In the absence of underlying organic causes (e.g., liver or kidney disease, prematurity), vitamin D deficiency is sunlight deficiency. “Vitamin D” is actually a steroid hormone produced in the body from a pro-steroid which is formed upon direct exposure of the skin to ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation in sunlight. Migration, industrialization, urbanization, social inequities, and concern about skin cancer have reduced sunlight exposure for many people globally. Nonetheless, direct, casual exposure of the skin to sunlight is the biologically normal, most common, and most important means of attaining sufficient levels of vitamin D for humans; dietary intake becomes important only with inadequate endogenous production and depletion of body stores. Only a few foods naturally contain significant levels of vitamin D (e.g., the liver and oils of some fatty fish). Without supplementation or enrichment, it would be unusual for people of any age to obtain sufficient vitamin D solely from their diet (1).

The Original Paradigm

The biologically normal sources of vitamin D for nurslings are primarily prenatal stores (for the neonate) and sunlight, with a smaller contribution made by human milk (2,3). Research has shown that without postnatal sunlight exposure, vitamin D stores of fetal origin were depleted by eight weeks in exclusively breastfed infants (Tampere, Finland [61°N] in winter)(2). However, studies in children have shown that only a few hours total of summer sunlight produces enough vitamin D to avoid deficiency for several months (1,4,5). In a study of exclusively breastfed Caucasian infants under six months of age (39°N; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA), 30 minutes/week (diaper only) or 2 hours/week (fully clothed without a hat) of sunlight exposure appeared sufficient to prevent deficiency (5). Exclusively breastfed Caucasian infants exposed to sunlight may not require vitamin D supplementation during the first six months of life, in spite of seasonal variations of UVB exposure, particularly if their mothers had sufficient sunlight exposure or took prenatal vitamins during pregnancy (6,7). Darkly pigmented infants may require three to six times the sunlight exposure of lightly pigmented infants to produce the same amount of vitamin D (8).

When infants and their mothers are exposed to biologically normal amounts of sunlight, human milk must be assumed to contain biologically normal amounts of vitamin D. However, human milk from mothers with vitamin D serum levels currently considered within the normal range for adults provides much less vitamin D than the 200 to 400 IU/day commonly recommended for infants in the first year of life (1). A variety of studies have shown that mature human milk contains approximately 5 to 136 IU/L of fat-soluble vitamin D, depending on how its activity is measured and on maternal vitamin D status (9,10,11). The concentration of vitamin D in human milk increases with higher maternal stores, which depend on sunlight exposure, skin pigmentation, latitude, season, and—in the absence of sufficient UVB exposure—on dietary vitamin D (12). The concentration of vitamin D in human milk increases significantly with what are currently considered pharmacological doses of vitamin D supplements (13,14). Yet administration of 1,000 IU to lactating mothers (Tampere, Finland [61°N] in winter) did not normalize the 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels of their infants (15). Breastfed infants require sufficient sunlight exposure or supplementation to avoid vitamin D deficiency.

Prevalence of Rickets

Vitamin D deficiency in childhood can cause rickets whose signs and symptoms include bone deformities and fractures, muscle weakness, developmental delays, short stature, failure to thrive, respiratory distress, tetany, and heart failure (16). The effects of subclinical rickets are unknown. Vitamin D deficiency in the first few months after birth is relatively rare, but has occurred congenitally in infants of mothers who were severely vitamin D deficient during pregnancy (17,18). Overt rickets appears more frequently in children 6 to 36 months of age than in infants under 6 months and its clinical presentation varies with age of onset (16).

Rickets was epidemic in the industrialized cities of North America and northern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. By the 1960s, it had been virtually eliminated in most developed countries through the use of vitamin D supplementation and cow’s milk fortification. Rickets remains a serious health problem in some developing countries (e.g., 40.7 percent of children in China; 23 percent of children in the Ulas Health Centre Region of Turkey (19, 20,21,22)). Due to the convergence of a variety of risk factors, it is actually most common in those regions of the world where sunlight is plentiful (e.g., the Indian subcontinent, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia (23,24,25,26)). Since the 1970s vitamin D deficiency rickets in breastfed infants has been documented among at-risk populations in North America, northern Europe, and former Soviet countries (16).

Many factors (e.g., genetic, hormonal, nutritional, cultural) interact to cause rickets in susceptible children. Maternal vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy, which is often asymptomatic, results in insufficiently developed fetal stores of vitamin D (17,18). Environmental risk factors for vitamin D deficiency in the breastfed infant interact with each other and overlap significantly with those of maternal deficiency. These include: indoor confinement during daylight hours; living at high latitudes; living in urban areas with buildings and/or pollution that block sunlight; darker skin pigmentation; sunscreen use; seasonal variations; covering much or all of the body when outside (e.g., due to cold climate, custom, fear of skin cancer); increased birth order; exposure to lead (27), and the replacement of human milk with foods low in calcium or foods that reduce calcium absorption. In the presence of these risk factors, other risk factors include not consuming vitamin D fortified cow’s milk, other vitamin D fortified foods, or vitamin D supplements.

Complexity and Controversy

There is no global consensus on whether or how to screen infants, children, or pregnant women for vitamin D deficiency or on how to best prevent vitamin D deficiency in breastfed infants and children. Recommendations for preventing vitamin D deficiency in breastfed infants include universal supplementation, supplementation of at-risk breastfed infants, and habitual small doses of sunshine; some regions with plentiful sunshine have not yet developed recommendations (28,29,30,31,32). Recommendations for supplementation of at-risk infants can be difficult to interpret and apply (e.g., the difficulty of defining “dark skin”). The exact assessment of UVB exposure is difficult. Research showing a relationship between sun exposure and an increased risk of skin cancer has led some agencies to recommend avoidance of all sunlight exposure. The determination of the exact amount of regular, brief, and nonerythemal sunlight exposure needed just to produce sufficient vitamin D in specific infants and children depends on many factors.

There are no known risks of orally supplementing infants and children with 200 to 400 IU/day. Vitamin D supplementation and fortification have been used in many countries for decades. However, that does not mean that supplementation is not problematic or without risk. The prevention of vitamin D deficiency through the routine supplementation of all breastfed infants under six months of age may be seen by some as evidence that breastfeeding is inadequate. However, continued reports of rickets among exclusively breastfed babies may also undermine efforts to increase breastfeeding initiation rates and rates of exclusive breastfeeding. Many questions related to vitamin D supplementation in breastfed infants remain unasked—and unanswered—in the scientific literature:

• Does vitamin D supplementation have any deleterious physiologic effects on the infant?
• How does vitamin D supplementation of breastfed infants at various dosages, ages, and latitudes affect the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency rickets among at-risk infants?
• Does a universal recommendation of vitamin D supplementation affect breastfeeding beliefs and behavior (e.g., use of other supplements, premature introduction of other foods, weaning)?
• How does direct sun exposure that is no greater than that needed to produce sufficient vitamin D in the breastfed infant affect the infant’s lifetime risk of skin cancer?
• What means of preventing maternal vitamin D deficiency would be most effective in reducing the risk of early vitamin D deficiency in infants?

