On Hope, Aug 2021
I've often wondered whether I am an optimist or a pessimist. I think I slant towards worry and imagining the worst case scenario fairly regularly, but I also see beauty and love all around me. Lately I've been feeling into my fears around Earth heating up and worrying that it might be too late to prevent further climate calamities. Of course that's not the only thing that worries me as we are still living through a global pandemic of Covid-19 and the ongoing pandemics of racial inequality and injustice. Today there's real, embodied intensity in this fear of fire for me--of our planet being too warm for all of us, for the animals, and for our children.
Small, right personal actions won't heal our planet from the climate crisis we are in, but I try to remain hopeful that eventually the world leaders will wake up. For now I do what I can to help--eating mostly vegetarian, recycling, avoiding toxins, making mindful choices around consumption, and picking up litter. Although it is difficult not to live in fear and panic, I am trying to focus on what's present in me at this moment and how I can be of service, even in small, unassuming ways.
I've previously shared the pain around my pregnancy loss last year in an effort to normalize my personal grieving as well as our collective suffering around this common loss. In addition to the shock and grief over losing the pregnancy I also had to navigate the maternal health care system on my own during a pandemic. Although my experience was cut short, I had a glimpse into the systems in place that are meant to care for women and their unborn children. With a certain amount of privilege, I assumed that I would be treated with respect and professional care. And yet, I was unfortunately met with condescension and neglect. This resulted in a heartbreaking experience made even worse by a lack of care.
I am not alone in this unfortunate treatment. There are terrible inequities and failures in our maternal health system in this country. The United States is the only developed country where maternal deaths continue to rise. Discrimination across race, socio-economic status, and geography are all factors that contribute to our high maternal mortality rate. Black women are three times more likely to die during pregnancy and in childbirth compared to white women.
Rather than succumbing to these horrifying statistics, many activists are working towards justice and equality in reproductive medicine. One organization in Brooklyn, Ancient Song Doula Services, has been providing quality doula services to BIPOC and low income families since 2008. They also train doulas to address health inequities while providing prenatal, postpartum, miscarriage support, abortion support, and bereavement services.
Maternal health has always been dear to my heart and I am fortunate that the service and care that I provide at my studio centers pregnant women, women trying to conceive, and mothers. This month I will be donating 10% of our sales to Ancient Song Doula Services in support of the work that they do for reproductive and birth justice. I hope that you will take advantage of our offer and help us support this wonderful organization. If you prefer to directly contribute to Ancient Song click here: Donate
Taking action is one way I know to stay in the game and remain optimistic. No matter how small, every action, or karma, creates another action, and whether that action has positive or negative effects depends on the action itself and the intention. It's quite difficult to take action from a place of pessimism, so we might as well do what we can to remain optimistic. The world will only benefit from our efforts.