Placenta - excerpt from Giving Birth to Ourselves

PLACENTA

The placenta is an amazing organ of nourishment & cleansing, which also maintains the hormonal state of pregnancy in the mother. The beauty of a healthy placenta goes far beyond its meaty mother's side and shiny baby's side. Yet many people in this culture abhor the thought of seeing and touching it. It is treated as garbage or made into cosmetics after the birth. Honoring the placenta is a way of honoring nourishment and the process of life itself.

In giving birth to ourselves we each have that which nourishes and cleanses us, maintaining the state of creation in us. That is our placenta now. It may be something very meaty, motherly , shiny, or baby-like. It may be Mother Earth Herself . Whatever it is that provides for us in this way brings us the blessings and nourishment of our Great Mother. By honoring it - acknowledging & thanking it for it's support- we honor ourselves and the process of giving birth to ourselves.

Contemplations--

• Do I know what constitutes my placenta now?
• Do I honor it?
• What could I do to better respect this aspect of giving birth to myself?

Activities--

* Create a physical representation of your placenta to help remind you of it. It could be a special pillow, or a collage of pictures that represent that which sustains you.

* Start a placenta book. It could include anything you learn about nourishing yourself and physical placentas.

* Be sure that all birth placentas you are in contact with are treated with respect - if need be, take custody.

-by Terra Rafael,
an excerpt from Giving Birth to Ourselves, contemplations for midwives & other birth companions, available from www.lulu.com.

Poetry: In Honor of Julien's 28th Birthday

prenatal countdown

precious parasite-
once a fish, you swam & grew on the waters of my ocean.
now you are a creature more akin to astronaut,
weightless in my space,
tethered to me, the Mothership
not yet having walked on Earth or Moon
(what do you dream?)

soon you will be forced
to mold your head
to escape a tight situation
& we both will be forced
to mold our minds
to form a new RelationShip
(what do I dream?)

*********

Julien, our sweet seed--
you sprouted & grew in my womb.
now you’ve come out,
kaleidescoping colors
ripening by air
blossoming lungs.
we cut you free
from your stem to me,
but you are not far,
a flower on my breast
my heart on my sleeve
fruit of love & seed of yourself.

*********

mother’s milk

my breasts ache & leak when my baby dreams of eating.
how can I give him glass & rubber?
how can I imagine him sucking a cow’s udder?
or nuzzling up to a can of Similac?