Given the varying incidences, combinations of risk factors for vitamin D deficiency, cultural practices, and financial resources that occur across the globe, one uniform recommendation for prevention is unlikely to successfully meet the needs of infants living in different areas of the world. International organizations like La Leche League International and UNICEF acknowledge that vitamin D supplementation is necessary when sunlight exposure is inadequate and that some infants have a higher risk of vitamin D deficiency than others(32,33). Research on this complex, global, controversial, and interdisciplinary issue is incomplete and must be expanded.

Cynthia Good Mojab is Research Associate in the Publications Department of La Leche League International and Senior Editor at Platypus Media. She is an independent researcher, author, and speaker in the areas of psychology, culture, and the family, particularly in relation to breastfeeding.

REFERENCES

1. Holick, M. Evolution, biological functions, and recommended dietary allowance for vitamin D. In Vitamin D: Physiology, Molecular Biology, and Clinical Applications ed. M. Holick. Humana Press: Totawa, NJ, 1999, 1-16.

2. Ala-Houhala, M. 25-Hydroxyvitamin D levels during breast-feeding with or without maternal or infantile supplementation of vitamin D. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr 1985:4(2):220-26.

3. Makin H., D. Seamark, and D. Trafford. Vitamin D and its metabolites in human breast milk. Arch Dis Child 1983; 58: 750-53.

4. Poskitt, E. M. E., T. J. Cole, and D. E. M. Lawson. Diet, sunlight, and 25- hydroxyvitamin D in healthy children and adults. Br Med J 1979;1:221-23.

5. Specker, B., B. Valaus, V. Hertzberg, N. Edwards, and R. Tsang. Sunshine exposure and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in exclusively breastfed infants. J Pediatr 1985; 107:372-76.

6 . Greer, F. and S. Marshall. Bone mineral content, serum vitamin D metabolite concentrations, and ultraviolet B light exposure in infants fed human milk with and without vitamin D2 supplements. J Pediatr 1989; 114:204-12.

7. Birkbeck J. and H. Scott. 25-Hydroxycholecalciferol serum levels in breastfed infants. Arch Dis Child 1980; 55:691-95.

8. Lo, C., P. Paris, and M. Holick. Indian and Pakistani immigrants have the same capacity as Caucasians to produce vitamin D in response to ultraviolet radiation. Am J Clin Nutr 1986; 44:683-85.

9 . Specker, B., R. Tsang, B. Hollis et al. Effect of race and normal maternal diet on breast milk vitamin D concentrations. Pediatr Res 1984;18:213A.

10. Hollis, B. et al. Vitamin D and its metabolites in human and bovine milk. J Nutr 1981; 111:1240-48.

11. Butte, N., M. Lopez-Alarcon, and C. Garza. Nutrient Adequacy of Exclusive Breastfeeding for the Term Infant During the First Six Months of Life. Geneva: World Health Organization 2002, 27.

12. Holick, M., J. MacLaughlin, and S. Doppelt. Regulation of cutaneous previtamin D3 photosynthesis in man: Skin pigmentation is not an essential regulator. Science 1981; 211:590-93.

13. Greer, F., B. Hollis, D. Cripps et al. Effects of maternal ultraviolet B irradiation on the vitamin D content of human milk. J Pediatr 1984; 105(3):431-33.

14. Hollis, B., F. Greer, and R. Tsang. The effects of oral vitamin D supplementation and ultraviolet phototherapy on the antirachitic sterol content of human milk. Calcif Tissue Int (Suppl) 1982; 34:582.

15. Ala-Houhala, M. et al. Maternal compared with infant vitamin D supplementation. Arch Dis Child 1986; 61:1159-63.

16. Garabédian, M. and H. Ben-Mekhbi. Rickets and vitamin D deficiency. In Vitamin D: Physiology, Molecular Biology, and Clinical Applications ed. M. Holick. Humana Press: Totawa, NJ, 1999, 273-86.

17. Pal, B. and N. Shaw. Letters: Rickets resurgence in the United Kingdom: Improving antenatal management in Asians. J Pediatr 2001; 139(2):337-38.

18. Daaboul, J., S. Sanderson, K. Kristensen, and H. Kitson. Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant and breast-feeding women and their infants. J Perinatol 1997;17:10-14.

19. Özgür, S., H. Sümer, and G. Koçglu. Rickets and soil strontium. Arch Dis Child 1996; 75:524-26.

20. Ma, X. Epidemiology of rickets in China. J Pract Pediatr 1986; 1:323.

21. Rafii, M. Rickets in breast-fed infants below six months of age without vitamin D supplementation. Arch Irn Med 2001; 4(2):93-95.

22. Thacher, T., P. Fisher, J. Pettifor et al. A comparison of calcium, vitamin D, or both for nutritional rickets in Nigerian children. New Engl J Med 1999; 341(8)563-68.

23. Raghuramulu, N. and V. Reddy. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in malnourished children with rickets. Arch Dis Child 1980; 55:285-87.

24. Lawson, D.E.M., T. J. Cole, S. I. Salem et al. Aetiology of rickets in Egyptian children. Hum Nutr Clin Nutr 1987; 41C:199-208.

25. Hojer, B., M. Gebre-Medhin, G. Sterky et al. Combined vitamin D deficiency rickets and protein energy malnutrition in Ethiopian infants. J Trop Pediatr 1977; 23:73-79.

26. Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Nutrition. Seventh Report. Rickets. Rome: FAO, 1967, 31-34.

27. Metropolitan Toronto Teach Health Units and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. Why Barns Are Red: Health Risks from Lead and Their Prevention. A Resouce Manual to Promote Public Awareness. Toronto, Ontario, 1995.

28. American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition. Pediatric Nutrition Handbook. 4th ed. Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics, 1998, 275-76.

29. American Academy of Pediatrics. Breastfeeding and the use of human milk. Pediatrics 1997; 100(6):1035-39.

30. Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes. Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Vitamin D, and Fluoride. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997, 264-66.

31. Vitamin D Expert Panel Meeting. October 11-12, 2001, Atlanta, Georgia. Final Report. url: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/nutrition/pdf/ Vitamin_D_Expert_Panel_Meeting.pdf

32. UNICEF. Vitamin D: Rickets in children and osteomalacia in pregnant women. In The Prescriber: Guidelines on the Rational Use of Drugs in Basic Health Services. December 1993; 8:11.

