We wrestle angels

On my way to see a client the other day, I drove past the beach, and watched the sailboarders fly through the October waves. Last night, the image returned as I listened to Michael Symmons Roberts on the radio, reading from his own poem about observing sailboarders:

"These men wrestle angels. Each now sits on / an enormous wing waiting for the winds to rise"

For me, it always comes back to labour. For, in labour, we wrestle angels. We struggle to blend reality with expectation. We skim the ecstatic knife edge between pleasure and pain. We emerge, changed utterly.

Thanks to Deb, Elaine, Sheena and Betty - the four midwives who helped me wrestle the angels

Groaning Cake

In a book club meeting, we discussed The Birth House, by Ami McKay. We ate groaning cake, talked about birth, the medicalization of women's bodies at this most natural time, history, social change, and our own lives. We were strengthened by the stories of these women at the turn of the century in Canada, their sisterhood, and the quiet yet bold way in which they kept their commmunity together. I hope you read this book.

The tradition of the groaning cake at a birth is an ancient one. Wives' tales say that the scent of a groaning cake being baked in the birth house helps to ease the mother's pain. Some say if a mother breaks the eggs while she's aching, her labour won't last as long. Others say that if a family wants prosperity and fertility, the father must pass pieces of the cake to friends and family the first time the mother and baby goes to a public gathering.

2 1/2 cups flour
3 eggs
2 t. baking powder
1/2 cup oil
1 t. baking soda
1/2 cup orange juice
2 t. cinnamon
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 t. ground cloves
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups grated apple
1 t. almond extract

Sift dry ingredients together. Add apple. Beat eggs. Add oil, orange juice, molasses and sugar. Add to dry ingredients. Mix well. Add almond extract. Bake at 350F. for 35-40 minutes. Makes two 9x5 loaves or 18 muffins.

Full in the hand / Heavy with ripeness

For Maddox

To feel a baby's head for the first time
full in the hand
heavy with ripeness
is a sacred act

To feel the vernix slick
the fontanelles molded
the marble-hardness
the heat of it all

The sensation remains in my hands still
more than twelve hours later

Necessity made me reach down
to slow this baby's arrival
to make him come gently

I called for her to touch her baby next
and she did
but she should have been
the first
to feel her baby touch the air

a sacred first

I will guard this feeling

the baby's wisdom remaining
on my fingertips

“Full in the hand/heavy with ripeness” are two lines from a Marge Piercy poem. I have always loved these lines, and thought that they could also refer to a newborn at birth. But I had never fully experienced that connection until I held Maddox’s head in my hands. Until then... I was never moved enough to spill the remaining lines of my own onto the page. 

Bountiful Beautiful Blissful

While you're pregnant, I hope you take some time to browse the shelves at Banyen Books. My favorite book of 2005 is "Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful", by Gurmukh. Don't be scared off by thinking it may be too flakey - it's not, and incorporates many of the words and concepts that I use when working with pregnant and labouring women (I even sang "Row, row, row your boat" to myself during my second labour in 1987). When I read Gurmukh's book I feel as if she and I know each other intimately, and have been using each other's phrases for years. So, have a good read!