Open
By: Lisa Murray-Doran B.Sc.,
N.D.
Open.
I am 35 weeks pregnant with my third child and I am beginning to phase
into that “place” – you know it – where pregnant ladies go when their baby is
close. We daydream a lot. We don’t sleep as much at one time. We become forgetful. We sing in the shower. We dance to music naked in our living rooms
and enjoy how our bodies feel. We cry
easily. Strange things are very
important to us – like the baseboards being clean, or having 14 meals made and
frozen and ready or hand sewing a nightie for this little one (because you did
it for the other two and how could you possibly NOT do it for this one?) Or getting unreasonably upset when the
neighbours are not recycling – after all if everyone did this what kind of
world would it be? We’d be up to our
eyeballs with pop cans in our landfills!
This morning I dragged up from our dungeon of
a basement a huge canvas that I bought at an art store years ago – always
meaning to paint something, someday.
It’s a huge white vast canvas, and today it’s wanting to be
painted. I’ve never painted anything
before – but today, suddenly I want to put an image on that canvas – an image
in my head that I can see vividly today.
So I will. As I sit here three
large crows land in the tree above me, quietly resting for a moment. I wonder who is watching me – I’ve always
believed crows to be my protectors and seeing three at once is unusual. I feel lucky. Something is at work in the universe. I am opening.
My mind is filled with revelation, wonder and
understanding. This is the third time
I’ve entered the third stage or the “ripe” stage of pregnancy. I am understanding with my own personal and professional
(as a Naturopathic Doctor and a Doula) experiences, as well as those of my friends and clients, that women ripe with
pregnancy begin to open their minds and their hearts to this new soul they will
be welcoming into their homes much before they begin the work of opening their
bodies.
Women who are willing to recognize that this
is happening to them seem to be more open to many things that normally they
might not be. We are vulnerable and
raw. We act a lot on instinct. We nest.
We start to shed cultural habits that would actually inhibit us from
dancing naked in our living room, or labouring like an animal. We remember our dreams and can write about
them and talk about them and feel they mean something. We find meaning in three crows landing in a
tree as we sip red raspberry leaf tea on our balcony on a Tuesday afternoon. We want to paint and sing and cry and dance
because it feels good and connects us more closely somehow with our
spirits – with our baby – and with life.
I appreciate the blue sky today and marvel at
the trueness of the colour. I adore
the fact that my bed looks out my picture window directly into a giant 100 year
old maple tree and how the sunlight filters through the leaves in the
morning. Breathing seems more important
and the dishes and laundry just don’t.
My senses seem to be heightened: my skin more sensitive to touch or to
breezes, my ears more sensitive to harsh sounds, my eyes avoiding harsh neon
and seeking gentle lights, candles and filtered sun or moonlight. Taste is different and my body desires
different foods that it normally does – I want fruit and I want fresh
strawberries and I want an entire bag of carrots for lunch, (which makes me
laugh because my youngest exclaimed the other day that our baby was sure going
to have good eyes because I’ve been eating so many carrots).
Meditation is easier for me. Being so open to the world makes opening my
mind in meditation easier and more fulfilling.
Quiet, still time is important, mostly because I feel I need to listen –
that there are lessons in the way the leaves are rustling and the birds are
singing today that I need to learn.
It’s time to know again that my body and mind are deeply connected with
the rhythms of the day and the moon and the seasons and that, as I labour,
those rhythms are reflected in my contractions, in the way my body will slowly
open for my babe. Just as my mind and
heart are opening today and will keep opening for the next months as I approach
labour and then cocoon with my little one afterward.
Professionally, (and personally), I have always been aware that the conciousness of pregnant women shifts either before labour begins or often during labour if they are willing to allow the shift in perception to happen. Some professionals talk about the almost trance-like state that many labouring women are able to enter into and how that state of mind allows women to give up control of their bodies - allowing their bodies to do the work that they need to do. A difficult transition, as so many women today are trained to retain control of their bodies and their emotions, to deny many of their instincts, to be more analytical and competitive. However difficult it is, it’s always a delight to see women get there – how strong our birthing instincts are to listen to our bodies - to trust in the process. How powerful our connection to the world when we can trust that ancient instinct and give up our control.
Opening as a pregnant or birthing women
encourages others to open up as well.
Connections with partners and children and friends strengthen and
intensify, allowing the expression of emotions in words like “I love you” or “I
am fearful”. Opening is a time of great
intuition and connection with our subconcious.
