Faith-based Midwifery

Midwifery as Spiritual Practice
excerpts from "Psyche's Midwife"
by
Jeannine Parvati

I support life -- life coming into the body, and our world.
From the soul's point of view, coming in and going out are of equal importance; both rites of passage are
sacred. These are my basic beliefs.

And so, as Psyche's midwife, addressing the "spiritual" aspects of my birth, my perspective will cover a lot
of ground. In the moment of birth, there is only One Way. Yet, to come to that moment, many different
ways will be explored.

Not much "either/or," "good vs. bad," or "spirit vs. matter" dialogue serves the version of the truth which
claims my work. Spiritual midwifery can sometimes be based on a dualistic definition, such as
"non-medical." That is defining what spiritual midwives do (or don't do!) in opposition, or, at best,
reflection to what doctors do (or don't do). This perspective is losing passion in my own practice.

Birth is the most obvious expression of "what -is" that we can experience. And, when I write "we," I mean
"women..." For a conscious woman, childbirth is self-evidently holy. A spiritual midwife makes the full
agreement to support the innate holiness of birth. It is as simple as this: anyone being with a woman
giving birth who worships, attends closely and invisibly, follows true, and opens hearts (as well as
wombs) is a spiritual midwife.

I love babies. Babies are pure love. A spiritual midwife vows to welcome all babies gently. Honesty and
harmlessness are her way -- and guiding secrets. She is a guardian for babies, and does all she can to
end oppression and suffering by sado-medical rituals of obstetric/pediatric religions. In their passion to
know, medical rituals violate the Mystery, the style and rhythm and pace of each unique woman telling her
story, telling her baby into existence. Who are we to judge any woman's story about birth, or even to
claim to try to categorize such, or put it on a graph, or into some box of statistics?

Each birth is a ceremony for all time. When we attend a birth without making a claim, we are healed.
Medical ways are to claim knowledge about birth, but, in truth, they know nothing. No one does, except
the Goddess (or whatever image you have about a personalized form of Spirit). The birthing mother
comes closest to this (usually, precluding couvade, the male empathic experience) as best carrier of the
archetype, the One Who Knows. So rather than ask the doctor or midwife about what is going on at
birthings, ask the mama; and, ask her to ask the baby, if she doesn't get a direct answer. This is the
maiutic way (Greek for "in the manner of a midwife) -- knowing when to ask the right question at the right
time, so that the birthing mother will deliver the truth unto herself.

This is High Technique, this art of council, of womantalk, of being with women giving birth, purely, without
any claims (be it the need to control her experience, or another statistic).

A spiritual midwife accepts divine energy from any place.

My practice has been called spiritual, as well as radical. The psyche delivers questions as offerings to the
Mystery called birth. The midwifery rituals are grounded in the above ten commandments. The root of it all
("radix" is the Greek word forming "radical," which means "root") is love -- radical love which is healing.
For this is the most specific calling to my midwifery practice -- to attend birth as a healer.

A full spiritual midwife is a healer. She brings a commitment to maintain the wholeness of the birth
experience, to keep it holy. She does no harm. In any effort to "save life," she will do no harm, create no
extra karma. Medical heroic efforts to save a baby sometimes in its savior/suffering fervor, actually may kill
or hurt the baby. Life is deemed our priority -- at any cost. Death is the enemy, and we have a religious
war on our hands. Many doctors attend so as to share the burden of responsibility. Midwives, having not
made death the enemy, haven't as much blood on their hands, so their passing of the buck isn't as
noticeable.

And, as long as we are mentioning money, a spiritual midwife may or may not accept money for her
service. A healer isn't attached to being paid for healing, but the births go better when that is clear
amongst all in attendance. After all, the first chakra, earth element of the yogic subtle body, is linked to
money. Ever watch a "tight ass" about acknowledgment and value have a soft perineum and easy birth
opening? A healer sees the connection between cash flow and dilation, between sharing and a flowing
deliverance, and works to bring unity, wholeness back into one's life when necessary.

As above, so below, so to speak of healing birth in our culture, we must befriend the whole natural cycle
and accept death. A spiritual midwife, therefore, heals by bringing balance back to our pain and death
phobic culture, recognizing that during pain, birth, and psycho-analytic therapy, humans may re-program
themselves into playing planetside with more consciousness. Birth is our sacred experience. Consciously
accepting what birth brings can enlighten.

Healing the splits a family may incur can be the grounding necessary for all to know the fullness of joy of
birth. What may grow from a shared and conscious birth at home can heal a family for eternity. It is a
good practice to see each baby as the Christ-child, or any inspiring and healing avatar or your liking. The
mother becomes the Madonna, or any blessed Mother of God. Prenatals become worship services, and
postpartum visits, the adoration.

When someone at a birthing wants to know about "progress," I might refer the question back to the One
Who Knows, the laboring mama. So I ask her how she is, how her baby is, and where the baby is. If she
answers, "I don't know," I will then ask, "If you did know, what would the answer be?" That question is
repeated to each "I don't know." Eventually, I might say, "Go ahead and guess -- you don't have to be
accurate." I find the "guess" is usually the truth -- perhaps not accurate, but the truth. We always know
what's happening all the time, at birth.