33. Mohrbacher, N. and J. Stock. THE BREASTFEEDING ANSWER BOOK (2d rev. ed., in press). Schaumburg, IL: La Leche League International, 606-7.

March 24, 2012

In Aboriginal wisdom, the placenta is always buried – given back to the Earth, to let Her know that a baby has been born and, by its blood, who this baby is. In the early years, all the mothers and grandmothers of the tribe guide the growing child. Then, when a child is an adolescent, the first blood or first seed is also given to the Earth, buried in a handkerchief. The child steps away from the guidance of the mothers, into the guidance of the Earth Mother, who now begins to oversee the child to become what his/her soul intended by incarnating. Life circumstances are created by the Earth to help this child become who s/he means to be.

Without burying the placenta, Earth Mother would not know a child had been born; She would not know to cherish the baby in the years after birth, and from adolescence, the child would flounder without Her guidance. How could a child ever become what her soul intended and grow to fulfill the need of the village and the universe without this guidance from Earth Mother? This is the importance of the placenta to the child’s whole life.

The Aboriginals see energy.  They paint with dots to express what is emanating from the world of nature, rather than to express its form. They see and know that the stars above and the Earth below work together to guide and guard each child. We of the white world have a rudimentary respect and understanding of astronomy, but their star-wisdom is embedded in them and they remember they come from the stars. They remember their purpose in coming to Earth was to hold 7^th dimensional wisdom. They remember how to live together in society, honoring each one’s gifts and individuality;  how to heal; how to travel;  how to be self-sufficient so they don’t need to play the money game. We belittle them as being barbaric, yet they have abilities we have lost and need.

At all times they are in intimate communication with each other, the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, the weather, the stars and the planets. They know how to access the answers they need and their requests are heard and fulfilled. Their dancing may look funny to us, but is purposeful:  it communicates with the Earth and nourishes Her with each rhythm. The dances result in altered states that maintain open-heartedness, their continual communion with All That Is.

Therefore, it only makes sense to look most deeply into Aboriginal wisdom when it comes to the placenta. Blood wisdom is inherent in the placenta. A mixture of mother-father blood went into the creation of baby and placenta, and now, when its job is complete, the blood carries this wealth of information into the Earth. What is really happening with the burying of body fluids? The DNA tells the Earth on what stage this child plays. Who is this child? What consciousness does she carry? How must she be celebrated in her village to be who she is to be?

Another cultural difference in our childrearing is that parents with discordant patterns from their own childhood are not responsible for raising this child. Mama Earth who has known this being through all time sees the bigger picture and offers each next opportunity to become all she is meant to be this lifetime. Parents give way to the lessons of The Mother, releasing their overlays from the child. Without the limiting matrix of the parents’ belief systems that a child typically takes on as her own identity, she is free to become what her soul intends.  In this way, successive generations grow healthier.

Sunni Karll

March 24, 2012

I had found a special tree to plant on my big naked lawn, a 12 foot Kauai Camphor tree that smelled wonderful, with beautiful bright shiny leaves and white bark, and who would someday grow to have a huge spreading crown, almost as big as a Banyan tree. Knowing I bought this tree, a mother asked me if her daughter’s placenta, frozen for over 4 years, could be buried under this tree, as they did not feel that it belonged at their rented home. So we planned to plant them both at the Monday afternoon meditation. When 23 people showed up instead of 6 or 8, it emphasized how very important this ancient ritual is.

The placenta belonged to a four year old, a fiery redhead who often threw angry tantrums and would cry for unknown reasons. Naps were nonexistent and sleep was constantly disturbed. She would strike out and nobody could figure out what she needed. Both parents were at their wits end, knowing how tormented she was and not knowing how to help.

The family had prepared baskets of different colored flower petals for their placenta celebration, pink, red and white from roses, and yellow and orange from marigolds. The hole was dug, the placenta laid down, the tree placed on top and the soil packed around it. One parent spoke about her birth and one about how happy they were to finally place the placenta in the Earth. The little redhead sprinkled petals decorating the base of the tree, and everyone else added more handfuls of color. As we backed away from the tree, a mighty energy let us know we had done something important. Something had been accomplished but we didn’t know what.

The next meditations brought reports that this little girl had started sleeping through the night:  before this, she had slept through the night only one time in over four years. Planting her placenta had somehow anchored her  enough to let her rest. And, in the next 9 months, what had created such anger, also eased and she seemed much more at peace.

I felt it was so appropriate for this little one’s placenta to be beneath a Camphor Tree:  Camphor is the substance used to burn away negativity in Pujas. This tree seemed to be her homeopathic similar – Like cures Like. And it worked.

Sunni Karll

March 28, 2010

OK, so this is the scoop as of March 28.

In the last 3 weeks, I spend 7 days and 14 trips opening a bank account! and buy a car. (Do you know what a big commitment to living here buying a car is?)  But how do you look for land without a car?  I drive south 15 hours, through stunningly beautiful land on terrible roads under construction, to La Mana, north 11 hours to Ibarra, and south again 19 hours to Michael’s south of Cuenca, getting lost in 2 towns.   Always own a GPS in Ecuador!

I went to La Mana and arrived there at 5 pm to a great bright rainbow with one foot landing in the land I was to ask about!  The Equinox was to be the next morning and I got up in the dark to be on the land at 5:48am.  I headed out of the hostel in my high, trusty royal blue car, and found that the gate was locked.  I sat there wondering what to do now, thinking that I should have realized this would be the case and requested that this be unlocked last night.  The cuitadoro, the caretaker, appeared right when I was going to give up and I thought, “OK all is not lost yet”, there is still time to get to the land before the time.  I started down the roads of this banana plantation and found that I was deep in the maze before realizing I missed a turn.  They all look alike and I thought I could find my way, but alas.   When I realized that I was hopelessly lost , I stood in the midst of the bananas and did my ceremony.  Not lost, for I could see the mountain where I knew I was supposed to be, but the roads did not lead over there!  Soon I let go of what I had planned and just opened to looking at what I was being shown.  I was seeing slavery, and had experienced the plantation owner the last trip, and this was being acted out in our time.  Oh how naïve am I.  The people were not happy, they would not look me in the eyes, they hung their heads, the children looked scared and wary, without laughter or smiles.  They all looked resentful and far from trusting.  After snaking through many roads and tiny communities of worse than indentured servants, I found the right road and took it up the hill.

