aka:Trans generational Passage of Characteristics by Non-Genetic Means
“There is mounting evidence that programming of lifetime health by the conditions in the womb is equally, if not more important than our genes in determining how we perform mentally and physically……understanding the mechanisms that underlie programming by the quality of life in the womb, we can improve the start in life for our children and their children.” Dr. Peter W. Nathanielsz in Life in the Womb: The Origin of Health and Disease
All that I am about to share with you is based on the paradigm shifting work of cellular biologist Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.
His book, the Biology of Belief-unleashing the power of consciousness, matter & miracles explains the principles that Lipton has coined “The New Biology”.
Before we begin to look at the practical application of the subject of the new biology and parents as genetic engineers, we must preface the principles with a brief understanding of the emerging science of epi genetics.
According to Lipton, the science of epi-genetics literally means “control above genetics”.
He goes on to say, “In the last decade, epi-genetic research has established that DNA blueprints passed down through genes are not set in concrete at birth. Genes are not destiny! Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress and emotions, can modify those genes, without changing their basic blueprint. And those modifications, epi-geneticists have discovered, can be passed on to future generations as surely as DNA blueprints are passed on to future generations via the Double Helix”.
Principles of the New Biology as Applied to Parenting
Genes are Fluid
Diseases are not the result of a single gene, but of complex interactions among multiple genes and environmental factors. The Humane Genome Project discovered that more than 80% of the presumed and required DNA does not even exist!
The project itself proved the “one gene, one protein” dogma of genetic determinism obsolete, but they didn’t tell us that part of the discovery!
Sure, they found all the genes in the human body, but what they forgot to mention was that while they expected to find at least 120, 000 genes, they found that the human genome consists of approximately 25,000 genes. More than 80% of the required DNA does not exist to account for the complexity found in human beings. Compare that with the primitive Caenorhabditis worm genome, which contains approximately 24 000 genes, in a body of exactly 969 cells and a simple brain of 302 cells!
Something is wrong with this picture!
Yet, the media and pharmaceutical cartel, continue to beat the drum of genetic determinism. We have to wonder if this withholding of information, was meant keep us thinking that we are helpless victims of ill health and disease-thus making it easy to continue marketing prescription drugs and over the counter medicines.
“The notion that genes control biology has been so frequently repeated for such a long period of time that scientists have forgotten it is a hypothesis, not a truth. In reality, the idea that genes control biology is a supposition, which has never been proven and in fact has been undermined by the latest scientific research”. (Lipton, 2005)
According to the new biology and supported by the both the philosophy and understandings of Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, our thoughts, feelings, nutrition status, environment and lifestyle during pre-conception and gestation, affect our child’s present and long term health, constitution (basis of health) and jing (vitality).
“Let go of unfounded fears and take care not to implant unnecessary fears and limiting beliefs in your children’s subconscious minds. Most of all, do not accept the fatalistic message of genetic determinism. You can help your children reach their potential and you can change your personal life. You are not “stuck” with your genes.” Dr. Bruce Lipton
Obstetric doctor, Michel Odent, is also very deeply concerned about what he calls, the “ecology of the womb” and he has dedicated a research bank to compile studies that relate to what he refers to as “primal health”. This research bank can be accessed at the Primal Health Research Bank.
With the knowledge that our womb baby’s future constitution will built up by our choices, as conscious parents we must ask ourselves “how will each decision I make impact my womb baby’s well-being,?
If we are currently desiring or planning to conceive at some point in our lives, then we must prepare our body and mind to receive this new soul, and provide the best possible conditions that we are capable of. If we are to be conscious human beings, then we must also take responsibility and choose to become informed about all aspects of our health and well-being, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well.
Specific actions we can take right now include, eating real food as nature has supplied in its natural form, as well as reducing stressors in our daily lives while cultivating both beauty and satisfaction as much as possible in every moment.
This serves a triple purpose:
1) to serve our highest interests
2) to serve our child’s highest interests
3) to step into the role of being a model for our child
Which brings us to another principle of the new biology.
Children Live in Theta
Children live in what we adults would experience as a very relaxed and imaginary state of consciousness. Scientists refer to this brain state as “theta”. In this brain wave state, the subconscious mind is easily influenced and programmed. This explains in part why as adults, even when we consciously have different value systems than our parents, we still act out similar behaviors, patterns and limiting beliefs.
As parents we have so much power over the formation of our child’s patterns and self perception. THIS IS A HUGE RESPONSIBILITY THAT WE CANNOT TAKE LIGHTLY!!! We must remain awake to the fact that we are indeed “programming” them.
Will we use our thoughts, words and deeds to reflect back to them that they are worthy of our time, our love and our trust?
“What if we had conscious parents and teachers who served as wonderful life models, always engaging in humane and win-win relations with everyone in the community? If our subconscious mind were programmed with such healthy behaviors, we could be totally successful in our lives without ever being conscious!” Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.
