My Wedding pics.

photos by Vanessa Massoud.

handmade dresses by Laura Humphrey.

My wedding pics.

I just realized that i've yet to post pics from my own wedding. on June 14th, 2008, i married my soulmate. A small tornado preceeded the ceremony which took place in a renovated horse barn, under a hoopah, surrounded by loved ones in Smithonia, Georgia.

I can hardly believe it's time to plan our first anniversary.

photo by: Olivia Sargeant

WOW!

Check out the link below to experience a midwifery graduate student project. you wont be disappointed, i promise. 

http://www.beautifulcervix.com/photos-of-cervix/

cold makes coffee taste even better. http://www.thousandfacescoffee.com/


Despite the destruction.... we enjoyed several candlelit nights. The Berners felt right at home.

Then our hoophouses just fell down.

Flattened arugula in the big hoop. When the snow melts, the truth will be revealed.

Beauty fell down all around us today.

The great Athens Snowstorm

We've been told the piedmont has not seen snow like this in 50 years.

Life on the Frontier

I just returned from a week-long orientation at my midwifery graduate school in the rugged hills of western Kentucky.  Frontier School of Midwifery was the first graduate school of nursing to train nurse-midwives in the United States.  Founded in 1925 by a revolutionary woman of her times, Mary Breckinridge, Frontier midwives lived in outpost clinics throughout the Kentucky appalachia and serviced women and families by horseback.  Barring leather saddlebags and their own two hands, Frontier midwives assisted mothers in childbirth, immunized children, educated families about hygiene, and occasionally checked livestock for disease.  Each clinic had a cow and chickens to keep the midwives nourished for long hours on horseback and 24 hour on call shifts.  

Just imagine.... it is 1935. you are a young nurse from an urban location who decides to join the Frontier Nursing Service.  You arrive by train into the Kentucky mountains and suddenly you are transported to a world untouched by modernity.  Poverty, bluegrass, coal-mining and molasses become your world.  The mothers you tend to have 8,9,10 children.  They teach you how to keep such a large brood alive on so little.  You teach them proper sanitation and nutrition.  

Frontier continues to have a large influence on rural care in the Kentucky area as well as on the entire birth scene.  Today, my classmates come from Brooklyn, Minnesota, Alaska, Oregon, and Georgia.  We gather online and study in our home offices.  We become agents of change in our communities and then share our ideas, inspirations, and frustrations with each other.  We meet at conferences and back in Kentucky once a year.  Life on the Frontier has changed since Mary Breckinridge's day, but her spirit remains.  Care for the mother and her children.  Do not take no for an answer.  Work on your knees and help heal.

Its such a beautiful thing when one finds a family she has been searching for.  To check out more on my Frontier family: http://www.midwives.org/home.html

La leche league of Full Moon Farms

The blessing of birth in the stillness of winter.

Athens Georgia

prenatal vitamins & The complexity of choice

too many holistic fish in the sea for me when i embark on the great challenge of choosing that all-important folic acid provider... the prenatal vitamin.

as much of a supplement gal as i am, i am not a daily vitamin girl. For one simple reason, big heavy vitamins make me want to barf.  and sometimes, i do.

So when i began my quest to find the perfect anti-nausea, fairly-priced, high-quality prenatal vitamin, this is what i found. I've included links to the best web-prices ive found below in links i love. 

Coming in top on my sister's list, the impressive one-a-day Rainbow Light, a whole-foodsy recommendation from her Berkeley-based herbalist. 

Recommended by a pregger friend in Atlanta, who swears by the diluted nature of Pure Essence prenatals in that they provide a balanced dose of nutrients (including plenty of folic acid) without causing your stomach to turn. the only trick is... you have to take 6 a day! 

Then there is the brand of prenatals endorsed by Gwenyth Paltrow herself, according to the attendant at my local natural apothecary. The New Chapter brand produces their supplements in a unique way by allowing probiotics to pre-digest the components before you pop them in your fertile mouth. kinda mama-baby-bird-like. 

In addition to a prenatal, an aspiring mama-to-be might want to consider the following health supplements:

-a complete Omega (fish or plant sources) or 2 teaspoons of flax oil daily (i like to hide mine in a smoothie). any pregnant woman who can handle cod liver oil down the hatch has my vote for Iron-clad stomach of the century. Nordic Naturals produce a lemon-flavored Omega that my sister swears never 'backed-up' the pipes on her throughout her last pregnancy; and her belly was big! for more on omegas, see August healing arts centre link. Good fats are good for placental growth and hormonal balance.

-digestive enzymes. i cant really say enough about these little intestinal helpers. great for daily use, perfect for travel and diet changes, awesome for absorbing life in general. see Sept. healing arts centre entry. 