I went straight away to the Shaman’s home where the pyramids stand and had an incredible meditation that erased 2 hours, unbeknownst to me.   I just remember that it was powerful and that it felt like I had this beautiful shaman’s energy around me as a friend.  I felt that I was being supported in a big realization.   I drove down the hill directly below the shaman’s home and came upon a huge land mover with great claws scraping into the land, trees and stream.  It was the land baron’s, the banana plantation’s owner, who had gold miners stationed all over his land panning for gold in the streams.  When more than usual was found this huge machine was sent to cut into the land, trees and all, and rape and pillage to get to the veins of gold.  (You could see these veins everywhere as you walked, this land was so rich.  You could just dig your fingernail into the rock and you would have gold flecks under it.)  I walked in to see what was going on and felt sick:   Here, this smoking beast had cut open a huge gash in the forest.

I went back to the hostel and lay in bed for the rest of the day feeling such an array of emotions and trying to make sense of everything. There was no way that babies would ask to be born into such slavery and hopeless, forlorn consciousness; into such disrespect for the land, nature, water and minerals.  I knew that this man would never change his ways.  I knew that I couldn’t stand being a neighbor to this contempt of nature.  The water’s consciousness was perfect and such an incredible gift, but I realized that what the land and people held was just as important.  I did my own inner work of slavery and being overpowered, being in greed and overpowering.  I asked that the land be cleared and prayed for the people to find other choices.

Jose and Fernanda offered me the Shamans house to rent.  What exquisite energy and I would have loved to rent it, had things been right.  They knew what I said was true and that it was not possible to carry Sacred Birthing out here.  They cried at the loss of what they hoped would come into their town to shift this energy.  They were so hard to leave.  She knows as much English as I know Spanish, but even without language, our hearts were one in such a short time.  I love them so much.  We cried together as I left.

I drove 11 hours back up north, being called to another area north of Ibarra that I was surprised to see grew sugar cane!  Oh Aloha!  Glorious green plants swaying in the winds, but also burnt and smoking fields filling your nostrils.  I kept driving, looking and driving on, for there was again, the grand haciendas and shacks.  But here, the workers were black and were cutting the cane by hand!  Such hard work and long faces.  Again I was being shown slavery in this day and age.  I inwardly did what I was called to do and drove to a hostel next to a hot springs, where other black people owned a sweet place of cabanas and had their community  who lived together, with each person responsible for different aspect of the hostel’s running.  Good karma.

To complete this saga, I went to see the people who first told me about La Mana, and told them about my experience there.  They surprised me by saying that they were dealing with the same issue.  That someone they did not even know had just treated them in a totally disrespectful way, and expected them to work “like a slave” and they had passed on this email so now the community was all aware and taking part.  And you all?  I would suppose that this is up for many people.  And as I cleared it all, there was such a definite difference in the quality of my guidance and life.  Whoopee!

CUENCA

So, was all this driving just for this slavery issue?  Because I am being called south again and wish I had just driven more south when I was already mostly there, being in La Mana.  I am called to Cuenca, beautiful Cuenca, that I once described as, “It looks like the Alps in summer time”  Beautiful HUGE 12,000 ft intensely green mountains plunging down to little rectangles of different colors, farms of different grains growing, making patchworks of colors in the lower regions.  I am drawn to an area north of Cuenca called Riviera, up a tiny awful road, and finally get to a good road that goes to the top of the mountain and onward, but by this time the clouds have come in and I can see nothing, so I descend.

I call Michael and Penny (from Kauai, also in the south Cuenca area) and make arrangements to visit and hold still for a time.  He is a realtor, and is working on creating an intentional community.  I get ‘lost’ going the last 5 kilometers and end up in an incredible town at the top of this mountain, called Asencion!  There I meet an 87 year old man who so proudly shows me around his tiny town.  The church is most impressive, but on it is a gilded picture of the annunciation with Mary and the Angel Gabriel! That’s not the ascension!   Am I mixing up these words or what?!  Anyway, there is “agua crystilina”, beautiful crystal clear gushing water coming down from the mountain, and everyone looks happy and well satisfied.  They wave and smile.  We talk in Spanish!!! And I understand him!  Mostly! He talks nice and slow.  He tells me that May 1 is the festival of Freedom, when the Patron was overthrown and the land broken up and given to the people.  He tells me that there is not a bad person in the whole community.  Wow, what a statement.

That night Michael shows me a picture of a piece of land right above his house, in the mountains that takes my breath away.  Ok, so I will go explore further.  Sunday morning I go again to this tiny town and this time keep going past where the man showed me.  Here is this big incredible rock mountain that rises out in the middle of the most beautiful meadow with 3 crystalina streams coming through it and knoll after knoll of the most perfect places to build little pod homes.  And I suddenly remembered what I had been told so many times – there will be a rock face!  Could this land be it?   This place was so inspiring, and what else does one wish to be born into and live in?  Surely, a place that inspires!  I sit on the hill at the side of the road to feel it.  It is delicious.   But I am told this would be a great birthing sanctuary but is not the right place for the school AND birthing sanctuary.  I’m told that I was taken here so I would recognize the place where I am going tomorrow:   back to the place where the fog rolled in.   So what do I clear tonight so that I am ready tomorrow? I think I will rent a house up in that little town.  And learn Spanish there. Stay tuned.

For the next two days I am sicker than a dog.  Seems all the fried foods that I have eaten, the typical Ecuadorian food, has caught up with me and my gall bladder has gone on strike!  Blessed Michael and Penny make me raw juices and get me back on my feet by day three.  They also introduce me to a clinic that gives O3 treatments and I now have a mode of healing all that is going on in my body!  Cool!  So I guess I am not to rent a place up there.  Humph.

So what DO I know?

Shanoan, an old buddy from years ago, joined up with me 3 weeks ago to help SB grow and will be coming TO LIVE HERE in 4 weeks.  Far OUT!

March 30.

Yesterday Viviana, from Ecuador, someone who knows her work is with children but knows not how or what, calls and says they were guided in a meditation to join with SB.  And my first thought is, “Oh yeah, but where will they stay?” William is from Oz, and is a nature spirit, belongs in the garden and can’t wait to get there, and 2 year old Emanuel has been calling my name since I was there 3 weeks ago. Good Friday is the day I was going to explore the land I have been drawn to 3 hours away.  Viviana knows and asks that I have the help of Sananda to find it and clearly know that it is it.

I’ve had to just STOP since things so drastically changed to make sense of what’s next.  I checked into a hostel at the hot springs at Banos.  It’s such a relief to hold still and have high speed internet, something we so take for granted in the US.

April 6

Viviana called again and I told her that everything changed over Easter weekend so it did not make sense for her family to join up with me.  Guidance now is to put all emphasis on preconception instead of the school or birthing sanctuary. She said they had no agenda except to follow their guidance in every moment and to do what nature suggests. She said it did not matter what I did, that their guidance was to join me.  To me she holds an incredible piece for these children, to create a place to protect their light.  The pieces are going together.  Two properties adjoining, one for each aspect.   Creating energy to protect conception, birth and the children.   I spend 3 days catching up on computer stuff.

