the last three years, who no matter how much they may like us in lots of ways, have very strong beliefs of their own, that made it imperative to see us as lazy, selfish, neglectful, unreliable, despotic examples of bad parenting, bound for hell, messy, and a whole heap more really negative words. And it’s had an impact on us. But only while we believe that they might be right, or are worried that they see something we don’t. And only while we give up the power of creating our own lives around our own beliefs to them. And there’s a whole stack of folk in that mainstream culture, who have been informed by their media that folk like us are potentially dangerous, could be terrorists or drug smugglers, and likely to be dead beat parents. And you know what? That’s all okay. Everyone is doing what they need to do to survive in their beliefs, and support their own way of thinking, and if I buy too much into what other people believe about me, I’m negating my own strong beliefs about who I am, and what value I am to the world, and also, funnily enough, buying into the belief of a lot of alternative people that the mainstream is ‘the other’ and can never understand them……. So love to me and love to you and love to everyone who has their niche in the world that they’re happy with, because it all comes around in the end, and we’re all learning what we need to learn, and we’re all richer for our diversity, and love is all there really is in the end.

And I gotta say right here and now that I BELIEVE that all those ‘negative’ omens about this baby to come are not negative at all, but a really strong indication that this baby is going to be born it’s own way, and it’s a good idea to let go of all my safety rafts and worries, and just let it be a completely new experience and birth, without the baggage of expectations from the past. And I BELIEVE that we’re bloody amazing to be travelling with 6 young children, (at all!!) and in a van, and sleeping in it, as well as in a big beautiful tent, and yes it has it’s trying times, but there’s the times of pure gold as well, and at least we’re giving it our best shot! And we’re resilient buggers to have gone through all we have, and come out the other side of it travelling to Sofala, which we’ve been talking about for years now. With twins on board. And all the rest of it. And debriefing on the way. And letting go of fears. With style. And there’s a huge amount of love between us all that may be a bit messy in translation at the moment, but given a home and a safe place to birth, and some folk around us with similar beliefs to ours who support the very best parts of us, and we’ll all sail gently on the balmy waters of love again, and express ourselves in ways that aren’t tantrumsJ

Northern New South…..here we come....

The left out bits......

2011-08-24T00:51:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly.........ha........with the event of twins in my life, not to mention leaving the community we were living on and witnessing our crushed dreams laying in the mud..........I've neglected to mention some things that have happened in the last year or so. And I figure that now that I'm pregnant again, and we're about to set off into the wild blue yonder with who knows what adventures on the way, I should tell you about some of those left out bits before I create too much of a backlog.

The first and most impressive (I think) is that I'm going to be part of a book called Positive Birth Journeys, edited by a really groovy woman with huge dedication and integrity, Leonie MacDonald. If I'd had the twins before I got accepted in this book, I bet she would have wanted that story, but as it was, she wanted the story of my caesarean with Balthazar....which by all accounts is a pretty groovy one. Not many people talk about how good their caesarean was. If you want to know more about the book, you can visit http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/birthjourneys I'm really looking forward to seeing my name in a real book that people can buy in a bookshop! Bit of a lifelong dream thata one.

Another thing that happened about 2 months or so before the babies were born, was that I was part of an exhibition called 'Unravelled' at Red Poles in McLaren Vale. The trip was that we had to find a jumper in an op shop or somewhere, pull it apart, and make a tea cosy out of it. I wish I could find the picture of the jumper I bought and pulled apart, but for the life of me I can't! And of course, me being me, the tea cosy ended up being rather sculptural, and you'd definitely be excused for wondering what the hell it really was, but I liked it:)

As I made it I thought it looked a lot like one of the trees in The Magic Roundabout - ever watched that as a kid? So I made 7 flowers to hang around the base of it, and called it Ermintrude's (she was the Friesian cow) Trea Cosy. I thought I was very clever. The staff at Red Poles were awesome, and there was one woman who'd had twins herself, and she was incredibly sweet and understanding with me. And she asked me to just bring everything I'd made and all my clothes along too, and made room for it all, and it looked really groovy.

And you wanna know the funny thing? The big irony?? I had a teddy bear that was stuffed with the same fleece it was spun and crocheted from, and a hat on a triangular stand, and another hat called the Tree Hat on a magic puddingesque stand (they're all on the stand on the left), and a big 7 ft stand with sleeves on it that folk call The Uterus, with a big spray of emu feathers off finger like appendages on the top (that one's on the right), and a bird cape with raw fleece needle felted on the bottom, and belly dancing outfits and skirts, and hugs, and all sorts of other designer innovations....all things that I'd put a huge amount of work and inspiration and creativity into......and those three hanging wool bags in the middle on the wall, that I'd made for decorations for Tribal Fibres, that had as much inspiration as...well.....as a decoration that I'd just run off because there was a gap on the stage that needed to be filled......and guess what I sold? Of all my designer creations, and sculptures, and not to mention the trea cosy.......I sold the wool bags. I'd thrown them on in with everything else as a last minute thought, called them 'Pendulous', and they did look great, but it made me laugh. A kinda almost sad wry laugh, but laugh I did. I think I'll just have to be content with being ahead of my time, and stop expecting so much from my woolly creations from now on:)

And meanwhile, back on the community, the kids were having all sorts of fun, roaming around the gorgeous red gum treed acres, swimming in the dam, playing with the chooks.....

Running all sorts of experiments about what happens when you chip rocks and crystals apart, and what happens when you rub mud all over yourself, and what different colours of mud look like dried, and a million other things that I can't remember now, but I'm always suprised and amazed with what they come up with for fun......

And then there were our excursions out and about.....

We went on lots of trips to the botanic gardens and spent hours upon hours upon hours wandering round with our nature delighted kids. They took a lot of these photos. We spent almost a day just in the cactus garden, and then another whole day sniffing the roses in their huge rose garden.

If we're ever stuck for something to do, the Museum, Art Gallery, State Library or the Botanic Gardens are alway sure to please everyone. It's such a blissfull thing to walk amongst such huge, eccentric and amazing living creatures as the plants that reside there.....

And onetime we found an amazing tree that was an awesome backdrop for my incredibly photogenic family...

And then there was the day when they were all fighting and yelling at each other, and there were heaps of people around on the community, and I was aware that one of the community members thought that the amount of noise they made meant they had no 'internal furniture'.....still can't work out what that meant...so they had no internal lounges and wardrobes?? Do they need them?? Anyway, I wanted them to be a bit quieter, so I called them all to me and asked them what we could make on the property, from things that we could find on the ground........it took them a bit of conjecture to work out what they wanted to do, which was another part of the collective problem solving to yelling at each other, and before they all knew it, they'd hatched a plan, and we spent a blissfull day in the sun creating a village.

First off, the ever pragmatic Lilly made a garden right in the centre, and Griff started making roads and creating dwellings, while Spiral-Moon got a plastic plant pot and sunk it in the ground for the water tank. Then she made a composting toilet, while Lilly moved onto making tee pee like structures from bark.

There's a bit of Spiral-Moon near one of them......

