About Bonding......again....

I’ve lived in a house on the edge of an escarpment in the Blue Mountains, where the wind would rush up from the valley, and push the door closed, and whip through your skin to tickle your bones.  Where mist would sit like a waveless ocean in the deep blue valleys, and the cliffs would shine in the sun.

In an old terrace house, with a huge and elegant bedroom, that had a quaint fireplace and balcony, overlooking a busy country street in Bathurst.

In a caravan, on the bend of a river through an Arab horse stud, where I spent all my days looking after horses and riding.

In a student house in Strassbourg with Canadian art students, creating exhibitions in deserted warehouses.

Above a pub in Islington.

In the bottom storey of a massive sandstone manor called Wadi Shaifa, looking over another valley in the Blue Mountains, with massive windows where the moon shone in, and an enchanting park down through the front yard.

In a share house in Lane Cove, with bright lights and a beautifully glittering harbour.

In a witches cottage in Katoomba, set behind the street, where magic seemed to shimmer on the walls, and I painted it cream and crimson as soon as I moved in.

In a two storey cottage on Cliff Drive near the Three Sisters, with an overgrown garden that my girlfriend and I reverently uncovered like archaeologists, in a cute and artfully painted home.

In a stunning three storey tower with floor to ceiling windows, and carved bookshelves, looking out on another valley in the mountains.

In a bluestone mansion, set into a disused sandstone quarry in Stirling, with a spa bath, and paved verandahs, and luxury living.

In a three story rammed earth squat, with wooden balconies, in a country town in Adelaide.

In a disused Uniting Church Camp, where we hung out in a massive Mess Hall with a huge stone fireplace, and I had one of the oldest churches in Adelaide, as my first ever studio.

In a quirky, greek style, 4 brick thick home in the Adelaide Hills, on beautiful land, with massive gum trees, and a sacred spot where three creeks met.  We lived in a meditation studio, and witnessed epic night skies, and one night we even saw a Moonbow.

On a community in the Adelaide Hills in a true hippy home, where all the houses were joined by the roof to stay on one title.  Living on redgum regeneration land on the Meadows creek, and right next door to pristine indigenous bush, and stately pine forests.

In a bizarre little self organized shared household in Mt Barker Springs, where we lived in an unlined shed that I hung with material. With an indoor/outdoor fire pit, that we sat around a lot. 

In a little shack on the side of Mount Donna Buang in Victoria, in breathtaking mountain ash forests.

We’ve slept in a river bed outside Alice Springs, where you can see the Emu in the sky most perfectly.  Red earth and wide skies, and the brilliant aliveness of the desert.

And in and around all of these homes, our deep and abiding hearts home, was our ex army Toyota Commuter van, that I crocheted the seat covers of, and made cargo nets and beds in, and crafted hand made swags for.  In which we drove everywhere, could be ourselves and unobserved more than anywhere else, and had a mobile environment that we took with us everywhere we went, as a permanent sanctuary.  Where we could wake up at any place in the country, and have a cuddle before a strong cup of coffee. 

We’ve lived in two beautiful houses, on the picturesque and diverse community of Billen Cliffs, in Northern NSW. 

And I’ve never loved a home and parcel of land as much as I love it here.

Living here has fit a final piece to a puzzle that I’ve been working on, researching, and personally experimenting with for decades.  That puzzle being the full capacity and breadth and wealth of bonding in it’s extreme.  And through beginning to know the ocean of it…….maybe more to the point learning in the extreme what bonding ISN’T, along the way. 

And to be brutally honest, from my perspective as a bonded lover, mother, crafter, and now home dweller and animal herd……..virtually every facet of western civilization, is more of a lesson on how to unbond, disunite, disconnect, and separate, than any kind of bonding and love leading to community, self organization and empowerment. 

I’ve written so much about bonding over the years, from many perspectives, it’s been an almost obsession in my life and blog.  All the lessons  I’ve learnt from unparalleled honesty and trust, in an intimate and loving releationship, and from my larger amount of birthing experiences than the average bear, have led to very similar whole body learnings about love and bonding.  Those lessons now extend into home, land, and animals – all universes on their own.

Before I started my interior journey through loving Currawong and birthing babies, I thought of bonding as some vague cliché thrown around in ways like ‘male bonding’ and ‘female bonding,’ to do with sports or business.  The most I really heard about it was in nature documentaries and zoo stories around bonding, and farming stories of bonding to other species.  If this kind of inter species bonding and it's potential power interests you, watch this documentary about Animal Odd Couples.

But through living all my different experiences, I’ve learnt how integral bonding really is, in our mammalian journeys, and through our ancestral and evolved consciousnesses.  I believe, through truly living my life and following my own path, I’ve stumbled onto enlightenment through all the stuff that most people like to transcend.  I’ve deeply bonded with my mate, with my children, with my home, with the land around me, and with the animals we share the land with, both domesticated and wild.  I’ve bonded with the world around me, through my focus and unbinding into the bonding of birth, sex and death.

And this is the kind of bonding, love, community and connection that my ancestors went to war for.  Defended their lands with their lives for.  And had many stories and different ways to access the divinity within them, and through them, their land and connections. 

Living as we are presently, in Western Culture, or maybe more accurately, as the most educated Roman Slaves on the planet………..it’s not surprising that virtually all aspects of our society, are about how to disconnect us from each other, to prevent that bonding and community from forming.  From my perspective anyway.

Why is homebirth and homeschooling so roundly and solidly attacked?  Have you ever wondered about that?  Such a tiny minority of people?  Who affect hardly anyone?  With virtually no damage to the average person? Why is homeschooling illegal in virtually every western nation except America and Australia?  And why is homebirthing so intensely vilified?  Could it be, that these very events can potentially create greater bonding, and thereby increase the capacity for community?  Why are the genders set up in war against each other?  Why have sensible wholes been split into dualities that are foolish without each other?  God and Science belong to each other, as a dynamic, cyclic whole.  Home birthing and Hospital birthing the same.  Cultural education and Home education as well.

