Following .. . . . .. . .. . .A n c e s t r a l . . . . . . . . . . . F o o t s t e p s . . ........

I am a firm believer that the passing down of ancestral knowledge from generation to generation, is a blessing of inherent and profound value.

However, that is not my case. I so badly crave to know what my great-grandmother knew, to talk with her, work along beside her, gain her wisdom.

I crave for the rhythmic nature of familial relation........grand-mother to mother, mother to daughter, down and around again.

But my path has found me here, a path unlike my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother or my ancestors (as far as I know) knew.

I feel it is possible to follow lineages that are not purely familial, or maybe are familial but tangential and taking unseeming forms.

Maybe this form, working with birth , is of the same vein as what my grandmother did, spending hours alone in her sewing room, working and living in an internal space for her creations to be born. Or something like that.

I believe the lineage I follow is much farther back than I know, and am aware of. In my yearning to connect to and liberate the body and all of its physiological and innate potential, is a relating to my indigenous Ancestors.

When woman were the gatekeepers of birth, when they were the Inner Circle.

I did not learn of birth and the body through my mother, nor my grandmother, nor my great-grandmother, but they guided me here.

And it was there births that have shaped my own, which has made me into this person who wants the Cure.

Which has made me the person who wants to reclaim my birth, my mothers, my grandmothers, my great grandmothers. My children, and grandchildren.

I want to free my ancestors from any unheavenly birth experiences they had been made to endure in this country, since the 1900's.

I want to rewrite our stories, our histories.

So I feel that this is following in my ancestors footsteps. I feel like if I could talk to them now, I would see that this is what they truly wanted, and needed. I know that I need to heal what has been torn in the thread of my lineage. I need to go back, if I want to go on.

Becoming a part of birth-work and working intimately in the realm of other women is my way to make amends with these generational traumas.

To be the support, the energy and the wisdom of healing. To encourage the embrace and love of the experience of birth, to makes us feel whole and in touch with ourselves.

To be present, conscious, and pleasurably with in our bodies and the space

This is a gift I would gladly surrender my life to give back to my ancestors,

and to all people who would embrace it.