And Griff behind the same one. I was so incredibly impressed with their creativity, and the sensibleness of their village plan! Garden, then water, then a toilet, THEN the houses....love it. And it was so groovy for all of us to be involved in the creativity.....Griff in particular took a big part in creating awesome buildings. And the challenge of making it from what we could find on the ground was awesome.

Here's Griff making a roof on sticks, a house without walls, and off to the right was a big half circle of stone that he'd used to make the front of a house for the elders and the magicians to live in.

And I know it's not showing a house or anything, but I loved this photo of Lilly, in her inimitable Lilly style of skirt wearing.....

Here's an overview of the town, with the garden in the middle, two tee pees on either side, and the stone is the elders house, and above the garden and to the left is a sunken house with a bark roof that Griff created, and actually became a real idea for a design of building a house into a hill....he was so wrapped that an idea he'd had was picked up by us adults as a 'legitimate' idea for a dwelling.

Here's a clearer picture of that elders house I was telling you about....on the right....

And here's the bay that was made later, and a little boat that Griff made and sailed on the dam, resting on the plank....bit hard to see.....and it's a shame we didn't get a proper photo of it, but way over behind the village was a bush with a small hole at the bottom, and we decided a bunyip lived there, and Griff made a sign that said 'Please respect the Bunyip', and we also built it a pool......

And here's me sitting in the general site, with twins in my belly, in love with my beautiful creative children, and generally pleased with myself that I'd turned yelling into such an amazingly productive and learning filled day:)

So that's just a snippet of some of the things that were happening around my twin pregnancy, and that didn't quite make it to my blog. Next up I'm gonna try and make a video to put on here and give you all a tour of the van that I've been busily redecorating. And the swags that I've made. Or something like that anyway.......

Oh! And I just remembered! I also played cello on a cd that was produced by a friend of mine!! Got my name on that one too:) Might start getting addicted to this sort of thing......

Every good relationship needs lots of time for personal space doesn't it?

2011-08-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

After all, there’s so much accepted wisdom from so many different camps about how parents, lovers, children, even pets, need some time to themselves, to spend some ‘me’ time, to work on the individuals goals, spirituality, hobbies, meditate or whatever. An ex girlfriend of mine gave me a beautiful piece of writing, about how every great love relationship needs some time for the ‘winds of heaven to dance between them’. Currawong and I have been told by so many people, from so many different paths and spiritualities, and in so many different ways, that we should spend some time apart. Have some space. Get some perspective. Give each other room. And that’s not all, the same goes for our relationship with our kids. They all need more space and time away, and we should be sending them off to all the other mandatory and standardized forms of child care that other people do, and inflict many other children of their same age on them, whether they like each other or not, but that’s what we all have to get used to, because you’re always gonna come across people you don’t like at work, and you have to start working out how to get along with them as soon as possible. Infancy in fact.

In being so obviously different to mainstream society, as well as being a big family that does everything together in a very ‘life as art’ way, we tend to bump into a vast amount of varied people who want to let us know that they get us or they don’t, or ask us how we do it, or say “Didn’t your lot die out in the 70’s?” and the like, and there are some common things we get as feedback from a lot-a-lot of people. Like I’ve mentioned before, many people feel inspired by our smiles and love and colourful selves, but in the conversations, a lot of people want to justify their own choices in life, or why they don’t live a life more similar to ours even though they wish they could. And some of the things we commonly hear are things like “I’d go crazy if he didn’t work and was underfoot in my house all day”, and “I’d love to be the sort of mum who could do homeschooling, but spending every day with my kids would drive us ALL mad” and “Do you ever get some time to yourself?” and “I’d love to stay home with my woman and my kids all day and do what they do, but SOMEBODY has to pay for it all” and “I don’t know how you stay sane with all those kids” and “I’d homeschool too but I’m on my own, and it’s not something that one person can do solo” and the like. And sadly for me, a lot of women mainly, and men, make the judgement that I’m a domineering, bossy, pussy whipping, harridan, who has Currawong firmly tied to my apron strings (if I wore an apron that is), because there’s NO WAY a man left to his own devices would choose to spend time with his lover and family doing domestic things. No way at all. Surely he’d rather be off watching sports, or down at the front bar, or doing blokey things with other blokes, and busily suppressing his emotions like all (Australian in particular) men do. He needs to be off hunting and gathering, and being a warrior, and bringing home the bacon and the eggs and everything else too, to fulfill his male, lion-like pride. And me, I should be fine cause I’m a woman afterall, and as a lot of people have decided, also a bit of an ‘earth mother’, so I’ll be okay, but what about poor Currawong? How is he going to fulfill himself apart from all this ‘women’s business’ he’s trapped in, by my deadly spider like ways and arts?? (Is there a bit of bitterness starting to seep in at this point do you think? Maybe I should get to the uplifting bit sooner rather than later….) But just before I move on, there’s been some funny times as well in all this. Especially when other men have tried to ‘rescue’ Currawong to go and do something ‘manly’, and not noticed his panic stricken face behind them as he mouths to me ‘rescue me!’ Or the time when a big alpha male was talking to me at the market we ran about how there were womens’ places and men’s places, and he thought Currawong needed to come along to his men’s group. I was just in the process of telling him that we didn’t really do gender roles in our house, and if we did, Currawong performed many of the more traditionally female roles, and I could definitely sometimes be described as wearing the pants in the house. We were in the middle of talking about this, when Currawong walked up to us and had a huge hissy fit about something or another, then stalked off with the Alpha male looking a bit bewildered, and quick as a whip I turned to him and said….”His time of the month”, with a shrug of the shoulder, and he went from bewildered to totally confused. HA! It may be a result of our early sexualisation, or our same sex relationships from the past, but we prove to each other that men and women aren’t so very different after all. I like to call Currawong my ‘chick with a dick’, and he truly enjoys hanging out with all my women friends, you just try and stop him!

And now the preamble. I’m only just starting to really get how very different us mob are in how we run our lives and our family compared to a lot of other folk. You may laugh, but being a freak show isn’t something that’s happened over night you know! It’s taken a long time full of baby steps for us all to get where we’re at, and it’s like I’ve all of a sudden woken up and realized that to a lot of folk, we’re radical extremists living a really different reality. And I’m also getting that a lot more people than are brave enough to engage us on the street, are really curious about that life style. And what it’s like on a day to day basis, and how it works, and what we do and all that stuff. I’ve come from an extremely conservative and sheltered background, and Currawong’s come from a rough childhood partially on the streets, and identifying for most of that time as a punk, and through each other and our relationship, we’ve morphed/osmosed into colourful, homebirthing, home educating, self taught artisan hippies with a big family………………for want of a better description. And on that journey, we’ve come across so many different lifestyles, spiritualities, approaches and the like, and we’ve met them all with respect, honoured them for what they are, and accepted other folks versions of reality for being as true as they believe they are. And I guess I’m at the point where I want to respect, honour, and accept my own version of reality as much as I do other people’s, and give it voice as much as other folk do about their brands of reality. Cause mine is really different. And unique. And largely self created from experience. And also liable to piss a lot of people off if they take it personally, as in thinking that I’m trying to tell people what they should think or do, and judging them by my particular set of values. I really want to stress right here and now, that everything I talk about is my experience and reality only, and I totally respect EVERYONE else’s right to their own beliefs and reality. Sometime’s to levels that other people get all moral at me about, but that’s another story.