When you truly look at most indigenous lifestyles in our ancestries, in which we’ve lived in for the majority of our evolution, how did we get here?  Where we send our children off there, to bond with strangers that change regularly, and a bunch of other scared and emotionally undeveloped younglings, to bond with each other?  Behind fences?  And our men off there, to work with other men usually, in work unrelated to their immediate survival, clothing or food.  And our women off elsewhere, be it to groups or services or jobs or home duties, bonding with others in other ways.  And all of this bonding and unbonding of families, is all happening elsewhere, other than our homes.  Our homes have largely become the places we eat and sleep, and nowadays watch screens.  All the important stuff we do is somewhere else.  Our jobs, our passions, our crafts, our trades, all usually happen somewhere other than our homes.  And our relationship to animals has gone from co-dependant relationships that include the land we all live on, working out how to help each other birth, survive, thrive and die with dignity, to a bizarre pet relationship where those without children of their own, or a lack of community love, can translate that bonding instead to a pet, who they love and bond with in the same intensity.  Or we have a complete disregard for any other sentience at all, in the form of factory farming.

We’ve all got a honing instinct as wide as our hearts towards bonding.  And whether it’s with an animal, partner, child, craft, home, land, trade, community, sport, religion, or spirituality, we’ll have it in our lives in some way.  And I’m suggesting that our humanimal potential is to experience bonded love in all those areas.  Or at least a lot more than just one.  If that’s our yen and destiny.  A love to family, home, animals, land, and community, that is bonded and deep, intensely intricate, and eternally interesting.  A love that is as scary as exhilarating, and deep as potentially shattering.  We waft through life with a hundred breathing hearts, connected to our beings with yarns.

And that bonding creates the oxytocic bubbles, that mirror the intense moments of birth, sex, and death, and echo through our existences.  When we connect and truly bond as families, and communities, and at markets and events, we generate a vibration that truly attracts others, hungry for that love and connection.

I’m not sure if there’s a point to all this, except that this is all deeply on my mind and in my heart at the moment.  As we experience awesome bonding with the home where we live.  The animals we live with.  Our journeys together and how attractive they are to the most interesting people.  How through deep bonding to all aspects around us, we’re experiencing self organization on a profound level.  All the aspects we need to continue our bonded and self organized flow together, and around each other, just come.  Without any effort.  The right people and events spill around like pebbles on the creek floor, effortlessly going with the flow or staying put, depending on what’s needed at the time.  Every animal, child, tree or wild animal experience, relates to other things on many different levels.  Taking the steps  towards each other, working out how to mutually benefit from each others existence, rather than harm the co-existant whole. 

Each morning we wake, with a whiff of the potential of just about anything whispering on the wind.  Any person or entity could rock up and we most likely wouldn’t be surprised.  As we sink into our self organized, bonded family, chaotic harmony, a bright buzz whirrs around us.  We’ve got more visitors coming to swing through our realities, than we ever have in our entire relationship.  One tent comes down, and another one goes up!  Things are learnt effortlessly, as valuable mentor relationships spring up all around, our vibrant and authentic children.  So much is packed into our days, that we barely get time to recognize it, before another wild event comes galloping down the road.  So much learning is fast tracked and hacked into, by so many people and lessons on our doorstep. 

We’re learning about each other, and who we really are, and other people, and how they live, and animals, and what they need to thrive, and eat, and how it’s best to be eaten, and personalities, and how deep they root, and the re-spelling of the spells that our great western culture has spelled on our souls.   

And coming across so many other people wanting to travel the same authentic paths.  Into themselves, each other, their homes and land, and other animals.

We live in one of the most diverse communities I’ve ever lived, where the main tenet is respect for every living thing, except for violence or cruelty, which is dealt with in person and directly.  There are so many people with so many philosophies trying so many different ways to live.  So many directives, inspirations, and dreams being striven for.  Nobody really knows how many communities there are in the hills of the Rainbow Region, but there are hundreds, and they’re all different.  I’ve heard tell of communities focused around medieval sword fighting and knightliness, around unschooling, christianity,  womens land, fairy land for men, permaculture, survival anarchy, the desire to share no community at all, solar power, low income earners, activists, and more exotic possibilites of this sort than you could possibly imagine. 

And all these people shop in Nimbin and Lismore, and get together at markets and events, and swap stories and experiences, and I know that it’s a world that could be endlessly explored, and never fully known.  And the experiment is a huge success from everything I’ve seen.  People have learnt compassion and acceptance from their lived experiences. 

It’s fast tracked our family community experience, as a mirror showing it’s face to a world full of mirrors. 

I think the point of all of this is to ask you to jump in.  Wherever you find it, however it moves you, find yourself a community to bond with, with your family if you have one, or if not find a family that needs you.  And dive in!  Experiment!  Realise that the hurts and pains are the equal and opposite on the way to learning how to navigate the stormy waters, leading to the gentle bay of bonded community. 

It’s the only way we’re gonna save ourselves and our planet.  To bond with it and our families and our homes and our lives and care for each other.  Because we’ve recognized our dependance on each other and everything.

Or something like that anyway :)

An Ode To Body Hair And The Great Unwashed

Now if you've studied history, and the tales of the conquerors and colonialists, there are two parts to colonising a culture and territory.  It's only the first part where there's a big war and killing with death machines, and after that comes the real strategy of utmost import, if the land conquered is to remain so.  Which is large scale divide and conquer, on every level, through every strata of the society or culture to remain colonised.  The disease of separation spread like a virus, through families, communities and peoples, based on age, belief, body type, look, profession, possessions, you name it, it can be categorised into a million different splinter groups, unlikely to ever form again into a glorious whole of connected, acknowledged, diverse and conscious parts. 

So as Australians, conquered how many times removed now?  From the Romans, to the Roman Catholics, to the English, to the prison colonies on supposed Terra Nullis…….we've been collectively divided and conquered within an inch of our long and tangled ancestral paths.  Split into billions of divisions and separations, some of the worst being within the splinters of the splinter groups, that fight each other for moral worth.  Divided and separated from our families, our bonding in our family groups, our connection to our larger communities, and extended families, our food, our water, our lifestyles, our works, our art, our clothes, our music, our homes, our animals, our authenticity, our bodies, our birthing, our body hair, our sexuality, our mammalian selves, and our smells.  

