On a sunny spring-like winter afternoon on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains ~

Over my 43 years in birth work, originally inspired by the birth of my daughter Molly (1970), I’ve been awestruck and humbled at what I continue to learn –what science, ancient wisdom, intuition and personal experience – show about what it means to be born, to give birth…and how to be fully human. I’ve discovered that there is irrefutable evidence that the childbearing continuum, that series of exquisitely complex, processes that take us from before conception through birth, and then through the first year following, shows just how interdependent everything is. Remember how we heard that a butterfly moving its wings somewhere on this earth is affecting life across the planet. That was such a beautiful image; but it’s not just a metaphor for the interconnection – AND inter-dependence – of life. If we live with this awareness, life opens up to so much richness.

I hold this truth about the interconnectedness and interdependence of life as something precious. It reminds me today, when I have been impatient, irritable and frustrated with life’s daily challenges, that it’s up to me to re-work my attitude and behavior so that I what I give out to the world is the best of me. And I’ve been pondering this truth as I reflect on what appears to be a growing movement globally for people to be uncivil, mean, and bigoted to each other…and violent in thoughts and speech, as well as actions. As someone who’s chosen the path of activism, I continue to be stunned at how I think, feel and behave when I run across examples of human meanness…my own included.

A few examples in the news of the past few days:

1)   The refusal of governments to make climate change, global warming and the toxic effects of our addiction to oil the number one priority to address locally, nationally and globally…or we won’t have a livable world

2)   the efforts to suppress homosexuality by passing laws to outlaw it or making it legally acceptable to refuse to serve or work with those who are not “straight” (Is anyone really 100% straight?);

3)   2) the ongoing attempt to deny science and scientific inquiry and methodology by taking the subject of evolution out of school books, or putting creationism (a set of untestable religious beliefs) alongside it in curriculum;

4)   the attempt to keep other people from earning a “living wage”: by legislating a minimum wage that will allow an adult to work no more than one fulltime job in order to be able to afford decent housing, food and transportation);

5)   the ongoing refusals by corporations to change practices that have known (scientifically proven) negative impact on their workers and the public’s health and children’s brain development… I can point specifically to substances such as dioxin (one of the toxic ingredients in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide) that send a false message throughout our body because they mimic our natural hormones, and for this reason are named “endocrine disruptors”.

6)   the attempts by many to keep healthcare and access to enough food and healthy food a privilege that only a few deserve to have, rather than a right that everyone deserves and every society needs to make possible

Need I go on! The list is just beginning in my mind. How can so-called religious people, God-loving people, think it’s acceptable to try and prevent others from having the same rights and access to care and caring and being treated with respect and kindness that they enjoy.

Today, at the start of yoga class, when the teacher suggested that we each set an intention for the class and perhaps for the day, I made my intention to have that hour of practice be there to help me be more patient and have more equanimity. I like that word: it brings up a sense of wellbeing as well as good-natured calm. But, as my partner Bob and I were discussing last night, practicing patience (and forbearance) and equanimity (what Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Han suggests is helped along by lifting the corners of our mouth into a soft inward smile whenever we think about it) doesn’t preclude feeling anger. Especially for those of us who care deeply about one or another pressing issue.

There’s so much in the world – and being reported in the media – that Bob and I feel deserves our being outraged… and then doing something about it. Focusing our outrage and indignation – our anger – like a laser and letting it fuel clear thinking and direct action is a good thing, don’t you think? And I for one, hope to inspire or remind others to get engaged in this world.

I’m reminded frequently of the paradox of holding both a sense of outrage and peace of mind (equanimity).  They’re needed equally and in equal measure. I have a lot of practicing to do to achieve this balance I yearn for. And at the same time as working toward it, I have to remember that loving kindness starts with being kind to myself.

As an self-appointed “agent of change”, I struggle to accept the world as it is right now, and accept myself as I am, which I do believe is the proper starting place for anyone who wants to help create a better world. Sound ironic but it’s not. It’s just one of the many paradoxes of life: paradox being two or more things that seem as if they cannot both be true, yet they are.

I find that going outside and being in nature is an immense help to the over-thinking brain, and overwrought emotional body: noticing how my body is feeling, noticing that I'm actually "in" my body, noticing how amazing it is to be alive and a part of all that is.  It reminds me that the world of nature, of which we are a part, is in a dynamic state of balance, when we are willing to allow it and for the most part leave it alone. Being observant and curious as well as enjoying being present in it, that's another paradox worth cultivating. 