Now, enter stage left my opinion, experience and viewpoint, on the whole space in relationships issue. I’ll never forget a friend in the midst of the fallout of her long term relationship breaking up, telling me, “We gave each other so much space, that in the end space was all we had…”. I reckon if the advice of taking space and ‘me time’ was such a good and sound and valid approach, we should be seeing something better in the state of relationships around us. But I don’t. I see a lot of people in relationships who are busy working and playing and being themselves and bringing up kids and doing all the things you do…..with someone who they used to know and love a lot better, and there’s a kind of sad distance between people supposedly ‘in love’, who don’t have the time or resources to get back to each other. In fact I see a whole lot of people – men, women and children – who deep down feel very alone, isolated, betrayed by their love and trust in people, and with a whole mess of deep down darks and secrets that they don’t share with anyone for fear of being disliked, and a dream of what they wanted their love to be like, and a rheam of reasons why they can’t or their partner can’t and ultimately why they feel alone in a room full of people. I think that rather than take space from each other, we need to work out how to step closer to each other, and really let each other in, and teach each other how to truly be emotionally intimate and trusting with ourselves and our loved ones. There’s an evolution of parenting skills that’s happening in attachment and conscious parenting circles, that I’m finding really interesting. They suggest rather than punishments and yelling and bribing and all those other vastly outmoded ways of child taming, and even some of the more peaceful ways of trying to get your child to perform, like time out and such tactics……….that you should just hold them close. That obnoxious, childish behavior that makes you want to rip your hair out, instead of reacting to, you should just hug them. Hold them. Keep them close. Realise that often anti-social behavior comes from the behaver feeling unloved in some way, and break through all the bullshit and prickles, and just swamp em in love. And I reckon inside most of us supposed big people, is a little person in pain wanting some love, for some long ago hurt, and I suspect that deep down we’d all like to be held close, and no matter how many walls we may try to build, have someone knock em all down and give us a hug and love.

Currawong and I spend nearly all our moments together, and miss each other like crazy when we don’t. I don’t know whether it’s cause our Friesian past connects us like glue, or our miserable childhoods, or the fact that two chameleonic fringe dwellers getting together creates great synchronicity…..but we’re inseperable. At first we ran our relationship more like other folk – he went off to work sometimes, and went off to the pub on his own sometimes, and I did stuff without him – but it wasn’t long before we fell into wanting to spend all our time together. We’re both big energy people, and Currawong was in particular very raw in his private inner sanctum, and it took a lot of work between us to let each other in. We’d both been molested as children, so there were plenty of wounds to heal, and trusts to build, and we were so wrapped up in each other and plumbing each other’s depths, that we soon got into the habit of hanging out together all the time. Currawong had never really had anyone in that deep before, my poor petal had a lot of acquaintances he thought of as friends before I came along, and I’d been in lot’s of people’s deeps, but never one quite so intricate, who I also got to play sexually with. And it’s just kept getting closer and deeper and more amazing as we heal and peel off layers. And now, it’s not a clingy pining thing, but when we’re apart, after an hour or so, we just quietly miss each other. And usually ring each other to chat. We make so much sense to each other, and we’re each other’s best mates, and we talk all the time about all sorts of wild and undomesticated things, so that when we’re apart, and when we’re hanging with other people, there’s a big empty space. Not to mention that the common conversations to be had with acquaintances, can sometimes feel a bit empty and superficial compared to our worlds……

Which leads me to the question……..which comes first? The inseperableness or the great relationship? I’m sure everyone’s heard the stories about dream relationships of people who love each other madly and spend all their time together and spend a lifetime in great love – I know I have – and I never dreamed that I would get to experience it. And maybe they’re so great because the partners ARE inseperable? Because they hold each other consciously in their day to day lives and deal with their stuff as it happens? If attitudes sent towards Currawong and I show a collective attitude towards closeness in relationships, maybe folk are too scared of being consumed by someone else and becoming ‘co-dependant’ (which incidentally is a totally inappropriate term to apply to close relationships, as the term was originally coined to describe the partners of drug addicts who helped their partners to get their fix) to really experience great love.

To be blunt, I believe our society is so full of ‘space’ between lovers, parents and children, and families in general, that we accept and expect emotional distance as the norm, which allows a lot of us to get away with a whole heap of emotional deceits, inaccuracies, and masks. To hide from ourselves and each other, and just avoid situations that ask for too much emotional authenticity. There’s all these different compartments – home, school, work, playtime, hobbies, ‘me time’, church and the like, where people can be totally inauthentic. One person at work, another at home, another at church, another at the pub, another at football, and all the time playing the polite dance of chit chat and social expectations, and declarations of loyalty and honesty, that are all shrugged off as easily as being put on. Situations occur where people build each other up, and almost dare each other into honesty and intimacy, and their dreams and hearts start flying till BANG! One of them changes, or gets scared, or drops the mask, or disappears, or works too hard, and the other is left holding the broken bits and telling themselves that to trust and hope equals pain. Or they experience great love till they buy into the great western dream of a job and a mortgage and a house and a child or two and all of a sudden that’s all there is. And there’s no consistent person/observer who is watching us through all the compartments of our lives, and asking us why we said this and meant that, and why we were so different with that person than the other, and how we could live with our lies and hypocrisy, especially to ourselves.

Except in our family. And a lot of others too, I know. We consciously hold each other and our children and our emotional authenticity together all day every day. We notice when one of us is hiding an emotion, or in need of some extra love, or being inauthentic to who they really are, or doing something amazing that they’re learning. And it’s not all love and roses, we have humdinger fights that explode all over the place, and we all yell and scream, but we’re always picking over the carcass later on, and apologizing or working out why that happened, and working out how we can do it better afterwards. And learning from each event that happens and building on what we know and love about each other. Currawong and I have no secrets from each other. None at all. After childhoods filled with secrets, it’s one of the most important elements in our lives to have no secrets at all. And our kids have followed that tradition, and give us astonishing honesty that we handle with care.

And I need to take a moment here to speak about money. We’ve consciously chosen love and family and togetherness over money. And it’s not all that easy, but is tremendously so all at the same time. Because we haven’t bought into the mortgage paradigm, or the working one, it’s meant living in other people’s spaces, or travelling a lot, or living in cheap housing which comes with all it’s own compromises. It’s meant not having enough money for all those entertainment devices that I’m really not sorry we don’t have. It’s meant living on a lot less than most people in our society are used to having. And though this paradigm does have it’s challenges, it’s one I can recommend. A lot of what we can’t afford we wouldn’t want anyway, and our adaptations have made us resourcefull and skilled. We find joy in the ordinary and each other, and maybe with more money we would have developed more expensive tastes. It’s funny how often you need a stack of money to make money – to pay for the childcare, clothing, vehicles, entertainments, and foods needed to provide an income.

