Loving The Mother: Massage, Ecstatic & Belly Dance, Breathwork & Yoga for Joyous Birthing June 14-21, 2009

Bali, Indonesia

Ellen Watson Peggy Horan, Giuditta Tornetta, Ibu Robin Lim, Uma Inder

This workshop is designed for you if you ever want to be pregnant, want to be present at a birth, or provide massage or bodywork for a woman before, during or after birth. Both professionals and family members will learn valuable skills for supporting Joy In Birthing.

The first 4 days take place on the north coast of Bali, where we learn to surrender to the labor dance, embrace our innate ability to usher a new life & learn water birthing skills in the hot spring pools of Mimpi Resort, and in the warm waters of the Java Sea

We then move to Ananda, Ubud, where we’re joined by members of Bumi Sehat’s (gentle birthing) bodywork & birthing staff. Under the direction of American midwife, Robin Linn, Bumi Sehat has transformed the experience of birth in Indonesia. Following completion Loving The Mother, you may volunteer at Bumi Sehat, Ubud, Bali, or Aceh, West Java.

Your retreat leaders, Giuditta, Peggy & Ellen, create a safe and welcoming environment using hypnosis, journal writing, massage, movement (i.e. belly dance and ecstatic dance designed to keeping the pelvis open,) and guided imagery. Each of us will have the opportunity to recall our lives while in the womb, and re-experience our own birth.

AA space will be held for you to have a shift in consciousness from “Life is happening to me” to “I am the creator of my own life.” As you birth a new-self you will be given the tools needed to facilitate people of all ages resolve and redesign prenatal and birth trauma impressions.

This workshop is designed for a wide range of professional backgrounds and skills including: body workers, nurses, medical doctors, midwives, doulas, childbirth educators, infant massage therapists, regular and special education teachers, counselors, and psychologists.

Cost and Payment details to be posted soon, please visit back

Facilitators

Ellen Watson
Ellen teaches a wide variety of Somatic and Shamanic Arts internationally. Her passion for movement arts, combined with breath, sound, & bodywork, have prepared her for midwifing both men and women through the transformative death/rebirth process. For more information on Ellen visit MovingVentures.

Giuditta Tornetta
Giuditta Tornetta is a doula and a clinical hypnotherapist, and author of the best-selling book Painless Childbirth. In the words of Chirstiane Northrup “[Giuditta] helps women expect the best - and then create it.” “The author in her doula practice incorporates pre- and perinatal psychology principles with matter-of-fact assertiveness, and basic p&p premises are authoritatively conveyed throughout the book.” Joel Evans,OB/GYN, Director,The Center for Women’s Health in Stamford, CT, author of TheWhole Pregnancy Handbook, and the newest member of APPPAH’s Board of Directors. For more information visit Joy in Birthing.

Peggy Horan
Peggy Horan, a midwife who delivered many of Big Sur, CAs’s babies during the 1970-90’s, authored a recently published book on massage, “Connections”. Peggy is on the team of women who created and developed the healing art form, Esalen‚ Massage.

Robin Lim:
Robin is a mother, grandmother, author, poet, midwife and educator who lives in Bali with her husband and children. Ibu (mother) Robin is a Certified Professional Midwife, with the North American Registry of Midwives and Ikatan Bidan Indonesia. She is a founder and executive director for Yayasan Ibu Bumi Sehat Birth Center in Bali. Lim splits her time between the birth center and the Tsunami Relief Clinic in Samatiga Aceh, Sumatra. Along with receiving babies, Ibu Robin is an author. Many of her articles, stories and poems have been published in Midwifery Today magazine and The Birthkit newsletter. Lim has been given the Alexander Langer International Peace Award. For more information visit www.bumisehat.org www.bumisehat.org

Uma Inder:
Uma Inder Ayervedic midwife, yogini & mother of a two year old, is of Indian descent, born in Kenya, has lived in Bali the last 16 years. Uma has a private practice in the healing arts in Ubud.
 

