esotericmama

[esotericmama]

So I had my daughter last week, and being in postpartum again has got me thinking a lot about the awful way mothers are treated in modern culture.

Pretty much every traditional culture on earth has the custom of postpartum confinement, a special period of rest for a mother and new baby where she is pampered and assisted by the women in her family. In some cultures the confinement lasts 30 days or 6 weeks, East Asian cultures have a very long confinement period of 100 days. The amount of work and strain that pregnancy and childbirth took on a woman's body was once a universally understood and respected ordeal, so naturally humans made sure that postpartum mothers were specially cared for.

Now compare our current culture, the literal labour of pregnancy and birth is not really acknowledged or appreciated. It's revolting how women are barely given any time to recover and constantly pressured to get back to work-whether that's a career or simply household chores. The idea of making a postpartum women get up and work would have been and still is unthinkable in traditional cultures. But here in the modern and progressive west which we are told is supposed to be so much better for us women than the old ways, everyone is browbeating women to get up and get back to work after literally giving birth.

Another aspect to the importance of confinement is breastfeeding. In the old days there was no alternative to breastfeeding so making sure that nursing is successful was critical. The confinement period was important as the mother had the guidance of her female relatives to help her nurse as well the privacy and space to deal with the awkward and uncomfortable changes our bodies go through when our milk comes in.

In contrast, modern culture is very hostile to breastfeeding. Many mothers fail simply because they have basically no support and the culture constantly penalizes women who breastfeed. Like expecting women to go back to work before 6 weeks (you need at minimum 4 weeks to establish breastfeeding with your child), to go out in public and interact with men while our breasts our engorged and we are leaking milk every where is a humiliation ritual.

In the traditional way where breastfeeding is the default postpartum mothers are automatically given a safe, women only space to recover and establish nursing. In the modern way women are given little help, their social circle browbeats them into "getting on with it", and they are not given the space and privacy needed in the early weeks of breastfeeding, because people around them just assume that bottle feeding is the default.

[esotericmama]

luxecurations.com

Blue and White Porcelain Chinoiserie, Seashells and Coral

[esotericmama]

Aster Ueno Toshogu Autumn Dahlia Garden Ueno, Tokyo, Japan

[esotericmama]

Chrysanthemum Kyoto, Japan

[esotericmama]

[esotericmama]

Grains get a bad rep in the wellness community right now I'm kind of gonna go against the grain here and say I think the issue is how we process cereals right now rather than the cereals themselves.

For most of us, our ancestors have been eating cereals for several millenia without any ill effects. But I'd like to point out the differences between traditional cereals and modern processed cereals.

Modern grains are usually highly processed and bleached. Ancient grains are whole grains that keep in the germ and bran of the grain in the flour, which adds a lot of extra nutritional value.

Modern grains are milled in factories. Ancient grains are milled using stone milestones. The use of stone adds minerals to the flour that is lost in the modern milling process, it also adds grit and makes the flour a bit tougher, which is why people had much stronger jawlines back then.

Another big deal is freshness of the flour we use. Modern flour has milled probably weeks if not months before the consumer uses it. But with ancient grains, because whole grains go rancid much quicker than bleached flour, people only used freshly ground cereals and preferred to keep their grains in the berry until ready to use. Flour loses a lot of nutritional value the longer it has been sitting on shelf vs freshly milled grains.

In short a lot of the modern issues with grain products in because of how hyper processed they are. If you want eat grains the healthy way:

- keep your grain whole in the berry

- stone mill your flour fresh every week

- use sourdough starter when you bake instead of instant yeast

[esotericmama]

As of tomorrow I will officially be full term! Baby could be coming any day now...

Excited for another natural birth, my last one was an amazing experience.

You know what I took in my postpartum recovery? Just a simple salve made of olive oil, beeswax and a powerful concoction of herbs. (I have a fresh tin ready to go!)

That's pretty much all I needed, plus lots of water and healthy food. Everyone around me couldn't believe how healthy and strong I was postpartum, I surprised myself too. Honestly I felt a thousand times more energetic and vibrant postpartum than I did during pregnancy- in pregnancy especially the 3rd trimester I feel sooo heavy and lethargic.

I still have the mason jar of herbal tea that my midwife have me last time ready to go. It's a lactation tea and I was honestly shocked at how powerful it worked, I took one cup and I was overproducing for weeks. Don't know whether I'm just really sensitive or what but it really is like a magic potion when it comes to lactating. 🍵

[esotericmama]

I think one of the reasons people are so disconnected from their bodies is the loss of rites of passages. Our ancestors marked important physiological changes in our bodies with ceremony and ritual.

It's a shame that in modern western society many girls are not even told about their periods, and when they get them it's something shameful and dirty to hide.

In the ancient world, in cultures all over the globe, the Menarche is marked with a beautiful coming of age ceremony where the young girls passage into womanhood is celebrated and honoured. I've noticed that a lot of non-Western cultures still observe the Menarche, and I think a lot of the stigma and hatred for menstruation is because the modern west refuses to treat it with respect.

