Preach It!

No one can tell a woman what is best for her and her baby ... waterbirth, homebirth, hospital birth, doctor, midwife, Unassisted Childbirth (UC) or cesarean surgery ... it is for her and her baby to know. The best we can do is support her to access, trust, and know her own inner wisdom and communicate with the Being within her - the One whose birth it is through her womb and the man. - Janel Mirendah, Attachment/Birth trauma therapist, Filmmaker of The Other Side of the Glass.

Watch It! (The Trailer)

Monday, December 20, 2010

Take a Peek at the Film during Winter Solstice

EXTENDED UNTIL MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!! DECEMBER 23rd!

Celebration of the Winter Solstice - December 21, 2010 and the birth of a Christ-Child, Andrew, December 23, 2005

Winter Solstice has been celebrated in cultures the world over for thousands of years and begins this year at 5:38 pm central, 6:38 Eastern. This start of the solar year is a celebration of Light and the rebirth of the Sun. Emperor Aurelian established December 25 as the birthday of the "Invincible Sun" in the third century as part of the Roman Winter Solstice celebrations. -- Selena Fox. This is the first time since since year 1 that we will have a lunar eclipse with a full moon at winter solstice. Whatever your beliefs, this is a powerful day in the universe and cosmos. NO one on the planet has experienced this before.

In celebration of the Winter Solstice, and Andrew's birthday, for whom the film is made, I will make available online a preview of my film, The Other Side of the Glass. This preview will include the Introduction, a short description of each of the 10 chapters, and the Closing of the film. It is about an hour; the final film in two parts will be almost four hours.

The film will be on Vimeo.com and available at www.TheOtherSideoftheGlass.com at 5:38 PM Central Time on Tuesday, December 21 until 10:25 AM Pacific/12:25 Central on December 23, 2010 an hour after the five-year anniversary of the birth of Andrew at 9:25 AM. Please leave your comments and feedback on the blog.

This film is for my daughter, her sons, and her husband. I have spent three years of my life to do this for them and I am willing to share it with you to heal them and you, and our planet. Every man needs to know this information -- what I have been taught on this journey by Andrew, his father, and men and amazing caregivers who have stepped up to care for women, babies, and men outside of the "norm" of the hospital. Every man needs to know this before conceiving, before becoming a father so that he is prepared. He has a right to be honored, and supported to have "his moment of awe" with his newborn child, to be respected by hospital caregivers who disrupt his moment and harm his loved ones. To deal with my broken heart about what happened to my own grandson, Andrew, and my daughter (his mother), and to his father, that I could not stop, I have continued, a one-woman crew to complete this film -- for Andrew, his mother, and father with a prayer and a hope for their healing.

My hope is that this film will support men to rise up and to demand that strangers stop abusing their babies, in the name of medicine; and that they build a system that honors men/fathers and his family's "moment of unity." This happens BEFORE the birth not during the birth. Every baby is at stake here, it is a community effort and needs to be led by the men ... to take back HIS power from the system that stole it from him at HIS birth. Men need to take back their power at the source, and it will comes from looking at the truth about the conscious of newborn human beings, a soul coming into a body. It will happen by looking at the US model of medicine, called the "war killing machine" by one physician, Gladys McGarey, MD, author of "Living Medicine".

Obstetrics is a tool of war, a money-maker, a conveyor belt father's tell us. Birth is the time in our lives, as babies and as mothers and fathers in the making, where separation, fear, and isolation are experienced. For the emerging human being this is his or her first experience of this world and it is imprinted in his or her nervous system. We come in as souls knowing wholeness and love and we are harmed and our nervous systems are "installed" with a program of fear, loss, and separation .. from the Mother and the Father. We seek our wholeness through spirituality, through seeking peace, but alas, we are programmed for war -- our inner and family and social war, and the global wars. We are called to change this ... one baby at a time, one father at a time, one doctor at a time. It's gonna take all of us and we will do so by being kind to the birthing baby, mother, and father.

This film brings together doctors and fathers to focus on the birthing of a baby into that family's life. It will be in two parts and approximately four hours in length. This preview is just over one hour. The full film is not simply about preparing men to fight for their babies right and to protect their partner and baby in the hospital environment. It is about looking at and changing the evolved need of men and women here in 2010 to need to prepare for battle just to have a loving, peaceful birth and to have the moment with their newborn that is programmed in us to have -- connection with the Mother and the Father (whatever that configuration looks like). It is about where men compromise and sacrifice their informed rights to people's agendas that harm THEIR baby. It is about how men (and women) believe they can have access to the safety of the hospital birthing machine and that the harm from others does not impact their baby and relationship. WE live with this every day -- the impact of our birth experience. The film looks at this disempowerment of men and women as the root of dysfunction -- as individuals and as families, and as communities when we allow the routine, brutal, violating separation and disruption of the mama-baby (and mama-baby-daddy) in the first hour of life. This is where warriors are made.

Because of the thoughtless and harsh to brutal treatment of the sentient, aware, feeling, sensing human baby - you and me and everyone - by caregivers in the medical system at birth, the real war is within, and it is in families. The disruption of the family union at birth is the source of FEAR, greed, and belief in not enough, and that people will harm us. We need to wake up as a society to the damage being done to the family in the birthing war machine --- to the mama-baby connection and the foundation for life; and to the father who is disempowered to protect them in the hospital, and sometimes, even in his own home. This film will call upon those people in power, medical caregivers, TO BE THE ONE .. to be the one to change, to honor birth as sacred, and to honor the baby, mother, and father.

The deep seeds of violation to me, as a woman giving birth, violated while my loved one stood by powerless to stop it are unacknowledged by my society ... not in the medical, psychological, or religious fields. Rather they gain from it. The beginning of human life is completely ignored in any level of decision-making about humans, including education and the feminist movement. Mothering is denied. The Feminine is denied. Unacknowledged by my society, with the outrage of watching it happen over and over to babies, women, and men in the hospital setting, and then AGAIN to my own daughter and her loved one, to their child, my grandson, fueled me to continue to finish this film despite many obstacles, such as no funding. I choose to do it this way because it is MY family and our story, because I came here to do this. It has been a constant source of growth and healing.

