A mini-series

Coming home from a day in the backcountry Sunday, while I was reminded of the grandeur of my backyard and what happens to an off-call adventure woman turned midwife who spent 3 consecutive years OFF her skis and on-call, an idea came to me. Just like Simon Sinek, TED turned me on to Brene Brown on Dec 31st. As well, a line from a Mumford and Sons song came to me. Both sing of loving with our whole hearts. Being maternity care and midwifery care are wholehearted loves of mine, I am going on a creative writing endeavour based around complications that occur during childbirthto bring ordinary courage, connection and compassion to these somewhat normal yet often terrifying occurrences in maternity care.

Why do I focus on the complications? Brene Brown inspired a thought...she speaks that when people are asked about love that they talk about heartbreak. When you ask people about belonging, they talk about exclusion. When asked about connection, they tell you about disconnection. In a land of normal births, where complications are few and far between, it is often that we midwives discuss the complications rather than the birth that lit the light in our hearts. What if we turned our experiences around, from fear to love? What would it do for all of us as providers? As Brene encourages, I am going to lean into these occurrences on this creative adventure. It's like the mystery strength of the womb that keeps a baby safe and nourished, leaning into a membrane that may provide some temporary discomfort can bring great awakening and deeper connection to our experiences in the outside world.

To begin, I leave you with a piece from the Tao to inspire an entrance into creativity:

"To be whole, let yourself break.

To be straight, let yourself bend.

To be full, let yourself be empty.

To be new, let yourself wear out.

To have everything, give everything up.

Knowing others is a kind of knowledge;

knowing yourself is wisdom.

Pushing ahead may succeed,

but staying put brings endurance.

To know that you do not know is strength.

Not knowing that you do not know is a sickness.

The cure begins with the recognition of the sickness.

Knowing what is permanent opens the mind.

Open mind, open heart.

Open heart, magnanimity."

Photo: Pennycandy Handmade

A little phrase

...goes a long way when it comes to the words Martin Luther King spoke, "I have a dream." Last night, at a fundraising supper, I was asked to dream. Dream about what project I would create for a three to five year strategic plan for Global Midwife Education Foundation. Well, with me, dreaming has no limits because my parents and grandparents always encouraged me to fly.

I watched Simon Sinek speak back in May 2010 on TED. Mr. Sinek uses MLK as an example of a great leader who inspired. First off, Simon is brilliant. Over time, he discovered that inspiring leaders like MLK all think, act and communicate in the same exact way and their thinking is opposite of everyone else. His learning helped him develop or "codify" The Golden Circle. This code explains why some organizations are able to inspire and succeed while others do not. This code encourages organizations and businesses to operate from the inside out, being that we operate from WHY we do what we do first. Then we explore HOW we do it, and finally WHAT we're going to do to accomplish the goals of why we do what we do. That's a tongue twister. In his words, "People don't buy what you do they buy why you do it...The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe." Biology is the foundation for Sinek's research. He says, "None of what I'm telling you is my opinion, it's all grounded in the tenets of Biology." This is when I get sucked in and listen closely. How does this Why, How and What correlate to the brain and biology? He describes how that three areas of the brain correlate with the components of the Golden Circle. The limbic brains (operating: all feelings/all human behaviour/all decision making/has no capacity for language) control the inner parts of the Golden Circle (why and how), and the neocortex (operating: rational thought/analytical thought/language) controls the outer circle (what). He continues on to repeat, "people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." Instead of reiterating this whole presentation, I really encourage you to go watch it. There is so much to be gained, especially when you're asked to dream up a project that you can implement in the future and one that can inspire change. A project you present to a Founder and a Board of Directors, because you believe so deeply and passionately in something and you'll know this dream can become a reality.

Two people know one of my dreams, soon three people will know it, including myself that makes four. Most of you know the gist of the dream pertains to the improvement of maternal and infant health, globally and locally. However, until I can make this dream a reality I will work on it within our foundation and continue to tend the fire that feeds me to believe in why i do what I do. Once it's ready "for release," you'll surely hear of it.

I leave you with Simon Sinek's mission: To run and jump and laugh and cry and love and hope and imagine...to experience as much as I can all for one purpose: to inspire. We can all hope for so much. I know I do. If you have a dream, go out and get it.

Song of Gentleness

Developing the awareness that a loved one has been diagnosed with stage four or metastatic cancer is shocking. It is a development that sat me down and made me see the world I lived within in a whole new way, one I am still adjusting to. After the shock wore off, I could do my best to stand tall, support, and be love with my dad as he journeyed through his last year. My friend works in Oncology and we often talk about living with cancer, and the magnitude of life these people live with. The reality: some people live, some people die. Who knows the reason some live and some don't, however as family and friend and community it is our job daily to send love to that person whether energetically or physically. I remember the days I "forgot" my dad was living with cancer. He was just my buddy and my big fat teddy bear, the one who sang me to sleep every night until (I'm admitting this) I was easily in 8th grade. Swing low, sweet chariot. The one who now lives in my heart.

...my poppa set his wings free two years ago Jan 12th. I want to say thank you daddy for showing me that love never quits you and is always right there in our heart waiting for us to wake up each day and hear it's call. I know this was your last lesson, the call to love. When I asked you if you'd make it to your birthday, Feb 13, you said, "Just barely." Thank you for making it to mine that year, sharing in such delicious cake and a large group of people who love us. Thank you for your infectious laugh and warm, warm spirit. I hope it keeps rubbing off onto me. Peace to your continued flight. I love you.

It's a beautiful day, don't let it get away. Eat and drink it up!

