a new way

I have been teaching Birthing From Within classes for 5 years now. They are fun, informative, unique and honour all aspects of birth and parenting preparation. While I love this work and find it so rewarding there is one aspect about it that I love the most. That is the birth art. When most people hear the word "art" they can get a bit freaked out. So many of us hold stories about our ability or inabiltiy to create and can't understand why facing that fear has anything to do with birth preparation. The reality is that birth preparation is all about facing fears, discovering your own strength and experiencing moving through it. That being said, I often don't do as much art in my classes as I would like, somehow defaulting back to the information aspect that I don't really believe is as important as an exercise in self-discovery. I am always trying to strike a balance and let my own fears go.

I have a very dear friend and colleague however who has developed a whole new way of approaching birth preparation. She calls it the pregnancy circle and I think it is genius. She brings her background in counselling, mothering, Buddhist mediation and childbirth education and marries it into an on going class that I believe truly has the ability to change how we look at birth preparation and women as a whole.

Her classes begin when you are 3 months pregnant and continue up until birth. Each week women engage in soulful, meaningful discussion, meditation and art. Stages of labour and when to go to the hospital are left to someone else to teach. What she is doing here is truly preparing women in their own bodies and hearts for the journey they are about to embark on. If you live in California in the Ventura, Ojai, Santa Barbara or surrounding areas, I would HIGHLY recommend that you check out her class. You will experience something you won't get anywhere else and have the privilege of working with one of the most gifted women I know.

You can find out more about The Pregnancy Circle here.