by Miriam Hechtman

To speak uninterrupted is both shocking and liberating. I remember my first time speaking in the circle, conch in hand, seven pairs of eyes rested on me, the sound of silence rising in volume until my own words filled the empty space. I remember glancing down at my slightly wavering hands, feeling time move at a faster pace, every second, a minute.

If you had told me in my early twenties that I would one day be part of a group of women who met monthly, shared their most intimate thoughts freely and only spoke when they were holding the ‘talking stick’, I probably would have cringed. The notion of such gatherings used to set my alarm bells ringing.

Continue reading →

By Martin Oliver

During pregnancy, expectant women are presented with an array of choices, and perhaps the most important of these is where to give birth.

For the vast majority of Australian mothers, birth is an event that takes place in a labour ward. According to the most recent figures from the National Perinatal Statistics Unit (NPSU), in 2004 about 97.3% of women had a hospital birth. Factors that influenced this decision included a fear of complications, which can translate into a desire to be as close as possible to a range of modern medical technology.

http://flickr.com/photos/bframe/406052093/

However, despite the near-monopoly of hospitals on the Australian way of birth, other alternatives do exist. While maternity wards are the province of (predominantly male) obstetricians, both birth centres and homebirths are usually overseen by female midwives. Childbirth remains a zone of ideological difference between the high-intervention technological approach often favoured by obstetricians and the more natural, low-intervention path followed by midwives.

Continue reading →

“Long before modern science learned how to control a woman’s sacred reproductive function and manipulate her intrinsic rhythms, the Vedic seers recognized that a woman’s fertility, abundance and splendor were tied to the movement of shakti-prana. This is the primordial feminine power of the Shakti that moves within the body and psyche of every female through a specific prana that circulates within the two lower chakras, located around the perineum and sacrum. Manifested as the pro-creative energy, shakti-prana flows within the genitals, womb and belly of a woman.

Ancient Rishis (Vedic sages) noted that women naturally possess a delicate and fragile balance within the body due to their shakti-prana and its extensive powers. When this equanimity is disturbed, they recognized that it would have long-term effects on the maternal strength and prowess of the woman, negatively influencing the maternal bedrock

of all aspects of life. The ancients protected what we have neglected to preserve—a woman’s creative primordial energy. Indeed, the health of the entire earth lies in honoring the female energy and its interconnection to nature’s rhythms.”

Excerpt from ‘Women’s Power to Heal Through Inner Medicine’ by Sri Swamini Mayatitananda (Maya Tiwari), published by Mother Om Media.
Continue reading →