RISING TRIBES

quote of the day

“Everyone knows that actions speak louder than words.  In fact, studies show that only 5 percent of lifelong learning comes from instruction: 95 percent of what we remember comes from family and social interactions.   At somelevel you likely know that your children learn more from what you do than from what you say.  You may hear your own voice in the way one sibling talks with another.  You may hear your children using the same line of reasoning with you that you use with them.”

–Respectful Perents Respect Kids by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson

At 3

I have entered a new stage of motherhood.  I am officially mothering a willful and determined 3 year old boy.  Though I have been officially mothering him for a while now, his recent arrival to 3 marks this new era of our lives together.  Lets  begin with words.  Words that glide of his tongue like butterfly wings in spring: “actually” to accentuate what he really is trying to say,  or perhaps “Te amo” accompanied by his wet kisses.  Then, of course, comes his endless release of energy: climbing up my back while i clean the bath tub, while i’m cooking, or doing my downward dog stretch in the morning, all of course are perfect opportunities that tickle his curious and creative kinesthetic skills.  OOOOh, and those sweet meltdowns, like warm marshmallows oozing sweetness from its perfectly burned crust:  “I don’t want to brush my teeth, noooo, because i don’t want to, nooooo, nooooooooooooooooooo!”  The wonderful, exhausting and white hair growing days of my life with a 3 year old.

They are often perfectly webbed with a unique sense of perfection.  The kind of exactitude that comes from looking at your very image on a mirror, reflecting back nothing but the truth.  My son, is such a  reflection, challenging me into perfection every day.  With a bit more patience, a bit more understanding, a bit more listening, he tweaks me bit by bit, until one day, when he is hairy and his feet stink, we’ll look at each other and smile at the journey we walked together.

Caoba is 3!

Warrior pose

Final blow to his Cement Mixer Piñata

Mixing colors, his favorite activity

Chichi #1: mamaluna on breastfeeding

I grew up watching a chichi or two hanging about, waiting to be feasted on.  Chichi is the most common word for  breasts in Mexico.  No this is not an x-rated post, only one where I share a bit of what it was like to grow up in an embracing breastfeeding community.  San Cristobal de las Casas was then (in the early 80’s) still a pueblito,  the mornings and evenings filled with greetings from neighbors or strangers passing by created the atmosphere of a delicately woven web of humanity characteristic of a pueblito.  This misty cold valley  scented with firewood and fireworks was the setting for brown chichis nursing everywhere, at the markets, at the hospitals, at the tortilleria lines, on the minibuses, on the corner mango stands.   To see a child nursing while attached to her mama in a  chal/rebozo  was a sign of the town’s health and prosperity.

My daily encounters with Tzeltal, Tzotzil and mestizo women breastfeeding their children was a reminder of my own sense of well being.  As child who was  born at home and breastfed for a couple of years, I felt an automatic  joy at the sight of other children nestled in their mother’s bosoms.  An automatic ticket to the feeling of home.  A home defined by the selfless gift of a well nourished life.  I was living a communal understanding of nursing  as natural and normal, chichis were meant to hang out with a child’s hand, mouth or both attached to them.

As I became a teenager,  formula was  introduced rampantly throughout Chiapas, and Mexico,  poor and working class mothers began to leave their homes and infants to go to work, new infant care centers began to open up.   The vicious cycle of corporate interest began to create a pattern, a clear example: women found jobs making formula at the new Nestle factory so that they could afford to buy formula for their children who where now at day care centers.   Higher class mestizo and Coleto families of San Cristobal, who had access to the latest bottles and formula, began to shrug at the sight of bare breasts.  By the early 90’s I remember only seeing indigenous women breastfeeding  in public, more and more i began to see children being bottle fed, including the times that I fed my own nephews their formula bottles.   In recent times, though these  massive influences and corporate effects on our culture still exist, indigenous children are most often breastfed.  As a matter of fact, while talking to a junior high school friend of mine who is now a Doctor  in Tzeltal an Tzotzil clinics,  I learned  that doctors are required to encourage mothers to breastfeed for a minimum of 6 months, however they would push formula before nursing claiming that  indigenous  mothers suffer from poor nutrition.   Instead of supporting, “re-educating” or backing off, physicians recommend formula!  (I won’t get into the sickness/details of the historically socio-political and psycological effect of colonization on indigenous peoples and how they  relate  to nursing mothers on this post, but do keep an eye out).