The simple overall message is, "Stop abusing newborns." The abuse of the newborn human being, a soul coming into life with this family, well, it just has to stop. It has to, and WE need to stop it. We have to stop harming those coming and to heal those who have been harmed. Men don't need to be prepared to "protect" their partner and baby at birth, men need to participate in changing the system that allow the mama-baby to be separated. Men need to support the agenda of seeing HIS MOMENT OF AWE as critical to his fathering, to this woman and baby. Men need to participate in DEMANDING a health care system that PROTECTS the mama-baby connection and his family's union.

As you witness the abuse of the precious Soul, sweet, baby Andrew, his mother, and father in the first hour of his life; please honor Andrew, his mother and father, his brother, his aunt who filmed the birth, and myself who witnessed but could not stop it. I appreciate your prayers and thoughts of love and healing acknowledgment for their experience, and gratitude for the gifts that Andrew and his father have brought forward to heal the world.

Happy Birthday, Andrew, "from all the babies who will never know you, but who will benefit from your birth" the same birthday message your great-aunt sent to me. Together, we are transforming the experience to bring Mercy, Light and Love to the planet. I am so glad you chose me to be your grandma and to bring forth such powerful information in a world so hungry for healing: You are a Light in the world. I love you.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Inspired by Mercola's plan to make milk. Like he even could.

"We need to do whatever it takes to help women give their babies and young children the lifelong benefits of high quality mothering and stop subsidizing an ideology that promotes risky and inadequate substitutes." -- Peter Cook, PhD in Mothering Denied

He is speaking the institutionalized care of children in day care with adults who do not love the child and he is speaking about the nurturing needs of the human baby. The baby needs to be nurtured and nourished by the mother via breastfeeding not risky substitutes.

When most women hear the information that world-renown writer on nutrition and wellness and seller of products to enhance health, Dr. Joseph Mercola, is developing an organic formula for babies they say, "that's great, for women who can't." Even hard core breast feeding advocates. But Emma Kwasnica, breastfeeding advocate, and I have been swimming against the tide even in our community of natural birthers and breastfeeders to say let's look at this more deeply. Emma has been looking at the ethics of it and I have been looking at the feminist and baby's human rights perspective.

I received this story on Facebook this week, an example of why we need Mercola's formula and that is "what about the women who can't breastfeed?" I'm using this example to answer the response of of so many women, and women who are fierce advocates who say, "That's good" because "there are so many babies who can't breastfeed" and then my perspective on the human rights of babies to have breast milk as the first and best option and how it is that the belief that a field beast is superior to another woman's milk is a feminist issue.

I visited a home tonight where the mother had been given a child belonging to a family member. The baby's biological mother is a drug addict and the baby had some severe withdrawal from the drugs in her syst...em. The wonderful woman who agreed to take the baby was given one hour to make a decision to come and get this baby or it would be given to another foster family. She had had no warning that she was getting this baby. I am glad to be able to have formula available for babies like this one who are abandoned and need care. I am the biggest breastfeeding advocate on the planet and breastfed all my five children. All my 12 grandchildren have been breastfed long term. But I am realistic enough to know that sometimes a baby needs to be fed in another manner and I am thrilled that said baby can survive and thrive without breastmilk when absolutely none is available.

There's no debate about the need of some babies and moms to have quality access ... it's about a world-renown natural health guru who sells something with every issue he writes about .. it's about Mercola NOT putting his word, weight, and money be...hind a national agenda to create 100% breastfeeding that he says he supports BEFORE marketing a new formula. There is plenty of organic and "quality" formula on the market. It's about the ethics of a medical and natural health establishment not promoting what the research shows is the only way to feed a baby. In a world where breastfeeding is seen as optimal and the human right of a baby, there would be a resource ready within an hour of getting the baby to have another woman's breastmilk available for that baby ... in the hospital, when born.

This IS the baby that every system in our culture will have to be involved in caring for .. this IS the baby who will have life long issues because of his beginning. Physical health issues. Psychological, emotional, and spiritual issues. We as a society can enhance his potential merely by making sure he has human milk. Breast milk is the best chance this baby has to overcome health issues. A healthy woman's milk - a stranger, but a human woman -- HER Milk is the best option for this baby and human breast milk is flowing every where.

It is not true that there is "absolutely none available." We have human milk going down the drain right now. Formula for such a compromised baby would NOT be our medical system and society's first option ... donor milk would be a commitment. We can spend trillions to bomb a country for 8 years ... well, it would take little money to utilize donor milk. But even what there is now is about money. That's part of our issue. This is another way for some people to make money. Meanwhile, WOMEN are willing to SHARE their baby's milk so that others might have human milk. Why is Mercola ignoring that? Why is he not leading the way to create the consciousness shift like he has with other health issues while he produces his product to sell? That's what we are asking. Lead the way in shifting the perception that human beings have a human right to human milk. The other issue with Mercola's milk is that it is COW based. We know not to give cow milk to newborn humans. My question is when is the HUMAN WOMAN going to be ABOVE the status of the cow/chattel?

We are challenging folks to think beyond the man-man borders, the result of generations of ...not breastfeeding and the social structures it had created. I use this story of the baby as the perfect example of a system that does not value breastmilk for every baby, for the ones whose mother's can't or shouldn't, for the most vulnerable, the most needy of breastmilk, not formula. The most unhealthy, vulnerable babies need human milk most -- the "what about the ones" argument is turned back on itself. Yes, what about them? Mother's milk is flowing in our communities and families ... breastfeeding is NORMAL again. I had to fight such crap in 1975, fight nurses ganging up on me, fight misinformation everywhere I went about how man-made formula was better. How I was harming my baby by not giving him formula. Thirty-five years later, today, folks, the excilir of life is flowing. SO MANY women have more than enough, enough to share, and want to. Formula, organic or not, is NOT the first choice. It is not where our money should go, where Mercola's money and research should go. Our resources and problem-solving should go towards figuring out how to provide HUMAN MILK, not a milk from a "field beast" (thanks, Jesca!) Formula should be our absolute last resort in a world where WE KNOW the truth about the vitality of breastmilk, the source of HEALTH for HUMANS.

