Out of the mouths of babes #1
picture by mucus*plug
We’ve never specified a family belief system, but our dinner table discussions have always embraced the concept of a biological and ecological continuum through the ages. While watching the new Narnia movie, Master Eight balked at the use of the terms ’son of Adam’ and ‘daughter of Eve’. What does that mean? We couldn’t all be descended from just two people could we?
Our evolutionary biologist; in the making.
It reminds me how I baffled my Grade One religious education teacher by asking whether dinosaurs came before or after Adam and Eve.
July 18th, 2008 - Posted in childhood | | 0 Comments
Domestic Haiku #1
how does she pluck
that exact object
from the clutter?
July 18th, 2008 - Posted in haiku | | 0 Comments
A Parent’s Promise
picture by photochiel
Today was one of those days when I feel like my parenting responsibilities are a heavy burden and I’m not living up to the task. It’s not like I can say my children were hard work today; they were as delightful as could be. They played together cooperatively. They followed me around, they wanted to help me do this and that. They wanted to be near me and I, unfortunately, desired space and distance from them – and no doubt I communicated it clearly through my actions even if I did fulfil my duty of care to them.
My children saw more of my angry face today than I would wish for them to see, and they heard more of my bossy voice today than I would wish for them to hear. I lacked the humour it takes to sense the play in the chaos. I lacked the insight to see the opportunity their proximity brings to me. I lacked the generosity to respond to their deeply felt, but unable to be articulated, emotional needs.
And now I feel an enormous sense of loss that I’ve spent an entire day with my children and failed to, even once, pause and appreciate what they mean to me. Instead of going through the motions of today, I wish that I had made more effort to listen with the whole of my attention. Instead of resenting the “I’m hungry”s or the “can you help me”s, I wish I had cherished those reasons to share my child’s orbit. Instead of seeking opportunities to engage in some activity I enjoy all alone, I wish that I had engaged my children to come and do it with me. And if I had today to do all over again I would touch and hold them more. And I would tell them that I love them, that I enjoy their company, and that I feel like they are growing up before my very eyes.
Thankfully days like this are balanced by times when I am engaged by my parenting role and cultivating connection is a delightful undertaking. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I let my children down today. I promise that it will not happen again tomorrow.
July 16th, 2008 - Posted in personal growth, parenthood, duty of care, grief | | 2 Comments
Placenta musings…
picture by netzwerg
Pregnant with my first, I read about placenta ceremonies and indigenous birth traditions with, I’ll admit, with conflicting measures of disgust and curiosity. I only mentioned it to my midwife once, but she never forgot. Following my son’s empowering birth, she offered to put his placenta in a container in the fridge for us to take home. I thought, “Great!” and wondered if she knew how touched I was that she remembered!
So it spent a few months in the freezer until the day came when I dug a hole, peeled the bright yellow biohazard plastic off an unidentifiable mass and pitched it frozen solid into the earth under a potted lime tree. Later I watched the leaves yellow slightly, then spring forth with bright lime green new growth. I knew the placenta had given out all its goodness. At the time, the tree planting had been more important to me than the placenta. However I enjoyed thinking about the tree and to express its significance I attached a small home-fired clay tablet, with my baby son’s handprint on it.
When I brought home our daughter’s placenta I’d already chosen her mandarin tree and my husband prepared the hole soon after. I took the time to look over the organ’s membranes and observe the blood vessels this time; repulsed and fascinated at the same time. I avoided touching it or getting any blood on my fingers. Again the tree’s leaves yellowed with the excess nitrogen and then sprouted new growth. I felt good about contributing to the cycle of life. I imagined my children nourished by the fruit grown on the tree that was nourished by the placenta, that nourished them in my womb.
When I brought home my third child’s placenta, we new it would not be planted in the garden beside the others. We were planning for a new location and a move country-ward. I wondered what to do about the other two trees: would they survive being transplanted or should I just be practical and buy replacement trees to represent the original ones we would leave behind?
This time, I didn’t rush. Properly thawed after it’s time in storage, I made tree-prints of the placenta and explored the side where it had been attached inside my womb. I took a photo, with enough membranes visible to imagine where it had contained our baby. I observed the length of the umbilical cord and the tangle of sinew and blood vessels that had made it my baby’s life line in the hypersleep of my womb. I can now understand the desire not to cut the cord; to leave it intact for a lotus baby. The cut end was clean as only a surgically sharp blade could cut. I mourned the severed end and the instant separation it represented.
This time, the tree planting was ceremonial, though I was alone in my ritual. I was emotionally open and moved by the awesome task this strange disembodied organ had achieved. I felt it was due more respect and I gave it. With a growing sense of fertility, I rubbed the black soil on my blood stained fingers; earthworms curled and twisted in the loosely packed earth, working their way down to transform the goodness below and make my son’s orange tree strong and productive. I knew that transplanting the other trees would be a risk but sentimentality won in the end. We now have a circle of citrus trees in the middle of our orchard, each with a clay table imprinted by a tiny hand or foot. The trees have thrived despite neglect and I know that our family will thrive in this new place too. Our new home!
Since this time, a friend has contributed an avocado tree with her son’s placenta to our orchard. Her most recent birth is to be celebrated soon with the addition of a lychee tree. Now our families share a symbolic link as we will gather together to share the fruit. Long after the placenta that inspired the tree planting has become like the soil, the cycle of nourishment continues.
Please feel free to share your placenta musings.
