Clayton's baby is here!
From: Clayton Maxwell
Date: November 3, 2009 11:01:04 PM CST
To: flint@flintsparks.com
Subject: baby here
Dear Flint and Peg,
Just wanted to thank you for the gift of the Inquiry group in my weeks leading up to birth. Harry Maxwell Sloan was born last Friday. We had a wonderful natural birth, a real joy after having had a c-section with my first. I do think that hearing Joko's reading about melting (in our inquiry two days prior) helped me resist the anesthesia. I visualized melting through the contractions-- although my friends who were helping me said my whole body was often as tense as an ice cube-- as well as floating on top of them. Not to reduce that beautiful reading of Joko's into simple metaphors, but the pain of birth made me into a puddle, if only for a moment.
I also went back to something else you said Flint, about giving in to the pain rather than resisting. While the birth was wonderful, the contractions towards the end were something consuming and unprecedented-- they took me over, grinding me into nothing like a trash compactor. So i think the words and ideas i had just absorbed in Tuesday inquiry, words about melting and giving in, stayed with me and i clung to them like one can only do when on one's knees on the hospital floor. But i am so grateful to have had the opportunity to go through the whole birth unmedicated and alert and feeling it all. By feeling it, I got to know something deeper and better than I could ever have expected-- it took me closer to my baby as he was leaving my body and to a kind of primal awareness of life. I hope I never lose touch with that feeling.
I think that the discussions in inquiry about relationship helped me, too. My two best friends and my husband were with me-- the nurse and doctor pretty much left us alone. They held me and we worked through the birth together in this really sweet way. I gave into needing them and not hiding my fear and pain from them, and they were really present with me, holding me up throughout. I could only do it with them.
So i feel very lucky to have entered into labor with such a good infusion of imagery and ideas from you and inquiry. It made an important difference. Thank you.
many thanks,
Clayton
Clayton Maxwell
Freelance Writer
Austin, Texas
+001 512 924 8574
Date: November 3, 2009 11:01:04 PM CST
To: flint@flintsparks.com
Subject: baby here
Dear Flint and Peg,
Just wanted to thank you for the gift of the Inquiry group in my weeks leading up to birth. Harry Maxwell Sloan was born last Friday. We had a wonderful natural birth, a real joy after having had a c-section with my first. I do think that hearing Joko's reading about melting (in our inquiry two days prior) helped me resist the anesthesia. I visualized melting through the contractions-- although my friends who were helping me said my whole body was often as tense as an ice cube-- as well as floating on top of them. Not to reduce that beautiful reading of Joko's into simple metaphors, but the pain of birth made me into a puddle, if only for a moment.
I also went back to something else you said Flint, about giving in to the pain rather than resisting. While the birth was wonderful, the contractions towards the end were something consuming and unprecedented-- they took me over, grinding me into nothing like a trash compactor. So i think the words and ideas i had just absorbed in Tuesday inquiry, words about melting and giving in, stayed with me and i clung to them like one can only do when on one's knees on the hospital floor. But i am so grateful to have had the opportunity to go through the whole birth unmedicated and alert and feeling it all. By feeling it, I got to know something deeper and better than I could ever have expected-- it took me closer to my baby as he was leaving my body and to a kind of primal awareness of life. I hope I never lose touch with that feeling.
I think that the discussions in inquiry about relationship helped me, too. My two best friends and my husband were with me-- the nurse and doctor pretty much left us alone. They held me and we worked through the birth together in this really sweet way. I gave into needing them and not hiding my fear and pain from them, and they were really present with me, holding me up throughout. I could only do it with them.
So i feel very lucky to have entered into labor with such a good infusion of imagery and ideas from you and inquiry. It made an important difference. Thank you.
many thanks,
Clayton
Clayton Maxwell
Freelance Writer
Austin, Texas
+001 512 924 8574
Comment
Appamada is not just the occasional mindful thought or attentive state of mind, it’s actually a commitment to being attentive. It’s more than just a meditative state of mind, it’s more than just being mindful. It has to do with that primary ethical or moral orientation we have in life, with which we bring into being whatever activity we’re engaged in. Whether in formal meditation, in our interactions with other people, in our social concerns, or in our political choices, it’s the energetic cherishing of what we regard as good.
—Stephen Batchelor
—Stephen Batchelor
Events
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The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the way we perceive the world
January 7, 2010 at 6:30pm to May 27, 2010 at 8pm – Appamada
© 2010 Created by Peg Syverson
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