Growth vs. Protection
“The responsiveness of individuals to the environmental conditions perceived by their mothers before birth, allows them to optimize their genetic and physiologic development as they adapt to the environmental forecast.” Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.
While this information is empowering to many, to others the idea of assuming responsibility is scary and induces feelings of fear, doubt and self blame. This is not the kind of responsibility that I am talking about. The kind of responsibility that I am referring to is the just the reverse, literally- the “ability to respond”-response “ability”.
It is actually this capability, to respond, rather than react to our circumstances that allows us to grow from our experiences. This awareness precludes the last principle of the new biology as it applies to parenting.
It is not what comes into our experience, but rather how we respond to it that determines whether or not we “grow” or “shut down” from our experiences.
Lipton refers to this as growth vs. protection. In the protection mode we are victims of our environment and susceptible to all forms of pain and suffering, while in growth mode, we evolve.
This is not to say that we do not experience pain and suffering while we remain in growth mode, but that it is out of chaos that transformation and ultimately our evolution occurs.
We must continue to expand our perceptions of ourselves and our lives if we want to experience greater levels of health, emotional and spiritual well-being.
THIS IS SUCH A POWERFUL PARADIGM! It both empowers us to make conscious choices and it allows us to expand in response to environments that are not to our liking- by choosing a perception that opens us and causes us to evolve!
This knowledge expands on Darwin’s idea of survival of the fittest and evolves it somewhat, to rather, survival of the most perception-aly flexible and emotionally resilient!
We can transmute or evolve our species through our perceptions and emotional intelligence rather than through brute physical resilience.
Back to our children….
We must model the ability to expand and be flexible about our perceptions if we want our children to be able to survive the new world. Our experience of being human at this time on the planet is in a constant state of evolution and some even say that time is speeding up! Being able to respond, rather than break down or wither in the face of change, is what our children will need to be able to do, to live into the uncertain future.
So let us rise up and assume responsibility for our health, thoughts, deeds, actions, responses and perceptions…. for that is the loving work of conscious parents. Let us program our children for success in life, whatever that means to each child.
After all, it is the bridge between heaven and earth….the momentous moment that a new soul arrives on our planet. What could be more sacred than that!
When we enter holy places, we feel moved with reverence, we lower our voices and speak and act with great consciousness and respect. Contrast this with the environment in which we birth our babies. People rushing, coming and going, loud voices, beeping machines, etc.
If we are to bring the Sacredness back to birth, we must prepare our birth space as a sacred birthing space.
How can you infuse your birthing space and your child’s first day on the planet with ceremony and quiet reverent celebration?
What customs or rituals do you hold sacred?
Our baby’s souls are born open and ask for a gentle welcoming. Our attention to creating a sacred birthing environment also protects our baby’s delicate senses. What we create for this day, need not be religious or ritualistic, but rather symbolic of our deep appreciation of the cycle of life and of our gratitude to be in the presence of, and to receive this new soul into our love and care.
As we infuse more consciousness into birth, we infuse more consciousness into the consciousness of humanity.
Birth as A Woman’s Visionquest
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a vision quest is “a period of spiritual seeking among certain Native American peoples, often undertaken as a puberty rite, that typically involves isolation, fasting, and the inducement of a trance state for the purpose of attaining guidance or knowledge from supernatural forces”.
Most of us are familiar with this definition of a vision quest, but few recognize that this masculine rite of passage has a feminine counterpart!
Childbirth!
As women we need not go out alone into the depths of the forest to receive guidance from spirit in a supernatural way. Our journey is inherent and it is a turning within. We surrender to the altered state, and merge with the universe to bring forth new life!
The vision quest is inherent within us!
The turning inward begins at the moment of conception. Throughout pregnancy the natural feminine tendency to be receptive increases, preparing us to be literally penetrated by spirit’s love, as we surrender to the profound altered state of consciousness, that giving birth is .
Just as we can open to God with our lover through Tantra…we can also open to God through the birth experience….. after all, birth is the continuum of our love making.
This isn’t just to hint at orgasmic and pleasurable birth, but it is also to give rise to the inner visionquest…..
What you will bring back from your “birth quest”?
How will your birth journey evolve your soul?
If you embrace your potential to harness the power of your birth journey into a spiritual path of conscious evolution…..if you intend it….if you claim it….. IT WILL BE YOURS!
What you claim in this experience, is your gift to your children, your children’s children and humanity at large!
As each individual evolves, the collective is elevated as well!
Birth is Evolving!
Yes it is true! Women all over the globe are beginning to experience pleasure instead of pain in childbirth!
Women are accessing expanded inner capabilities through conscious childbirth!
They are having more than just a pleasurable experience, they are having a spiritual experience!
How will you intend the energy of the universe, as it flows through you as you give birth?
Imagine a world in which baby’s are born without pain and trauma, where mothers birth in love, trust and pleasure and where women experience birth as orgasmic!?