As a result of my birth, family life, religion and schooling, I was turned out into the world a bit disgusted by my own body and its emissions, and entirely grossed out by the thought of anyone else's.  I shaved and waxed and make upped and permed and wore dozens of products all over my body.  On my skin.  The most sensitive and large organ we have on our bodies.  I had sprays for my female bits, and sprays for my underarms, and shame for wherever my hair was that it wasn't 'meant' to be.  I had soaps and special face scrubs, and shampoos and conditioners, and body creams and scented panty liners, and a rigorous body hygiene that saw any body juice or smell, as something to be cleaned up and away, and the appropriate 'better' smell applied.  

Till I hit the lesbian world that is, where womens bodies were a representation of the goddess, and divine, and perfect as they were, and make up and shaving and all those other things were CHOSEN to be done, or not done at all…..PROUDLY!  I started to chill on my rigorous hygiene, and started to relax into some body smells and juices.  There were some women who had turned their back entirely on 'the system', and had amazing body smells, as they eschewed all corporations.  And then when I left that world for the other places where rare humans dwelt, I found quite a few scenes with a love for the human body in it's natural form.  Activists, anarchists, punks to be precise, are often members of the 'great unwashed', who have pushed off from the shore of chemicalised smells and shaved hair, into love and lust of the hairy, smelly, juice creating bodies we were born with.  

But my Currawong was the port where I set sail into my body in its natural form, so intoxicated I was by the sheer smell and feel and hairiness of him.  I'd reduced my money spent on corporate beauty products by a lot by the time we met, but still held onto aluminium free roll on deodorant under my arms, and a jolly good soaping and washing on a regular basis.  If I went for a few days without washing I'd start to smell in a way I didn't like.  And if I did sweaty work or sex, I'd often smell a little bit rancid after, and race off to the shower as soon as I could.  I'd become one with my bleeding, and the various smells that come with that time, but I was still seeing my body odour and flora as something to be tamed.  

And he hit my senses like a tidal wave.  An olfactorial wash that made me want to dive into him again and again.  His clothes, his bedding, his body…….the sweatier and sexier the better.  A totally intoxicating mix of musk and skin and warmth and hair and himness.  That can never be replicated or turned into a product, because it's his unique signature scent.  When we were first courting interstate, I slept on the sheets and pillows we'd slept in for weeks, wallowing in the remnant smells of him.  15 years down the track I still find his scent the most delightful aroma in the world.  

You know how all the other mammals smell each others noses, and bums, and bodies?  Sniff them all  over?  From dogs and cats to horses and elephants, us mammals know that there's a lot to be learnt from smell.  How a creature is feeling, when it's sick, when it's stressed, when it's fertile, when it's turned on, when it's angry, all of these things can be smelt.  And are translated through our signature smells.  The smells that identify us.  The smells that are our birth right, inherited in our bodies.  

So when we first got together, Currawong and I, a bit of fuss was made about his body smell.  More heady than any cologne or aftershave that had ever wafted past my nose.  Even the scent of our intermixed loving was an olfactorial orgasm.  And I was curious about his superior smell, and why I didn't have one of my own.  He told me to stop washing under my arms with soap.  And to stop using all deodorants and products of any kind.  And when I said that I'd tried that before, but I always ended up smelling rank, he said that was because the soap knocked out the ability of my underarms to regulate it's own microflora.  And to just stop soaping and wait a while.  Shower with whatever regularity I wanted, and keep soap for bits if it was really necessary, but just leave the rest alone.  Wash with our pure rainwater only, rubbing and washing my skin with the roughness of my finger pads.  

And blow me over with a feather he was right.  After a few weeks of no soap under my arms, I started to smell like me.  A signature scent that to this day, I can stick my nose in my armpit, and happily offer it to anyone to smell, with great pride and pleasure.  I smell hot.  I smell earthy and ripe and musky and sweet and it's all mine.  A result of the foods I eat, and the emotions I feel, and the sex we set sail in, and the things I do.  I've learnt that just like mens balls, when my underarms or boobs are constricted, or wrapped in polyester or plastic, they smell quite intense.  They like to be free and be connected to the breeze so my underarm hair can do it's job of regulating and spreading the scent.  So I wear clothes with no sleeves, or wide armpit holders, so there's no conqueror in my armpit.  Cause underarm hair is a large part of the smell.  Sometimes there's naturally formed salt crystals on them, and they just intensify the smell.  And underarm hair, like boobs, and pubes, can definitely be completely left alone.  To waft and move and jiggle and groove as they choose.  Like many of our ancestors from time immemorial.  

Not just communication, and not just sexual, our natural body odours are also great aides in bonding.  And comfort.  And creating a sense and smell of home wherever you go.  I've had more than one child who has buried their head into my armpit when they're upset.  And more than one person on whom I've casually left my scent in a hug, who has told me how good I smell.  We had one friend who told us we were the strongest smelling humans she knew, and that it was a really good thing.  We had friends who said they could smell us as soon as they entered a supermarket in Mt Barker, above all the air ducted smells, and they sniffed us out till they found us.  We spent a night in a perfumed bed, and Spiral-Moon baby cried and cried and cried until we went out to the bus, got our sheets, and remade the bed with our bedding.  Only then did she finally sleep.  And at markets back in Maccy a bit down the olfactorial track, when more than a few had sniffed our whiff, we'd meet up early in the pre market dawn, and give each other a snuffle of our pits.  Many a friend has vowed to stop using soap on their underarms, and told us later they were delighted with the results.  Most of our birthing experiences have revolved around bonding, and wanting our baby to be born into the smells and feelings of home.  To stay quietly with me and be welcomed to the world slowly and gently.  To soak up the heady perfume of birth, that once you've smelt it you'll never forget.  To bond closely, skin to skin, heart beat to heart beat, with no bras and deodorants and factory farmed smells intruding.  If you look into early human practices, there was a time when we licked the perineum of our babies after they were born, like the other mammals.  And the smells of birth were considered an integral part of a bonded birth.

