findable

Hi Maggie,

Happy All Saint's or Day of the Dead, or just Happy November!  How was Halloween at your house?  We went to Hogwarts. We went to a celebration of all things Potter.  It was a big theatrical recreation and there were times when it felt real.  I love going to theater. I always suspend and enter and believe...

I read an article which is profound. So I wanted to share it with you.

http://www.ultrakulture.com/2015/10/15/dadirri-australian-aboriginal-spiritual-practice-of-deep-listening-for-trauma-release-healing/

I have often said that listening is the greatest gift we can give to anyone else. But I loved this description of why. And I really appreciated the way listening to Nature is all partof the same process.

My youngest was friends with another young mama for years.  I have mentioned her - she stayed with us after being beaten by a boyfriend.  They recently had a falling out, and now they don't really talk to each other any more.  We ran into her and her mom yesterday, and everyone was friendly, polite, but it's not the same.

The root of their problem is cultural...but the friend is really opposed to breastfeeding, especially as babies get older, because to her it is sexual abuse.

I suppose she thinks that because breasts are an important part of sexual play between adults, that it is the same between a child and adult. I also wonder about her experiences as a child - was she sexually abused, making her hyper-aware?

I want to ask her to imagine how she would feel if her boyfriend simply nursed.  No kissing, no laughing, no equality, no other part of the body involved.  It would not be a very sexual experience.

I want her to think about the different ways a man smells, or a lover smells, and the way a baby smells. Both are irresistable - but in completely different ways...

I was thinking about this in the shower....I noticed that if I don't go to the lake, the water still finds me. I was thinking about bottle feeding, about giving our babies the milk of a cow, milk that is supposed to grow a baby about 800 pound in the first year...and I recalled reading my "formula" which Mom jotted in my baby book...it was watered down cow's milk with brown sugar added.

And I was suddenly furious.  How could anyone feed this to a baby?

After reading the article above, about early pain from separation and I thought abour bottle feeding, separation from mother's body, and I thought about the 1950s and 1960s philosophy of letting babies cry it out, don't let them manipulate and control you...and it seems like a source of all that is wrong with our world.

Maybe that is why I instinctively stayed away from institutions which are all about separation....yet, I screwed up.

Feeling lost, but findable!!

Love and hugs from Clare

Final thoughts about the young mamas - they need to get past judgement. A good mama is one that is attentive and responsive to her children, who would die defending them.  Fighting and judging and separating based on how we feed our kids only makes life smaller and more disconnected. Why not support each other, as long as no one is getting hurt??