Vigil Aunties

The old aunties sit vigil near enough the laboring woman that she can sense their presence and drink their surety that everything will, indeed, be all right.

The old ones guard this sanctuary of transition with a fierceness that belies their soft bellies, sagging breasts and halos of white hair. Although their legs bear the blue-veined road maps of their long journey, they can still kick ass! They sit vigil to guard this sweet transformation of one maiden into Super Mom; of one – as yet - unborn child into a small being in this wide world. Their alternate names are doula, friend and midwife. They are fierce mama lions at the gate.

During the birth process, the perfection of the Implicate order gives us a blueprint for the perfection of the Explicate order. Sit, Stay, Be Patient. Wait. Be more patient. If only we wouldn’t muck about with natural order. The mother/baby dance that brings each human to the outside world is a precious dance. We’d best not interfere with the rhythm. We’d best hold still to hear the music and support the dance. The Vigil-Aunties sit to protect birthing mothers from civilization, but civilization, in the form of probes and machines, monitors and ultra sound, nibbles at the sacredness surrounding birthing moms - leaving stinking, fearful excrement in the corners of the room. Vigil Aunties buffer birthing moms from institutional protocols that interfere with the tasks at hand: Focus during and Bonding after birth.

Hubris of terrible proportions and devastating consequences has settled over our land. Generation by generation, women have been robbed of power over their own bodies. They’ve given it bit by bit to the erosion of the super-powerful institutions. The scales are tipped precariously, disastrously by the weight of unconsciousness. This is a wake-up call.

Those who are born violently grow to expect that violence is the only reality at birth. In this way doctors, nurses and attendants perpetuate the circle of violence. Many do not even recognize that our birth practices in the “civilized” western world are barbaric.  LeBoyer’s book of 1975, Birth Without Violence made a small but significant ripple in the birth movement; shifting our collective unconscious; allowing us to become collectively slightly more conscious of newborns as sentient beings. What might it be like to support mothers and babies during the critical bonding period after birth? What would it be like to keep them together and not interfere… not separate them, save the weighing and measuring and testing and poking for… who knows when?

Let us ask just ONE innocent human fleshling… “How do you want to be born, dear?” We’re likely to hear, “As an animal would.” Vigil Aunties guard the gate and radiate safety, allowing mom to find her inner animal and to give birth with all her instincts intact.