Tending Threads

There's this little thread that hangs from a piece of clothing that needs to be stitched on my sewing table. it has been waiting for me since July, about the same time I finished my last birth. I remember the day in my garden when I looked down and my trusty work/climbing shorts that have been through years of exercise decided they needed a bit of a break and ripped right at the zipper. Either that, or my butt had increased in size just one inch too much. As the last month has held a lot of rearrangement in house and in heart, I have found freedom in space, creative expansion and stability. I have been looking around at the things that needed stitching and tended to them, as well as I have been thinking of tending to this little URL that has been a creative outlet all year long.

Autumn to winter took me on the trip of becoming very clear with my goals in midwifery and what my focus for 2011 would be. One day in October, I had heard how there was this doctor going to Morocco teaching midwives and when I checked out the website I realized a dear friend was the Director of Education of this burgeoning foundation. I connected with Genevieve Chabot, Ed.D, and she told me all about Global Midwife Education Foundation. While Genevieve and I dove into conversation about the organization, I knew that this was work I wanted to be part of. When we first spoke, the Executive Director Genevieve Reid, MD, was just about to leave for her first midwifery training in Morocco. Therefore, our initial meet and greet would have to be postponed to late October or early November. After the conversation with Chabot, I gathered and collected like I like to do in my research ways, externally and internally. The big question, "How do I present myself to these women? How can I make this work become a part of my every day life?" Over the next month or so, Chabot and I emailed and spoke often. Our friendship goes back a handful of years, so we could catch up on GMEF and on life. Together, we find many ways to laugh, play, and enjoy company. I sent Genevieve Reid my resume and then just let the rest unfold. In early November, we met up for what I felt like was an interview for my future. I met with Genevieve Reid and Chabot, and Cloe Erickson (the conduit connecting GMEF in Morocco). Together, we sat around the table for a brief hour and it was enough time to feel the fire ignite. My goals with midwifery, which had been coming into place since June, became clear.

Shortly after I began to see these goals, I read a quote in a backcountry ski rag that sits on the back of my loo. The quote, spoken from a ski racer turned humble poppa/ski mountaineer read, "A goal without a plan is just a wish." I deeply believe in the wish, but his words sunk in over a cup of coffee. "Just like midwifery school," I thought to myself. It was a long-time goal, and the plan and structure of my formal education was the gift that gave me the inspiration and drive to sacrifice a lot in life, to train in three different states with over 8 midwives, write a increasingly convincing thesis, and enjoy myself in the process. Also like running an endurance race, to do well it takes a plan.

2010 and the few special births in 2009 were rites of passage for me. It was these years that gave me the confidence to apply for a job in a very busy birth center in Austin, TX and (even with a solid interview) not get the job because it appeared "I had other fish to fry." Maybe it was the fact that I like fried fish...However, it was all in perfect alignment. 2010 brought me home. It welcomed a few handfuls of births that taught me the training, the research, the effort and all the energy I planned and directed from 2005 to 2008 were worth it beyond expression. I remember the birth where I left home in April around midnight and crossed 7th and Durston to see a close group of friends of mine walking to the local bar and I thought, "How lucky, I get to watch a baby come into the world. How lucky they'll be dancing." Both bring joy in different ways. I remember the birth in May where we watched snow fall as a sweet boy entered the world, and yet by the time I left the house the sun was up and the snow was beginning to melt. I remember a lot more than that with my picture taking mind, but it is every moment that was spent with midwifery that got me to work out the holding patterns and the kinks that were surfacing during the fall. I welcomed my return to confidence. I welcomed the return to light, even though the light of day was waning. I embraced that good plans, woven with the intentional threads of a goal, take commitment. I made the commitment to return to a path connected to the Beloved, the Infinite, the creative and loving Universe, Mother Nature, God or Great Spirit. We all have different names to connect and feel the pulse and flow of love that is never-ending from this Source and it is the commitment I was made to carry out as I was born at 6:24am in Northfield, MN (almost in a garbage can in a Fiat, but made it to a hospital) on January 5th, 1976. The commitment to be love and to find my way back when taken off course. To reach fruition, meeting goals takes planning and commitment is inherent. Argue with me if you want, but this is what works for me.

2011 brings inspiration, new beginnings and continued commitment. It brings to me the maturation of a long love affair with the art of medicine, healing, and the passion it provides. In November, I was elected to the Board of Global Midwife Education Foundation. Since, the meetings and conversations have me feeling like myself again and in relationship with the work that pertains to this blog. I have been inspired by these women and our talks, and I hear I have been inspiring. It appears we all like to have a lot of fun together, the business process is creative, and there is solid dynamic developing within GMEF. At the current time, we're gestating. We are intensively fundraising, therefore nobody involved can quit their day jobs just yet. We all live passionately for this work. It is amazing to be part of an organization that in its very early developmental phases so deeply believes in why we will do what we do. The future is bright. One more aspect that is as crystal clear as the snow outside as this new year starts, midwifery is my work whether at the end or beginning of life. My hands are always in it and I love the places it has taken me, the experiences I have witnessed, and the people I have met. I love where it will take me in 2011. A year where I get to sleep thru the night, at least almost every night of the year. I get to ski and run more than I have since 2006, and that in itself opens a window wide. I get to dive deeper into a new world of midwifery, business, education, and activism because these elements are my focus, my goals and the plan is in place.

I stitched that garment up today. It's now back in the drawer and waiting for summer when I can run around in shorts and play in the warm summer air. Until then, I will frolic with full heart, mind, soul and body through the mountains with their majestic snow. Blessings to this new year and may you find inspiration in every day. It's there waiting for you.