-the Peruvian wonder root Maca. I use the Healthforce Superfood brand, its a powdered form of maca root that provides a complexity of probiotics, enzymes, and herbal synergists. it was the wintery appeal of vanilla and ginger that sold me. ive never tried the carob-peppermint mixture, that could be interesting. I combine rice/soy milk, frozen bananas, a splash of maple syrup, 1-2 teaspoons flax oil, and 1-2 teaspoons maca powder or a yummy smoothie treat. i also highly recommend Healthforce's vitamin C powder and SuperGreen formula.

-lastly, bee products. Royal Jelly is the sole sustenance of the commuity's Queen Bee and is  renown for enabling her amazng sixe, reproductive ability, and longevity. ok. im sold. Interestingly, Montana's Big Sky country seems to be a hotspot for the cottage bee product industry. my brief stint living in Montana made me want to buzz around in the wide open blueness. we could all benefit from the hardiness of those winter-resistant honeybees. Of course, its very beneficial to consume bee products endemic to your locale. make sure they are high quality and tested for heavy-metal and pesticide exposure. Huckleberry-honey-royal jelly spread on fresh-baked whole wheat toast. yum. 

ok, information overload. please let me know what discoveries you've made. Cause you dont have to be a movie star to be a Queen Bee.

fire and isolation

perhaps it's the 5-going-on-6-day virus that makes me feel like i am wearing an irremovable stethoscope to my heart. Or the tangy cold weather that piles morning hours inside and turns the pages of my book. Perhaps its Mr. Winter, king of hiberNation, reminding me to slow down, even further and take care. 

i made a fire tonight and sat as close as possible. until sweat was dripping from the nose indentations of my glasses and until need for clothing was obsolete. the central air clicked off. the house became perfectly quiet, like the silence between a flame's flicker, except for the loyal stethoscope drumming away in my sinuses. 

alone. i thought. is this what it is to be a mother. 

and the thought made me sad. and curious. 

for i have been told by numerous knowledgeable sources that motherhood can be the loneliest time in a mother's life. yet, it never ends. this motherhood. therefore, i ponder "when does motherhood become less lonely?" "does it have to be this way"?

ah, the tribal argument. we lived near our sisters, mothers, and grandmothers. our aunts and cousins would watch the babes when we headed to the forest to kill meat or the fields to dig manioc. in the tribe existed an infallible support system, the uninterrupted wisdom of generations living on top of each other, and the internal safety net to allow one's children to play unsupervised in the village central. 

i dont know about you, but long are the days my taste buds craved this starchy root (yes, i have tried it. in paraguay.) And to be matter-of-fact, long are the days when my sister lived in the room next door and my parents across the hall. ive never lived in the same city, state, or even coast as my grandmothers, cousins, and aunts.  though we visit as much as we can. 

dont get me wrong. i am very close with my nuclear and extended family. i have a tight network of amazing girlfriends in all corners of the world whom i speak and visit with often. in my current homeplace, my husband and i have cultivated an amazing community of brilliant artists, dedicated parents, and peaceable folk. I experience an immense sense of gratitude for all the human (not to mention canine) love and support i receive on a daily basis. 

but there are times like these. times of isolationism, either purposeful or due to circumstance, that a sense of loneliness penetrates my howling soul. it is exciting when i feel alone. aloneness represents a moment when i have had the liberty to check out of the world for long enough to feel disconnected from its energetic vibe. its culinary currents. its swift pace.

perhaps i am birthing something in these times.  a quietude. a meditation. a reflection. 

and the aftermath, is my baby moon. 

what a sweet and precious tradition, the baby moon. some claim 1-3 months, others longer. our modern culture may define this is as maternity (or in the rare case paternity) leave, but for me it will always cycle languidly around the moon.

after 3 months, the child is beginning to wake up to the world a bit and mama maybe craving a peek into the happenings of a universe outside of her universe (i.e. a helpful visualization for family planning is imagining what time of year you would like to experience your baby moon. see the fertility link.)

Close your eyes and picture your Sleeping Beauty counterpart (though sleep has little to do with the first months of a baby's life. humor me) stepping back into a world of motion.  Wipe the dust from your eyes and imagine your first visit to a market. the gas station. a cafe.

i imagine my first journey of motherhood being oceanic. soft and rhythmic. vacant yet spotted with human presence, enough to assure me this is not a dream. i am out in the world with my child. i am forever changed.

i also imagine the hold of partnership, family, and community being so strong that i will never spiral into complete aloneness. but like all life's passageways, motherhood promises those sacred moments of feverish, passionate, infinite aloneness.  an opportunity to re-explore the journey. an airy moment to ground into onesrself. 

i believe that even the women of the tribe experienced loneliness at times. perhaps purposefully. to be a working center of a spinning wheel, to be a caretaker of self and others, one must cherish these moments. as we enter motherhood, we find them less and less. 

so longlive the occasional virus that strikes us down in the middle of our most motivated intentions. Captures us in a life as still as we can possibly make it. to perceive the darkness between shadows and to listen to the scream of the fire. may we be each other's mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins. may we be each other's daughters, sons, and husbands. supporting the wobbly head of a newborn infant with firm, weathered hands. and knowing when to let that hold softly, generously. go.