I am pushing back the chakra series one week because today is Labor Day!!!
As promised, I’m giving away 5 copies of my “Goddess Delivers” Giclee Art in honor of what Labor Day means to me and women around the globe.
Because Labor Day isn’t just a day to rest and recover from long hours on the job… it’s a chance to turn around society’s concept of what “birth” is and a chance to change how your own daughter grows up and anticipates the birth process.
I was watching Good Luck Charlie the other evening with my daughter on The Disney Channel, and the mother of the sitcom went into labor as part of the plot line.
As predicted, the following scenes were full of screaming and panic.
I leaned over to my daughter and told her, like I have many many times before, that real birth is not like this. That giving birth to a baby is one of the most natural things we do as women, in fact, it is the reason that human being have survived and continue to thrive on this planet in the first place!
Women successfully birth babies, and it is a wonderous thing.
The show made it into a very scary and very alarming ordeal to be desperately survived, not enjoyed.
Yet, I said with absolute sincerity, if I could relive a day in my life and have the joy of experiencing it over again, the birth of each of my children would be in my top spot… followed by any time that I nursed… followed by dating my husband… followed by the rest of my life.
What you experience on the day that you give birth is nothing short of wonder and magic and awe and it is the closest most of us ever come on earth to witnessing a pure soul looking straight at you.
Being handed the soul of my daughter and the soul of my son right after I birthed them… well, there just aren’t any words.
And when we allow it to be, when we mentor our daughters to remind them that birth is not something to fear but something to celebrate… that birth isn’t experienced as pain but instead as a rite of passage… that birth is a meaningful journey that I would do over again in a heartbeat… we change the future for our daughters and for mankind.
Even if your birth experience was less than ideal, do you really want your children growing up only knowing about birth from the scary images seen in movies and on TV?
I distinctly remember as a child being very afraid of having children and telling my mother I didn’t think I could ever do it.
That is laughable to me now because I know the truth is that becoming a mother is the only thing I am certain that I have done well.
But it wasn’t laughable to me as a young girl, it was horrifying.
I want more for my daughter.
I want her to make a choice to become a mother out of joy and the desire to have a family if she wants one… not weighing fear and pain against outcome and nervously going forward with it despite her fears.
That is what I did, but that is not at all what I want for our future generations.
So this Labor Day and all week afterwards… Sept 3rd through the 7th… is Empowered Birth Awareness Week (EBAW) and is celebrated internationally. I blogged about it last year too, here.
If you have any way to contribute, either on your own blog or media outlet or in your own neighborhood or even just privately in your own home… perhaps lighting a candle or having an open discussion with your own daughter, please do.
I would like to make a small contribution of a give away: five archival quality (200+ years without fading) professionally printed Giclee Art Prints of my original canvas artwork “Goddess Delivers”… a $250 value.
Because young girls are constantly surrounded by scary invasive images of the birth process, I just HAD to paint a calm, grounded, loving, joyful and EMPOWERING image of what the birth process is really all about.
I wish I could surround young girls and women everywhere with the comfort of this image, replacing all the soap opera drama with this truth.
About the artwork:
I painted this painting with lovely indigo and violet hues to reflect the sacred spiritual aspect of giving birth as well as to honor the woman’s own divine intuition. As the goddess in the painting feels her body begin to ready for birth, she allows the waves of her contractions to lift her higher and higher in grace. Grounding to the earth, she steadies herself physically by rooting her feet into the edge of the massive ocean, feeling her connection to the earth spiral and swirl, mixing into each oncoming series of waves.
Turning her gaze upwards, she connects with the joy of the souls, loved ones who gather in celebration all around her, as she feels the soul of her child coming into its own with love, happiness, and eager anticipation of life.
Riding the crescendo of contractions that come to her aid and help her deliver her child, she raises her arms in welcome of the surrender she is experiencing and the rhythm of this precious event.
Here is to all the light workers, birth workers, doulas, midwives, woman and children who experience the divine in childbirth every day.
- If you would like to support EBAW, please forward this post to your friends and family, and find out more on Barbara’s website here and on her FB page here.
- If you would like to enter the giveaway for a print of Goddess Delivers, leave a comment below!
- If you already commented during my post about EBAW back in May you can leave a second comment here as well to be entered two times to win!
xoxo, Laura