Wouldn't you like to be elevated in our culture above the cow? We are still chattel, women are, as long as a field beast's milk is MORE VALUED than a human woman's milk. Mother to mother sharing is culturally taboo while feeding your baby "organic" MAN-made milk from a field beast!?!? C'mon, wombyn!! wake up!!! We're gonna be the ones to save the planet ... I think it was Gandhi who said it would be the western women who save the planet/world ... and it's not going to be because we made a lot of money selling organic products to someone who has access to nature.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Breastfeeding -- the key to a healthy relationship

The news in Los Angeles today is interesting. Breastfeeding woman is harassed by female employees at Cost Plus World Market in Orange County.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Mother-Harassed-for-Breastfeeding-in-Public-101427799.html

Meanwhile, another headline is "Man Arrested Near Paris Hilton's Home" over a picture of her with her huge, fake breasts jutted upward. (Blogger has changed and I can't find how to upload pics!)

Posters on the news about the breastfeeding woman vary from the breastfeeding supporters to those who believe we are not a third-world country, she should go the car or bathroom, breastfeeding in public, maybe anywhere is being not classy, and examples of seeing it in public with men staring at the woman's breasts ... all reasons against it. Oh, several posters said it's like defecating ... you don't do that in public, do you?

My response to this article's posters and to the world:

Being breastfed is a human right. It is a BABY's right to be breastfed whenever hungry & mother's responsibility to do so. If we would stop seeing it as a woman's right only and see it as the right and ...need of human baby (hers when she was a baby, yours when you were a baby), maybe those of you with issues about seeing it could begin to get over it.

Breastfeeding is same as defecating ONLY if we are talking about a baby who is doing either or both. Do you expect a mother with a pooping baby to leave? No.You laugh as if a normal process is funny. Do YOU eat in bathroom, closet, hot car or with blanket on your head? So why do you expect a baby to be treated that way? Most likely your mother walked around a store with chemical formula in a bottle feeding you. You got fed in public.

We've had generations of misinformation and downright lies, all based on, yeah, you guessed, money, about formula as better, and therefore, a majority of humans did not get what they needed -- HUMAN MILK, from their MOTHER, and on demand. Now you spend money trying to "create abundance" in your life when your early brain tells you there ain't none. When the breast and mother is available to the newborn when she or he needs it ... for food, for comfort, for connection ... THAT person will KNOW abundance, and that everything they need is there for them. THAT, my friends, is the real "Secret." It was your right and your child's right to be breastfeed and since you didn't, you see it as nasty, and worse, you see a mother-baby breastfeeding and you see it as sexual. You see love and connectedness only as sexual.

Breastfeeding is NORMAL. Not being breastfed is one of the most devastating, fundamental causes of many physical and emotional issues in our culture. Anyone here against it for whatever reason, if you go and look at truth of the science and what has ALWAYS been true about breastfeeding, and MOTHER-BABY attachment, and you deal with fact that you weren't and you didn't give it to your child (BECAUSE the system, experts LIED to you or your mother), you can get over "shock" of seeing what is normal and natural and absolutely necessary.

Now, will you please go after women walking through that store with all but her nipples hanging out, butt cheeks, tattoos, & belly ring showing that is supposedly "normal"? And, those man-boobs, please do call security. And, can you go after industries that sexualize even little girls, capturing them as little consumers before they can even read their ABC's? Can you go after Miley and Brittney to keep their teenage breasts covered so our little girls are not pressed to follow these role models in slutdom? So that a when she's a woman breastfeeding her baby her breasts are not seen as sexual, merely for men's pleasure, and she is not ostracized for doing most natural, necessary thing in the world.

Thanks Mom for breastfeeding me for a year ... in 1956 .. the height of the industrialization complex and when sheeple thought you were "behind" the times, so I could do it too in 1975 (and 1977, 1983, and 1994) when I was weird and uncool for breastfeeding. Thanks for helping me to see that "mothering" was the most important job I could so. Of all the things I've been through with my children, I see that breastfeeding was the magic bullet that helped us recover from birthing in the medical machine designed to separate mother and baby.

One of the sad truths is that men do sexualize the breasts and wombyns. I was on youtube on an exercise segment and I was shocked at the comments, presumably by men about how annoyed they were that the picture of nice butt lured them in and it wasn't that good to masturbate to. SO MANY! Men masturbate to work out videos, I knew this, but dang, the things people say when they think they are anonymous, like on Youtube in general.

So, yeah, men are also supposedly masturbating to breastfeeding images these days. Scandals have broken about Facebook creeps trying to get access to breastfeeding pictures. Men luring at wombyns and baby breastfeeding IS a big issue. And, yeah, it's god-awful, but dang, it IS INFORMATION folks. Like the father in my film says, referring to circumcision, overpowering wombyns at birth, and men's experience, "We have to stop the harming and heal those who were harmed."

Male babies are so profoundly harmed at birth. We can not stop disrupting the mother-baby at birth fast enough for me. Inside me, every fiber of me wants to go HULK on those who continue to separate and harm babies, acting out THEIR own traumas and getting paid so well to do so. It's outrageous to watch male and female babies and how they are treated at birth. We can not begin fast enough to insist that medical caregivers support the self-attachment and support women in doing this. I am amazed at the women who say they want to do this profound, natural, simply done, physiologically programmed event -- supporting baby to crawl to her breast and self-attach himself or herself, and then they don't. This is a symptom of a wombyns own wounding, her own fear of attachment and connectedness. We humans are so confusing. Come here, go away. She offers her sexuality, her breasts and then doesn't deliver. She can't; she's not mama. "I have to have her" and then he cheats on her, or beats her, or ridicules her. And then he hates himself and then he compensates. Oh, how well, we all know of this cycle. Trying to connect with the Mama. Instead we collectively destroy her, the Mama Earth, and we harm wombyn. It begins with denying her body, mind, and soul the power and dignity birthing as a female body, and as a young girl programming her with false images of what a wombyn is and it culminates in the drugging, controlling, and manipulating of her during childbirth ... when she brings forth another life, a little boy or girl baby. The cycles repeat.

