The Mule

I'm aware that the title of this post makes me sound a bit whacky, and, to be honest, I quite like that. I'm hoping you've already got a mental picture of me, hair matted, eyes rolling, dancing naked around a ceremonial fire with my tits swinging in the breeze. Or perhaps, worse still, you've got me eyeing the camera sexily as my daughter stands on a chair for a bit of 'extreme nursing'. Of course, none of it was really like that. Let me tell you the actual story. Like most mothers who breastfeed beyond one, or two, or three, I didn't set out with that plan, it just happened. My daughter loved nursing, and so did I, well, most of the time, and when I didn't, I loved her, and could see that she loved it, so kept going anyway. In many ways, nursing a child who no longer needs you as their main source of nutrition is easy, compared to the frantic dependency of babyhood. It becomes more flexible, more negotiable: a mutual loving experience that is almost...

Today's post for the week long Birth Special comes from Awen Clement, a mother and trainee midwife, whose love of the book The Red Tent was one of the many reasons she felt called to become involved in this wonderful project. If you feel equally inspired, they would be thrilled to hear from you! The Red Tent Project "We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing... ..And now you come to me...you come hungry for the story that was lost. You crave words to fill the great silence that swallowed me, and my mothers, and my grandmothers before them." ( Prologue, 'The Red Tent', Anita Diamant) Have you read Anita’s book? Did it speak to you? Did you feel a tugging of your soul, a tingle of ancestral memory that you couldn’t quite place? Even if you ha...

Us girls love a good ritual.  Go on, be honest, you enjoyed that wedding last week.  In fact, you like weddings in general, and anniversaries, and I've heard it said, and I think they might be right, that without women there would be no Christmas.  We like to create and participate in ceremony, to gather with friends and family to celebrate life, love, and the passage of time together.  Men can happily join in, but essentially, it's a girl thing. You'd think then, that there would be more woman centred rituals (or call them gatherings, parties, celebrations, rites of passage, whatever you feel comfortable with).  There are, however, many significant moments in a woman's life that are left unremarked upon by our particular culture.  From menstruation to menopause, our bodies do some mysterious and amazing things, and in many other far flung corners of the globe, these accomplishments are brought to light and celebrated in a variety of imaginative, touc...