Ancient Ways In A Western World

I’m on my way back from the Yasawa Islands

and like every time I travel,

I return swollen

with feeling and words.

This time, it’s something I’ve wanted to say for so long,

but haven’t yet had the courage.

Because it’s about me.

It’s about my work.

It’s about the quiet revolution most of my friends are a part of.

It’s about doulas.

~

It’s always fascinating - travelling.

Being asked what I do.

Watching brows furrow when I answer.

Doula?

they haven’t heard of it.

Because where I travel,

they don’t need doulas.

~

Where I travel,

support isn’t scheduled or paid for.

It’s intrinsic. Innate.

As old as the world’s first breath.

There are sisters.

There are aunties.

There are grandparents.

Hands that know what to do.

Hearts that know where to sit.

~

And here I am, on my way home

packing my little bag of clothes

and unpacking a heart of gratitude and grief.

That in the so-called developed Western world I come from,

we have lost so much.

We’ve turned what was once instinct

into industry.

Had to study so many courses

just to remember

what we should never have forgotten.

We now call in doulas

because the sisters aren’t there.

Because the aunties are working double shifts.

Because the grandmothers were never initiated themselves.

Because even our closest

don’t always know how to sit,

to truly be with,

to hold deep anchorage.

~

Doula.

A word from the ancient Greek.

once meant “woman who serves.”

Now it means:

the one who stands in

until the village remembers itself.

This must be our prayer:

That we are lines of wool, held out, strongly,

until the yarn comes back together.

Until the village finally comes home.

x x gratitude to all midwives, birth workers, doulas, men supporting the mothers & children