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.

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