Because to be totally honest…..after spending so many years with real smelling humans, doing all the communicating and hugging and sniffing that we do, the cloy of a factory farmed scent is quite offensive to my nostrils.  There's been so much fuss over the years, that some folk have even fronted me on, about the offensive smell of B.O.  So many mainstream people seem assured that the best thing to do in the face of an authentic human animal smell is to disinfect it and cover over the scent with the same smell as a million others.  At least.  To hide it.  Smother it.  Get rid of it quick.  I remember one night, in the height of our summer of love at the market, when there was a circus tent full of opera goers on the oval beneath our hippy camp.  We walked down to check it out, and were assaulted by a tsunami of chemically toxic perfumes and colognes.  I ended up holding my breath.  Grieving for the olfactory sensation I'd been robbed of, had I been able to swim through an ocean of signature smelling humans.  And Currawong and I both fondly talk about the events that we've been to full of human smelling humans.  On summer evenings, with sweat drenched bodies singing their aromas to the wind, many moments of connection and bonding occurred.  Our sex life revolves massively around our body odours.  We communicate so much with the way we smell.  One day I met Currawong at the door after a hot day away armpit first.  And it made him melt to the point of almost collapsing.  His knees instantly went from beneath him. And all the different zones on him, and how they smell, never cease to entrance me and stir me from stupor.  He's my Pied Piper, and I'll follow his scent to the ends of the earth.  

I'm only writing this, cause I was set to think by an article about underarm hair sent to me by a friend.  It really tripped me out that, like the fella said…

Mr Hopper sees his project as a 'type of protest' against the beauty industry.

'Although armpit hair is a natural state it has become a statement. Why is that?' he writes.  'For almost a century we have been brainwashed by the beauty industry, encouraging hair removal. Natural Beauty could be classified as a type of protest. 

'By creating a contrast between common "fashionable" female beauty and the raw unconventional look of female armpit hair, thoughts are intrigued and a discussion is made,' he explains.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2600074/Body-hair-natural-NOT-gross-Striking-images-women-unshaven-underarms-protest-conventional-standards-beauty.html#ixzz2zUurRJyT
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

It really is quite bizarre that we find the natural state of our bodies that we were born with…..abhorrent.  One of the models even pulled out of the project, cause she was so 'grossed out' by her body hair.  I just don't get it.  In a society ruled by many religions and spiritualities, collective in their belief that we are made in the image of God/ess, in whichever form that takes…….how have we got so far from loving ourselves exactly as we are?  Aren't we meant to be a reflection of perfection?  It doesn't occur to me much to talk about, as it's so completely and intrinsically part of who we are, but when I read this article I thought I should post out a view from one of the many alternatives to the beauty industry.  Cause I know when I was enthralled with it, I never stopped to think that there was any other way.  It's a great big arsed multinational corporation regime that has many dancing to the beat of its drum.  

I love my underarm hair.  And I don't have to be part of a project to do so.  It's one of the sexiest things about me I think.  Currawong concurs.  And there is the odd human around who has kept a love for natural smells despite the mainstream.  I remember once Hairy Dave back in Maccy, telling Currawong rather sheepishly that he wasn't trying to cut his lunch, but he saw me lift my arm, and the sweat glistening on my armpit hairs was glinting in the sunlight, and he couldn't help it mate, but he barred up!  All said with a big grin and laugh of course.  Love it.  And I love every inch of hair on my man.  Incidentally, I don't think I've ever shared mine and Currawong's theme song with you on here.  I knew it from my lesbian days, and thought it was a hoot, and never expected that the song would go on to prove quite prophetic……except we obviously missed out a bit on the birth control :)  But here it is nonetheless.  Our theme song.  'I spent my last $10 on birth control and beer' by Two Nice Girls.

And I can't talk about body hair without a specific mention of pubic hair.  It's another amazing part of our bodies, that doesn't necessarily need taming.  And a rather special part in my experience.  One thing I particularly love about my pubic hair is that with every pregnancy I've experienced, it's grown really long.  Like a hairy protective measure to keep what's inside safe.  It also can perform a rather miraculous alchemical role in the collection of juices that can happen around there.  And I've only ever shaved it off completely once, and by gawd it hurt and was itchy and scratchy when it started to grow back.  How do you all go through that?  And of course…..if I'm talking about pubic hair, I'm going to have to share with you Amanda Palmer's song 'Map Of Tasmania', cause when I saw it I really fell in love with her.  Both the cheekiness and creativity of the whole clip and song about the map of Tasmania, but also her complete abandon for flashing her hairy pits.

Currawong and I totally agree, that the only humans that ever really enter our attraction radars, are totally hairy and smelling like themselves :)  Let your hair and body be what they're meant to be!  And at least run an experiment, to see whether there isn't a sexy smell lurking on your body, once it's had the chance to regain it's natural ecosystem…….

Birth, Sex and Bonding

Currawong and I have been talking a lot lately, as we clean and move and open spaces and practice our Wombling arts.  And one of the subjects that has come up quite often, has been the noble art of the fence sitter.  I just want you to suspend all judgement for the purposes of this post, and when you hear the term fence sitter, instead of thinking of someone who can’t make up their mind, think someone sitting on the fence that can see both sides of it with equal clarity.  And respect.  And can choose to hop from one side to the other if they feel the need, but the comfortable space inbetween is where they’re most likely to be found.  And sitting on it means they can take advice and knowledge from both camps, as well as being high enough and empathetic enough, to be able to see even beyond the two camps, to the many other camps stretched along and beyond the fence.  With a doves eye view to compare the two main camps and their similarities and differences.  And with the potential to help people from either side over to each other.  And maybe even get to the point where the fence can be removed all together, and a respectful and honest discussion can take place without any fences or gates or even pergolas in sight. 

I’ve found myself on the fence a lot in my life.  Being able to see both sides of a situation, argument, sexuality, ideology, philosophy or concept.  And being blessed and fortunate to come across many others perching on fences, Currawong in particular, who have always gifted me with the treasures of even more ways of looking at just about everything.  And I’ve got to say I’m firmly on the fence in this whole homebirth/hospital birth scene, and can see many other scenes and perspectives on birth also stretched along the fence and growing out in the fields, for as far as my eye can see.   Many camps on sex and pregnancy and birth and families get a bit hidden by the huge clouds of smoke, that billow around the bitter battle being fought, by the most outspoken heroes and heroines of each side.  With the odd warrioress or warrior coming in from the outlands, to bring tales of other fences and other sides…………and even stories of the wildlands, where no fences dwell at all.