We can not fast enough STOP the genital mutilation of our precious little boys. I can not even begin to know, to touch how profoundly most men in this country have been harmed as a newborn, and how it is to live life through this PREVERBAL rape and violation. Allowing my oldest son, even though I was young and uninformed, to experience this to have allowed it is the hardest thing for me to forgive. I was holding him and I do believe this has allowed me the information I needed to really see what happened and the need to address it. They no longer allow a parent to be there. For good reason ... they don't want you to see it. They make a lot of money from that foreskin. If you see it, you talk about it.

Circumcision is a sexual violation. They often manually make the boy's penis erect to do it. Strange women TOOK him from his mother in his first moments of life when every cell of his is programmed to reconnect with her. These women "bonded" with him by being the first to look into his eyes, talk to him, touch him, FEEDING him with a rubber nipple (women also robbed of this with their own babies do it to other women) ... all in violating way .. after robbing him of his cord blood by separating him from his transitional Life Force/God/Creator/Allah in the womb with him. Then WOMEN tied him down so that his penis is sexually mutilated. The nerve densest piece of skin on his body made to give him pleasure by communicating with his brain is now missing, and the brutal pain of cutting it off puts him in shock. He was BORN a whole being, ready for love and connection. We all are. We are welcomed with strangers inflicting pain, fear, and self-serving separation that, as they wish it to be, is blamed on our mother's. Mothers take it on as their guilt, rather than seeing they too are violated and prevented from giving their well-loved and gestated babies what they know in every cell to be what he or she needs. Mothers and babies live with the impact of separation and hospital systems continue to crank out wounded, wounded, wounded human beings.

These men we speak of angrily, the violence in society we seek to end, wars, harming women and children, pornography, masturbating to breast-feeding pics or exercise videos, to molesting children .... ALL of them have experienced some combination of being conceived and gestated unwanted, born with doctor-nurse inflicted trauma, not allowed to feel her touch first, gaze into her eyes first, to crawl with her gentle support to her breast to self attach, but instead were separated from their mothers, force fed formula by strangers (force fed because a baby's stomach is only the size of a hazelnut, enough to hold a super-duper shot of colostrum), and then he was circumcised.

These men never had the comfort of the mother's breast no matter how they tried. Babies DO try over and over to get to the breast of the mother. Formula feeding mothers know this if they allow it to come through to them ... how their babies try to get to their breasts. Well, they never stop trying, folks - baby boys or baby girls. So, of course, they sexualize the breasts and breastfeeding. Of course men go masturbate to these images, or a young male after seeing a breastfeeding baby at the breast. I am sorry my sister's whose path it is to push this boundary for us all -- public breastfeeding -- may or may not know this. It's not their problem. It's yours if you have an issue with seeing a breastfeeding baby. An adult male is simply, yet profoundly, trying to connect all that was lost, oh, so much that was so lost. So, of course young girls and women are profoundly impacted by their images related to their breasts too - how they look, how men respond to them. Why is it ok for our teenage girls to expose their breasts ... to gain love and connection and attention they yearn for? The young Heidi who had ten surgeries in one day and can not legally in the US have a bigger breast implant. My goodness, what do these boys and girls really want? What do these men really want? All misplaced ... poor little babies.

All of this can be ENDED by giving the utmost care to the human new born being, male and female. We have to stop the harming and help those who were harmed to heal.

I'm curious about the men who were not breastfed and who were circumcised as they now choose to keep their baby whole and they support breastfeeding. How do they come to this decision? How do they deal with their own feelings of loss and of being violated? Does it change their perspective? Actions (like porn and masturbating), and does it change the quality of their own lives, their relationships with their partner? With their mother?

Watch out!! These are the kinds of questions I asked years ago about men in the hospital room with their babies being born. People ask me how I came to know to do this film -- focus on fathers. So many people, even homebirthing women, tell me they never really thought about birth impacting their partner. WOW. That's amazing to me. I have come to realize profoundly, not surprisingly, since I've known it all along, but it is because of my own birth. I was very traumatized, and almost died, as did my older brother, the first. Our sister born second was born "unassisted" in the labor delivery room while my father was trying to find a nurse. It was quite rare that my father was in the hospital room with all six of us, born between 1949-1970. OF COURSE, MY baby self KNEW how important it was that he was there, and now I know, a part of me has always known also how wounded he was watching it all. Just recently he told me that he was off to the side, could see blood, could hear it. It was not like today when men are able to be right there. I was very sad that my dad did not get to see me come out. I realize that has been a huge loss for me, and explains an issue with him, a confusion -- "you WERE THERE. Can't you acknowledge how hard it was for me?" This is what I see in babies ALL THE TIME, even today. We all want our mother and father to acknowledge us, our experience, as they share THEIR story, to see ours, the baby. I experienced deep sadness for my dad, a shared moment we never got to grieve or process together ... in 53 years. Another piece of healing my own birth that allows me to sit with and witness and support babies with their parents in their experience. My dad does not remember the last three I learned when I sit down to find out my three younger siblings birth stories. We always hear the stories of us three older ones. I said he couldn't remember them -- he was there, but because the first three were so hard he sorta checked out, he guesses. Fifty some years and I am just hearing this ... what I've always known, and I see it in the relationships with those younger three. And, I see the impact, "good" and "bad" in his relationship with us three older ones.

WHAT is YOUR baby self's story? What is YOUR story in relationship to your mom and dad's story? So many women from the 30-70's can't remember their story. It's such a big black hole in so many people's lives. Your body, mind, and soul know ... it's in your preverbal brain. You can know the story, grieve it, embrace it and become whole again, or at least BE IN the process of becoming whole, rather than living in the patterns of trauma, loss, and grief of disconnection from the mother.

There are many modalities now to assist ... but the best one, I believe, is my teacher, Ray Castellino's method.
http://www.castellinotraining.com/referrals/graduates.php
Others related to this modality are: www.myrnamartin.net, www.healyourearlyimprints.com.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Other Women: Feminine Betrayal of Wombyn By WoMen

As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, includuing (sic) other women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species." -- Casual Male Observer on Momania blog

I visited Momania blog where the article was called: "Cat fight on the mom blog: Are we meaner than the sports blogs?" They are talking about what we all know ... Girl-on-Girl and Woman-on-woman emotional and verbal violence. Oh, my the comments!