And we don’t find it suffocating, or soul squashing in any way. There’s a huge amount of love between us, and none of it is forced. When the kids go away for sleepovers we all miss each other, and phone each other to say good morning. When they get back, the siblings that missed them will tell them, and there’ll be hugs all round. They’re surrounded by a big family of people that love them best, and are with them through most situations to hold them consciously and look out for each other. And we’re also all very different and unique, and supported in being ourselves by all of us, and enjoy our social interactions with everyone, knowing that if it ever gets intense, scary, or intimidating, that there’s a bubble of family to escape to and debrief with.

I’m going to stop now, cause I think I’ve made my point, but I’m only realizing now how very much more I have to say about all this, and maybe I’ll just have to save all that for my book. And other writings that are going to be available for you to buy soon on a stick in their own little crocheted pouches. I’ll get there soon……

And by the way......I know a lot of the photo's don't really make sense compared to the writings, but I just loaded a whole heap of photo's on a removable drive, and have kinda been using only them in this period of using the library internet...photo's will get relevant again soon:)

My Currawong

2011-07-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

There’s a lot of stories and events in my past that I haven’t even touched on here in my blog yet, and I reckon there’s a few terms and words that I’ve made up that you might like me to explain at sometime… But that time is not now. I keep getting ideas for things I want to blog about, like all the other births that I’ve experienced and what I learnt from them, and a glossary of all the terms I use that aren’t in common usage (yet), and I’ve written a cute little number about optometrists and another one about space in relationships……but their time is yet to come. But right here and now, I really wanna pay a bit of a tribute to my man. My Currawong. My best mate and co-conspirator. The studly father of my beautiful children. The male at the top of the heap in my circle when it comes to the survival of the fittest……..the male that’s preened and made nests and provided beautiful food, keeps our mechanical wheels running, and puts across the best display’s of human nature that impressed me (and him) so much, that we keep having babies. My muse, inspiration, education, and the most bodacious bed mate that ever sprinkled my life with pure human essence.

We’ve just been through a really hard time. And are only now really realizing how traumatized we’ve both been by recent events…….twins was enough on it’s own, but also my daughter feeling down, and us losing the home that we thought we were gonna live in the rest of our lives, and the betrayal of some of the people in that community home…..not to mention feeling poor and homeless, and staying away from our beloved beach community for a couple of months and finding out about an unexpected pregnancy along the way. It’s been really hard. And we’ve done what most other people would probably do in the same situation……..taken it out on each other. Years ago, I figured that fighting amongst couples is actually quite an honourable and trusting thing. You’re telling each other that you believe you can express and display the worst aspects of your personality (and let’s face it, we all have them), and also believe that the other will still be there at the end of it, and still love you, and accept your nasty self for what it is, at the same time as expressing their own. And it’s a great way for letting off steam in a society obsessed with being ‘good’, and ‘fine’. So we’ve been through the hurly burly of late. And just last weekend went down to the hugely loved Willunga and all the wonderful folk who we love and who love us there, and remembered who we were when we feel loved again, and it kinda put all the past hurts and betrayals into perspective, and helped us realize that we’ve both been a bit off the wall for the last 3 months or so. It wasn’t just him, like I kept trying to tell him it was, afterall. And for the first time, in the middle of a blazing and bitter recrimination that I just HAD to inform him about, I did what I’ve wanted to do for years, and told him how much I hated it when we weren’t getting on, and told him I was going to do my bit for making it better, dropped it all, and gave him a hug. And guess what. It worked. He was so happy that I just dropped it all and hugged him, and we haven’t had a cross word since. And it makes me realize again how very much I love him.

We’ve got one of the best love stories I’ve ever heard of. When we first clapped eyes on each other, I was a black leather wearing recent dyke with short hair, and he had a purple Mohawk, and wore black and shades of grey. Our eyes met across a crowded pub, and we stared into each others souls…….which neither of us had ever done before (or since). And then we met on the busy Katoomba street, went for a coffee, and within minutes were telling each other our deepest and darkest secrets. That night he was palming off his mistress, after having left his partner at home, so we could go upstairs to really meet each other…….and you can think what you like about such a meeting, but that’s how it was. 6 hours later we came back to the pub to cheers from observers, and parted, sure that we’d never meet again. He had a whole life that entrenched him, and I lived in another state, and I decided I wanted one just like him, but not him, because he was far too damaged. (I thought) But no-one of the male persuasion had ever treated me with such respect and equality before…….so I wanted to remember all the details. I got home to South Australia and decided to write it all out. And became a woman obsessed. Within 3 months of wondering whether I was writing the book, or it was writing me, I had a tome that I’d written, that began with a recounting of our meeting, and then became a visualization of what I wanted and wished would happen, as well as an autobiography, science fiction novel, and self help manual. It’s written in the most amazing poetic style, and as I wrote it, I’d read back over what I’d written in amazement, wondering where it was all coming from! I reckon I could almost call it a channeled book. I finished it just before Saturn Return and decided to take a trip through the desert and let it go, and take on the changes that would happen, and face my fears, and that trip is a whole other story in and of itself……but on the way home, I stopped in at Katoomba again, and just when I was about to leave and come home, Currawong walked into the pub, and we sank into each other again. I told him I’d written a book about him, and he told me he’d written a song about me, and our hearts melted together. But he was still entangled, so we parted again, a bit sadder this time, and went our own ways again. Till I got a phone call a year or so later, and he’d left his partner, and moved to Melbourne, and wondered if I wanted to come to a party at his house. I drove there straight away, and we spent the weekend drinking large amounts of Stones Green Ginger Wine, and had 7 people traipsing through his bedroom as we kept telling each other that we weren’t into a relationship, and we wanted our freedom, and all sorts of other pretty lies. Till the last moments, when we’d kicked the last person out of his bed, and he said ‘But is that all there is? Can’t there be more between us?’

I was so touched at the role reversal, and he was so soft hearted, that we entered into a period of a long distance relationship. I’d catch the train to visit him in Melbourne, and he’d hitch-hike to visit me. I was in such an amazing place of feeling my connection to the entire world, and understanding that everyone I met WAS me, that we had all these cute moments, like when he met me at the train, and I introduced the 6 people I’d met in the smoking carriage to him, after telling them all about our romance. He was really into being a debonair but angry punk at that time, and was a bit blown away being met by all these people….the toothless prostitute, the ex-con, the psychologist, the speed dealer and the rest… And eventually he decided to leave his punk band and come and see how good it could get with me. And we’ve never stopped the joy ride since. We’ve gone from both wearing black and shades of grey to wearing lots of bright colours, he’s gone from being virulently anti-child to being the best dad I’ve ever seen, I taught myself to spin and crochet and have done it all my own way, and he’s taught himself to drum in his own unique way, despite being told many times by big-egoe’d drummers that he didn’t know what he was doing and to stop. We ran a market together that was one of the most amazing social experiments I’ve ever been a part of – with the complete absence of all forms of hierarchy – and we learnt a lot about ourselves, our community, the environment, and other ways in which we could be activists for change. We travelled all around the country in our hi-ace commuter van, bought a house to have a baby (Spiral-Moon) in, up north in a town that time forgot, sold it after she was born, and then relocated to the hills around Melbourne for a short stint, before coming back to the Adelaide hills to have Balthazar, join a community, avoid the horrendous Melbourne fires, learn through Post Natal Depression and whooping cough, get pregnant with twins, and get to here where you find us now, wondering where our path will take us next.

