We need birth stories
On the wisdom of doulas, Buddhism, and astrology
“Why do we have so many epic stories about really long battles and not epic stories about women in childbirth and the visions that they have, the places that they go in order to bring that soul down, in order to open their body and let life out?”
-Sylvia V. Linsteadt, For the Wild podcast
On the night of the full moon in Leo, before I went to sleep, I saw this quote from my favorite podcast, For the Wild, from an interview with Sylvia V. Linsteadt which I had not listened to yet. When I woke up in the wee hours, the moon as bright as daylight, her words were still on my mind. We need more stories of birth, of life emerging into the world, to support us in this moment.
In that spirit, I share with you Daphne’s birth story, which I had the good sense to record about two weeks after she was born in June 2018.
As I listened this morning, perhaps for the first time since I recorded it, I was brought back to the magic of that moment. I wish I had described the portal more, but it was one of the most profound experiences of my life. I have never felt at the same time so animal and spiritual, and so primal and mystical. Which feels like a portal into our nature. It is through that portal that we all arrive here on this earth.
We need more stories of birth and death, because I believe what we are being called to do right now is be death doulas and birth doulas at the same time. We are being called to, in the words of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira1, hospice modernity, while simultaneously give birth to what is next, which we cannot fully imagine yet, especially from within the imaginary of modernity.
When you give birth, you don’t know who you’re giving birth to. They have a life and purpose and spirit of their own, which you, if you are lucky, get to watch unfold and grow for the rest of your life. But you don’t know. You can’t know who is being born and what they want and yearn for and what their path is. That is out of your control. And many of us parents may try to control, but the sooner you learn you can’t, the more at peace you will be, and I believe the less harm you will do (we can do a lot of harm when we are trying to control, whether that is children or partners or colleagues or nature).
We don’t know what worlds are asking to be born. We just know that they are. And all we can do is be there for it, support it in its birth. Like parenting, like death, there is no controlling this process. It has its own life force, its own agency. It is lifeforce, expressed to its fullest.
There is no controlling it but that doesn’t mean we can’t intervene. Doulas and midwives know how to assist in a birth. They don’t control the birth, but they have deep wisdom of how to best support it, what is needed, and. how to create the conditions for a healthy birth to happen.
Give up control.
Bear witness.
Support, with as much comfort and love as possible.
Breathe.
But then there does come a time to push. I don’t think we’re there yet. I don’t think it’s time to push.
If you push too soon during birth, you could injure yourself and the baby. It’s also pointless. It’s not time. Again, if you push before it’s time, you can do harm.
When the time comes though, when there is opening, when the forces of life and birth are ready, there is no stopping it.
When it is time to push, there is no stopping the birth.
When it is time to push, we will birth with ease.
Perhaps it’s not time to push yet, it’s time to breathe, and it’s time to grieve.
What I am saying here isn’t new. Other people are saying it, too. But we need these stories over and over again.
We need these stories.
In current systems, so much power is concentrated in the hands of one person, one country, one entity. These power structures have persisted for so long, yet so short in the perspective of deep time. These systems are collapsing and failing, but they have a death grip, as my friend Katina recently said to me.
We are being called to hospice the ones we touch, while simultaneously giving birth to what’s next.
What is the wisdom we need at this moment? This is often the question that is circling around my mind.
One of the great Buddhist teachings that I learned through my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is the nature of no birth, no death.
No birth,
No death,
Only continuation.
Nothing dies, exactly, everything just changes forms. Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
No birth, no death, only transformation, only continuation.
I wonder how this wisdom might inform these times? If we can see that everything is impermanent, everything is change, nothing actually “dies” but just changes form, how might this help us?
When conditions are sufficient.
We can’t know what’s being born, and we can’t know when it will be time to push, but we can keep trying to contribute to conditions that are sufficient. Like a midwife does, like a doula does. Helps create supportive conditions.
The wisdom we need at this moment is the wisdom of doulas and midwives. It is the wisdom of helping something die, while helping something else be born. It is the wisdom of no birth, no death, interbeing, and continuation. It is the wisdom of knowing while yes, these are events, they are really different parts of the same cycle of life.
Another Buddhist teaching that is helpful in this moment of extreme stuckness is the wisdom of impermanence - that nothing lasts forever. A function of modernity is seeing and feeling things as solid, static, separate. But this is not true, and even the most solid seeming things are impermanent. Giant mountains are turned into sand, giant concrete structures are consumed by the jungle faster than you can imagine.
Capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism are impermanent. They have to be, because everything is.
The teaching of impermanence is hard when you think of the things you love, that they, too, are impermanent. That you, too, are impermanent. These are tough truths to swallow. It brings me solace, though, when I think of hard things, things I want to see end that feel very stuck and rigid. We don’t know when they will end (transform), but they will. This is a law of nature, the law of existence.
What is the wisdom we need at this moment?
It is also the wisdom of the moon and stars and what they teach us about cycles (and so much more, such as energy and archetypes). I read a post on Instagram by @TheAstroLotus that this Leo full moon was the culmination of a cycle that began with the Leo new moon in July 2022. When I read this, my mind was blown. In the post, she says, “Things started at this time will finally reach their resolution or reward.”
On the Leo new moon in July 2022, I was at the International Institute on Peace Education in Mexico City. I had just finished my doctorate, having defended my dissertation in June, and at this moment was discerning my next steps. I had applied for the job at UPEACE, as well as some others, and was planting seeds for the next step of my vocational path. I was calling the path forward, asking for guidance and doors to open, uncertain of which direction it would take.
The day of the new moon in Leo, we had several ceremonial spaces at the Institute, and in one, we meditated and shared in pairs about what we were calling in. When it was our turn to share, my partner shared our words - potencia y poder (potential and power) - and at that exact moment, there was a huge clap of thunder, the kind that you can feel in the center of your chest, that shakes you to the bone. It was an epic moment, the universe responding to our call, YES. And my call was responded to, and upon returning home, I interviewed for and was offered my position at UPEACE.
The note I wrote during the new moon ceremony sits on the altar in my office.
On this full moon, I was contemplating this path, this trajectory. On the new moon of 2022, asking for vocational direction, receiving it, and upon the full moon, finding myself in the thick of the work I am being called to do.
Change is afoot. We are in it. This is always true but it feels even more true now. We are in the midst of massive institutional change on micro and macro scales, global sociopolitical change, as these violent, destructive, unjust systems we have been mired in for so long that are not serving life make their death throes. Where we will go is uncertain. Can something better, or at least different, emerge from this? How much harm and destruction will these systems do on their way down? We can’t say for sure. But we can try our darndest, in our daily decisions and actions, to try to bring forth a world with more radical kindness, deep care, love, and justice. To create the supportive conditions for birth. We don’t know how this will all turn out, but we can choose how we show up in this moment, in the spaces we are in.
I share this story about the full moon in Leo in part to share the magic astrology and lunar magic has brought to my life. I don’t “believe” in astrology - I practice with it, and have seen it work. My “belief” is based in practice and visible, tangible results in my life. And I am particularly struck by these longer cycles - not just moon cycles, but 2 year and 10 year and longer cycles. That I can remember the seeds I planted on the July 2022 Leo new moon and see and celebrate their fruits right now. That I have been practicing long enough to see these cycles of not just one month or six month, but years.
This is also one of the gifts of midlife. When you are young, you have a different sense of time. You can’t necessarily see these longer cycles - at least I couldn’t. Now, approaching 45, I can see that sometimes things take time, that there are cycles and seasons of life, that seeds planted can take years to germinate (and not all of them do), and that with dedicated practice, we can transform ourselves, and in doing so, the world, and back and forth ad infinitum.
One of the greatest teachings I receive from the moon and astrology is that everything is cyclical. Time is not linear, even though it can seem to be. Time stretches out and loops back again and attuning to the cycles of nature and the moon and stars can help us see this, practice with it, be with it, be it.
To see the continuation of all things.
“Carried within all of us is another possibility,” said Sylvia V. Linsteadt in the For the Wild interview.
“Carried within all of us is another possibility.”
She also added that the potential for destruction or life is inherent in each of us in any moment. We are all capable of creation and destruction.
What will we choose?
What will we birth?
We call carry other possibilities than the one we are currently living in.
May we bring them forth.
May we birth new worlds into being.
May each of us help hospice the systems we touch,
And make way for what is coming next.
With love and care,
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Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira (2021)
As always this beautiful post was so uplifting to me. Thank you. I started my Sunday morning with this wisdom of life. Lovely.
I'm also reminded of this Ted Talk by Deborah Frieze: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTdZSPBRRE, about the big systems (education, healthcare,.....) to offer hospice to something that's dying and give birth to communities that are healthy and resilient.
Thank you so much for this post.
A beautiful story and a lovely post. Thank you for sharing.🙏🏽