I got as far as "A casual male observer's" comment. "Most men protect Ideals, such as family, nation, politics, religon, etc. As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, including another women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species. The average male does not stick around for the children, for the woman is the only true chance for survival of the children. This is true for every species on this earth, with few exceptions."

LOVE IT! As filmmaker of "The Other Side of the Glass" a birth film for and about men's experience in modern birth, I'm looking at the soul's journey into a physical body and earthly family, the result of a sperm and an egg being united by a spark that results in another life. I'm looking at how men are disempowered in birth ... from their experience as a baby being born and how that manifests in his experience of birthing his children. Ain't NOWHERE else in the world, except the hospital where a man is so disregarded and disempowered when his/her wife/partner is birthing their baby into their arms.

Going back to first comment, about how women are historically mean to each other, and where it is socially and culturally acceptable now, why is this? Why is this, how is this acceptable now? All of history? No. American history? Could be. What is the core issue? I believe we need to look at the total denial of what "Casual male observer" has so eloquently stated: "As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, including other women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species." And, sorry to say, because I know some very caring LD/OB nurse, and I say this with regard for the fine wombyn who are great nurses and midwives. The source, I believe, of woMan-on-wombmyn violence is a result of the domination of women's bodies and birth by the medical system. It is women in this system who harm other women. OTHER WOMEN who disrupt, control, and manipulate a wombyn in this most vulnerable experience and she controls the father as well.

The truth is that wombyn are unable in modern birth to protect themselves and their baby from OTHER WOMEN in the most vulnerable but power experience of her life. I don't think there is any place else or any OTHER WOMAN who has so much control over a man as the hospital labor and delivery nurse. The strongest and most powerful man crumbles and is voiceless and powerless in this woMan's environment. Midwifery is under the control of medical training and beliefs, and as more medically trained midwives do more birth even wombyn giving birth at home with a midwife are being betrayed. They are being betrayed in this moment that "Casual Male Observer" points out is true of every wombyn: the need to protect their baby, even from OTHER WOMEN.

It is OTHER WOMEN throughout modern obstetric history who have carried out the deeds of male obstetric dominated care. Big time since the 1400's when the Church and Medicine hooked up. It is OTHER WOMEN who separate the man/other from his wife/partner ... either covertly or overtly. Overtly, the nurse puts a wombyn in the birthing uniform and begins the control, sometimes becoming torture. Nurses, OTHER WOMEN, used to shave us, force us to do enemas. They still put us in bed, deny us food and water, drug her, tie us down (don't need to so much these days because they are drug pushers of epidural -- with synthetic opiods), hush us, disrupt us to monitor us every 15 minutes and on and on. The doctor, more often female now, comes in to do the fun stuff. Sits at the end of the conveyor belt, gets to do the honors, and thanks the lady's for the preparation and making it so easy, pleasurable, and lucrative for him or her. Her job is done then, and nurses, OTHER WOMEN, resume control. Even the most non-violent birth is a subtle form of rape of women.

After the "ecstatic" or even "orgasmic" moment (whose is a very interesting question) is over, baby is most likely, most often is handed to the OTHER WOMEN. Sometimes the wombyn actually gets to hold the baby or see baby before baby is whisked away by OTHER WOMEN. Everything in a wombyn's being WANTS HER BABY. She has instincts to make eye contact that will trigger the hormones of attachment. Every fiber of her wants to see, touch, smell, and yes, even taste her baby. wombyn today who don't do this ... well, they are not the "normal" ones. Sorry. They are sufficiently suppressed wombyn that are system-compliant.

It is OTHER WOMEN who touch our babies first, never as gently as a mother does when left alone. It is often very rough and even brutal how OTHER WOMEN "stimulate" our babies to breath. It is OTHER WOMEN who deny us our wishes; yes, following the rules of the male-dominated medical hospital system. It is these OTHER WOMEN who take the baby (a main reason for immediate cord clamping, I believe, nothing to do with what the human newborn physiologically needs for optimum life), another woman's baby and deny both mother and baby their God-given need and right to RECONNECT in this most vulnerable and short, yet life defining moment. OTHER WOMEN, sometimes many other women, touch our babies and hold our babies and look into our babies' eyes before us. They do this while doing medically unnecessary interventions, some akin to torture if done by adults to adults in other situations and locations. Our babies hear OTHER WOMEN's voices and feel their touch before they feel ours, before they feel us, smell us, or hear our voice. OTHER WOMEN take our babies and touch them and do things to them that causes our babies to writhe in pain, to scream full-body screams, crying for us, crying for us to make it stop. But we can't. Our baby's father can't even stop it. Our body screams out "NOoooooooo, STOP IT" even when our words don't come out. This scream, I call it the "maternal scream" is STUCK in most of us women ... and, until we heal our bodies, souls, and minds of these experience, we take it out on other women and our spouses. Our babies also live this out, with us and in society. It is, I believe, the core of most emotional and psychological disorders.

WHY do wombyn do this to wombyn? Because it was done to them .. as a baby and as a birthing wombmyn. It's called "normative abuse". The do to OTHER WOMEN and BABIES what was done to them ... as babies and as birthing wombyn ... so that they feel normal. Then we all call it normal. And, we call ourselves normal, but no one ever feels normal. Not until they embrace their body and spirit and heal their early woundings and become more natural. Meanwhile, the "system" gathers steam, via the wounded workers, and thwarts most efforts to be natural, to do what THE BODY ONE LIVES IN WAS PROGRAMMED over eons to do and be. Wombyn who've not given birth but work in these systems have their innate knowing and their instincts over run. They've watched traumatic births all their lives, on television, and see this as normal. They are taught in college and advanced training programs that this is right, moral, scientific and best ... when everything logically, scientifically, physiologically, and emotionally tells us otherwise. wombyn harm other wombyn ... in this profound moment where it is instinctual to protect, hold, nurture her baby, even protect it from other wombmyn, that "Casual male observer" points out, "This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species."