How would this impact all facets of our lives and “ways of being” as a human beings? Stay tuned for the next “inner”quiry…. Parents as Genetic Engineers
References and Resources:
www.sacredbirthing.com
www.calmbirth.org
www.birthkeeper.com
www.orgasmicbirth.com
www.unassistedchildbirth.com/sensual/orgasmic.html
This particular post is probably going to be “in flux” over the next 4 days, as I write about my process with 4 homemade cereal recipes.
So just what is going on, on my table with all these towel covered bowls?
Well, all of these recipes require soaking, and so while the Buckwheat Crispies are already in the oven, my three other recipes are soaking and fermenting in bowls (to break down the anti-nutrients and to make the nutrition more bioavailable). We can think of these “ferment bowls”, like stomachs outside of our stomachs- working hard to ease the work for our digestive organs!
So why make your own cereal anyway?
#1 homemade cereal is more nutrient dense than store-bought varieties #2 boxed cereal is toxic because of the processing it undergoes to become “puffed”. This is referred to as “extrusion”. Unfortunately, organic whole grain varieties are potentially the most toxic because there is more protein within whole grains to be harmed. So if you are buying organic cereals because you think they are healthier than their conventional counterparts, you have to read this: http://www.nourishingourchildren.org/Cereal.html! #3 commercial cereals are totally unsatisfying (in fact I don’t really like cereal) so testing out these recipes will be very interesting being that I prefer a heavier breakfast….for me, eating cereal is akin to having a glass of juice….too many empty calories! #4 brings me to “the why” of why I am personally experimenting with these recipes in the first place… because my kids covet societal food norms and I love to find ways to make simple, healthier versions of commercial foods, in order to make eating healthy more accessible for those mamas less passionate about cooking! #5 As a whole “foodie”- every meal from scratch- kinda mama, I have to tell you that I often wish that I had more healthy prepared food on hand-giving me the freedom to just grab and go sometimes (or sleep in a little later)!
“But isn’t this going to amount to a copious amount of work” you might wonder?
And can homemade cereals really taste good?
Well, firstly I can tell you that the Maple Cinnamon Buckwheat Crispies in the following picture took me all of 20 minutes to put together so far, and as for taste, we’ll see because buckwheat isn’t on my top list of favourite grains. This recipe comes from the “Raw Food Real World” cookbook.
As I write, this recipe is dehydrating over night in the oven and will be ready for breakfast. All that is now left to do is turn it over once (dehydrate a little longer) and then crumble it into pieces by hand. I will be serving it in the morning with Manitoba Made Hemp Milk.
Tomorrow morning, I will also be doing the second stage of my Seed Cereal (adapted from Cranberry Maple Granola from “Raw Food Real World”). Currently the ingredients are soaking (see pic below). The preparation time so far for this recipe has been 16 minutes. Tomorrow I have to blend with the rest of the ingredients, pulse them in the food processor and dehydrate it much like the buckwheat crispies.
In order to save time and electricity, I will also be dehydrating my Soaked Granola at the same time. Took me 7 minutes to do the “night before prep” and in the morning there will be some more ingredients to stir in. Then I will dehydrate it along with the Seed Cereal. Here is a pic of the ingredients soaking for the Soaked Granola. The recipe is from the blog “Cheeseslave”: http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/07/27/homemade-granola-with-soaked-oats-sprouted-flour/
Well, I have to say that the Buckwheat Crispies recipe from the cookbook “Raw Food Real World” tasted too salty and too sweet (or maybe it was just the weirdness of stevia- I should have known, stevia needs something sour to cut the aftertaste (see my post on stevia)! Also, I dehydrated it too thick (thus, it took way too long to dry out- not in time for breakfast!), so next time I will make the recipe and dehydrate it on two cookie sheets instead of one. I can tell that this idea for a breakfast cereal has a lot of promise, so I intend to perfect the recipe after we eat the first batch (still edible, but not amazing!). I forgot to time the rest of the prep for the seed cereal, but I am gonna say that it took me at least a half hour to process and stir in the remaining ingredients before spreading the mixture on the cookie sheets and placing in the oven.
So right now the Seed Cereal is dehydrating on TWO COOKIE sheets (learned my lesson) which means I am gonna have to dehydrate each recipe seperately. I have high hopes for this recipe, which I adjusted to be mostly seeds and some almonds to make it more affordable….the wet batter tastes great!
I hope to have the Cold Cereal Recipe in the oven before I go to bed and then bake the granola tomorrow morning. So that is where we are at!!
To be continued……
Nov. 20, 2010
Well I have officially completed this experiment and can tell you that making homemade cereals is well worth the effort! My favourite turned out to be my rendition of the Seed Granola. See picture below. Tastes great with Manitoba Hemp Milk!
The following image is of the cereal recipe I used from The Healthy Home Economist called “Cold Breakfast Cereal”. This was my 4 year old daughter’s favourite. It tastes good with hemp milk and with yogurt, but mostly she enjoyed snacking on it dry!
Next is the Soaked Granola recipe from Cheeseslave. This one is my son’s favourite and he enjoyed it with plain yogurt.
