I was recently in Estonia and treated by my friend to a full
sauna treatment in her own home.
As we went through the pre cleaning, scrubbing and washing rituals, I
was reminded of similar experiences I have had in Turkish baths, Moroccan
hamams and Balinese well being centres. When my friend mentioned that it was a
cheap way of cleansing because she used natural, inexpensive products like salt
and honey and that she had no need to use expensive skin lotions or hair
products, a light bulb went on. Of
course, the western world is not going to adopt these more traditional, natural
methods because there is no money to make in it.
The experience of being in these totally wet rooms where
water is liberally splashed around and bodies are scrubbed and cleansed with
real intention and nudity is natural, is so liberating. My experience has always been in
bathrooms where the wet area is limited to the bath or shower and I am fearful
to get the others areas wet.
As she explained the theory behind the rituals, I realised
that previously I had always treated these types of experiences as a one off
event as part of my travelling adventures and an aberration to my normal
bathing/cleansing habits. I had never
considered that I should actually change my western, commercial and inhibited
ways to these more liberated and natural methods of cleansing and
purifying. My conditioning led me
to believe that bathing for short periods every day, alone, with no rituals and
using expensive products was the only way possible for me.
I grew up in a transplanted European culture that had no
connection to the land it had taken over and instead of embracing the indigenous
peoples and acquiring local knowledge of how to live off this new land, they
hunted and persecuted them almost out of existence.
This led me to consider the current global birth crisis and
I realised that it was the same conundrum. Women who have been brought up listening to stories about
technological, hospital births and have been born that way themselves, are
going to dismiss an unassisted, natural homebirth as an aberration. They are not going to consider that it
is a safe and valid choice. They
are not going to be able to bypass their conditioning to believe that they
could actually do this too!
The “system” doesn’t want women to adopt a low tech,
natural, homebirth because then they would not make any money, birth is big
business! The “system” has to feed
itself and its beliefs to keep everyone contributing to its money making
machine! The “system” keeps us
fearful and disempowered so that we need it!
I believe that when a woman goes within, she discovers that
all she needs resides inside her, her body is perfectly created to give birth
without drugs, hospitals, doctors or medical procedures. She can create whatever she desires
when she opens to love rather than contracts in fear. Love opens psychically and physically, allowing the baby
safe and gentle passage into this world!
What do you believe?