As a Tzeltal woman myself, I never thought twice about breastfeeding.  We are talking about Natural Law here.   When we had our first child, I was absolutely sure that breastfeeding had been a skill my ancestors had taught me.  Not that I knew how to do it, but I believed (and still do) that I had a genealogical sense that would help me learn as my infant was in my arms.  I know I am not the only woman who feels this way either.  Living in New York City during the first few months of our daughter’s life, I was witness to an array of women from all walks of life, culture, ethnicity who  where claiming breastfeeding as a natural process in human procreation and in turn making that choice for their own families.  I also learned a lot about the history of breastfeeding in the United States and the drastic decline of breastfed children, and about places like La Leche Legue and their effort in creating a resurgent breastfeeding movement.  Even then, I was not prepared for the utter shock of being  a breastfeeding mother in America.

When I began breastfeeding in the thick of NYC I felt that my chichi worlds were beginning to collide.  I came from this rich tradition of breastfeeding and chichis hanging about,  to the judgmental and shocked gazes in NYC buses and subways,  not to mention the one dude trying to get a good look at it for his own satisfaction.   I often felt that I had to protect my breastfeeding space, and cover my exposed body to retain the sacredness of my relationships with my daughter.   I chose to hold on to Natural Law, while my close sistah-friends and I photographed those NYC years of breastfeeding.   My daughter will be able to look back and see herself nursing on subways, parks, buses, streets, stoops and realize the normality of such relationship even in an urban setting.    It was so empowering to have felt that genealogical right, irregardless of the negative setting, it nourished my soul and  I am sure that of our first daughter.

I’ve come a long way from breastfeeding on the rush hours  of  NYC subways.  With our second, our son Caoba, I have been able to give myself fully to the relaxing chichi time while gazing at the tall  Cedar and Douglas Fir forests of  British Columbia, while being supported by the community I live in.  It truly is a relaxing experience  not only to my son or to me, but even to our first born daughter who is now five years old  and cuddles by our side, or uses it as down time for herself.  It is in this setting, as well as the setting of my mind, that I can give myself fully to the experience of nursing and benefit from  the love that is part of our bonds.   When I bring all of these experiences together, it makes me be that much more determined to work towards a world  that can provide nurturing and empowering environments to all nursing mothers, irregardless of how long they choose to nurse for.  STRESS FREE is key to a beautiful healthy relaxing nursing relationship.   And a beautiful healthy relaxing nursing experience leads families and children toward well nourished selves.  This is why my genes were strong!  We are talking about hundreds, thousands, a millenia of years of women nursing children.  So much so, that our ancestors, and here I mean our women ancestors, yours too, figured out that if they followed Natural Law and maintained a natural relationship to nursing children,  that in the long run it would have an effect into the coding of our genes!   By that I mean that an environment was tested, created, practiced, upheld so that such gene coding could manifest itself to its full potential, the evolution of each child and each family.  I end this by asking you my sistah, and you my brother, to change our world one nursing at a time.  Help each nursing mother and child you come across by ensuring a Stress Free environment, let go of your judgments, offer a pillow, smile, relax yourself, support in any way you can!  And to nursing mothers, you are not alone!

Caoba

Ceiba was just about 6 months old when I looked at my partner and said “Caoba, that’s a wonderful name for a son.”  It was a couple of years later, a hot July when we learned of his arrival, Ceiba was almost two then.   Intermixed feelings of shock and love permeated the air in our one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I remember sitting on a purple couch we inherited from a friend, looking gloomy, doubtful, uncertain about life with two children.  I had just returned from a permaculture class in new Mexico and Ceiba was done breastfeeding.  For the first time in almost two years my body was begining to feel like mine again.  The thought of another round of streches, uncomfortable sleeping possitions, sucked breasts and two or tree years of physical mothering (child on back, pushing stroller, grocery bags on each arm) was not sounding very appealing.    It was my partner though that gave me the solid ground to stand upon when we decided to receive our child with an open heart.  He vowed to fully support me and us as our family grew.  When I accepted, when I let go of doubt, the teachings from our son really started coming.

Caoba was born in March, on a windy day transfixed with snow, sunshine, rain, wind, sunset, moon rise.   A hawk (my Nahual) perched outside my father in law’s window watching me pace back and forth in his hallway as my water  broke.   Nine lovely souls where there supporting our home birth, the first in my suegro’s Newark apartment.     His arrival was filled with a scent of magic, more specifically a scent of my grandmother’s chicken soup cooked that day by my dear cousin.  I was able to watch myself as if in a movie, while at the same time fully present in my body, a recorded CD of ocean waves kept on playing until i layed down with him next to me, it was one of the most peaceful moments i’ve lived.

That was one of the very last peaceful moments i’ve lived!  Ever since his coming, his feet have been none stop (though I did get some out of this world kicks while he was in my belly), his body is filled with the energy of iron, he is so strong!  Nothing can stop him, once he has outlined a purpose, its over, he is going to do it, anything from walking at 9 months, to putting his hand on the toilet, to climbing onto all surfaces no matter how unstable.  He is driven by the most raw form of curiosity coupled with absolutely no fear, he risks all he has.  Needless to say, I am tired!