If I think that I don't know, I might consult the I Ching, or Tarot, or meditate alone. That is my total
medical back-up. A spiritual midwife doesn't pass the buck, and is fully responsible for keeping the eleven
commandments. She knows what to do because that is whatever will feel right ultimately. This feeling will
change within the context of each community and each family. What always feels best, however, is full
understanding of whatever expression the laboring mama gives, or the baby gives, during birth. To be
able to support (stand under) the laboring mother is acting like her bridge -- a spiritual midwife is that
grounded being who nurtures the passage. As Psyche's midwife, she is the guide of souls. She can speak
any language, but especially the language of birth. She does, too, know what you mean, for a spiritual
midwife has a compassionate tongue. She gives the word medicine. And she understands; she knows
how it feels, now, and ultimately.

A spiritual midwife is pure dispassion in the center. She sits with her legs open. She honors a family's
expression of their own souls during parturition. She is the perfect witness, bearing truth within the
neighborhood, the perfect inner view, the perfect servant waiting, not desiring, birth to bless us when
She will, the perfect partner, faithful to birth and filled with divine trust. This perfection is freedom, and is
graced...

For a spiritual midwife, the uterus is the universe, the matrix of which the divine plan is spun. And its
process of creation is called "information," the way things, or concepts (conceptions) are made into form.
The greatest mystery is the creation of life. Watching the uterus so closely gives a window into the
Universe. It is with the inner sight that we can see the mystery unfold, not with Superman's X-ray (and
tetragenetic and carcinogenic) eyes... Psyche's midwife loses precious moments of imaginal riches by the
poverty of abstraction. Abstracting souls into numbers of births, pounds, inches, centimeters, grams, and
graphs...

There are no test questions about midwifery as a spiritual practice. If your practice places economic and
legal aspects as primary, there are medical schools wherein your tests will be the creation of abnormal
births, for the benefit of the interns. The only exam for a spiritual midwife is a self-exam. The one who
keeps score is the one who misses being fully present at a birth. Birth is not an abstract experience the
way numbers are. I believe the numbers game has paved the way for the violence brought upon birth by
scientific/statistical superstitions and sado-medical rituals. Of all the home births I have attended, none
have been "normal." Not in the original meaning (Greek "norma" means a straight geometrical angle).
Birth is not square -- it's part of the cycle, or circle. Each birth is unique, yet connected for all time with all
births. But this cannot be measured. Each birth is sacred, not statistical.

A spiritual midwife attends to the spirit in birth. Some say the spirit dwells in the heart. So, a spiritual
midwife attends to the heart at birthings. I believe that the desire to hear the baby's heart has good
roots. Yet, the use of all that electronic gadgetry to hear the baby's heartbeat is cold.

Technologic/metal/hardware -- these are tools of another God, Apollo, the physician paradigm. His sister,
Artemis, is the first midwife, of the Greeks, and she actually delivered him, being the first-born twin. She
listens to the baby's heart, but not at a distance, like her brother. The amount of gadgetry equals the
need to gain an objective, distant, apollonic relationship with the heart of the baby birthing, and the Spirit
of Birth itself. Fetal heart monitors violate the mystery; they are blasphemous. The spiritual midwife hears
the baby's heart as a prayer by placing her ear to birth's flesh. She bows to the mother, and listens
directly to baby's heart -- to the new one's heart song. She is not necessarily listening to quantify, or to
judge. An electronic device used to amplify the babe's hearttones is a false deity, a sin (missing the mark),
and forfeits the wonderous experience of your ear on pregnant skin. Counting heartbeats may make you
feel like it's under control. And it is, but not in the spiritual midwife's personal control.

Agendas for birth, and "labor management techniques," violate a woman's family's experience of birth.
The spiritual midwife is called to birth (be it by telephone, electronic beeper, dream, or vision) by her
commitment and openness to let go of any personal or public concepts in order to participate in the
fullness of each family's birthing experience. And goals? All things spiritual recognize and manifest their
goals. Mine is to hope that each family that I attend eventually birth at home without me or any other
being present whom they believe knew more about their births than themselves. My commitment to this is
total. The best births are the ones in which the spiritual midwife leaves no memory. If a couple can
conceive the baby without help, it matches that they could deliver the baby themselves. A spiritual
midwife is, as well as healer, partner, servant, guide, and witness, a teacher. She is teacher of the
way into self, into the deepest and softest tissues of the self. She teaches that the information known
through the uterus is truth itself. And that truth is called "baby." The way out of that self is called
"birth."

A few words on the despair which "mind-over-matter," "male-over-female," or "spirit-over-material"
philosophies deal to humans: The split in our culture may be healed in natural home birth. It is the original
rending of the one into two -- the beginnings of dualistic experience. The mama and the baby are One in
purpose during birth, and the spiritual midwife helps everyone to remember that. The despair comes
when all hopes to repair the split are gone. If you keep a newborn away from mama, apathy sets in, and
out of that, violence may grow instead of trust and love. The spiritual midwife brings about the marriage
between spirit and matter, whose baby's first breath celebrates that union. She knows that "having
babies is having hope" -- and gives up the "struggle" to witness the miracle of creation.

Mind and matter are unified in a spiritual midwifery practice, as is male and female. This wholeness
deepens the care given to the new one; and this care strengthens the baby's feelings of well-being. A
person who starts out feeling good is not prone to dealing out violence to other humans. It is my
contribution to a more peaceful world to heal birth in as many ways as possible -- as I can.