Alec is pregnant and having twins!  What a remarkable thing!  No twins in the family but still it occurs and from a very high vibration conception!  And what a time to birth 2 babies.  Oh my goodness.  I get to go play with her and go help her!  So that must mean I’m coming back to the states!  Wow, that means that all my paperwork will have to be in order!  So many find details that the Universe must handle and not me!  Bless you Alec and Ryan.  July 22 is the due date, for your info since that doesn’t mean a thing.  Thank you dear Anastacia and Carole for responding to her as you did.

Time to move on.  I feel called to west of Cuenca and head there in the morning.  So is this more inner work?   More pieces to put together?  Or could it possibly lead to the land?  It all leads to the land, so relax and enjoy it Sunni.

MY STORY OF THE LAST MONTH, HEADING TO THE LAND.

I went to Vilcabamba in late January, since things happened that made it clear that I was not meant to go to Mon Peche,  “the Hawaii of Ecuador,”  I’m homesick, Pooh. I am directed to Vilcabamba.  Vilcabamba is a pretty little town, but I knew it was not where I belonged. It’s like a little America, a collection of gringos who are all very interesting with fascinating past histories, but sit and talk all day.  It was fun for two weeks.  The first day, my feeling was, this land is not nourishing.  However, in 2 days there I meet Sienna, a 60 something woman who writes on the clearing of the patriarchy from the cellular body so the Feminine can flow again.  www.Stealingthemoon.com     We have interesting talks and she later hands me a book that I glom onto, called, The Sacred Matrix, by Dieter Duhm. It is an incredible book about what a very conscious community in Spain has gone through over 25 years to be an incredible focus of world peace.   It shows us that we have the same community passion.  I read the book and feel my world expanding during the 2 weeks it takes me to read and take notes and integrate it.  During that time we talk deeply.  I feel called to leave after ‘hermitting’ throughout this time reading, and I find out that the day I am to be in Quito again, one of the people who has been at the Sacred Matrix book’s community for 25 years, called Tamera,  flies into Quito too!  I might have let it all go if it were not for this synchronicity.  (And meeting her was something special.  One of the most authentic people I have ever met, so I knew they are doing something really well.)

Sienna at the last moment, comes up to Quito too to meet her and decides to travel with me to find land for community, for who knows what this fuller vision of community really means now and does it include more than I understood previously??.  Community has expanded for me since reading that book.  I feel that Birthing is just a part of something much bigger.  And it is.  Sienna comes to Mindo with me.

February  first week

In Mindo there was a piece of beautiful land that I saw.  Did I describe it before?  115 acres with a river running through it, and two big islands, and a hostel, a stable, a place for raised beds, flat lands with boundaries of steep mountains with its forest still in tact.  I was so jazzed as I walked just the 40 acre flat part with springs on it.  I was so excited.  But that afternoon I felt depressed!  What is going on?   I hear, “this is the 2^nd best land piece.”  I ask, what is piece #1?   and hear, “keep looking.”  I have found what has been my desire for how many years?  And I am to let it go?   So I let it go.  That night I am inwardly rewarded for this and so much is so much easier after this.  Our guidance is such a kind benevolent being that always looks out for our best.

We hold up in a hostel because of pouring rainy season with intense mud and do what she calls Feeling States to remove undigested materials from the aura and energy system.  At that time, a past life floods me that I saw in the 80’s and remember quite well.  It was about a hunchbacked ugly dark man who walked funny, who caught me by the hair and put me in a cage on wheels pulled by a horse, took me to a town far away and used me as an example to them that they would be killed too and all their families and townspeople if they did such wretched things like be a midwife.  I was killed and so were my people and son who ran behind the cage the whole way.  The past life was remembered in detail this time but I remember it from before too and especially for some reason remember the ugly man.  Her experience is that we came out of the light, and from then, went back and forth each lifetime, vying for power and killing the other one.  Days Later, the words “arch rival” come to me and I realize that she is it, and that we have done this rivalry thing forever and ever.  I send up a prayer to bring it to balance this time.

The rain is oppressive and I know there is another land calling. A friend in Mindo lends me her car till she returns from the states in a month.  We go to where it is sunny and a higher elevation and to a good hostel, Peguchi, outside of Otavalo.  I meet a couple from Chile who are both counselors and we talk long into the night.  In the morning I get a note slipped under my door since they left early, that said,

“When you find it, I will come and help you.”

Love Cristine.

Its Carnaval, and it gets wild at Carnival time so we can’t stay where we were, and there is not a room to be had because we leave a day later than I was told to because of the sKype call with you all.  We find a place for too much money but in the morning, in between many typical songs of Spanish dancing music, John Denver’s ‘Country Road’ comes on and I say to her, “Let’s hit the road”, and she said she was just thinking that too.  We had heard the world INTAG 3 times that day before, so I thought that was where the next step would be.  That morning, all I am getting is to “go to a lake,” no direction and no city named Intag can be found.  We start to a lake outside of Cotacochi wondering a lot, and in an hour at a lake, there is a V and a toll person I talk to, to ask where the town is.  It’s not a town but a big area!  and the other side of the V will take us there!  We are at the top of the mountain going down in the thick fog, the cloud forest.  We get to a stunning town, in the midst of sheer peaks, Apuela, and at that town is an extreme sport bike race where 150 international riders and cameramen come for the start of the race.  An American man, Dale, comes up to me and said he saw me here last year!  Well, no, I’ve never been here.  The American group he’s traveling with, Gary and Linda, my age, and Scott and Holly, 39 and 28, and Sienna and I hit it off, so they suggest a hostel a few miles away.  They are residents of Ecuador but have only been here for 4 years.  Scott and Holly only months.

That night I’m asked why I am in Ecuador, and talk about Sacred Birthing and they tell me about land in a place called La Mana which they consider a most spiritual place in Ecuador where ancient artifacts and stones have been found in a 300 ft cave that chart the whole world, and the water has gold and silver in it.  And then the Scott said he had always felt it would be the right place to birth his children when he has them!!!!!!    They say they will take me.

Feb  19

The next morning they were leaving to go into the Rainforest.  I jumped on taking a trip with them – by a three hour mule ride!  The rainforest is exquisite with a diversity that is unknown in our western brains and visions.  So many things growing and the air quality has never been experienced by us.  The closest similar experience to this is being in the Redwoods.  Here, you can breathe in a way that you can’t any other place.  It actually feels like the forest is breathing you.  An amazing feeling and I feel like so much of me physically heals just being in the presence of this being, the Busque, or Rainforest.  Circulation, respiration, lungs cleaning out, clearer thinking.  An incredible feeling.  The river beneath is absolutely Emerald green with clean white rapids and breathtaking.  We see slews of tiny orchids and huge Copal trees with their distinct and cleansing smell.  Oh I am so glad for having taken this trip.  However the oil companies and mining companies are creating a road cutting right through this most pristine area and in another year it will be finished and will change this area forever.  We visit an American man who stewards 15 thousand acres of the forest and has created a hostel for this experience.  Bless you Jose.