But that’s just the external journey. The internal journey has been huge. We are both incest survivors and had traumatic childhoods, so we’ve had a lot of barriers and trust issues that needed dealing with in a gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) way. We’ve always had a huge love and lust for each other, but had to learn how to express it to each other in ways that allowed for each other’s particular foibles and scars. Currawong had so many barricades to his heart, that it really took the first five years of our being together, for him to truly believe that I was here to stay, and really loved him. And I needed equal time to believe that I really deserved love too. It was only last year that I really got that he didn’t put other people first, like I’d been accusing him of for years, and was obviously in every part of his being, choosing me and supporting me above all others. A lot of the things we’ve accused each other of over the years have been nothing to do with each other really, and are more to do with the treatment we experienced as children, and our issues with our families of birth. The untangling of family wounds and barriers we’ve built was tumultuous at first, and is getting easier and easier the more we do it, motivated by wanting to give our children as much healthy stuff as we can.

And I still pinch myself regularly, to make sure that I really am here, experiencing one of those epic love stories that I so wished for as a child and teen. He blends in wherever he goes just like me. He can get on with anyone, anywhere, anyhow, just like me. He can skip and jump through any intellectual hoop or concept you care to name, and he’s always growing and learning. He’s Friesian just like me. A bit less than me actually, but it doesn’t really matter, when you consider the coincidence of us having met and bonded at all. He’s the most awesome mirror I’ve ever known. And there’s not a single thing about him I’d change. He’s spontaneous, never boring, romantic in a totally uncommercial way, challenging, compassionate, and a huge amount of fun. We are so similar it’s mindblowing, and we truly have absolutely no secrets from each other. I’m so greatfull we found each other……..

Which is why we’re trying so hard to stay together. Without sacrificing one of us to a job and a mortgage. To keep travelling even sporadically, and make an income from our passions and talents. To keep our family close knit and dedicated to the path of natural learning for us all. To keep carving out our own reality, our own way, without compromising our dreams. And we’re both stubborn, and both resolutely freedom loving, so I reckon we can do it. I’m going to help Currawong get a vlog (that’s a video blog) together, cause his performance is so audio-visual, that I reckon it’s the only medium that will do him justice. His wild talent is so outstanding, I want the world to see what he does. He can drum on anything from glass jars, to computer parts, to play equipment in parks, to preserving kits, to plastic seats, to bodies, while creating the wildest threads of rhythm that keep forming a continuous multilayered soundscape. And he tells stories and plays with kids rhymes and makes up the most amazing lyrics on the spot. Everything he does is improvised genius, and I’m certainly not the only person that thinks so! My man needs the audience he deserves, and as well as busking on our journey, I reckon he could find an international love for what he does via the internet. Which will be easier on our family time than doing the band and gig trip that so many other musicians do.

And I’m going to flog my blog. Remember that book I was just telling you about? Very soon you’ll be able to buy it off me via the internet, either in PDF format, or printed in a hard copy if that way goes easy. I’ve got this idea of selling the articles I’ve written, theories, books, patterns, and creative writing pieces, with lots of pictures added, on memory sticks, and then crocheting pouches for the sticks to live in, as a connection from me to the recipient. And I’m going to revive my etsy site and start selling some of my crocheted creations that are just sitting around. And write more about birth and tell the rest of my amazing birthing stories. I’m even thinking about writing kids books about how we learn together, with photo’s of our gorgeous kids and examples of natural learning and how it occurs. And maybe one day we’ll end up on land and start community supported agriculture and other community hubs, cause that’s what we’re all about.

Cause I’ve decided I want a café income. After doing 6 years of cloth nappies, when I found out there were biodegradable disposable nappies, I decided I wanted a disposable nappy income, and it happened. I was so excited by disposable nappies after 6 years of stringing up prayer flags of colourful nappies everywhere we went, that I could hardly sleep!! And now I want a café income, so we can regularly go to gorgeous organic café’s for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, depending on the mood. And I reckon if you’d ever experienced thinking up, cooking for, and cleaning up after 6 young children on a daily basis, you’d totally understand my desire!!! And it’s even Currawong who does most of the cooking!! And we want a big purple 40ft bus to trip around in, with beds that we don’t have to pack up every morning, and lay out every night, and a kitchen on wheels!! Cups of tea whenever we need them. And a home…….where we belong to the land more than it belongs to us. And where we can grow food and family and love and community. Did you catch all that universe??

But first, the search to find where we’ll birth this next one……..

So if you’re into what I write about, and think what we’re doing is a worthwhile pursuit to support, I’d really dig it if you helped me get my blog ‘out there’ in whatever way you can think of, and maybe buy my wares when they come online. And check out my beautiful Currawong’s vlog when we get it happening. And I might even try and add one of those donate buttons I’ve seen around to my blog, for the altruistic philanthropists among you. And hopefully it will all come around for all of us, to live our true and authentic lives, and dream our dreams, and support each other to be all that we want and need to be. Love, respect, peace and freedom to you all!

On having a big family.....

2011-07-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

So now that we’re expecting our 7th child together, and my 8th child all up, I’m really starting to notice the big balls of juicy judgement that come bouncing down the street towards us from folks eyes, as well as getting reactions from people when we tell them like “Oh, I’m so sorry” (?????????), and similar sentiments from people who look like we’ve just announced one of us is dying. Not to mention the odd snide comments from acquaintances about how many we have already, and the direct approach from ‘friends’ like I talked about in my last blog post.

As it is, I’ve developed a radar over the years for all sorts of reasons, for people on the street to look at and smile with, and people to avoid looking at, especially not making eye contact with, cause it’s likely to not be pretty. And basically, that radar picks out all indigenous folk from the world around, any ‘differently abled’ folk, any kooky folk, and people who look like refugee’s, as being safe to look at and smile with – essentially the other fringe dwellers in the world – and any mainstream looking one’s are the one’s my radar avoids. More often than not, these are the folk looking at me with ‘deadbeat parents’ and ‘she must do that for the baby bonus’ and ‘those poor grubby children’ and the like coming like daggers from their eyes.

And after spending a day sewing and constructing arguments for the rabidly anti-big-family-people who have already made their opinions clear in my life……..I figure it’s time for me to tell you, the universe, and anyone who cares to listen, our reasons for having so many children.

• First and foremost is that they’re utterly gorgeous, vibrant, envigorating, life enhancing, funny, cuddly, and the best people I’ve ever known, and we’re both honoured that they live in our family, and we get to know them for the rest of our lives. Every day is an adventure, and their unique takes on the world are pure gold. They teach us more than anything in our lives has ever done before. They are the reason to constantly strive to be better, and to make the world a better place. They are the motivation for nearly everything we do. They are friends and teachers and people that bring out our fierce protective and guiding instincts, and mirror ourselves and our behaviours in a way that means we have to deal with them, to make our combined world a better and healthier place to be.