Well, guess what, our society and species is failing. Big time. Asthma, cancer, autism, psychiatric disorders doubling and tripling as epidural and cesarean sections rates do the same. Babies under one are being given anti-psychotic medications and it just gets worse for the child in our society. Contrary to what many people said in the comments, it is NOT "normal" for teenage girls to be so vicious and for women to be so vicious. To survive we have to stop it ... wombyn need to stop it. People need to resolve their own early experiences of coming into this world. When a medical caregiver, in charge of the situation, has successfully disengaged a man/partner from the mother, those people have just taken charge of that baby ... body, mind, and soul.

The person who drugs, controls the mother, and forcefully pulls that baby from the mother's body is imprinting "I am in charge" on that baby's whole being. Collectively, it is is strangers, men and wombmyn, who do this to a baby. Collectively, they become the "system" and we are under it's control unless we wake up and consider the plight of the baby. This control forced upon the birth baby is called "mind control" by my colleague and co-host of the radio show we do. This mind control is why people keep going back to the medical profession to birth again or for all the other craziness found there ... they're programmed. At birth. We're programmed by women to not trust wombmyn, and not to trust men, but at the same time, to give it over to "them".

The way out of it is one person at a time. It stops one wombyn at a time, doing her own healing work. It involves stop being the OTHER WOMAN who harms a birthing woman and separates her baby from her ... even with the smallest of NON-medically necessary interventions ... coached pushing, talking, bulbing, putting hat baby, not putting and leaving baby in her arms. ANYTHING done to the baby is felt by the baby and imprinted in his or her brain and body. For sure, stop denying her movement, food, water. Stop following the rules of the system that harm babies and mothers -- fetal monitoring (known IN obstetrics for 20 years to contribute to cesarean that is only "necessary" in the end BECAUSE of the monitoring), drugs, rupturing the baby's membranes, speeding up, slowing down (controlling) her baby's and her body's labor. STOP cutting the cord. STOP making father's feel like "getting to cut the cord cord" is their badge of honor, their shining moment in the birth --- prematurely separating mother and baby before baby and mother have met, before the mother's body knows the baby is ok (signaled by HER releasing the placenta).

It is wombyn and men, especially wombyn, who can stop the women-on-wombyn violence. We can stop the violence of teenage girls and women in drama by stopping the violence perpetrated upon women giving birth.

Most of my career in this field has been trying to find the balance ... be the bridge ... I respect the people as individuals, those who are in the obstetric field and who, I feel, are stuck in a rut they are not aware of, or don't know how to get out. Some of that is a symptom of our social problems of consumerism. People have to work to pay their bills and they have to shut down parts of themselves to do this. I think the worse place for this is maternal-baby health care. I believe it is a known effort at some level to control wombyn's bodies and souls and minds, and to disrupt the mother-baby relationship, the core of humanity. I am concerned for the people who are lovely, caring, compassionate people who became doctors, nurses, or midwives for noble reasons, but have ALSO been harmed by the collective system. I am concerned for the harm to them being in a system that does not honor them either. They work in a system where they are not allowed to stop the violence, and yet they stay. This harms them as well. Blessed is the nurse and doctor, of whom I know many, who are able and willing to navigate the system and the legal and hospital policy issues, breaking rules, in order to do what they know is right for the baby, mother, and father/partner.

My show yesterday, in the archives, is about the early church and witch hunts, the earliest betrayal of women by women. We carry it in our genetic memory.
www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com - is my radio show.

Here's a video promoting natural birth in a birth center. Perfect example of the propaganda that perpetuates the violence of wombyn in the system

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Being Born

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.

You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.

- Carl Sandburg


Being Born IS the BABY's experience. Giving Birth is mother's. TWO BEINGS, TWO BEING'S experience TOGETHER. And, what about the father? What's his experience, perspective, and needs?

Fathers stand "at the bedpost and have seen a mother", his partner, "on her high harvest day, and the day of most golden of harvest moons for her."

The baby "groping towards mouth nipples where white milk is ready" is the fruit, the harvest of his seed. He is the father of this baby, made with this woman. This is HIS HARVEST. Why is he treated so poorly in American hospitals? Why is the father of duct tape, vinyl records, the spinning loom, the microchip, and the father of this country or that religion or a philosophy given more reverence and regard than a man at his seed's harvest?

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Abortion and Birth: A Means to an End. Control.

Abortion and Birth: A Means to an End. Control.

Women may not ever have true equality until they give the same to the fetus. Abortion and where to give birth should not be under control of MEDICINE and should not have ever been illegal. Prior to modern history women always had the control over keeping or not keeping a pregnancy. Many pregnancies then and now were a result of non-consensual sex, violence, and control by men. Legalizing and not legalizing abortion was and is not the answer. We now have a society where it is more covert, so embedded into our DNA and when women have made gains, but still are powerless ovver their bodies. Thank you to the modern medical system.

Today the care of women's body in the medical system has to do with making money ... and truly has nothing to do with womens'rights and her body, let alone, mens' or babies' rights. I am pro-life and pro-choice, equally fiercely BECAUSE the human being coming in has rights and the woman has rights, and I believe it is between HER, the soul trying to incarnate, and yes, even the man whose sperm made the baby. It's not between the State and a woman. It's between her, the Soul coming in, and her God. You can't kill a soul. Abortion and birth disregard that humans are a soul.

Elena Tonetti was on my show this week and discussed conscious birth and her film, "Birth As We Know It". She explains conception in a very amazing way .. how there is an energetic force present IN ORDER for there to be union of a sperm and egg to create conception, a third human baby with a soul. In other words, pregnancy depends upon more than a sperm and an egg meeting up. That happens billions of times a day. There is a being there, in the fetus, whether we like it or not, whether is serves our needs and wants or not. Here's the podcast. http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/janel/TCR100308.mp3. She comes on about 15 minutes after.

I don't think women will ever have true equality and rights until they stop going along with the status quo established by men thousands of years ago .... and the right to her body over the life of another human being is the just the double talk of hundreds and 1000's of years of subjugation by the dominance of men.... now ingrained in collective psyche.