Back at a hotsprings soaking sore muscles, we decide to go to Cotocatchi where this group is from, to do more feeling states, which I am committed to doing the three weeks it takes to move through this with her.  And there, I can think of nothing else but La Mana.  I soooo want to go to this land and they have taken it on to get me there!  Thank you Scott and HollyMa!  They are leaving for the states in 9 days so it’s a quick decision that 4 of us go in my little tiny car, finding Cacao, vanilla bean orchids and cinnamon tree babies along the way to bring home and plant.

FEB 24

The land around La Mana is so fertile that everything grows.  Fruits, veggies, huge piles of everything are waiting to be bought, sold, shipped to other areas in the countries, or shipped around the world as the mountains of bananas and plaintain attest.  Here again is rainforest, but most has been cut down except on steep slopes to create banana plantations that stretch for miles.  We come into town and go meet a friend of Scott’s, Jose and his daughter who really gets what I have come for.  The first day, we are taken to a farm of 800 acres, (do you know how big that is???) that is for sale and has many springs on it.  People are panning for gold there!

The next day Jose takes us to the shaman’s home who took this beautiful water to many countries to be tested and evaluated.  It was found to have an incredible mineral content.  This shaman learned about this water and shared his knowledge with a neighbor woman, L, who, when he died, did not protect the water but tried to exploit it by selling it out of the country for huge profit.  BUT, Gary, Linda and Scott were there at that moment, the day before this transaction was to go through and asked a simple question to L,  “Don’t you think this water should go for something better than money?”  Her hesitation from their question in that critical moment was what stalled and eliminated the deal.  She also, I am told, did not protect the artifacts that he was guided to, but sold them to Europe.  His land has some of the rocks and artifacts in a museum and 5 pyramids in a formation on his land.  They are laid out as he was told to do, to bring in wisdom from the stars. Scott was making an offering. I stepped close to the first pyramid and received a download of the shaman himself. The next one was of nature energy, the next was the star being’s energy, then the elements, and the last was Pachamama, the Earth Herself. Each gave me an invitation to return.  And when I got to the last one, the heavens opened up with thunder, lightning and lots of rain!  Arrangements were made for me to return as often as I liked and soaked but full, we walked back to the car.  I know I will return, and make plans for a room in a hostel.

By the way, La Mana, with the accent on the NA, means, Abundance here, but it is so wonderful to me that it is a Hawaiian word, meaning Life Force or chi or Universal Energy.  GO SEE WWW.HUMANRESONANCE.ORG and click on Water, and Earth and follow the many links all about La Mana.

MARCH

We return to Cotachachi, Feb 28, I return the car to my friend in Mindo, and find myself sick with diarrhea for 4 days, staying sacked out in a lovely hostel with an Angel nurse who brings me herb tea and crackers.  I’m thinking I must have eaten something bad, but realizing finally that I was drinking the La Mana water the whole time and I must be purifying!   Very strong purification it offers.

I am now in Quito at Bernarda’s and Sabastian’s home, a skyscraper apartment house on top of 1500 ft cliffs of Quito, that has the most stunning view and looks down the valley and river and town of colored houses with curving roads and over to green hills, a most amazing home.  Bernarda is Sacred Birthing rolled up into a little powerhouse of a woman.  When I met her she was saying the words that I would use to describe birth.  She is 30 and helps mamas in the hospital and at home.  Her experiences unfortunately, are the very same as ours are, since American birth has infiltrated everywhere.  She is a doula extrodinaire who has taught me so much and now I feel she was my reason to be told to go to Mindo.  Her whole family is involved in SB Ecuador, an Aunt to translate what I write to the lawyer, a brother in law who is stepping into being an administrator and knows 4 languages, and a cousin who is the Lawyer!

So the reason I know that the land is found and acquired before it even is, is that instead of having a scanner on land in my head every time I rest, I am building round homes on a community!  I see how and where and know how it is to unfold!  It’s happening this time!

So let me tell you what I have been given:

For years I know I am to create a Birthing Sanctuary for the birthing of a new humanity.  And I get that couples are to come for a year, not months.  At various times starting in the 90’s, I also knew that the ways that birth a baby will also birth a human into another dimension:  Ascension.  Lately I hear that the Sanctuary is for this too.  I know I am being given one piece after the other.

Then I am given that what I am to do is a business, and the business is for building eco homes.  OK I think, we will build our own buildings and that’s a great thing to empower the men and women.  Or, women are placing their attention more on the art of creating a baby/birthing. Then it turns into creating a school. It becomes a school for Indigo young people, a school for leadership and empowerment that teaches those who will be the teachers.  Those who choose to be parents some day. We teach so that you remember who you already are.  And you will then teach others too. We teach you that you go teach in your home country.

So to teach and have them refine themselves in La Mana will raise their energy and conception will occur in a higher way.  We teach a revised SB Doula course for homebirth, which includes Birthshop 1 & 2; we eat organically and plant and grow a garden with the perma-culture ideals. We learn and build our own home.  We teach the inner work of letting go of the ego wounds and the pain body so that every relationship is just our own mirror and becomes a gift.  We teach energetic healing, energetic integrity, using your third eye, maintaining balance in these amazing times with many versions of Sacred Technology.  When birth happens, it is a home birth and that is totally a part of this culture.

This is our community.  And this ability to act now is the reason that it must happen here and not Kauai.  Kauai will not loosen its rules on land use till its too late and then there is not time and materials to do enough then.  Here we will get started on the garden immediately and then the first clusters of pods.

Planetary Leadership School for Indigos couples,

Lifeskills for Teachers.

Suggestions on a title?   for the web page?  And another short one that is catchy that becomes what the town knows us as?

This allows us the ability to get people visas to enter and stay in the country.

So the school for parents is what is happening in the time as their baby grows.  And, they go home empowered in life, with the ability to be self-sustaining and be able to teach others. This is how SB spreads as grass roots, without the hierarchy: one mama and papa each telling others, sharing their experiences and teaching what they learned.  This is the Sacred Birthing Sanctuary.

March 5 2010

So many thoughts!

Those who will be permanent staff will have their “Anastacia” Kin Domain, and there will also be a roving staff that can come for weeks or months to live and share their specialty and return home.  Always best to think of this as a few year stint as it reduces the overwhelm.  And it may be!  At some point in time, there will be many who come here and we will receive them, and that too will be orchestrated beautifully.