He is that monk in the far mountains, who kicks your ass into wisdom.  And honey, let me tell you!  I am getting my butt kicked!  All for the good though, slowly I am growing a back bone, and I am learning about what patience really is.  Not that I actually live by it at all times, but he is always there to remind me.   Aaaah Caoba!  Today my daughter and I finally laughed at his mischievous acts, which always reveal and uncanny need to come to existence.  Like, “I am filling containers with water and spilling  all over the bathroom and house while I walk to each plant and water them all by myself.”

I often meditate on how it came to be this way, the Budha daughter that is pure love, calm and generosity, and the mountain monk son who kicks my behind with relentless will.  It is perfect!   Our family of four is a hilarious mix of weird creative wise monkish types uniquely placed in this world to make each other laugh into better people, and he sure gets the job done, even though the laugh comes later (much later).  At the end of the day, when I lay to nurse him to sleep and  I say “un poquito de chichi y despues good night,”  he is overfilled with joy at the fact that he will be nestled next to me in peace.  We both cuddle wrapped in each other, tired from pushing and cleaning and breathe in total happiness at having found each other in this plane of existence.  Ah my teacher, this boy, he sure knows my soft spots, and fortunately I get to know his!

That’s it!  This is why I chose parenting as my career, nothing like being challenged in all possible ways by a 2 year old, as if you were in the middle of a rocket launching  mission.  Only my science experiments deal with cleaning up the projectile messes of hand mashed bananas mixed with rice, earth, smoothie and older sister’s left overs.

Living your Truth

I understand now why something like unschooling or let’s call it “living your truth” is so meaningful to humanity.  I have been watching my daughter and my son for the past month intently, observing rather, with patience and focus (two very hard things to do in the midst of everything else that needs to get done!)  However, this has proven to be the most delightful of practices, as well as the most insightful.

I have actually learned a bit about how my children learn, how their mood is affected by their energy, what they eat, how they rested, the weather, etc.  I have even learned that when I support  their own choices about what to do and how to do it, they create a  process of mastery, which I have come to understand as a deep sence of self.   Understanding the self in a holistic way: what can my body do?  how does this make me feel?  what do i need?  what do i want?  how do I meet my needs? and of course I can go on.  It is when we know ourselves in this deep and holistic way that we can achive mastery in our lives.

Back in my teaching/facilitating days at El Puente Leadership Center, the program made mastery one of their values, it achieved this by providing amazing artists to facilitate workshops in the After School program as well as exposing them to people that were masters in their field.  While those areas are just as important, I was also awere that youth who finished the program would find themselves really crippled by the lack of support in their new environments (work, college, etc).  The youth that continued empowered in ther learning experiences were those that trusted their abilities and were determined to reach  their goals after leaving the program.

I find that  as a parent I am priviledged to have the opportunity to observe two human beings become and evolve from themselves, and often find it difficult to back off, to let go of control.  So much so that I often confuse my care and responsibility to them with controling what they do and how they do it.  I guess that is the challenge of all parents, but its hightend for those of us who can learn from home.  It is quite tricky to navigate discipline with the freedom to be, but I have found (mainly from conversations with my partner and trial and error) that it is imperative to be clear about those boundaries.

Often at home you will hear one of the parents say “you don’t always get what you want” when dealing with something like “i want to stay up late tonight,” and I do feel very mixed about that statement.  Historically speaking, humanity has used–and continues to use–power, control and violence to keep folk from getting what they want.  In turn, we turned into a global network of consumers that are constantly spending so much money, specially women, buying stuff to make up for not getting what we wanted as children.  Whether it was love and attention or one more turn in the swing.   By default, parents have “inherited” the responsibility to protect and prepare the child from what she will experience in larger society, which states “you cant get what you want, but buy this instead.”

This is my question, why not understand what is at the root of that “want” and not only understand but actually acknowledge and work together to meet the root need?  All it would take in our example is “why do you feel you would want to stay up late?”  Whe we took this route  ourselves, we found out that our 4 year old is in need of time with her parents, without the constant putting her needs aside or being asked to wait because of her little brother’s needs.  Time where she can be reassured of our love by having healthy attention and care.   Instead of giving her the message that “she doesn’t get what she wants sometimes” she was able to hear, “what you need and want is important, thanks for listening to yourself, and for being able to express it. Since we didn’t plan it for tonight can we make sure to do that tomorrow night?”  Having done that made me much more aware of the fact that I too “wanted a late night with her and my partner!”  we had a blast together being a family.

If we don’t allow ourselves to have a deep connection with our Self,  to “live our truth”  how can we evolve and heal our very hurt society?  Are you living your truth?