Medicine and law took women's rights long, long ago, women rights to their body and their children, and their decisions, and we are still dealing with it. They made what women do illegal, immoral, and sinful. I'd like to know when it became ILlegal to get an abortion. What's the law? When was it? When did ABORTION become like BIRTH ... a legal, medical matter, in the hands of men and doctors, controlled by laws. In the 1400's two German monks wrote a treatise that was about how evil women are, especially the midwives. It told how to identify witches, interrogate them and punish them. Every Catholic magistrate and court had to read this, and led to the witch hunts that murdered millions of women for being midwives, healers, and mystics, or just for being female. It helped usher in men as doctors and men have been in control since then. Midwives were the biggest target -- and still are. THey are trying to make it ILLEGAL again in MO for a midwife to attend homebirth. It's outrageous. It shouldn't have EVER even been legal. Birth, midwives, abortion are NOT legal or medical matters. It was all to control women. and "they" still are. I'd prefer neither legal or illegal abortion or birth -- but the control of is way too lucrative and both serve to divide and conquer.

Pro-life and Pro-Right, I told a man this week, when he was complaining about the health care bill paying for abortion. Isn't that what's it is always really about? WHO will get paid and how much? And, not about the woman, not about the being within her, or the man who participated in conception. He says, "How can you be both?" I said, "You can't kill a soul. My business is my business, another woman's is her business."

And, it all boils down to money, like everything else in our culture.

Determining when life begins is a mind-fuck for women, and for men, but especially the woman who is supposedly the only decision-maker. One woman will be justifying her decision to abort at 20 weeks while another, or even the same woman grieves and grieves over the loss of the baby to miscarriage. Either way, she grieves, sometimes for a lifetime. Abortion ALWAYS impacts a woman. It is not an easy answer. Regardless of the rhetoric the feminist, liberal movement has perpetuated, a woman who chooses an abortion has to come to resolution in her her body, mind, and soul about ending the life of a fetus that she conceived. As Elena articulates, some energy, some entity has to be present for a pregnancy to happen. A woman who chooses, against all odds, to have a baby and to raise it also lives with her choice. They are very different, but they are also the same in that for an unwanted pregnancy there is no easy answer. The decision, to abort or not, is a country-dividing, family-dividing fight between religion and the state, and, I am convinced, it is just a MEANS to end for the powers-that-be. Going along with the medical, man-made money-focused logic that pervades our lives doesn't help any of us get to the truth ...

And when we have equality ... true equality, between male and females, it will be when and because we value every human life everywhere on the planet. When we believe killing for war is as wrong as killing for any reason as an individual ... murdering another adult, a child, or aborting a fetus, I really believe there will be less unwanted pregnancies that become abortions and unwanted humans, because both men and women will BE more conscious of themselves and their actions.

And, then there's circumcision ... yeah, and that's the biggest assurance that men will continue to perpetuate the legacy ... especially if they involve a woman in it. A woman mutilating another woman's baby boy.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dr. Fischbein On My Radio Show

We just completed week three of our shows with Dr. Stuart Fischbein, obstetrician from California on Thought Crime Radio: Voices for the Human Rights of Babies. The podcasts are up at www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com.

Please visit his site, Www.SupportDrFischbein.com and learn about his experience as an obstetrician fighting for women to have true informed consent and right of refusal (BIRTH CHOICES - breech, VBAC, as well as no drugs, homebirths, delayed cord clamping etc.) when birthing their babies. Check out his plan to create a new form of birth center ... a collaboration between obstetricians and midwives in a facility separate from the hospital.

Also, on this page, check out the youtube presentations of excerpt from his interview for the film.

Friday, January 8, 2010

"It's a tragedy for all the women who are missing out on natural men..."

I entered late into a conversation going on a friend's page on FaceBook.

Her status today was: BH: wants to know... what is WRONG with men? Sheesh.

The comments that followed speak to the part four of my film that is about healing the masculine, so we can heal the feminine and the relationship between them. I shared the conversation with my friend and cohost, and fellow rabblerouser and intactivist, Rich. He emailed me back, "It's a tragedy for all the women who are missing out on natural men..." That's Rich. Simple words, profoundly to the point.

So, my friend's status today was:

B
H: wants to know... what is WRONG with men? Sheesh.

Here are the responses from mostly women:

EBA: testes. doi

RBR: They have a Y chromosome??!

LMS: the Y is actually an incomplete X...they are missing all the good genetic stuff LOL
HBM: Penises, for sure.

RBR: Just a bit of genetic trivia... The “X” sex-chromosome consists of 3000 – 4000 genes. The “Y” sex-chromosome only consists of 50 genes (and most non-functional).

LMS: Oh and god put all their sex organs on the outside...clearly that is a flaw...with them all flopping around and what not

BT (a male): Hey!

EO: Quite simply put, they are not women.

VCM: Ladies... Don't discriminate based on X Y.

EBA: i think that their balls weigh their brains down.....

VCM: ok now that was funny!

KF: Same thing that's wrong with women! ;)

RCG: clueless, just clueless... and how frustrating to try to explain to people who don't know, what they don't know and they think they know it all!

AR (a man): Now ladies, we may only be life support systems for peni, but we do have our usefullness and at least we're easy to figure out. Food, sex, remote. Not necessarily in that order.

EBA: all things we can take care of without men

ADBM: @Erika, that is the funniest thing I've heard all day!

MM: When God created man he didn't provide him with enough blood to opereate two organs (brain and penis) at the same time.

--- Ok, this is the one that got my "dog in the fight." God DID provide him with enough blood and the nerves to operate not only his brain and penis, but to have them connected to his heart. It is adults who have robbed the male of his blood (separating him from his placenta and blood) and his neural connections between penis and brain (CIRCUMCISION). The baby did not choose this, and I am pretty certain that the adult man is pretty damn mad about it .. even if he can't name it.

RCG: Gee, way I heard it: Sure God created man before woman. You always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece!

I'm with U Erika... my toy works REAL well and I don't have to have a headache... fake or real!

BH: Monika is on the right track... well, the track I was on. I mean, almost every single man I know or have known or watch on the news or tv or even who paints the stars... men have no couth when it comes to their genitals. I just do not understand how they don't know WE WILL FIND OUT. Do they *really* think they are so sly we can't smell perfume? Hear the hushed tones? Figure out the paycheck isn't equal to all the time away from home? It's baffling to me. They must think WE are idiots.