Oh my Goddess it is finally happening!

I thank you all, Sacred Birthing Kauai, for your incredible energetic holding and helping me along the way.  This was harder than I ever thought it would be, but Everything has been given before or at the moment I knew it was necessary so it was never heavy.

And I know it was my own purification that made it hard.  If you only knew what I have moved through as the land got closer and closer!  (But I know that is true for you all too)  So I am grateful for that opportunity and as usual, that is custom made, just for my own growth and clearing!  I look forward to not eating in restaurants.  And sleeping in my own bed with my own pillow!  Such little and easily fulfill-able requests are in my near future!  This trip has drastically reduced my consumerism and ideas of what is needed in life, and grown my appreciation of others, no matter who they are.  Its so amazing that language is so very important, so if you feel drawn to SBE, bone up on Spanish, for these people are so dear!  They wear their hearts outside their chests and so want to interact, that you will want to commune with them, and not just to get your needs met.  Tuesday I will go back down to La Mana to find our land.

Be well,  I love you,

Sunni

If you don’t want to give injected routine vaccines to yur child, you are still able to protect your child with Homeopathic Profylaxis.  It’s much better to protect your child with Homeopathic Profylaxis instead of not giving any immunizations at all.  Profylaxis means preparing, so the body is prepared for the disease, and can reject it, if it is exposed to infection.

It’s Not an injection with disease to create antibodies.

No toxins, no side effects,

Homeopathic medicine goes through mouth as a sugar pellet so they can easily be taken by infants

The Homeopathic Profylaxis program gives 87%to 97% protection depending on which disease.

Injected routine vaccines contain, for example, Phenol, thimerosol, Aluminum, formaldehyde and Mercury, etc. ingredients which can damage an infant or a small child’s immune system, the nervous system or the brain.

The Homeopathic Profylaxis is a 60 months program.

The kit contains profylaxis in various potency for:  Whooping cough, Tetanus, Polio, diphtheria, measles, Mumps, German Measles, Haemoplilus, Hepatitis B, Meningitis, Chicken Pox, Pneumonia, and 2 extra remedies for children teething.

Feel Free to email asacredchild@gmail.com for more information or to purchase your very own kit.

As one discovers they are pregnant many emotions begin to surface and only that birthing goddess along with their partner will come to understand the wisdom that lies within them for this baby coming into the world.  Often times we discover many emotions have to do with our own events in life, or belief systems that define who we are.  For many people suffering is a belief system that is considered part of life.  What if we discovered as humanity that suffering is not really needed to thrive in life.  What would change within us?  How would we get out of bed every day?  Would we still go through the same routines that we do now?  How would we give birth?

What I learned as a child was not to acknowledge the pain, the lack of love, therefore I learned to be strong and take in much pain and hurt in my life creating a body that could not feel.  I was walking around in life pretending who I was instead of being who I am.  Physical pain as well as emotional and spiritual pain comes through the same body.  Peace could not exist because my head had to always be creating the next scenario of the “suppose to be” instead of living in truth at the moment.

Sometimes in realizing that one can come from joy old wounds begin to surface.  I believe this is the old patterns, ways of life letting go from our being.  Wounds come from many sources throughout our lives and long to be healed long after the visible hurt.  Wounded ness stops the flow of love from running through our body.  When we are wounded our body goes into contraction and we hold our breath.

The young children being born today are asking us as adults to pay attention to our wounded ness.  The children are singing, dancing, playing, loving and they are mad at what the “walls of pain” create.  They want to move freely and yet walls keep creating hurt and pain and they do not know how to get around the walls.  They try to penetrate and know the softness but cannot get to the love.  They want to be treated with respect and held accountable to life’s lessons of growing and creating something new.  They want the freedom to be partners in this evolving transformation of humanity and the world.

The children know the oneness, feel it and yet the adults surrounding them hold the love hidden within and the children feel alone, and become fearful again.  The children begin to learn that they must figure out the “game” if they are to exist.  Asking themselves what are the rules that I must play by in order to survive in life because thriving is not an option.  History repeats itself the wounded ness continues.  We feel less.  We care less.  We speak not from our own soul/our own truth.  We speak from the wounded ness of survival and we try to cover up the pain with many outside sources so that we can say we are happy.  Are WE?

Opening our hearts creates an opening for the wounded ness to heal and not carry it forward.  Children coming into the world today have little tolerance for untruth. The children today are asking us as adults to heal our hurts, to let the walls down.  Are you ready to let go of the walls of pain and let love run through you creating peace?  Can you visualize yourself being cuddled with wide-open arms not judged just loved?  The children are waiting for open arms of love let’s give them a chance to be their best possible selves and thrive here on Planet Earth by healing our walls of pain.  Joy is our birthright!!!!

There are already 3 major pieces of land that they are looking at, and one is 2000 acres, another 500 acres in mindo, and one down in Cuenca that is smaller.  So he is playing big and <i feel he is someone who you will enjoy and respect.  Bryce will be down to see them in a few weeks so things are moving ahead.  I will be down to see him and Penny, his wife, in about a week.  Our feeling about working and living with nature is aligned, I think I am more looking for the pristine.  Anyway, its good.

As far as the buildings / land finances, a big house of American tastes, but not ostentacious, will end up costing 80,000. dollars and i felt 150,000. was to be land.  This will be less if there is other land around for protection and silence.  By joining hands it saves. Its also  much more interesting a project, as many of the 18 people are teachers who are interested in creating a conference center kind of thing.  So its a whole different ballgame that we can enter into but not have to do it all.  I must say i feel much relief.  And more than that , i feel jazzed at the ideas and that it is feasible.  I will be going south after meeting Michael, TO MEET THESE 18 FOLKS. (cAPITALS HAPPENED BY THEMSELF!)  Ok I get it!

So thats all for now,  Mull this over and see how it feels.

early november
Before I came down here, I was given an idea to create a food bar for pregnant women for the baby´s nutritian, and i found that nutritian is very poor. The thick black braids of the indiginous men and women hang down their backs.  But babies are born with wispy hair and it doesn´t seem to come in any more.  Some babies have great shocks of
hair though.  Coke and tootsie pops are constantly in the mouthes of babes and children and adults!  Even fruit juices are “ënhanced”´with sugar.  Many schools feed the children protein for they only get white bread and white rice at home.

I found out that Breast feeding is stopped at 7-9 months and when talking to a mom i said that in the US, fewer babies are born when mamas nurse longer, this mama said, “oh no, longer feeding makes the
babies angry and spoiled.”  But the partera said that typically “the milk goes bad´” or dries up.    All nutritian.   Then <i found a 15 year old picture, of a mom nursing a 4-5 year old so this is a new response.  One mom who i thought was 32-36, was actually 22 with only one child.  The Indiginous are used to extreemly hard work.