And finally, the one recipe that didn’t turn out the first time (yucky with stevia and too salty), became the family favourite after I changed up the proportions. Buckwheat Crispies! Taste great with Hemp Milk and great snacking food for the kids too!
Of all these cereals the Buckwheat Crispies is the easiest and we’ve made it three weeks in a row! The fact that we are enjoying this one so much is quite amazing, considering that I am not normally a big fan of the taste of Buckwheat! Go figure!
Imagine eating chips that are not only delicious, but are also a concentrated source of greens, that even your kids will love?!! Watch on to discover the simplicity of this recipe and a few tidbits from my son Isaiah who was brave enough to help me share the nutritional info with a mere 5 minute lesson just before we shot the video!!
Here’s the recipe we used for the video:
2 heads of Dino Kale chopped
1 small onion chopped
1 cup chopped cherry tomatoes
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp cumin
1-2 tsp unrefined salt
1/8 cup olive oil
1/4 cup tahini
Massage it all together and dehydrate until crispy in your oven @ 150 degrees ferenheit or in a food dehydrator.
Foodie Facts:
-member of the cabbage or cruciferous family
-native to Europe
-rich in calcium, potassium, iron plus Vit. A
-1 cup of kale has more calcium that 1 glass of milk
-warming thermal nature
-sweet and slightly bitter, pungent flavour
-eases lung congestion
-the juice treats stomach and duodenal ulcers
As we live, so we birth……..as we birth, so we live……………….
Pregnancy can be a time of self development and inner growth if we choose to embark upon our births as a woman’s vision quest.
How will you prepare for the moment that all the power of the universe flows through you as you open to receive your baby?
From the moment a new soul is conceived within our wombs we are entering an altered state that we can harness to deepen our connection with spirit, humanity and our life’s purpose.
An Uncommon Parallel
While what I am about to say may not be considered “politically correct”, it begs to be said anyway. From my experience both with childbirth and the experimental use of recreational drugs in my youth, I liken the experience of the altered state of giving birth to the experience of using drugs such as “magic mushrooms” or marijuana. While the altered states feel very different, they are the same in that you don’t get to decide what the trip will be like, nor do you get to decided when it is done.
Surrender is the only way through the intensity.
Yet how many of us are comfortable with letting go and surrendering to the unknown? How many of us are comfortable with altered states? Especially in a culture where we have been programmed to fear recreational drug use.Most of us would admit to being uncomfortable around people who are in altered states given that we ourselves are not. This may explain why in our modern culture we feel compelled to go to a hospital to give birth, so that the doctor (shaman) can manage our altered state for us, or save us from it if we feel like we are on a “bad trip”. We ask for socially acceptable drugs to superimpose the normal waking consciousness into our birth, while numbing our body and separating us from being connected to our experience.
The Vision-Quest
While the altered state of childbirth is a physiological experience, it is also a hormonal “high” that leaves women feeling extremely powerful. Unfortunately few women today get to experience a true DMT or oxytocin peak (the hormonal bliss of childbirth) because birth is rarely as private as it needs to be for these states to occur in their fullness. We can numb ourselves to the inherent spiritual nature of pregnancy and childbirth or we can embrace it fully. Via intention and inspired action we can call into out experience the rich fullness of our inherent “woman’s vision-quest par excellence”! (J.Parvati Baker)
Embracing the Journey
To begin preparing for our woman’s vision-quest, we can view our upcoming birth experience as a microcosm of the usual drama of our lives. What needs to be brought up for healing in your life? What patterns are still playing out in your life that need to be healed?
Will you use this pregnancy as a time of transformation?
In what kind of mood will you enter the altered state of childbirth? Inspired, trusting and able to flow, or will you be fearful, distracted and afraid of losing control? Will you spend this pregnancy focusing on your soul’s growth and becoming the kind of conscious person that you would want to be your own mother!? Or are you content to settle for fussing over transient details such baby gadgets and wallpaper?
Who are you? Who are you capable of becoming?
Will you embrace this journey that is your birth-rite as a woman? Will you infuse it with as much consciousness as you know how?
As we live, so we birth……..as we birth, so we live……………….
“Contact is good for babies- and their parents- right from the beginning period. And it improves not just their relationship. Allowing time to bond helps increase childhood IQ scores, keeps families intact, and reduces the likelihood of childhood abuse”. Tina Cassidy author of BIRTH-The Suprising History of How We are Born
In the last post we learned that how we give birth impacts our ability to access the inner parenting blueprint that resides in our soul. While that blueprint is always available to us in the here and now (the past does not equal the future), we have biological capabilities that assist us to access the blueprint without our conscious willing of it.
While the soul intuitively understands that how we give birth psychologically impacts our babies perception of what life is and also our own way of being as a mother, it is a lesser known fact that the body and it’s physiology also affects the psychology of mothering.
Few know that there is a hormonal blueprint of labour that initiates bonding and can over ride the mind and its conflicting ideas about right and so called “wrong” ways to mother a child if a mother can yield to it.