• It took me three babies to realize that they’re nothing to do with me. Apart from the obvious of course, they’re completely their own people, born with their internal natures and distinct fate and destiny intact. With my first baby, I was convinced that my continuum parenting was the reason she was so funky, and if anything, my judgement about other parents increased……”If I can produce such perfect progeny, then it’s obvious that if everyone in the world would just do like I said, we’d have perfect people and perfect harmony forevermore….” My second baby perfomed just as well, as well as the third, but the fourth and fifth have blown that theory completely out of the water. All my tried and tested tricks and parental lore completely failed with these two. They are the ungovernable forces of nature that are best just to leave alone. And not take personally. And appreciate for their own unique contributions to the world. (We were warned about lotus babies…) And then there were the sixth and seventh that provided a whopper of a birth story, and rolled on just about all the other tried and true methods I had left for my parenting approach. All my other smug assumptions and judgements have been thoroughly discarded after they came into my life. Children, (people), are who they are, and can’t be expected to be certain things just because of who their parents are. I reckon Kahil Gibran puts it best…….

”Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love, but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

--Kahlil Gibran

It’s taken me this many kids and pregnancies to really get the great mystery of conception, birth, and the individual journey of the soul. And to just get out of the way and surrender into trust for my own life as well as theirs. I reckon I’m lucky, cause I’ve been enabled to discover that birth and all of it’s surrounding energies can truly be a path of spiritual transformation and enlightenment.

• Between all my births, (and there’s still one to come) I’ve experienced just about everything. I’ve had a disempowered, interventionist hospital birth, an empowered, almost unassisted hospital birth, a beautiful homebirth with disempowering after experiences and mismanaged bonding, an almost unassisted homebirth (with a sage, midwife observer) with a hugely empowering and transformative bonding experience, an attempt at a homebirth that became an emergency caesarean, that was respectful, empowering, and positive, an amazing homebirth of twins two days apart, and the intense experience of early life with twins, and the story is yet unwritten for the next one. I’ve learnt so much about birth. And have developed a healthy love and respect for both homebirthing and hospital birthing, and how important both of them are. And also have a unique perspective on how you can transform your birthing self, and are not just lumbered with a birthing self that can’t change. And I’ve borne witness to many other birthing women, who have had the great rewards of birth kept from them, by disempowerment by both the hospital birthing scene and the homebirthing one. I believe I have a valuable contribution to make to birthing lore from all of my experiences, and some suggestions about how we can all approach birth in a more empowered way. I really like having such a wholistic toolkit about birth within me.

• Contraception sucks, and in my experience anyway, babies are made from great orgasms. I refuse to do the pill, (synthetic bleeding? You’ve got to be kidding!) because I love my bleeding and what it brings, and IUD’s have problems, and I honestly don’t have the internal discipline to do the mini-pill or a diaphragm, and I’ve never been good at condoms (surprisingly, neither is Currawong). As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have a monogamous, loving relationship for 12 years, and have sex with plastic between you. But more than that, our sex and smell is one of the most important aspects of our relationship. Our deep trust and honesty have led us on a sexual journey that has never yet stopped….it keeps getting better and better, as we keep getting further into each other and deeper into our sexual experience. And there’s a certain animalistic nature to the procreation dance that is absolutely exhilarating. When the time is right in my cycle, and the smell’s align, and the planets with them, sex can become a mind blowing, transformative, and conceptual experience that is the equal to any great spiritual experience or great mystery of life. This is why we’re both loathe to get a vasectomy, and mess with our alchemy. But at some time we may have to face this one…. Other people may remember great holidays, or dance parties, or trips, but we remember our great sexual adventures. And we remember every great session we had that created life. We’re addicted to the danger zone, and prepared to take responsibility for the consequences. As many mystics and spiritual folk have noted during the ages, babies born from and into great love are very special……and we seem to have this particular magic DOWN PAT!!

• And now that I’ve mentioned responsibility……we consider that we take a huge amount of it with our children. We may be income challenged at times, but we always eat mostly local and organic foods gorgeously prepared by the wonderful Currawong, as well as enough sweets to make sure they wont grow up sugar addicts. We give them enough media to do the same thing, but none of the really damaging (in our eyes) stuff that will mess with their unlimited imaginations and natures. You know how lots of adults spend their whole adulthoods trying to unlearn a lot of the shit they learnt from their childhood conditioning, and trying to become themselves?? We’re trying to short track that process, by giving them the freedom and confidence to be who they are from the start…..so maybe they can spend their adult lives doing something else!! And we’re doing our best to give them as many stories and experiences we possibly can, about all the varied ways that a person can do life. As well as having as many adventures as we can along the way. A friend told me there was an article in the local newspaper about a woman who’d reached her 100th year, and was asked about the biggest differences she saw around her now, compared to when she was growing up. And what she said, was that the children today had lost all their freedom. That really sat with me. And on our forays into the city, and to parks, and libraries, and museums, and all the places that children used to inhabit, I notice more and more the great disappearance of unruly kid energy and laughter…… And where have they all gone?? Poor little buggers are stuck in front of televisions, the internet, and DS9’s, getting madly advertised at and conditioned, and desensitized to death and destruction, while losing their freedom to be just what they are…..children. To play, and ride bikes without helmets, and sit on swings without hovering parents, and make up imaginary worlds, and build cubbies, and play dress ups and all the other kooky and possibly dangerous things that the kids of today are being kept from. Our kids are still free…..very free…..in fact I’d have to call them all free range kids. And as we roam around and find people increasingly impatient with their noise and childlike abandon, I feel sad for a generation of kids that are so quiet and entranced by media and the need for ‘stuff’, that they’ve stopped training the adults around them how to accommodate the needs of the free kid.

• As for practicalities…….I’ve got two siblings that never had children, so I figure I can take their quota of two children each, which means I’ve got ‘permission’ for 4 of my kids, and I’ve come across many folk in our travels that have told me directly that they’re not going to have children, so I can have the one’s they never will. So I have obtained enough sanction from the world around me for my liking anyway, about the amount of children we have. And for those people who think that the poor little mites are missing out on the valuable one on one attention that every child deserves……let me tell you a story. For years I’ve been saying that my first and second born babies got the best out of us, and the most attention, and felt slightly guilty at the moments that I don’t have for the young ones, ( which isn’t as much as you may suspect, as I’m rather proud of my recent effort of giving the same amount of attachment parenting care to my twin babies as I did to my single babies )……until Griff, my second born, pulled me up the other day. He reckons, that the young ones actually get MORE attention than he did, because they’ve got all their older siblings to play with, be smiled at by, and to take care of them, as WELL as us big people that try real hard to make sure they all get equal amounts of our love and time. And when I look at my twin boys, and the difference between them hanging out on their own, and the joy and how much they light up when they join the rest of the gang, I reckon he may be right. And Jess, my firstborn, reckons from her perspective, we’re much better parents, and much more patient, and just better at it all the more we have, so this is nice to hear too. I also think there’s a case to be made for the fact that children who are only one or two in a family, feel the weight of expectations from their families far more than kids who can share it with a big mob.