The next major physiological transition is in a woman's life is motherhood, or matrescence. I bet you didn't know that the biological and hormonal transformation that women go through when they become mothers is actually as intense and powerful as the transition of puberty? Perhaps we would be kinder to young mothers if we recognized that the are going through the equivalent of a second puberty with all the raging hormones and physical changes that adolescents go through. Motherhood permanently alters and changes our bodies just as much as puberty does, we are not the same after as we were before.

As our society has become more emphatic of equality and sameness, it means that we have lost appreciation and understanding of the things that make us different. Egalitarianism has really just created a culture where male is the default body, and our female differences are ignored and neglected. For example men go through one major hormonal change in their life- puberty, so the turbulence of adolescence is an acknowledged phenomenon. Women however, go through multiple of these, but you wouldn't know it because it's not something discussed.

Traditionally a women's first pregnancy is marked ceremony and ritual ushering her into the role of motherhood. The woman is usually pampered and doted upon, while the women of her community offer her blessings and guidance. In the modern west, the closest thing to this a Baby Shower, but this has become so drifted and distant from the original purpose, shoving the mother to the side, turning her into a glorified vessel, while putting all the emphasis on the child*. This needs to be remedied and a "baby showers" need to recentered on the mother and her transformation.

*there is nothing wrong with celebrating the child, but this is traditionally done *after the birth* with some kind of naming and blessing ceremony. Different traditions pick a significant number to do it on, be it the 8th, 9th, etc. Day of life

[esotericmama]

Treating things like pregnancy and birth as mundane and profane has actually been extremely detrimental to women.

In the tribal/ancient world mothers were revered, we had a place of honour, the community would go out of its way to make sure pregnant and nursing women were pampered and protected- they understood our value.

In the "enlightened" modern world how are we treated? Well now our labour which was once massively respected is seen as a basal bodily function. Able bodied men won't even give up their seat for a pregnant woman because he's been thought to think "why should I have to inconvenience myself because she chose to have sex?". Mothers are shamed for breastfeeding in public, something unthinkable in the ancient world. The modern view of mothers is so vulgar and soulless.

[esotericmama]

The thought of praying to a male deity for anything related to childbirth, nursing or pregnancy is so incredibly disturbing to me.

I'm so thankful to have our Goddesses of birth and nursing. ❤️

I can't imagine being in a religion with no female divinity it seems so wrong and out of balance.

[esotericmama]

All Purpose Cleaner

There are many ways to approach all purpose cleaners. Technically you could use just water to clean something. As long as there's no grease or dirt particles on something it is clean, but that doesn't mean we should really be comfortable with that level of clean 😂 I use vinegar most often because it's the most simple, but I have a few recipes to choose from.

Vinegar Cleaner:

This really is the most simple option, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work extremely well!

1 part Vinegar (I love infused vinegar)

1 part Water

15 drops Essential Oil (optional, if using infused vinegar you may not find this necessary)

Castile Soap Cleaner:

If you don't feel like things are clean without a bit of soap this recipe is perfect for you! It's still incredibly simple to make.

2 cup Filtered Water

2-4 tablespoons Castile Soap

15 drops of whatever essential oil (optional, if you buy a scented castile soap you might not find this necessary)

These are great cleaners for basic cleaning to get the grime off, but neither have real sanitizing power. Isopropyl alcohol (also called rubbing alcohol) is amazing for disinfecting.

Disinfecting Cleaner:

This is great for cleaning with a bit of disinfecting power, but this is also an amazing glass cleaner!

1 cup Filtered Water

1/2 cup Vinegar

1/2 cup Isopropyl Alcohol

15 drops Essential Oil (optional, if using infused vinegar you may not find this necessary)

[esotericmama]

If you're looking for a natural alternative to detergents and chemical cleansers, this is it here, folks.

Super easy to cultivate, and spreads like a weed. I find large swathes of it growing in ditches and waste areas all the time.

Plant of the Day

Sunday 26 July 2020

In this sunny, cottage garden the rhizomatous perennial Saponaria officinalis (soapwort, Boston pink, bouncing bett, bruisewort, chimney pink, crow soap, devil in a bush, farewell to summer, fuller's herb, Gill-run-by-the-street, hedge pink, lady by the gate, latherwort, lady’s-wash bowl, mock gilliflower, old maid's pink, old maid's slipper, sheepweed, soap plant, soap root, soapwort gentian, sweet Betty, wild sweet William, wood phlox, world's wonder) has formed large clumps of upright stems with fragrant light pink flowers. The variety of common names reveals the length of time this plant has been cultivated with the leaves and the rhizomes making a soapy lather for cleaning and slightly bleaching fabrics.

Jill Raggett

[esotericmama]

Chrysanthemum

[esotericmama]

Chrysanthemum

[esotericmama]

[esotericmama]

Womens cycles and hormones are messed up and they're suffering from endocrine disorders.

Men's testosterone and sperm counts are continously plummeting.

What's making people Sick and Sterile:

Environmental pollution

Chemical fertilizers

Pesticides

Plastics

Forever Chemicals + PUFAs

Processed foods

Yet people defend the use of these things and get defensive when we want to try to live holistically and naturally.

Cook your own Meals from Scratch.

Grow and Farm your own Food.

Grow Heirloom Seeds (and trees).

Raise Heritage and Landrace Breeds.

Wear Natural fibres (linen, cotton).

[esotericmama]