Love for our baby is not just a fondness that we experience, but rather it is the natural physiological outcome of the oxytocin peak that occurs when labour and birth are undisturbed and instinctive.
Many women miss out on this hormonal surge due to internal fears along with modern birthing conditions and practices.
In order to experience the natural hormonal imprint of birth, there are certain internal and external conditions that need be met, to allow our body to be experience the oxytocin peak that will guide our mothering instincts in the direction of our baby’s highest interests.
Internal Conditions:
-instinctive birth
-feelings of love, trust and safety that allow a mother to surrender to the altered state of childbirth
-consciousness moving from the neo-cortex (rational thinking mind) to the primal brain that knows how to give birth (psychologically undisturbed birth).
External Conditions:
-quiet, minimal-to-no eye contact and absence of bright light
-small, safe space guarded by a trusting, quiet unobtrusive presence
-natural labour and birth (absence of unnecessary interventions that inhibit instinctive birth and mothering)
– comfortably warm environment
-1 hour undisturbed after the birth of mother/baby/father bonding with out interruption by caregivers
While the conditions that support birth and mothering seem intuitive, finding a caregiver who can stand back and witness without observing and guard the birthing space without interrupting the mother, is hard to come by, yet not impossible to find.
The best way to get the care you desire, is to read the following books (see references) and share what you are learning with your caregiver.
Please understand that doctors and registered midwives are bound by medical protocol. While your caregiver may want to offer you the kind of birth you are asking for, their medical training and protocol may make it challenging and sometimes even illegal for them to do so. Therefore if you choose to hire a caregiver, find one that is receptive and relate to them with consensus (finding solutions that don’t compromise, but rather ones that serve the needs of everyone involved, including the well-being of your baby). It isn’t fair to expect your caregivers to offer you something that they are not comfortable with, just as it is unjust for caregivers to impose beliefs and expectation into your birth, that are not aligned with your intentions.
If consensus with a medical caregiver does not seem possible given the birthing climate where you live, consider hiring a lay midwife, or asking other women who are experienced in birthing their own babies at home, to assist you in your birth (this is the way we have always given birth anyway!). From the beginning of time grandmothers, aunties and experienced mothers have attended other mothers in birth! Some Doulas are comfortable with a woman’s right to choose not to hire a registered caregiver. Seek and ye shall find.
Another birthing option is to birth unassisted. While not for all woman, women who are very confident and who have a deep trust and faith in life and in their body’s, are choosing to have their babies all by themselves! This movement is growing all over the world and there are many internet support groups for this birthing option. It certainly is one way to embrace your power as the authority of your own body and to take full responsibility to mother your baby following your soul’s intuitive nudging every step of the way!
If you are choosing to birth in the hospital, please do your research about labour induction with synthetic oxytocin (pitocin). Induction of labour with synthetic drugs interrupts the hormonal interplay of labour and birth and makes it impossible to get the oxytocin peak that mothers are biologically meant to be gifted with for optimal primal bonding. If that weren’t unfortunate enough, even mothers who labour naturally in the hospital are at the last minute injected with pitocin just as their babies are about to be born, making even a natural hospital birth, biologically unnatural.
The implications of a last minute shot of pitocin is tragic and here’s why: while our natural bonding hormone, oxytocin crosses the blood brain barrier and initiates bonding- synthetic pitocin on the other hand fills our receptor sites, BUT does not cross the blood brain barrier and therefore cannot initiate instinctive bonding.
This is tragic because most women birth in the hospital and pitocin injection at birth is routine care! This means that the majority of women giving birth are not biologically set up to be bonded with their babies!
Thank goodness that we can consciously choose to love our children and can override our instincts or lack of them and access our soul’s wisdom anyway if we consciously desire it -but we must ask ourselves how does the lack of an oxytocin peak set us up to mother our children? How do we know if the mother we are, is the mother we are capable of being? How would we know the difference?
Do you want access to all of your biological capabilities as a mother, or are you content to give up your mothering blueprint?
The routine use of pitocin in the third stage is used under the guise of preventing post partum hemorrhage. Pitocin injection is used, instead of facilitating an undisturbed birth and patiently watching and waiting for the body to expel the placenta naturally. This requires time and the recognition of each woman’s individuality- something doctors don’t have time for and unfortunately they are not trained to attend birth in this way.
According to Obstetrician Dr. Michel Odent, there would be virtually no postpartum hemorrhage if the first hour after birth is undisturbed and if all birthing environments were warm. Unfortunately these are conditions that medical mindsets have not yet been that quick to embrace!
So how will you create the conditions to reset your brain to birth instinctively in your birth?
As you carry your beautiful Buddha belly have you stopped to acknowledge that you hold the future of humanity in your sacred womb and gentle heart? The late Midwife, Jeannine Parvati Baker brought us the insight that we can indeed “heal the earth by healing birth”. As mothers we carry a sacred potential to be healers of the world through the power of giving birth.
While we may be intitially focused on creating a great birth experience to protect the health and well-being of our baby, in time it becomes appharent to the seeking mother, that the way we give birth has vast and far reaching impacts on humanity at large.