I’ve watched this big battle between hospital and homebirth, with the egos and philosophies attached to them, and the condescension and arrogance that can appear on both sides.  Their reactions against each other have ricocheted into the outside world, and often engage in personal attacks against individuals who seem to exemplify either camp.  One of those individuals has been me, as I’ve been painted as some kind of sex crazed tramp, selfishly putting my birthing ideals above the importance of the safety of my babies, and ‘bat shit crazy’ in my death defying birth choices.  I’ve watched the war from my perspective, go from being between a war between a few personalities on either side, to escalating into a war between personalities and the attendants that flock to support them, and attacking people on a personal level.  And also escalate into South Australia and other places, trying to ban all doula’s and birth attendants from attending hospital births.  And most alarmingly perhaps, to me anyway, I see the fallout from this battle result in scaring the shit out of women on both sides of the fence, about how demonic and deranged the other side can be.  Another sadder side effect is the huge, enormously large amount of women and babies and families and birthing experiences that go largely unheard of or ignored, as they’re not classical examples of the publicly agreed on versions of birth. 

Homebirth seems to be increasingly seen as the choice of radicals or traumatized victims of unnecessary interventions in hospitals.  As a far out choice in birth, that a ‘certain element’ is always going to try and access, so should thereby be made safe, for those of the community who aren’t capable of making safe choices for themselves.  I’ve been the interest of a magazine that wanted to interview me as an anonymous contributor to an article about sex during birth, with a slant on how sex crazed Currawong and I must be, to even entertain the notion of it.  Viewing it as some far out option that people might like to voyeuristically and anonymously poke fun at. 

From my spot on the fence, and with all my experiences and research, as well as all the birthing stories I’ve read and been asked to read………in the overall wash it all seems to come out about even.  Some people have awesome hospital experiences, some people have awesome homebirth experiences, some people have crap times at hospital, some have a crap homebirth.  Some babies die at home, some die at hospital.  Some are safer at home, some are safer in a hospital.  All in all it seems that all we can truly learn from birth is that it’s unpredictable, undomesticatable, mostly ‘successfull’ no matter where it is, and universally unique to each individual person. 

And I feel increasingly that I’d like to jump off my fence and sit in the camp of homebirthing for a moment, to describe some of the aspects of homebirthing that have taught themselves to me along the way, and would like to have their flags flown as potential camps, beyond the warfare waging at the most focused on fence. 

Let’s first address sexuality in birth.  This concept was alien to me for my first three children, and I never even thought about it as a possibility.  But my third baby also came with lessons about bonding.  The importance of it, and more poignantly for me, the impact that a lack of bonding could have on a family unit.  When pregnant with my fourth child, bonding, and how to do it the very best we could, was paramount in all our minds.  And much to my surprise, I stumbled across sexuality during birth for the first time, in my search to do it better.  In books written by fundamentalist Christians about reclaiming birth from doctors AND midwives, and having it sacred for husbands and wives and their children only, and having liberal sex whilst birthing, as babies came out best, the same way they went in. 

Amazonesque, I strode into my fourth birthing experience striving for self acceptance in my midwife and hospital free stance, and also a dose of sex during the birth……which turned out to be a bit shy and new, and all a bit innocent.  Not quite a step towards an orgasmic birth.  And I was awful glad that a magical midwife turned up just in the nick of time to hold my hand and keep us feeling safe. 

Now just as an aside, apart from there being a large amount of truth to the concept that babies come out best often the same way they went in, there is also the matter of picotin.  Or in it’s more pragmatic description….pig sperm.  Which is what you could be given to induce birth in hospitals, as well as a machine that simulates sucking of your nipples to stimulate the same sexual hormones as the pig sperm, to induce your baby to come forth.   It’s an age old suggestion, when a woman wants to bring a baby on, to either have sex, or go for a drive on a bumpy dirt road.  Now call me old fashioned, but when it comes to trying to bring a baby on, I’d far rather have my partners sperm and nipple sucking, than a pigs and a machines.  And folk think I’M the weirdo?

So sex for the first time during a birth of ours, was more curiosity, loving and philosophical, rather than anything sensational or sexy.  Same for the birth of our fifth baby, as a semi-desperate attempt when we realized he wasn’t coming.  For our twins it was the same.  An attempt to co-erce a baby that was taking a long time, and more importantly my body that had kind of just shut down, to wake up and start birthing again.  In my post about the birth of the twins, I said “taking Currawong off into the back room for a quick fix of sex and semen”, when what I really could have said was we went off into the back room and I gave my love a blow job.  As a doula friend once told us, it doesn’t matter how it goes in. My dear little frangers on their hate forum made a good deal about the fact that there was also an umbilical cord present, but that kind of attention to detail says far more about them than about me. 

And as an addendum to sex during birth, our ultimate and climactic sex during the birth of our eighth child, put all our other attempts to shame.  Terrified of birthing out of water, the sexuality and strength and power of birthing on our bed with my lover, after we’d made love and had an intense orgasm not long before alone, and the bellydancer-esque movements I was making as we got closer to birth, was easily and more powerfully as transforming of birth expansions, as any of my experiences in water.  And really did show us both the real power of sex during birth.  Not to mention how incredibly bonding the whole experience can be.  Now I’m not saying that birth should be sexy, and all mamas should orgasm, and I remember being really pissed off at this kinda 'perfect' stereotype that seemed to exist of the organic food eating, homebirthing, orgasmic birthing, blissfull breastfeeding, psychically in-tune, new age earth mother thing, cause I’ve never felt overly in tune with any of my babies internally except for odd sublime moments, and I’ve hardly ever picked the right gender, and I’ve got my expectations wrong so completely, so many times, that I’ve learnt it’s just best to keep my mouth shut.  And I love and honour breastfeeding for the amazing thing it is, but I don’t really LOVE it, like some people seem to. But sometimes there’s moments of pure magic, and like I said before, I’m not saying anyone should do anything, but I just want to let you know that there are other possibilities, because glory be to diversity, and everyone feeling the freedom to check out whatever option appeals, no matter how wacky it might sound at first.

