Being in the water

[Bridget Thompson]

I gave a Fluid Integration session to a friend of mine who is a midwife and counselor to pregnant women and their partners. She has also taught pre-natal yoga for many years - but this doesn't begin to describe her strengths, passion, commitment and engagement with the world as she finds it. I practised as a lay midwife 20 years ago, I have 4 children (3 of whom were born at home), and I was appalled to hear from her that conditions for pregnant and laboring women have deteriorated considerably since then. The caesarean rate in WA state is close to 50%; even midwives are giving women medication to hasten their labor. In hospitals pitocin is still used despite research indicating possible connections to autism. Too many obstetricians are still apparently blind to the sacred significance of birth and dismissing women, couples and birth advocates as tiresome distractions to getting the job done.
It's no wonder that developmental problems, learning difficulties and behavioral issues are so much in evidence when so few of us have had a nurturing, gentle birth. Babies and children can be healed of birth trauma in the water, but so can we all.
My time in the water with my friend and our discussion afterwards was inspiring. I realized that water work is not just calming, peaceful and relaxing. Much more than that: my clients enter the emptiness of being, separate from thoughts and emotions. They experience a pre-cognitvie, prenatal, embryonic connection to mother, a return to the womb. They are suspended in an environment where the barriers between the self and the outside world are so tenuous that they sense themselves as part of the world. The ecological self thrives.
Once we experience this connection, we are nourished, inspired, and full of life. And ready to move out onto dry land, in gravity, to meet the world.

[Sulis (Sara Firman)]

I wonder if anyone is interested in starting a Group on this network for discussions that specifically relate to birth and the value of aquatic therapy in that area?

Here is a link to an article I wrote on Aquatic Bodywork in Pregnancy.

[Diane Tegtmeier]

I'm deeply touched by your comments about birth. The topic is in the foreground of my mind and heart these days. I just returned from Italy where I co-taught a class entitled "Sexuality, Ecology and Watsu" with Roberto Fraioli and Italo Bertolasi. Roberto is an OB/Gyn who has delivered over 1000 babies in water. During the pregnancy, he and the midwives he's trained in Watsu give the mothers Watsu as part of their preparation. He is deeply dedicated to peaceful birth and support of women's health in many ways. He showed a moving video of how women give birth all over the world, some with great support and natural processes and others in painfully brutal assembly line hospital environments. Needless to say, the film sharpened the participant's awareness of the power of water and the presence of loving support to promoting a more peaceful planet.

In this workshop, I was also struck by how hungry people are for re-connection—to each other and to the natural processes that sustain us as Earth. When they held each other in water, many for the first time, they dropped into that state that Sulis refers to as re-patterning, remembering who we really are. When Inika and I work together with our clients healing from trauma, we are amazed at how the body/being knows exactly what movement and action is needed to heal birth trauma when met with unconditional love and conscious touch. It's definitely a privilege to midwife these healing processes.

Thanks, Bridget and Sulis for engaging us in this discussion. Our challenge is to find more ways to bring this powerful work to others.

[Sulis (Sara Firman)]

It saddens me too Bridget. Especially when you remind me that it was in WA state at White Stone that I took David Sawyer's aquatic training (Prenatal Journey) and underwent my own incredible and surprising rebirthing experience there.

One of my most blissful early experiences of aquatic bodywork was being held upside down and under water (by Inika) in the 'embryo' position where I felt both my conception and my dying.

Sometimes, I find that a session takes on the feel of an ancient birthing ritual or baptism into life and receivers often acknowledge this as they surface at the end of a session. In the womb-like environment of warm water it seems we can journey back and retrieve held or suppressed organic memories. In doing so we may repattern body, emotions and psyche with profound effect.

David Sawyer demonstrated so well how, in water, more primitive brain functions begin to surface - archetypes, feelings, sensate awareness, somatic memories - the release of which can allow someone to move on in their life.

Does anyone know if he is teaching this course any more or who is?

He wrote a wonderful booklet ...

Sawyer, David. Birthing the Self: water based methods for healing prenatal and birth trauma. 1999.

This and some good writing on healing birth shock in water is available on Annie Brook's site - click here.