Where we look for answers and feedback about our choices in birth, reflects our deepest values conscious and unconscious. By looking closer at our choices and their subsequent impact on our baby and society at large, we have a unique opportunity for insight, inner growth and expansion of our power as pregnant women.
Many women are beginning to harness the transformational power of birth and motherhood as a time to consciously “evolve”. They are harnessing the momentum of change, to question and recreate many aspects of their lives with much greater reflection and attention than they ever have before. Many new mothers today are looking more closely at how they can align their choices and actions with their deeply felt values. They are living in the question of their incongruencies and “sitting with” how they can come into greater alignment within their inner selves. This new and upcoming generation of mothers, are longing to feel the peace that comes with no longer making choices that conflict with their true inner values and they are finding the courage they need to take the actions needed to come into alignment with their souls longing.
How much value or significance do you place on the responsibility you carry as being the vessel for bringing a new soul onto the planet?
Few stop to ponder the irony that many people will go into debt for wedding expenses (most of which is to entertain and impress others, but only lasts one day!), and then bemoan the price of paying for the gentle midwifery or holistic Doula care that leads to upholding the sanctity of one of the most precious days of their lives, the birth of their own child.
How much are you willing to investing into creating a beautiful and sacred journey of pregnancy and birth, whether it be research, time, money, self care or all of the above? Do you agree that your baby’s birth has at least as great significance as celebrating the love and commitment between two lovers, if not more? After all, partners come and go, but motherhood is forever!
Have you wondered how you can infuse greater consciousness into this sacred rite of passage as you are prepare to partner with the creator to bring a new soul to the planet? Do you wonder what mission does your child have in the conscious evolution of the planet? How will you ensure that your child’s first experience of the world, namely his or her birth is one where he/she feels welcomed, embraced and unharmed by medical technology?
We are coming to an age where we can no longer assume ownership of our children. We must also question how our choices affecting the incarnating soul, in turn affects the planet at large. What kind of birth do you want for this child? How will your child’s first embarkation with life mark his/her soul? What patterns are being wired in your child’s brain even now while in the womb?
As conscious parents, we must begin to ask ourselves how our actions, feelings, experiences and intentions are affecting our womb baby…”parenting begins before conception”(Carista Luminare-Rosen)
Our Birth is Significant for Life
It was once thought that the newborn does not feel pain, and that their amnesia about their own births meant that we need not concern ourselves with how they feel. Science has long proved that premise false (while we mothers have always known that our babies feel, for we can feel right into their feelings)!
“The truth is, much of what we have traditionally believed about babies is false. We have misunderstood them and underestimated their abilities. They are not simple beings, but complex and ageless-small creatures with unexpectantly large thoughts.” David Chamberlain, Ph.D.
In fact, the field of pre and perinatal psychology is telling us that the moment of a child’s birth has great significance for the rest of their lives, setting up unconscious patterns that play out again and again to call our attention to their need for healing and resolution.
While pregnant women hold the continuation of humankind literally in their wombs, they also hold the key to the future of world peace. Whether children are harmed or unharmed at birth, is carried forward into their adult lives. While all of our dysfunctions as the result of our past traumas can be be healed at any moment in time, is it not better to be born gently and peacefully so we can each bring our gifts to the world with ease rather than the insecurity and pain of trauma that masks our potential in fear?
How we give birth and how we mother matters.
Mothers Matter
If you are reading this and you know a pregnant woman, honor and celebrate her for what she represents and can embody fully with the help of her community. Uphold her, for by her love and selflessness as she gives of her body, heart and soul, she is ensuring a beautiful world not only for her child, but for all of us. Nurture the pregnant women and new mothers among you! Joyfully give of your time, energy and attention if you feel called and inspired! When we give to mothers, we give to children. What children are given, they reflect back to us and re create in the world. Take time to love a mother and her child today!
During the birth process, we transform at the cellular level and become the archetypal bodhisattva. The process of being aware as we conceive, gestate and open our wombs to the creative force or the all that is, becomes our attunement as woman healer, giving rise to the higher functioning that we need to mentor our children into their vast potential and greatness.
Parenthood is a spiritual path and awareness is the practice.
As mothers, we have great honor and great responsibility. The consciousness and tone with which we conceive, gestate, birth and parent our children, becomes the fabric from which they create their very lives. We come to conscious awareness through mindfulness meditation, although it often looks different for the householder. “Householders are challenged to watch our natural attachments to our children and let them be manifest in their fullest and purest sense. It is a goal to revision this attachment with eternal eyes, not just with temporal sight”. (Jeannine Parvati Baker).
On the spiritual path of parenthood, we do not go to the ashram or to the monastery. We instead make our homes a Sacred Space and the practice most often looks like kneading bread, shelling chickpeas or washing dishes and sweeping the floors. We sit in awareness for 15 minutes at a time, rarely longer with little hands just begging to pull us off the meditation mat.