July 12th, 2008 - Posted in personal growth, gratitude, nostalgia, sustainability, ritual, beliefs, health | | 0 Comments
‘Green’ Menstruation
picture by luvmonkey
From my very first period, I have always been a tampon girl. I never liked wearing a bulky pad. I never liked having to dispose of them discreetly in the rubbish. My disdain for sanitary napkins was so pronounced I regularly risked toxic shock syndrome by choosing to wear a tampon instead of a napkin overnight. I will even admit to past environmental abuses as I guiltlessly flushed tampons down the toilet when there was no suitable receptacle or sanitary disposal unit.
It wasn’t until I had my first baby that I discovered how irritating disposable sanitary napkins were. Having all those synthetic fibres and gels against my delicate parts for weeks was equivalent to torture! Under the circumstances, I thought I had no other alternative. I tried a few different brands but all left me with that itchy, sitting-on-fibreglass sensation after a few hours of skin contact. I put up with it. What choice did I have?
When my cycles eventually resumed, almost two years of joyful amenorrhea had passed. Fortunately, only one cycle later I was pregnant again. This was the pattern for each of my four pregnancies and the remains of my bulk purchase of tampons in the bathroom cupboard has aged eight years!
Contemplating menstruation, as you do during your period, I wondered about how women’s sanitary products are manufactured, what are their contents and does our skin absorb residues from these products, even in minute amounts? How ethical are these industries and what is their impact on our environment? I wondered if there was a link between my tampon-using habits and the recurring thrush I experienced in my youth?
So I did some homework. Yes, manufacturing pads and tampons produces chemical pollutants that get into our waterways. Yes, they do contain residual bleach and dioxin from the manufacturing process. Even cotton products require huge quantities of environmentally harmful chemicals to protect crops from insect and fungal invasion. And organic, unbleached products are expensive and, let’s not forget, still disposable. Considering that women have one period a month, about twenty to thirty products used per period, twelve months a year, over thirty-five to forty menstruating years that amounts to around 10,000 items in the landfill per woman! A tip truck load! And what about all the plastic we use in their packaging and disposal?
I have always been a dedicated cloth nappy user. I do use disposable nappies occasionally, but I always take pleasure in reducing our family’s waste through using cloth nappies as much as possible.
It wasn’t until a dear friend gave me a humorous gift of a set of washable hemp sanitary liners (complete with press stud leopard print cover – grrrr~!) that I seriously considered switching to reusable sanitary products. After all, in my grandmother’s day it was the only way and whichever rags could be spared would do. In my mother’s generation, consumerism got a stranglehold and disposable sanitary products became a hugely profitable cornered market. By the time I reached menarche, I was blissfully ignorant of any other choice but white cotton pads and tampons in assorted sizes and absorbencies. I never knew how women of previous generations managed their periods. I couldn’t bare to think of doing the washing and the embarrassment of carrying bloody rags from the bathroom to the laundry. How undignified! How unhygienic!! Well, the modern reality turned out to be quite the opposite! The hemp inserts were amazingly absorbent and the leopard skin fleece left me feeling physically dry and psychologically fresh. Locally, cloth pads are mostly sold via the internet. Check the links at the end of this article or look for patterns on the web to sew your own.
As for the washing, it’s easiest to keep a discreet lidded container in the toilet, half filled with cold water for soaking. Later, take the container with you when you shower and rinse pads there. I have friends who prefer to give their ‘moon water’ to the garden as a nutrient-rich tribute to nature’s cycles. Wash as normal with a small amount of detergent (yes, with your clothes!) or hand wash if preferred. Use an oxygen-based soaker on stains if you wish, then line dry. Like using cloth nappies, the sun is nature’s greatest sanitiser and you easily adapt to the routine.
It wasn’t until I learned about the menstrual cup (invented in the 1930’s!) that this tampon girl first thought maybe there is an adequate substitute for the tampon. So I bought one at the first opportunity. The $35 seemed a paltry investment compared to all the money I’d spent on tampons over the years.
The menstrual cup is a soft latex or silicone cup that is folded and inserted to pop open just inside the vaginal opening. It is soft and comfortable and forms a seal around the vaginal walls to catch menstrual fluid in the lowest part of the vagina. Because it is made from inert materials, it is not drying or irritating like tampons can be. When you become familiar with using the cup it is easy to predict when it needs to be emptied (in the shower or toilet or under your favourite garden plant) by the sense of weight or fullness in the pelvic floor – much as you would sense a full tampon that needs to be changed. For peace of mind, you might wear a cloth or disposable liner until you find your rhythm. The cup can then be wiped clean and, when possible but not essential, rinsed with water before reinserting. In public toilets, the disabled cubicle allows access to a private sink if required. Equally, a dribble of water from your water bottle is adequate in a fix. Boiling the cup once a month maintains sterility. Simple!
Once I became proficient at inserting it, wearing it, emptying it and cleaning it I was hooked! Why didn’t I know about this when I was sixteen years old? Okay, so you do get a little bit of blood on your fingers and it’s important to wash your hands, but it’s really not so bad! It’s a great feeling to get to the end of the week with no stinky plastic bags and wrappers destined for landfill!
Imagine all the financial expense, toxic risk and sanitary waste that women can avoid in forty years of menstruating with reusable sanitary products!
What stops you from trying reusable menstrual products?
July 12th, 2008 - Posted in consumerism, sustainability, health | | 2 Comments
