Dey and Dee's Updates

Labyrinths

I walked my first labyrinth today! I am doing a workshop this weekend through Birthing From Within at St. Benedicts Retreat Centre. It's been really fun so far. And today we had the opportunity to walk the labyrinth. This is often done as a spiritual practice, usually some form of contemplative prayer. Our goal today was to meditate on a question that we had to come up with the night before revolving around being mentors in birth. It couldn't be a yes or no question, had to be in the present tense, and the answer couldn't be found in a book or anything. There's more to it, but I won't get into it all here.

Anyways, I actually had 2 questions. The first one was: How am I expanding? This question arises from letting go of my own ideals of birth and being willing to be open to other ideas. The second question was: How am I free? This one resonates very strongly in me, as it relates to the need for approval, or as some people call it, the fear of man.

So, I was first to pass the threshold and enter the labyrinth. If you don't know much about these, you should look them up. They are very interesting. They are not a maze. There is only one way in and one way out. You can't really tell where you are on your journey and at certain points it feels like you are very close to the centre, then all of a sudden you're on the outer edge again. The only thing you can do is put one foot in front of the other and just keep walking. At the beginning of my walk today, I just kept repeating my questions over and over to myself. Nothing more was really coming to me. Definitely no answers or profound revelations. In fact, I found myself often distracted by trying not to step in all the goose poop! :) So, I EVENTUALLY made it to the centre, paused for a moment, and began to make my way out. It really does throw you for a bit of a loop and you sometimes wonder if you'll ever get there!

Anyways, on my way out, a light went off in my head. I realized that my 2 questions were actually quite connected! How can I possibly expand my ideas about birth (or anything really) if I am caught up in what other people think of me? The only way I can expand is if I am free! If I begin to let the truth sink in that the only person I should be worried about pleasing is God, then the rest will fall into place. I'm not sure if I can explain this so properly, but it really was a revelation for me! And the neat thing was, that as I began to understand it, I noticed my pace quickened. Not sure why, but it was definitely noticeable. I've never been much of a meditative or contemplative person, but I really enjoyed this entire process.

On a side note, I learned about "laborinths", basically the relationships that can be drawn between labyrinths and labour/birth. For example, not knowing how long things are going to take, just taking one step at a time, thinking you're close and discovering you're only 2 cm dilated, even being distracted by all the poop that's around! I think I may start incorporating this tool into my prenatal classes, after I refine it a bit in my mind!

That's all for now. I have one more day in this workshop so I better get some sleep now. Still having lots of prelabour stuff and the pressure is quite unbearable at times. I think the baby is posterior which may be why I'm experiencing so many "practice" contractions that start and stop every evening. And if he/she would just get in a better position, maybe my pelvis and sciatic nerve wouldn't hurt so much! Oh well, hopefully soon! :)

posted by Deanna Momtchilov @ 11:09 PM