Lotus birthing sounded really wacky to me at first as well, but that kinda grew on me also.  I’m firmly on the fence with this lotus birthing business as well, cause I don’t know about anyone elses experience, but I’ll be damned if my two little lotus babies aren’t the most pernickety, tantrum throwing, WILLFULL creatures that I’ve ever met.  Full of the most surprises as well, but wild in a league all of their own.  I was kinda glad in a way that the twins births and that of number eight meant that lotus birthing was out of the question. 

But back to the main issues for this piece about sex and bonding, I would have to say that my forays into sexuality during birthing, have all been motivated by the desire to further explore bonding, and its importance to me personally, and to the world at large.  And in the process of writing this post, I’ve had my computer go off to the shop to get fixed for a week, and have had a week off all computer and internet action, and spent my time cleaning and reading stories and spinning and loving, but also thinking lots on bonding.  Just yesterday, Currawong and I had an inspired and expansive talk on the impact of bonding in our original families, where we both felt like an almost endless array of lines of dominoes knocked into each other in all directions, making sense of so many hard thought out childhood aches.  And present day problem knots all of a sudden appeared differently and clearly.

To be quite blunt about it, I believe bonding, or rather our collective and monumental mismanagement and ignorance of it in our current society, to be the root and cause of just about every personal and societal pain and evil and seperation and isolation and betrayal in our modern world.  And I have been led to this position by every experience in my life.  From my own conception and birth, to that of all my 8 children, the stories from my closest friends and loved ones, independent study, and a vast collection and memory of stories. 

The first time I really bumped into bonding was after the birth of my first child Jessica.  I was a fairly unremarkable and ‘average’ Australian at the time, having had a bit of a kooky childhood but who hadn’t?  Not too far really from my mormon upbringing at the age of 21, fresh from selling life insurance on the North Shore in Sydney and before that backpacking around Europe.  Birth existed in the slightly scary stories around me and in hospitals and with the ‘people that knew best’.  My sister-in-law had had a homebirth, but she kinda scared me too.  I’d been to pre-natal classes with my mother and got the poor single mother looks from the couples, and my mum had been blown away by the amount of information and alternative approaches on revisiting birth, 20 years down the track from her own experiences.  But I really had no idea.  No real expectations. Vague ideas about maybe looking in a mirror to see the babys head emerging.  And maybe bouncing on a ball. 

And it was a shock.  I was totally unprepared for its intensity, and when it came time to maybe look in a mirror, I was growling for drugs.  It squeezed.  And I fought it.  I didn’t know what to do or expect, and nobody had really told me.  It seemed harsh and endless and like I was abandoned to this foggy world between worlds.  But when she was born, the euphoria and ecstasy and bliss I felt, was also beyond any I’d experienced before.  This was another world altogether, one of purpose and pride.  The enormous sense of attentive protection was almost overwhelming.  I couldn’t stop looking at her and touching her and wondering at this little creature who had emerged from inside me.  The face and skin and delicate little body, that up till now had just been eerie movements and hiccups in my belly.  After a long while, I was prompted to have a quick shower, which I did while my mother went with my new daughter to have her checks.  And then we quickly tucked up in bed together, and that melting bliss continued. 

Some time later a brisk german midwife entered my room, informed me I needed to feed my baby, pulled aside my pyjama top, grabbed my breast, and then held her head to it, forcing us to connect.  I was shocked, but I complied, and then when she’d taken her hands off us, and we could settle into each other again, we got somewhere with breastfeeding, and then I was told that I needed to sleep and my baby would be taken to the nursery.  She took my little person fresh from my womb, and folded her into the plastic cot, and wheeled her out of the room.  I sat there stunned.  And that loving protective feeling I’d been feeling, turned into a fierce animal grunt in my belly that ached for that little part of me, and I felt like a strong rope between us pulled……..and I crept out behind the midwife, hiding behind doors and corners, till I saw her walking away and I swept straight in the nursery, wheeled my baby back in my room and tucked her back in my arms.  And I didn’t let her go till my mother got back to the hospital and took us home, to settle into each other without any observers except her.    And I was really glad that I was on the early release program, and didn’t have to stay the night.  Resultantly, my mother and my firstborn daughter and I, left to our own devices, bonded very strongly as a trinity.   

I was an overly obedient girl till that point.  Followed all the rules and laws and suggestions given me by everyone I saw as superior, which was basically everyone.  A few guilty secrets in my closet, and a few naughtinesses had happened, but I really didn’t feel very different to the norm.  I had no precedence for this kind of going against advice, and feeling a strong instinct of any sort.  I continued on my instinct, to breastfeed her on demand, co-sleep with her in bed, ( much to the differing advice of all the other young mothers and midwives and people around me at the time ), and stayed exclusively breastfeeding till she was 8 months old, against the rather angry advice from the baby check nurse.  I had a tremendously strong instinct to follow her and my instincts, with a focus on hers the most, as they were the freshest and more pure.  And she was totally robust and healthy.  I gave her the vaccinations that everyone else did, I had her checked regularly that she was growing properly, but apart from that, we were attachment parenting.  I had a very dear friend who’d had a baby a year earlier, and she gently broke me in to some alternative parenting methods.  And gave me a copy of ‘The Continuum Concept’ by Jean Leidlehoff, the reading of which left me with a sense of total validation and vindication. 

I was introduced to the concept of the human as a mammal, with the indigenous peoples parenting practices being represented as a bit closer to our evolutionary path, than the rather jagged and mechanical western civilization and it’s approach to modern birth and bonding. 