We breathe deeply when we notice our self about to rote respond to the discomforts, whining or misbehaviors of our children; instead we stop in that moment of awareness and we respond to a child, rather than to a behavior. We know that our relating to them comes first and that right action follows, never the other way around. We are connected so deeply to our children that we feel their pain to greater degrees even than we feel our own; and our love for them is eternally unconditional.
The actual process of opening to give birth is a gateway for complete transformation on all levels of our being. Inherent in this transformative process is the awakening of dormant capabilities that give rise to expanded states of being and self empowerment that include knowing how to raise this child. We come back to relating, just as we come back to our breath. This relating informs our way of being with our children.
As mothers we give up the freedom to live by our impulses, yet what arises in its place, is awareness and expanded states of being that could not be experienced by any other means or path!
No other practice but motherhood could conjure up the sensation of a heart beating inside our wombs or the experience of feeling love again as though for the first time; and even again with the subsequent birth of each new child coming thereafter. From feeling the life force move through our yonis as we give birth, to the awe that comes with seeing our babies for the first time outside of our bodies and simultaneously getting that, it was this baby that we nurtured in our womb for nine moons.
There are so many altered states of consciousness inherent in co creating, carrying and birthing a child; right from the time of conception and before that, as a women’s climax coaxes the sea-Men into her watery depths. The whole journey of Motherhood is an altered state of consciousness that is informed by the birth process; just as the birth process is informed by who we are, that life is. The altered states that we experience are unique to motherhood; there is no other path by which to attain such incredible states of being and awareness.
As pregnant women and mothers who have taken great care to nurture the souls that gestate or have once gestated within our wombs; we are privy to the very sacred task of mentoring the evolved souls who come to us disguised as children. Yet in the modern context of motherhood, we are often not acknowledged or celebrated and rarely apprenticed and finally initiated into the bodhisattvic path of service called motherhood.
Mother as bodhisattva, is a very real, honoring and empowering archetypal image in which to view motherhood in the modern context. The path no longer chooses us, for today we have the freedom to choose not to mother a child.
Let us acknowledge ourselves and one another for putting aside our own personal nirvanas, to instead merge in service for the highest good of our children, and subsequently for our planet. As we choose to offer ourselves up to mother in awareness, we consciously raise the consciousness of our children, and ultimately we generate the enlightenment of humanity as a whole.
Books for Embracing Childbirth as a Spiritual Path: Prenatal Yoga and Childbirth by Jeannine Parvati Baker Sacred Birth by Sunni Karll CalmBirth by Robert Newman Childbirth with Insight by Elizabeth Noble Queen Jin’s Handbook of Pregnancy by Fred Jeremy Seligson Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful by Gurmukh
I have been using colloidal silver now for 7 plus years without much question. Sure, I had heard of argyria and read the Rosemary Jacobs story (which I must say, definitely did give me a healthy and appreciable dose of caution in terms not exceeding the recommended dosage stated on the label of my own colloidal silver bottle). Jacobs states on her home page that she became grey from ingesting colloidal silver, but then goes on to say that in actuality, her particular case was due to a type of medically prescribed nasal spray. When questioned about the contents of the drugs she was formally prescribed, she states “All I know is that they contained silver” . But all that was long before the “blue man” story hit the media. Recently a friend of mine looked at me quite quizzically when she overheard me explaining to another friend how I could literally stop a sore throat in 20 min by taking a tbsp of colloidal silver at the first sign of discomfort. To paraphrase, my perplexed friend exclaimed, as she leaned in closer to peer at my complexion for signs of impending “smurfness”, “Haven’t you heard about the blue man? I wouldn’t touch that stuff”.
According to www.silverfacts.com, a website created by a committee consisting of a group of silver industry experts, scientists, and medical and legal professionals formed for the purpose of providing reliable information on the safe and responsible use of silver in health, “Too much silver in the body can cause a harmless but nonetheless undesirable skin discoloration called “argyria.” This factor has fueled a controversy where passions and biases have greatly overshadowed facts, level-headedness and the dissemination of reliable, useful information to foster safe use of silver products …. To put things in perspective, however, this only occurs with extremely irresponsible use. As is demonstrated by referring to the U.S. EPA safety guidelines on silver, responsible use of a dietary supplement that contains silver introduces less silver to the body than what could exist in the average person’s drinking water intake….fully meeting EPA guidelines.”
Silver facts has created a chart that can be found at: http://www.silverfacts.com/Safety_chart.pdf that states how many drops via body weight a person can safely ingest ranging from 3-3000 ppm (most brands that I have seen in supplement stores are 10ppm). While researching for this article, a friend mentioned that NASA uses silver ions to purify water for astronauts while in space . According to one source the amount of silver used by NASA during the Apollo Lunar Landing Program was 100 to 300 parts per billion . It seems to me that the level used for water purification is much less than that used for medicinal purposes. It proves at least in my mind that silver does in fact kill bacteria.