It’s a wonderful time to address
and resolve gently issues within ourselves or within our relationships. Often times, issues that need to be
addressed and worked through surrounding past births or past sexual experiences
will come to the forefront of a woman’s mind.
Often she will acknowledge a fear or a feeling that she was unable to
before her pregnancy; or have insight
into self destructive behaviours and be able to seek help or make healthier
decisions. Knowing and truly
acknowledging this openness requires that partners and friends trust our
instincts, respect our vulnerability and provide us with the nurturing
acceptance that we need, allowing us to develop this instinctual trust and to
unfurl and expose ourselves in a safe way.
This issue of trust is so vital that it’s very important to discuss the
issue of a safe birthing place and how to create an environment where a woman
can feel safe enough to open during
labour especially if she hasn’t been able to open up during her pregnancy,
hasn’t been able to listen to her instincts.
The professionals that surround us during
this time need to be able to honour and protect this openess, to allow it to
happen, to speak gently and dim the lights.
To acknowledge that we hear and sense everything happening around us and
within us while we are pregnant and birthing. Perhaps even deeper feelings such
as fear or distrust in the process that we would not normally be able to
intuit. We need to be nurtured and
touched gently – this is not a medical process, it is a spiritual and physical
process – it is instinctual, and every woman does it differently. This encompasses our prenatal exams, our
labours, our births, and our immediate
and longer-term postpartum period. This
is gentle birthing and respect for a
process, this opening, that is a
normal, although not widely discussed, function of our body and spirit.
The use of art and music during the last part
of pregnancy can be a catalyst for opening or a continuation of it, as these creative forces directly address
the spiritual connection to our bodies, our babies and our births and do not
require a spoken, analytical account of fears or issues. Watercolours and clay can be most useful,
especially the use of the Watercolour technique called veiling – where only
light veils of watercolour are applied to wet paper and the experience of the
colour and the texture of the colours is important. The movement of the
watercolour on the paper can be very much like the movement of the breath or
the spirit. Working with clay is a
useful technique to get in touch with the body, to ground ourselves on the
earth, to reconnect with our bodies rhythms and experience a “creation” or an
incarnation of a physical object.
Music, any type we are called to or have a connection with, is important
as well, helping our bodies to move and sway in instictual ways; opening us up
to feelings and emotions that we may not be able to fully express
verbally; allowing us to experience
these feelings and emotions in our bodies in a gentle way.
So I stare now at this canvas, the
underpainting complete, the first strokes of the great, red tulip started. It’s lips are still physically tightly
closed, but its face is pointed to the sky;
open to the universe. I suspect
that it’s looking forward to the first warm rays of the spring sunshine to open
up. Cycles of nature, cycles of time,
cycles of our bodies. Open.
Epilogue:
My son Eli was born gently at home on August 7th, 2001 and as
I have been enjoying an extended “babymoon” period I am reflecting on how open
we remain for the first 6-8 weeks or the traditional 40 days. I keep my curtains drawn and let the light
filter in, my house is quiet, noises jar me, make me feel uncomfortable. My family surrounds me and cares for me as
if I, too, am new to this world. And so
I am. Raw emotion, vulnerability, and
great amounts of love and joy eminate from my entire being. I carry Eli with me wherever I go. I sleep with him. I bathe with him. I nourish him from my own body. We are still connected in a physical and
spiritual way. His presence is already
so very familiar to me. We indeed remain
open well into our postpartum period to welcome this fresh new soul with love
into our daily lives, to stare into their eyes and feel utterly completed, to
feel we would protect them from harm with our lives. Instinctual still – mothering is a true opening.
] Mother to
three beautifully homebirthed boys, Jacob (7), Alden (4) and Eli (newborn)
] Partner to
Tim
] Live in
downtown Toronto, Ontario
]
Practice Naturopathic Medicine part time at my private practice “The
Barefoot Doctor Naturopathic Clinic” in
Whitby, Ontario (suburb of Toronto) where I specialize in pregnancy, birth and
general women’s health issues.
]
Doula
]
Past instructor of Obstetrics at The Canadian College of Naturopathic
Medicine in Toronto.
]
Speaker at various conferences on the use of natural remedies for pregnancy, labour and postpartum
Word count: approximately 1700 excluding the end summary
Lisa Murray-Doran
#10 Mountnoel Ave.
Toronto, ON
M4J 1H8
Phone # 416-469-8275
Pager # 416-237-3148
Office # 905-665-7539