I saw the food bars for all indiginous peoples, going right around the world.  I was even given the name.  And <i just scored the right person in the right area to grow the main ingrediant – organic sunflower seeds!  I see it as a women´s cooperative for economic stability as well as helping the babies and mamas.  Everybody is excited by the idea and are wanting to help.  Its magic to talk about this and the Sanctuary here, because there is so much juice!.  so my question to you is,   what could be added for the most mineral impact? I keep coming up with Spinach for the vitamin k for baby and mama, for not bleeding at birth, but what else would have a variety of minerals?  then <i will research what you suggest with what grows locally. (Sherry had lots of great suggestions)

New years morning breakfast, i met two people who asked me to spend the evening with them.  In Cayambe, the area that is ringed with mountains, I moved hostels to a hotel and new years eve was spent in the home of a gentleman horseman and their best friends who all love horses.  It was interesting to take part in the typical celebration.  Finger food was served constantly untill you were stuffed.  I understood none of the talk.  At midnight, under a huge full moon for the 5th day, the dummys, stuffed lifesized manikins made for every person, dressed with old clothes of the year  were  lit on fire. This was to let go of everything that you were ready to let go of.  (Some men truck drivers really got into it and placed a banana in an appropriate place and tied the dummy onto the front of his truck.  I guess the banana was burned too!  What a big let go! )

I spent the next days with this family, a 74 year old grandfather with Emphesemia, a 5 year old adopted boy who was fathered by a local priest, and the mom Anne and dad Vladimere both Ecuadorian.  They took me to  their farm, and the new farm they will rent, where they will grow the Sunflowers for the food bar.  A stunning farm with mountains that go straight up on 3 sides!  I stayed at a hacienda of an italian family, also horse people, and had the best country italian food i have ever had.  the land lords  are wanting to get pregnant and were full of questions and interest.  I am blown away at the people i am led to, and all the enthusiasm that talking about this creates.  That
was the third couple from staying at this hacienda, 4 days in their hotel and the best food in Ecuador = 62.00.  They completed my stay by saying to me,  ”if you have any emergency, call us.  We are yourfamily now.”

I have been rerouted to go South to talk to michael in Cuenca instead of going to the beach in the north.  so i leave tomorrow.  Feels like something is being drummed up!

Love to you all,
Sunni

January 17, 2010

________________________________________________________________________

I listen, just listen.  I don’t judge, this is not my journey.

I listen just listen.  I don’t interrupt, I don’t interfere this is not my journey.

I listen just listen, with love, compassion and respect.  That is my journey

Learning to listen is a life time of work.  Begin by learning to listen to self.  When self says stop, going too fast, eating too much, over working, do you listen?  Nah!  I keep going, fun is fast.  Crash!  I should have listened.  I’ll just have one bite of the double fudge chocolate cake.  Oh my, that was a whole piece.  I should have listened.  I will work the 60 hours this week and accumulate some comp time then I will have a way to take time off.  I have been working 60 hour weeks for 6 months and now everybody expects this work load from me.  Am I really a supper hero?  I should have listened.

Next learn to listen to your children.  Start with your unborn baby who has so much to share if we just listen.  Instead we want to prod and poke mother’s belly with needles and ultrasound.  The machines and the fluid-filled needles are now doing the listening.

Listen to your newborn, she will tell you so much with a grimace and a sigh and a crinkle of her nose.  Listen and watch and you will learn all about your newborn.

Listen to your toddler say “no!”, and “I won’t”, and “me do”.  Listen and respect this person’s – little as he may be – need to separate and move away as he continues to cling to the comfort of mother’s lap.

Listen to your teenager when she says, “but mom – dad you don’t understand, I can handle myself at an all night co-ed, sleep over party.”  Listen and hear your child’s plea for help in finding herself in a world that expects so much so fast.

Listen to your partner and really hear the words of love that may sound less than loving.  Listen for the softness of compassion that may be buried in the day-to-day stress of getting by in this changing world.  Listen with your heart and not your head.

Listen to your friend and let this friend finish the story before you move in with yours.  Listen and hear the perfection of the story and don’t try to fix anything.  This is not your journey, it is not your story, but it needs to be told, just listen.

Listen to the bird that sits in the tree every morning and serenades you with love.  Listen to the frogs that croak at night to the beautiful background songs of the crickets.

Listen to your own heart that is pleading for a quiet moment with you to just listen to the steady and never ending lub dub   lub dub   lub dub   lub dub.

Listen, just listen, don’t judge, don’t interfere, and don’t interrupt.  Listen, just listen and you will hear so much, especially in those moments of silence.

What I learned as a child was not to acknowledge the pain, the lack of love, therefore I learned to be strong and take in much pain and hurt in my life creating a body that could not feel. I was walking around in life pretending who I was instead of being who I am. Physical pain as well as emotional and spiritual pain comes through the same body. Peace could not exist because my head had to always be creating the next scenario of the “suppose to be” instead of living in truth at the moment.

Sometimes in realizing that one can come from joy old wounds begin to surface. I believe this is the old patterns, ways of life letting go from our being. Wounds come from many sources throughout our lives and long to be healed long after the visible hurt. Wounded ness stops the flow of love from running through our body. When we are wounded our body goes into contraction and we hold our breath.

The young children being born today are asking us as adults to pay attention to our wounded ness. The children are singing, dancing, playing, loving and they are mad at what the “walls of pain” create. They want to move freely and yet walls keep creating hurt and pain and they do not know how to get around the walls. They try to penetrate and know the softness but cannot get to the love. They want to be treated with respect and held accountable to life’s lessons of growing and creating something new. They want the freedom to be partners in this evolving transformation of humanity and the world.

The children know the oneness, feel it and yet the adults surrounding them hold the love hidden within and the children feel alone, and become fearful again. The children begin to learn that they must figure out the “game” if they are to exist. Asking themselves what are the rules that I must play by in order to survive in life because thriving is not an option. History repeats itself the wounded ness continues. We feel less. We care less. We speak not from our own soul/our own truth. We speak from the wounded ness of survival and we try to cover up the pain with many outside sources so that we can say we are happy. Are WE?

Opening our hearts creates an opening for the wounded ness to heal and not carry it forward. Children coming into the world today have little tolerance for untruth. The children today are asking us as adults to heal our hurts, to let the walls down. Are you ready to let go of the walls of pain and let love run through you creating peace? Can you visualize yourself being cuddled with wide-open arms not judged just loved? The children are waiting for open arms of love let’s give them a chance to be their best possible selves and thrive here on Planet Earth by healing our walls of pain. Joy is our birthright!!!!

]]> http://www.sacredbirthing.com/2010/01/healing-the-woundedness-by-rose-scherschel/feed/ 0