• If you want to talk about the impact on the environment, I’ll paraphrase Currawong, (without the swearwords). Look at the ridiculous amount of money we spend on warfare and western society in general, (V8 super cars, rampant consumerism, housing estates, mass media, tabloids, etc, etc, etc, etc,) and just try and tell us that our children are going to harm the planet. In the time it’s taken you to read this, there have been millions of dollars spent on weaponry and earth destroying practices. I’ve often thought that all those conscious and earth aware people that vow not to have children for the sake of the planet, are the very one’s who SHOULD be having them. Our kids are amazing people that are going to do amazing things with their lives, and the one thing they all have in common, is a deep love and respect for the natural world and it’s creatures. They pick up rubbish wherever we go, and we can all be stopped in our tracks on busy streets by an amazing spider, or bird, or cloud formation. They may not have Santa Clause and the Bunny Rabbit and all the other trappings of western capitalist life, but they have huge imaginations and a vast repository of knowledge about animals and the natural world. We all value handmade with love creations above that of two dollar shops. And our kids are aware of the impact on the planet that many of our consumables take. Which is not to say that it’s not possible that one of them will become the CEO of Coca Cola one day, but if they do, they’ll do it with style. And we’ll still love em.

• And quite simply…..I came from a big family and loved it, and due to great sadnesses and misunderstandings we none of us talk to each other anymore, and I’m really glad to be part of another big family in this lifetime. Which will hopefully and most likely be a big family that I get to keep, and holiday with, and love for the rest of my life. The hubbub of a big family is awesome. Going out with the family pack is a hoot. Watching them stream along through the central markets, and leap and bound and skip, and the amazement of people as they wonder when the stream of kids will end, is a real crack up. Having endless energy, and ideas, and playfulness, and kid aura’s all around us is just one of the most amazing, liberating, funny, and loving things I’ve ever done in my life. Birth and all it’s inherent attendants can truly be a transformative and enlightening journey worthy of any spiritual quest. I’m doing so much more with my life with them than I ever did without them. The lessons I’m learning about tolerance, compassion, selflessness, and destiny are incomparable. And I wouldn’t give any of it or them up for quids.

So next time you see us on the streets, and maybe next time you see a big family, CELEBRATE with us!! Don’t think about how we do it, and how you couldn’t do it, and put a whole heap of judgements on us about our choices……if we weren’t coping and didn’t like it, we wouldn’t be doing it!! Just say ‘yee ha!!’ and soak up some of that increasingly rare big family energy. And give the parents a shock by giving them a really positive reaction to the way they’ve chosen to do their lives.

On the road again.......

2011-06-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Well. Community life came to a complete and abrupt halt. Probably not a surprise to anyone that’s tried living on a community before. Like I was saying in my two posts about the ‘survival skills’ we learnt from our parents, that we apply with the same imperative as all the other mammals and animals performing the survival skills they learnt………I don’t think us white fella’s have actually learnt much about sharing, honesty, relationship skills, taking responsibility, and living as part of a community, from our parents and society these days…..and it was a long long time ago that we did. Instead, on the community we lived on, we learnt more about what is usually taught to our younglings these days. In my perspective anyway, that can often be about criticism, emotional hierarchies that you can never work out the rules for, people saying one thing and being lovely to your face while they’re busily bitching and stabbing you behind your back, and everyone jumping on a bandwagon to attack ‘the other’, whoever that may be, glad that ‘the other’ is getting a drubbing instead of the people guiltily joining in. But life is what you make of it, and I choose to try and make everything a learning experience, rather than relegate it to ‘good’ or ‘bad’, so I can tell you right now, that it was the perfect place for us to be while we were there, and we also left at the perfect time to continue on our life path. I reckon it was the only place I can think of anyway, where a large family could live surrounded by 7 other adults, and we went through 2 pregnancies, 3 births, major surgery in the form of an emergency caesarean and it’s recovery, Post Natal Depression, whooping cough for 3 months with all the younguns, relationship hassles from all the stress, and the birth of twins to add to four other young children……….and receive absolutely no support, not a meal, not an offer of shopping and dish doing, or a vacuum, or a conversation about it all, or ANYTHING! With some lashings of criticism on top. I faced every parent of a large family’s nightmare, of being bailed up by a friend, and told about how they had chosen to not have children, to be a vegetarian, and to live on a community to be a friend to the planet, and they knew that I loved my children and had learnt from them, but did I REALLY need to have that many? How could I justify my impact on the planet and the community? And why wasn’t she consulted? To which I instantly replied that yes, each and every one of them was a gift to me and our family and my learning, but more importantly a gift to the planet, with their completely unique set of traits and dispositions and their beautiful life embracing souls. It feels almost sacrilegious to me to talk about who I should ‘allow’ to live, and who I shouldn’t. I reckon that’s about it for the whinge…….

And on the other hand, like I said before, it was perfect, cause it was about the only place I can think of where a large family would not only be completely ignored through their travails, but also criticized, which was so incredibly intense at such a huge time in our lives, especially around the birthing of our twins, that it threw us onto our own resources completely. And we coped. And beautifully. And intact. And with integrity and love. And we learnt a lot. About our patterns that had created the whole situation in the first place, and how we’d never learnt about having a home – and in using that word I’m thinking about a sanctuary, a safe place, a comfort for the soul where family are accepted, respected, and loved for who they are – and in never having experienced it, we were re-creating our own childhoods where home was a place we felt caged and trapped. We also learnt that we’ve also re-created our parents beliefs about having to do everything on your own, and how other people only hurt you. And a whole mess of other stuff that you tend to bring back from the depths when you get pushed so completely into them. So we left very abruptly. And have moved into a studio with my mum and eldest daughter in the interim, doing some loving and healing with them, and filling up the kids with some very important oma and big sister attention. And we’re endeavouring to not take the criticisms from our former home on, and internalize them (after all, the community we were living on was the ONLY place in our lives where we were copping anything but love, respect and appreciation), and not be bitter, and it’s also solidified some of our family goals and visions for the future.

And just a little aside here…… Are you wondering why there’s a large lack of any kind of blog from me about the reality of living with twins?? That’s because it’s so incredibly huge, and intense, and has been such a test of every sort of fortitude and survival skill I’ve ever had, that I really don’t know how to write about it. I think it’s all too close and here and now for me to put it to paper for a while, and I’m going to need a bit of time and perspective to express it in a way that would truly do the experience justice. But for now, I just want to say, (now that the relentless and exhausting early bit is over, and we’re getting to experience some more of the joyous bits of having two babies) that there’s something incredibly special and rare about having arms full of two babies, and when they’re both looking at me at the same time with loving mamma smiles on their faces, and when they chat to each other and put their arms around each other and snuggle up to us and them in sleep. And the huge amount of love between them and their siblings. And the feeling I have knowing that we’ve managed to give two babies at the same time, (and in extreme adversity) the same amount of holding, hugs, and attention that all my other attachment babies got on their own, is a big one. I reckon I’ll give myself a big girly badge for that one, give us all one in fact, and I feel very proud (and amazed) that we managed it. And the huge awe, trust, love and respect I’ve developed for my Griff and Lilly in particular on this journey, has blown me away. And the facets it’s brought out in all the rest of us. Trust me. I’ll have a lot more to say about this all later.