All that said, the question remains, is colloidal silver safe for internal ingestion? It is no secret that argyria does exist, yet we do not know why it happens to some people, and not to others. We also do not know for certain, if there are certain specific forms of silver that cause it, and others that do not (although there is much speculation about that all over the internet!). What does seem plausible is that the abuse (overconsumption) of silver, regardless of its form is correlated to argyria, in at least some individuals. Then again, there are also many people taking it on a daily basis as a cure-all, who themselves do not develop argyria. Is it just a matter of time? Could it be that certain people, due to their unique biological individuality, have a propensity for being unable to metabolize silver and as a result, deposit it in their skin? Whereas, other people simply excrete what their body has no use for? Does the health of a person’s liver have anything to do with it, being that the liver is a major organ of metabolism and detoxification? Or is there some other unique physiological factor inherent in some individuals that make them susceptible to argyria?
To put it in perspective, excessive ingestion of water and salt can cause death; yet silver on the other hand, has no other known side effects other than skin discoloration, which may be temporary in some individuals .
However, just because there are no other known side effects other than skin discoloration, doesn’t mean there aren’t any. “No known side effects” means just that. It is reasonable to assume that there may be other impacts on health that we cannot see with the naked eye; so as with any other non food, I suggest that we must exercise caution when taking anything into our bodies in an unnatural way or form. While colloidal silver is found in nature, it is certainly not natural to consume it singularly from a bottle. It comes down to reasonability in application. Don’t fear it, but don’t drink it by the cupful either.
Efficacy of Colloidal Silver
While I can attest to my personal success with colloidal silver, from administering it for sore throats to mastitis to ear and tooth infections, there are no scientific studies that either prove or disprove the safety of the internal use of colloidal silver in humans. But that hasn’t stopped people from using it and getting results; nor has it stopped drug and supplement companies from trying to patent their own manufactured versions of it.
According to Bruce Gibbins, founder of, and lead researcher and chief technology officer for AcryMed, “In minute concentrations, silver is highly toxic to germs while relatively non-toxic to human cells. Microbes are unlikely to develop a resistance against silver, as they do against conventional and highly targeted antibiotics, because the metal attacks a broad range of targets in the organisms, which means they would have to develop a host of mutations simultaneously to protect themselves”. This is good news in the current age of antibiotic resistance. That in itself, is a good enough reason, in my humble opinion, for conventional science to launch studies that test the safety and efficacy of silver in its many forms and functions for internal use. According to outspoken industry expert Jay Newman, the founder and President of Invision International Health Solutions, Inc., a privately held company that specializes in the research and development of ionic silver delivery solutions for human use, “In addition, evidence is mounting that silver ions have powerful antiviral effects as well. A recent university study suggested ionic silver to be effective against the SARS virus. In Europe, ionic silver is a medically approved treatment used to combat systemic viral conditions, including the common cold and flu….. Silver ions, while being lethal to single-celled microorganisms, are harmless to human cells and, in fact, are increasingly being used in wound care due to their remarkable ability to facilitate the healing of tissue”.
So what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do we wait for the experts to prove that colloidal silver is an effective agent against bacteria and viruses, or do we test its validity for ourselves and then establish personally, whether or not silver is worthy of taking up space in our own medicine cabinet? Based on my own inquiry via extensive reading and personal experience, I have come to the following conclusions:
1) Don’t make it at home if you are worried, (better safe than sorry)
2) Research the company that you are purchasing your silver from. Make sure that they are a reputable company (what they say is in the bottle, is in the bottle and that they offer sound advice about how to administer it).
3) Follow the amount stated on the label; less is more.
4) Be reasonable. It is questionable whether any non food product should be taken in by the body on a long term basis. Consider colloidal silver to be medicine, not a medicinal food; and take it when you are fighting a virus or bacteria, but don’t take it as a cure-all elixir.
References & Resources
http://rosemaryjacobs.com/rose6.html#1 “What the AP Press release doesn’t tell the general public, is that Stan brewed his home-made colloidal silver by using tap water and salt with a battery colloidal silver generator, and let his generator run for an hour, which not only produced an abundance of silver chloride, but also produced larger particles of silver due to agglomeration caused by a runaway electrolysis reaction. He drank eight ounces or more of this product containing an extremely high concentration of silver daily for at least two years”. http://www.silvermedicine.org/argyria.html
“Life Support Systems: MIR” http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/teacher/course/mir.html
“Water Purification Systems”, Caribbean Clear Inc. ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20020080111_2002131885.pdf
Case report: skin discoloration following administration of colloidal silver in cystic fibrosis.
Curr Opin Pediatr. 2007 Dec;19(6):733-5.
“Nanosilver Fights Infections”, United Press International, 2005 http://www.physorg.com/news5536.html
“Ionic Silver Complex Designed for Use in Humans Receives U.S. Patent”, Invision International Health Solutions, 2005
http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1134013863.php#PR
Cosmetic Argyria & Cure The Truth Behind all of the Hype: Argyrosis Exposed
http://www.silvermedicine.org/argyria.html
