winter

this doco was made by a blackheathen.
2 yrs in the making this beautifully documents the journey of one woman's choice to home birth during a time of protests against legislation which would make independant midwifery impossible and take this womans choice away from her. this month, JULY 2010, saw the implementation of these (out)laws. Rani will be screening the documentary for the first time this month, as we wade through seemingly endless anti-homebirth media reports, opinion pieces and "news", since Danii Minogue became the new poster girl for anti-homebirth.

so we end the winter, the *winter *of our patriarchal overlords- for when you hold down a labouring woman and take her cubs your need to be prepared to get bitten.

winter, the time we retreat to the glow of our television, (read fire in cave), and ponder the images it thrusts into our slumbering minds... only to talk with others about these strange things- oh yes- masterchef™ is a fine distraction, meanwhile oil is spewing into the US occupied waters, war rages, dr who is dead possibly dead, and banning homebirth is the focus of many journalist (read ignorant human replica). WHY do less than 2% of women who give birth choose to birth at home? why not more? when something so normal, so natural, is pushed to the point of unexisting, along with breast feeding and mothering, we will have the peak of patriarchal dominance.
THE REVOLUTION IS ABOUT TO ARRIVE 2012!

teacup in a storm

the word of the week, if you want a word, is STORM. this picture above these words is called TEACUPS IN A STORM. The picture is the result of a meditation on motherhood, why we weather the storm of life in isolated pockets, not quite able to help others, to busy bailing out our own teacup. An expansion of the idea of A STORM IN A TEACUP, which is a idiom meaning someone is exaggerating a problem, or making a small thing out to be much bigger than reality. I found myself thinking if families were in teacups in a storm on the sea, then the teacup would seem small and insignificant, but so fragile. By bringing the storm outside of the teacup we see that all the different families are weathering the same storm, would this storm be easier to weather in a larger vessel containing everyone? or have we rejected the idea of community (in the tribal sense) in favour of small family groups living separately?

It is true, for me, that much art and creative writing is born from sorrow, fear, oppression and the darker emotions, why is it that in happiness we forget to write in our diary, or make art or stories.
As a mother, in my teacup, I find that I am the captian. If i forget the directions, or fail to meet the mark, I have to bail out the teacup. I see other captians in their teacups doing the same; all we can do is nod, smile and keep bailing.
In TEACUPS IN A STORM you see some crowded teacups, some solo, to represent the various numbers that make up a family unit. I have left them faceless because the anonymity of isolation and the pretense that we are coping. Some of the teacup families are happy despite the storm, others are very unhappy.
It is created from sorrow, but the process of meditating the idea then expressing the idea as a picture has made the sorrow of motherhood less and the acceptance easier. We must embrace our circumstances and make the best we can with what we have, resentment is a wasted emotion: LET IT FLOW, AND LET IT GO.[way of the peaceful warrior, teachings for living in the Here and Now].