An Empowering Journey
by Joel Evans, M.D.
A review of Painless Childbirth, by Guiditta Tornetta. 2008. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House

Painless Childbirth has the power to shatter misconceptions about pregnancy, labor and birth, and replace them with new, more accurate and empowering knowledge. Our all too prevalent cultural belief that childbirth is a torturous endeavor that must be endured in order to get the prize at the end must be discarded. Women can develop their own deep knowing that it is possible, indeed desirable, to birth in a way where pain is not only manageable—one contraction at a time—but serves as a source of strength and spiritual transformation. Painless Childbirth is a how-to manual that guides women through this sacred process. The book delivers in a way that readers can't help but feel energized and excited to apply its timeless wisdom right now in the present moment. APPPAH can rejoice that the author in her doula practice incorporates pre- and perinatal psychology principles with matter-of-fact assertiveness, and basic p&p premises are authoritatively conveyed throughout the book. There are many gems here, including remarkable pregnancy, birth and postpartum stories illustrating inner conflict resolutions and their transformational effects on pre-birth and post-natal parenting. Experts such as David Chamberlain, Marshall Klaus, Bruce Lipton, Eleanor Luzes and Marcy Axness are represented in these pages.

Painless Childbirth is based on what author Giuditta Tornetta considers to be “Nine Basic Human Rights,” which she correlates with the nine months of pregnancy and associates with nine chakras (the famous seven, plus two which are perceived to appear with the incoming being.) She proceeds month by month, human right by human right, and chakra by chakra sequentially; at the same time, birth stories permeate each chapter, so ultimately it is a wonderfully non-linear read. Her description of chakras will enlighten many who are unfamiliar with the concept of energetic centers. (For those who want to further explore the intricate interaction of the energetic forces at work in embryonic and fetal development, the seminal esoteric booklet The Miracle of Birth: A Clairvoyant Study on a Human Embryo, written by the English theosophist Geoffrey Hodson in 1929, is easily accessible on the internet.) Painless Childbirth is a reassuring book, portraying a positive way to look at what needs to be addressed during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. Tornetta doesn’t dwell on fears for possible negative outcomes; indeed, she guides clients in cleansing negative imprints from the past that could interfere with the flow of birth. The author’s website is “Joy In Birthing,” and the reader cannot help but wonder if that wasn’t her original book title, as joy is prominently featured.

Tornetta works magic as a doula; she succeeds in supporting ecstatic births even in hospitals. (Among the book’s practical resources are ideas on how to befriend obstetrical nurses on shift during one’s labor.) This is truly a birth expert. Her warm strength offers such comfort, guidance and intelligent reassurance, you see why women love being pregnant and giving birth with her by their side. She is the living embodiment that love is the antidote for fear. This might be the most interesting book yet on a doula’s life, and we have to thank Giuditta for having shared with us such deep stories of her own voyage into motherhood and her doula practice. As they say in poker, she’s all in. Her generosity is huge, inviting the reader with her to partake of the sacred, the mysterious, the Divine.

The stories in the book are its life blood, in which we see Tornetta embodying the highest principles of a doula in action—a force of nature, a blessing, a movement of grace within a portal of initiation. Interesting but perhaps less compelling is the Nine-Chakra/Nine Month/Nine Rights structure within which she has framed those stories. Declarations of entitlement contrast rather starkly with the teachings of surrender and communion that her very work enacts. One could say that the cake here is incredibly delicious, nourishing and exquisite, but the “9-flavor” icing isn’t quite as delectable. Nonetheless, this book is a marvel for someone who’s seeking an illustration of how a woman is designed to give birth. It is faithful to its title Painless Childbirth and—maybe even more importantly—its subtitle, An Empowering Journey Through Pregnancy and Birth.

[Joel Evans is an integrative OB/GYN, director of The Center for Women’s Health in Stamford, CT, author of TheWhole Pregnancy Handbook, and the newest member of APPPAH’s Board of Directors.]

Cost and Payment details to be posted soon, please visit back soon www.movingventuresl.org