WHY is the "grass" always greener in someone else's panties?


RCG: Anything to shift responsibility.. Ever since Adam... God asked him "Adam, did you eat from the tree?" His reply, "It was the woman you gave me!".

AR (man): It's the hardware and the wireing.

RCG: Anything to shift responsibility.. Ever since Adam... God asked him "Adam, did you eat from the tree?" His reply, "It was the woman you gave me!"

AR (man): Geez. It's not shifting. Men are Simple creatures. And our evolutionary physicallity does have a lot to do with our behavior. We are, however not all the same.

BH: I think I could count on one hand the number of men I know that have NOT cheated on a partner. I'm really not as angry as I sound... no man (recently) has cheated on me or anything... but just so, so many men are doing the craziest things lately. I just don't get it!

Okay, 'nuff of that vent. On to nicer topics.

EO: My husband is a great guy. Completely obsessed with sports, beer and sex, but faithful as the day is long a good friend and a wonderful father. That being said, always remember this: If it's got tires or testicles, it's bound to give you trouble.

ME: What's wrong with men, and it's cheating that makes you ask? Has much to do with the disruption of his opportunity to come to his mother's breast, gaze into her eyes, bask in her arms, in safety, and suckle at will -- when connection and intimacy are disrupted it wires and fires. This is what the majority of males have experienced. Then he has ... See Morebeen handled by strange women, roughly and separated from her and most men today were isolated in a nursery crying, being boundary violated over and over. And then, his penis, his sex organ, is mutilated, most likely after being strapped down against his will by a FEMALE nurse.

Circumcision short circuits the neural system between the brain and the penis, robs them of the full capacity to be empathetic. Of course, it still has it's primary functions -- urinary and ejaculation. The circumcized man spends his life looking for the fulfillment of something in his head that can seem to be completed through the penis, but is supposed to. Its why they are rough and thoughtless with women, even the ones they love. They have to be focused, have images in their heads, and work really, really hard to get what their brain tells them there is ... but can't do it without the nerve endings in the penis. They're frustrated .... it must be HER fault, and her and her and her, Looking for that connection that was lost.

Having done months of shows talking to the experts in circumcision and birth on my radio show, (www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspotc.om) and listening to men I see men differently. After two years of talking to men about their experience of their baby's birth, after a decade of intense study of birth trauma and the healing of it ..... I'm .... I guess that why's I'm doing the film ... to bring to light the extreme traumatization of the male baby and how it impacts him for life. It's why I'm so rabid about the care and touch and the emotional quality of the team when birthing a baby.

Watch the circumcision on my blog, if you can. And, if you can't it tells you a lot. THIS is the pain, deep, deep pain that 90% of our men carry that is "unconscious" to them, but drives them. Years and layers of years later, he is still crying to connect. He will always act out his breaks in the connection with his mother with other women.


SN: Love this and you Barbara!!! I AGREE!! We aren't stupid, and if not the smell of perfume. Then its the look all over their face! BUSTED

SN: L. Janel, I would like to post your comment please on my page. This is just so wonderfully put, I'd like to share it,

AR (man): Janel, I love your explanation. It makes a lot of sense. I'm always looking for the science or evolutionary explanation of the "why?". I'm curious if this is a just a good theory or if you have empirical data to support it. And how, in a similar way, does it relate to why a female spouse cheats, which many do. Also how does it explain the why of ... See Moremales cheating in other cultures, and in previous generations where breatsfeeding is the overwhelming norm and circumcision is rarely practiced. As a cinematographer who favors the doco form, I am intrigued by your project. Bon Chance with it.

Buy It!

Part One: The Other Side of the Glass: a Birth Film for and About Men officially released in digital download format on June 2, 2013. Go to www.TheOtherSideoftheGlass.com to purchase a digital download.

Men have been marginalized in birth for a long time. The old joke is that a man was sent off to boil water to keep him busy. I believe they were making the environment safe. Birth moved to hospitals and for forty years women were separated from their partners who was left to wait in smoke filled waiting room. Finally, he would see his baby from "the other side of the glass." Now a man can go in the birthing room and even get to hold his partner's hand during surgery. But they are still marginalized and powerless, according to the fathers I interviewed around the country.

Historically, birth has been defined by the medical establishment. The midwifery and natural birth movement now advocate for need "to educate and prepare men to protect their wife and baby" in medical environment. Seems logical ... if we process with the same illogic that got us here.

Through the voices of men - and doctors and midwives - men share heart-touching stories about how this is not workin' out. A man is also very likely to be disempowered and prevented from connecting with their newborn baby in the first minutes of life.

Now is the time for men to take back birth.

The film is about restoring our families, society, and world through birthing wanted, loved, protected, and nurtured males (and females, of course). It's about empowering males to support the females to birth humanity safely, lovingly, and consciously.

Donors, check your emails or email me at theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com for info to download. Release on DVD is not planned at this date.

FREE online! watch Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 10 at www.vimeo.com/75767434

"Doctor's Voices" - Stuart Fischbein, MD - Part 1

Doctor's Voices - Michael Odent, MD

Human Rights Violations

Resources - Healing Birth Trauma

"The Other Side of the Glass" has the potential to open up feelings that have been denied and ignored for a very long time. How to heal the trauma of birth at any age will be addressed in the film. Meanwhile, these are pioneers in the field.

Raymond Castellino and Mary Jackson - www.BEBA.org

David Chamberlain, Ph.D. - www.BEPE.info

Judith Cohen - www.judithleecohen.com

Myrna Martin - www.MyrnaMartin.net

Karen Melton - www.HealYourEarlyImprints.com

Wendy McCord, Ph.D. - www.WendyMcCord.com

Wendy McCarty, Ph.D. - www.WondrousBeginnings.com

And, many, many more all over the world at www.BirthPsychology.com
In both relationships and life trust begets trust.
Generosity begets generosity.
Love begets love.
Be the spark, especially when it's dark.

--Note from the Universe, www.tut.com

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so children have very little time with their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world." - Mother Theresa