Now. Back to the goals and visions for the future. All that adversity and pattern awareness has really brought our family aims to the fore. I guess sometimes you need some beliefs to be really challenged to realize how important they are to you. And one of our biggest ones is to stay together. It’s an uncommon thing in this day and age for a large family to have their mum and dad around them all the time, in the pursuit of natural learning and mutual respect and admiration. And we want to make our way in life, and a lot more money energy, from doing what we love, rather than giving up on our dreams, and sending one of us off to be a mortgage slave like many other folk do. No judgement here about other folk and their mortgages, I just don’t want us to give up on our dreams unless we really have to. And travelling is an important part of our lifestyle that we want to really use more often as a tool of learning and inspiration. Also as a tool of getting away from the 4 walls of the beliefs and patterns we learnt in our families, taking a holiday from the expectations imbued in us about the nuclear family, and how it lives in a house.

I’ve come to learn for myself that belief and attitude is everything. I could really easily, (and so could a lot of other people – poor old Currawong struggles with this one a lot at the moment) view us and our lives as a bit of a disaster – middle aged with a large family and no home, and a smaller than small income, and not a hell of a lot to show for our lives in the material ways of the world apart from a whole lot of stories. We’ve been called ne’er do wells, dreamers, misfits, hypocrites, neglectfull, and messy, and we’ve called ourselves destitute and losers and a whole lot worse, and in times of stress we take it out on each other and say horrible things to each other, and it would be really easy to take all that on, and be victims, and blame our childhoods and everyone else, and hide our heads in shame…….

But I can also just as easily view us and our lives as a triumphant success of dreamers dreaming the dream of freedom and passion and bigger lives than we’re conditioned to expect, with toolkits of stories and experiences from life on the fringe and travelling the path less travelled, and a huge amount of love and respect between us all, and lots of stories and first hand tales between us, of working on our relationships with each other and the world, trying to work out who we really are, and what we want to do, and also trying to change the parts of ourselves that don’t really work, or that we don’t really like. The closeness and love between our children is pure gold, and the fun we have on our daily adventures is immense. Our family is a living art of performance wherever we go, from shopping to driving new places to trips in the city to visits to galleries and museums, we engage folk everywhere we go with our sociable, playful selves. When we don’t take up the societally expected role of ‘parents’ at the top of the hierarchy, it’s amazing how much we can learn from our kids, and learn all together, and teach each other, and infect the lives of nearly everyone whose live’s we touch – even in the smallest way – with smiles and giggles and warm gushy feelings, and if we engage in conversation, they usually hear something from one of us that they wouldn’t hear from many other places. One of the most common things people say as feedback to us is that we inspire them…..to try and truly be themselves and to experience the joy and wonderment in the everyday, and try chasing those loving relationships they’ve been dreaming about more.

I much prefer the second version. And I’m convinced that if we keep the flame of our dreams alive, and keep treading our paths no matter how much against the mainstream our flow may be, that our lives will keep increasing in love, and we will find our home somewhere and somehow, and the sanctuary we all desire as a base to spring into our futures from. And I’ll finally publish those books…….

So here’s the plan gang. I’m gonna borrow from a few cultural metaphors to do my bit for crafting our future. The first is that of the Mongolian mother. Living in her beautiful handmade yurt and home, she moves with the seasons and her animals and cares for her family in a nomadic way. Everything has it’s place and home and beautiful chests and pouches and carrying vessels for all the artifacts of life, that get packed away everytime they’re on the move, easy to keep safe and close. I’m busy sewing my nut off, making mattresses stuffed with alpaca, and putting them together in a swag like way so all the kids have a bed they can unroll in both the van and in our beautiful soul pad. Believe it or not, we’ve swung it so all our kids and us can sleep in comfort in our Toyota Hi-Ace Commuter van. It involves one sleeping across the front seat, one in the padded foot bay, one in front of the back seats, one on a board on top of the baby seats, us in the big bed at the back, with the twins in their swag in the bottom corner. I’m really enjoying the mattress making, and the fitted sheets and doona covers and groovy little trappings to personalize them. And I’m making clothes bags out of material that have three sections and look like a bedroll, and can hang three down with buttoned flaps that cover the holes, or lay on the bed as an added cushion. They’re funky too. And carseat covers and curtains, and pockets on the carseats for nappies and washers and water bottles and shoes, and bags for books and toys, and some really funky and warm hoodies and pants and crocheted sheepskin slippers for everyone, cause we’re heading off on the road in winter……..with no destination.

The other cultural metaphor is that of the journeywoman, or journeyman. When her apprenticeship is done, the journeywoman is sent on the road armed only with her tools, to make her living, and eat, and drink, and comfortably sleep, from what she can craft only. I’m combining this one with a traditional element of the Frisian woman’s costume, a belt from which she hung her favourite tools – a sewing needle, some scissors, her purse, and her threads. I’m gonna make myself a kick arse hippy Friesian belt, and hang my hooks and some knitting needles and some of my favourite other tools (might make hugging a dangerous pursuit), and set ourselves in the flow on the road, in a funky Mongolian style van, with my belt strapped on, and craft ourselves a beautiful future from our dreams and the alchemy of trust, love, faith and thoughts……..

I’m thinking we’ll just get somewhere and set up our soulpad with my big spiderweb inside, and a whole heap of hangy dangly crocheted things and clothes to dress up in and books to look at, and Currawongs drums for when he feels inspired to drum and tell stories (which is this funky little improvised spontaneous thing that he gets going on, that can drum out the wildest storylines), and I’ll tell stories of how to crochet and spin and knit by finding your own way, and about birth and what I’ve learnt about the great mysteries of life, and my perspective on the bachelor gods and all sorts of other things, and I’ll have hats and odd bits and books on memory sticks that people can trade or obtain by donation…… And we’ll roll our performance arted life out for others to observe and imbibe, and like all great buskers make a honest and tax free living from our skills and arts, and just set that all up at festivals and by roadsides, and in city parks and on beaches until something happens. And maybe the story will be in the journey rather than the destination.

Wish us luck. Oh. And another thing. Just to add to the spicy mix of trying to create better patterns and positive futures, it seems that another child wants to become part of our family. I’m pregnant with my eighth child. It seems that the natural birth control method of psychic protection doesn’t work for me. Who would have thought it. And with all the love and learnings of my past births and children, I couldn’t even fathom saying no. I welcome another divine creature into our family, and am aware that we’ve got a bit of a time limit on creating those new patterns and a home in particular………

And will only be near to and able to use an internet connection sporadically, so stay tuned for intermittent updates.