My first birthing experience, combined with what I discovered afterwards, was strongly with me 9 years later when we birthed Griffyn in a hospital spa bath.  I’d done a bit of growing and learning since that first time, and had also grown more experienced at breaking the rules, following alternative paths, and searching out rarified knowledges and concepts and approaches to life.  And I had a partner in love to whom I was sexually bonded, an equally strong yet different bond to that I have with my children.  And he was fresh from being an anarchistic punk rocker, with a special skill in exploding any beliefs I had left about the benevolence of those in power, and the world being overseered by good and godly people.  When Griffyn was born by surprise in the spa bath, while the midwife was off getting the machine that went ‘bing’, (I was only dilated 8 centimeters!), she got back to me in the bath with Griffyns head out, and she panicked and pulled the plug.  So in transition, and just about to push, I put my hand over the plug hole, gathered my energy, and then pushed him out.  After blissing in the bath for a bit, I got up, tucked him under my arm, said ‘That was so easy!’ (which it had been compared to my first birth), strode off to our room after pushing the proffered wheelchair out of the way, then pushed the hospital bed on its wheels to the wall, and showed Currawong where he could lay out the futon that I’d directed him to bring.  He’d been really embarrassed about the whole concept before Griffyn was born, but I’d insisted.  And when we all three of us lay on the futon, with Griffyn inbetween us, and Currawong and him sleeping, I thought my heart would burst with love, as I looked at my dearly loved man and little firstborn son, laying so beautifully asleep in front of me.  I cried with how amazing they were, and high on those bonding birthing hormones, I couldn’t sleep for how hungry my gaze was to feast on their perfection. 

We also went home that day, and didn’t have to spend the night in hospital, and we bedded in for two weeks altogether.  On the first day after the first night at home, we both sat in the bed together, with Griffyn as a newborn  on our kneeling up legs, crying about how much we loved him, how perfect he was, and how much we loved each other.  We had gentle friends coming peacefully to welcome him, and those present at his birth as our supporters came to visit us every day, to retell the story of his birth, and how beautiful it was.  We all bonded together, our inner circle of family, and two close friends, and it was like they were drawn back every day for two weeks to revisit the bond, and the smells, and the love, and the brand new life that had brought us so lovingly together. 

Lilly, as my third born child and first homebirth experience, was totally different.  And taught me perhaps the most about the power of bonding, especially in its absence.  Between three midwives, the bonding between Currawong and Griffyn and I, and the bonding between my mother and my firstborn and I, as we were birthing in my mothers house……..circumstances ensued that I’m not really at liberty to talk about freely in order to be sensitive to the feelings of people I love, and absolutely no bonding happened at all except for between Lilly and me.  We experienced anti-bonding.  Nothing violent or terrible happened, but tragic miscommunications and age old patterns and unseen situations collided in a way that left the beautiful home and water birth of Lilly as an almost unnoticed event.  That quickly moved to the background in the light of inconveniences that intruded on the babymoon before it even started.  The first two weeks of Lillys life were spent in such lonely isolation, that I plummeted to a depth of depression that I’d not often been.  Her magical birth was overshadowed by the sadness that followed.  To such a degree that Lilly refused to be held by anybody but me for the first year of her life.  Nobody.  Not my mother, or Currawong, or close friends, or anyone.  Not even remotely would she abide the mere suggestion.  She’s very firm our Lilly.  So I just got used to my little friend that came with me everywhere, and there was more than ample room on my lap and in my arms for my little Lilly.  And our bonding grew stronger. 

And when she was coming up to two years old, and screaming louder and longer than any kid I’d ever heard, and I found out I was pregnant with another, I started unpeeling and unpacking what had happened in her birth, trying to work out what her caterwauling was about.  On her second birthday we were held strong in the arms of a loving market that we’d co-created, and a big surprise birthday was held for Lilly.  All her favourite people who she’d finally allowed to hold her after she turned one were there, and a whole market full of people stood around her as she sat on my lap, singing her happy birthday, and I felt her get it.  She looked around her at all these near and loved faces, and she knew they were there for her, and that they loved her, and I do believe that for the first time in her life she finally felt WELCOMED by the world and her family.  And it was good.  And she sat back comfy in my lap and I felt her world shift a bit.  And do you know what?  She never screamed as loud or as long ever again after that day.  And she finally allowed Currawong to give her a kiss at night without him receiving her elbow……

And I read the books that I mentioned above from the fundamentalist Christians, and they echoed in me.  The fuss made about midwives and doctors and all these other folk, when it’s a man and woman that make a baby most often, in the warm and sultry sweetness of a love soaked bed, and what nicer way for that baby to be welcomed into the world, than in the same way that it was conceived?  With two loving parents who know exactly who you are, and when you started, and are looking forward to what their love looks like clothed in the skin of a brand new life.  I started to think I wanted to try freebirthing.  Just Currawong and Griffyn and Jess and mum around.  With maybe a friend as a support person.  And I kept unpacking and unpeeling the sores on our hearts after Lillys unbonding, and it took me on the path that I told you about above, but one last little story is about her and Griffyn.

Who never really bonded.  And never really got on.  Lilly was an intrusion on a rather splendid life for Griff, and when she was born, all these strange things had happened, and his life had been forever changed.  Around the time of Lillys second birthday, and reading these books, and healing the aches from her birthing experience, I was reading some of the first information I’d consciously really taken on about bonding.  And it’s importance.  And it started to make sense to me what had really gone on.  And I tried to repair what I could.  And one day, as Griff at nearly five was sitting on a couch, it occurred to me to really tell him the story of Lillys birth, and what had happened, and how it went askew, and how none of it had anything to do with him and the sort of boy he was, or Lilly, and the sort of birth she had.  And it was one of my better moments, where I was fairly impassioned, and all sorts of puzzle pieces were coming together in my head, and Currawong and Jess and my mum and Lilly were all around, and they all heard what I was saying, and I saw him get it.  Saw the realizations hit him, and watched him making sense of it.  And their relationship changed from that day forward.  He was clear about the story, and how it wasn’t his fault, and him and Lilly remain to this day the best of friends.  Compadres who give each other as good as they get, have each others backs, and laugh, giggle and talk more than any other siblings I know.  Her relationships with everyone started to heal at that point.  Which was greatly assisted by the birth and bonding of Spiral-Moon. 