And there is more and more evidence that we humans are by nature kind, generous, moral and that we turn toward doing good (remember the words of ML King, that the arc of human nature is long but it tends toward goodness, to paraphrase). 

And there's new scientific evidence that even as young babies, as young as a few months, we have can tell the difference between something harmful and something beneficial, and that we generally choose what is good. That’s something I’ll write another blog about sometime…the innate goodness of human beings, and how our work can maximize that.

Sending love, Suzanne Arms

What do infant mortality and elephant poaching in Africa have in common?

Plenty. Researchers have, for the first time, observed a direct connection between elephant poaching in Africa, and poverty, as expressed in high rates of mother and baby deaths in humans.

This is just one of many examples of how life on this earth is so richly complex and interdependent. It’s awe-inspiring. This year my focus overall is going to be to get as many people and organizations as possible to understood that birth and the Primal Period (pre-conception to the child’s 1^st birthday) is the nexus point, or center, of everything…whether or not we understand it to be so. Why? Because the problems facing humanity and this earth require a good number of people actively involved in finding solutions for humanity’s heavy footprint.  Shall I list the big ones: climate change; environmental toxins; which are killing off whole species and even found at high levels in breastmilk and the cord blood of newborns; the ongoing abuses of women and children and vulnerable populations; and overpopulation.

I’m always on the look out for good news, to counter my tendency to see the underbelly. Here’s a piece of good news I came across…If every woman alive today was to have just one child, the population of the world would drop to a mere 1.9 billion by the turn of the next century. Think of it, and of how many of our problems would be lessened if there were just a lot fewer humans. 

So, back to my main point, that it all begins with birth. Making it possible for people to be healthy happy, creative and involved – in short, thriving, means they start life and brain/body development off on the right foot, getting all of their needs met. We need young people, adults and elders who are not so pre-occupied with coping that they have no energy or time to get involved. And that leads us back to birth, because we need a good number of babies and mothers whose bond has not been damaged by high levels of stress and/or trauma. This is what it takes for babies to develop fully in the primal period and for mothers to parent with a sense of confidence and ease. I’m wanting to see thriving, not coping.

I feel happy that more and more people and organizations are using the term “mother-baby” rather than mother and baby. Because they really are one, symbiotic and inter-dependent system. What we do – or fail to do for one of them – we are also doing to the other. Here lies brain development and consciousness of the next generation:  in how we treat women as mothers.

I believe it’s time to get everyone in this loose-knit international grassroots “birth movement” to transform birth to understand that this primal period literally is the key to whether or not we human beings develop and live out of a core senses of fear and defense … or love and trust. It’s that basic, because how the baby in the womb (pre-nate, if you will) senses the world to be – safe or unsafe – determines how it organizes it’s billions of cells, organs and entire body and mind for its lifetime.

I maintain, and my whole life affirms this to be a truth, that we humans have been the aggressive, anxious, and destructive (and increasingly self-destructive) creatures that we are, because we and our history are rooted in trauma. Unresolved trauma… Lots of it.

Think of it: from conceptions that are unplanned or unwanted, and our mothers being under great stress when we were growing inside them, to being born in traumatic ways and then separated from our mother, not breastfed (or not for long enough), not picked up when we cried, nor held and slept with and “worn” long enough…to living in families full of secrets and lies and un-grieved griefs, and often raised to feel shame about ourselves and our natural feelings and instincts. Then there is the history so many families the world over, have…generations of unhealed historical trauma (famine, war, slavery, annihilation, dislocation from homeland …).

I say it’s time to break the long chain and cycles of suffering and trauma and wake up into who we really are. We humans are really amazing creatures, capable of so much more. Think about all that humans have accomplished despite carrying anguish in their hearts. How much more could we be, if we had the chance to grow (develop) fully, as nature/God/Allah intended! Wow!

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick-to-death of war and making enemies of people and seeing good midwives arrested and babies and young girls and boys having their genitals mutilated, or kids and girls being treated badly or sold into slavery or abused in other ways, including by their family.

I’m so excited about the various movements on the planet… grassroots movements all of them… to bring about equality and justice and compassion and end greed and domination.

Next month on February 14^th (Valentine’s Day in the USA) we’ll see another outpouring of women – and good men too – around the world, celebrating and dancing in the streets to same dance, and singing, and YES, demonstrate, that women will no longer tolerate being abused. That’s One Billion Rising (onebillionrising.org). Find a group in your community and learn the simple dance and get out there in the streets on February 14^th! We owe it to women and children and men everywhere.    Love, Suzanne