And my interest in bonding has gone on to grow and develop through all the other births of Balthazar, which is a story of an attempted homebirth that ended up as an emergency caesarean, and had disrupted bonding due to Post Natal Depression, and the births of Maxamillion and Merlin, which bonded us closely in our immediate family in the face of extreme adversity and total fallout with community and close family, but highlighted so many areas of bonding with other people throughout my life, and how bonding was an evolutionary imperative.  I wrote a post about bonding and evolution after the twins were born, trying hard to get across the enormity of what I was starting to connect between our society and bonding in particular. 

And most recently, the birth of Zarrathustra would have to be the penultimate in my experience of a spiritual, sexual, bonding homebirth,  that has transformed all our lives in a tremendously positive way.

To put it very simply, I believe that bonding is one of the most important things we do as humans, and it’s so integral to me and my family and our connected experiences, that we will do just about anything we can, to be able to hold a new baby as soon as it’s born, and sit around in the comfort of our home while we all meet each other, and sleep near each other as we soak in the new smells, and not separate anyone from each other in those fragile early weeks of the magical bond of birth.

To be able to treat birth with the sacredness it deserves, being the only time that this baby will ever be born into this body.  To feed and sleep when our instincts dictate, instead of to a schedule.  To be unobserved and protected in a love bubble of babymoon.

And now I’ve shone the light pretty well on my personal experience in regards to bonding……..I want to turn that light around to the rest of the world.

I just want you to sit for a minute, and think really deeply about all the advice and folk knowledge you’ve heard in your life about other animals and bonding.  The fragility and importance of it.  Did you ever get told that you couldn’t touch the brand new baby kittens, because their mother might smell you on them and reject them?  Did you watch news stories about all the incredible lengths they go to in Zoos, to help parents conceive for a start, which is an equally instinctual and hormonally fragile and important connection as bonding, and then to not reject the babies?  About how birds and their eggs and nests should never be disturbed? Did you ever see that amazing film/documentary called ‘The Weeping Camel’??  Where a camel had a traumatic birth and rejected her baby, and a local musician shaman, was called over to perform the ancient ceremony of singing the baby and mother back together again, with the rest of the family.  And the mother camel cried, and then the disrupted bonding was healed, as she welcomed her baby back.  When you really sit and think about all the stories you’ve heard about animals and their bonding, and if you’ve had a lot to do with animals, have you had experiences of bonding between animals, even interspecially??  Those stories about baby lambs whos mothers died, and they bonded with the first creature they saw, be it human, goat or dog? And what happens when that bond is broken, or disrupted, or betrayed??  And does it ever make you wonder if the same seemingly immutable laws of nature and mammals and bonding apply to us?

I think they do. 

And I don’t think us humans messing with bonding is a new thing either. The Spartans used to throw a baby to the ground after it was born to produce warriors, and the Mayans used to bury the placenta on battlegrounds and separate boy babies from their mothers early, to induce the same results.  In fact, with the acquisition of land needed by early agriculturalists and settlers, a militia was needed to conquer and maintain control over lands acquired, and in our earlier times, it may have seemed that the creation of warriors was an important thing.  And maybe we got so caught up in disrupting that bond, that we forgot why we started doing it, and the horse has run away from the cart.  It's worth asking the question of what kind of an impact this disrupted bonding is having with all our relationships.

It wouldn’t be hard to look at the birthing practices of western civilization, and conclude that we bond our babies to machines and children of their own age group, with families as a poor second or third to the importance of their primary bonding.  Most other mammals and primates mother their children in groups until sexual maturity, and then sometimes the boys will go off, but the girls often stay within the clan for their lives, and share all the care and nurturance of their young. 

Bonding in the other animals of nature, creates a connection between family groups, that both teaches the young how to survive by instruction and example, but also creates enough love in the group, that they’ll have each others backs,  nurture the bonded young into adulthood, and help to share all the necessary chores with other family, hunt and gather for each other, and ensure the family groups survival.   The relatively new science of Ethnopediatrics shows how when we human animals changed our bodies design, by going from 4 legs to 2 and growing our brains, we also changed our birthing process, which ended up in babies having to be born prematurely, in order for their heads to be able to get out.  And then adaptation had to do its magic, so that mothers would be induced to keep their babies close for the 9 months or so outside the womb, that they needed to survive. 

And because of my dedication to bonding, and to doing it the best we can, or healing the impact of disrupted bonding, we’ve become a fully bonded family that many of us aren’t used to anymore, and I know this from the reactions and triggers we set off in nearly everyone we come across.  Who either don’t have such a close relationship with their partner, or their children, or altogether, or a pain and ache in their relationships with their family of birth, and either love us to bits and pieces as a possible way to run relationships…..or have a strong reaction against us, thinking us abnormal or just too confronting. 

I think we’ve forgotten how to have deep and loyal friendships and bonds, that last for a lifetime, regardless of where an individuals journey takes them.  I think we’ve forgotten what it feels like to experience unconditional love.  Just like we’ve forgotten what it feels like to wear clothes grown in the sun and turned into clothing by loving hands, and foods that are grown in our gardens and by those we love, and how incredible they taste, and homeing in living houses built by family hands, and the immense satisfaction and fulfillment in sharing in rich and connected bonded relationships, with the people and environment around us.  For those of you who have actually read Lord Of The Rings…….our recent cultural bonds are mirrored by how we turned the deep love and loyalty of the family bonds present in the book, to the fluffy and anecdotal relationship between the hobbits in the movie, who are portrayed as fools and not overly loyal, and leaving out the deep connection to the land of Tom Bombadill, for the flashy wars and fight scenes, which were fairly sparse in the book.  Relationships are dispensable in our throw away society.

And now to bring it all round in a circle, I’ll jump back on my fence between homebirthing and hospital birthing and suggest that maybe we could chuck this war and this fence and all the egos away, and put all the things we know about birth and its permutations into a far reaching and diversity supporting and interconnected meadow, and acknowledge that hospitals and midwives and women and men and children and psychologists and healers and body workers all need to get together, as essential parts of the same whole, and totally redress the way we do birth altogether in our culture.  And bonding.  And sexuality throughout it all.  And families, be they of blood or heart. 

Surely we can find ways that absolutely everyone, can create the space that they need, with the support that they want, to honour the importance and generational continuation, of the stories around birth and bonding and family and community that we create……..