Sharing some deep thoughts and pretty pictures.

June 15, 2016 / Gin Getz / 5 Comments

There is a time for expansion, and a time to retreat.

There is a time for the inhale, and a time for the exhale.

Wholeness comes with the balance of the breath.

The inhale. The exhale.

What time is this for you?

The power of just one breath to balance us, to bring us back to wholeness.

On the inhale, deep into our back, with power, strength, receiving.

On the exhale, from our heart, with love, with giving.

As caregivers, we must remember this.

If we intend to care for the whole person, so must we be a whole person.

What does it take to be whole, to find wholeness, to re-center our being and find that place of balance so unique for each of us?

And you, dear mother, dear mother-to-be, are you not a caregiver too?

Who better than you will care for your child?

So it has been a time of withdrawal. Of hands digging deep within the earth. Blackened tips of the nails and calloused palms and skin worn to leather by the sun and wind.

And so it shall be a time of hands softly, gently upon the womb. Supporting. Witnessing. A miracle every time.

This is about birth, death, life, rebirth. Where does one end and the other begin with one season flowing into the next, one closing to allow another to unfurl?

And so the seasons move. Slowly at first, then gathering momentum, and we find ourselves running to keep up.

Can we see beyond the path on which our feet are moving?

What happens if we stop?

Now, look up. Look around.

Once our eyes have opened, what do we make of the view before us? Shall we revert to blinders, or shall we step forward into all the ugly beautiful mess before us, calling us like the Pied Piper though we often care not to hear and heed, choosing or safely remaining distracted behind the cloudy veil that enwraps us with a false sense of pride found in busy-ness…

What would happen if we let go and simply stood still?

Would you feel the wind, hear the laughter, sense the rising light?

Paring down to feel the elements.

Return to presence.

Unencumbered by the weight of social pressures, expectations of others, demands of self, and ego.

Who are you trying to please if you cannot please yourself in a sincere manner?

Oh, the worries, such a heavy burden and undue importance we place upon each until we see them all like grains of sand, and there on the beach we sit before the eternally churning waves. Are you still concerned with that one grain of sand, I ask you, and you smile, seeing the senselessness of the situation, and open your eyes and heart to that which is all around. It is beautiful indeed.

A long dormant winter.

Though summer solstice nears, I remain in my retreat.

Not a place I pay to go, but rather work to remain at. Not a master that guides my learning, but rather the wind, the water, the elements to help me find the answers hiding within us all.

This has been a powerful time of awakening and awareness.

Of remaining present.

How can I reflect and write and share with you when what I need right now is simply to be?

Without reflection. Without judgment. Without expectations, demands, and even desires.

This too shall pass.

Nothing remains.

Everything changes.

You and I included.

Those who claim enlightenment as a state once achieved and forever remaining will set themselves apart and above contrary to the true meaning and state of bliss and understanding. I am grateful for the fleeting glimpses. And then I get back to work. Is this not what life is about?

And then there is this.

The part about life being about giving – beyond oneself – for the bigger picture – no longer about me – learning to shed the skin of ego and stand naked and know you still have all I need. You are. Unencumbered. What cloaks do we cover ourselves with and think we are because we wear? Are you really the robe than enwraps you?

As a student and nearly fifty, there is a great lesson in humility. Of simply being open. How else can we receive? The very premise of which is admitting I do not know all the answers. And though I know no one does, it is the wise student that makes no claims and opens themselves to discover. Likewise it is the foolish teacher that takes the stand and defends and judges. No, my friend, the lessons are not about you. Only what you make of them, take from them, and pass on and share. We all have the ability to be both the open slate student as well as the wise teacher – like the Tao – teaching without saying a word. Guiding by living our lives.

As a student midwife, it has become clear that part of midwifery is not just about birth, or body work, but soul work. It’s working with the whole woman. And as a caregiver for the pregnant woman, how can I care for and nurture you and walk with you while you heal your wounds if I have not done the same for myself?

Yes, midwives can operate without this element of care. The medical profession has encouraged us to look at the body as a separate entity. A machine. Detached from mind and soul.

Are you not the whole of all these parts?

Being present.

How can we understand the truth and see the beauty and feel the connection if we can’t slow down? We rush around and miss the point and seek the answers but never stick around long enough to allow them to be revealed.

Stop the madness. Stop the filling the self with busy-ness and stuffing the soul with false meaning found in title and a price tag and the latest greatest shiny thing, and trying to fulfill our innate sense of longing to belong with the false premise of social media and shallow relations.

Can’t we get deep and still remain simple?

After a year of putting myself out there to promote my books (oh, the unexpected discovery, I suppose, that I am a writer, not a salesman) and a year following of returning to wholeness, this season of deep withdrawal has been a powerful transformation and awakening.

The wild beast moves. The wind shifts solely from the flick of her tail. Is it time to rouse?

And so it has been. At some point we find this within us: it’s not about me, but we. It’s no longer about what we can get out of life, but what we can give to life. It’s no longer about taking, but giving; no longer about me and mine, but at times my place in the bigger picture, and at times, nothing to do with my place at all – only a greater understanding of that bigger picture, and accepting my irrelevance, and realizing that too is okay.

It’s ongoing. I’ve yet to meet someone fully “there,” wherever and whatever “there” is. A state of enlightenment? It’s vague. It’s fleeting. Like seasons. Like days. Some days we’re it. Some days we’re not. I guess that’s why we get to live so long and have this crazy strong desire to keep learning, growing, evolving. Lots of chances to try it again.

One of my wisest friends reminded me. It’s here. Where ever you are. Look around. Be in awe. It’s beautiful. And the answers you seek are already there. No matter where you go, what you run after, what you claim to be seeking… it’s within. You are already there.

I open my eyes as I open my heart. The wisdom is all around.

Lessons from the Elements. Wisdom from the wilds. In this season of turbulent winds and waters, a gentle calm from within.

What have the wilds taught me?

What has this past year taught me?

That next year will be different.

That tomorrow I’ll be someone new.

I’ll say something else.

That nothing stays the same.
Which brings us back to…

It’s ongoing. You don’t get there and remain. You have to work at it, every day. That’s what living is all about. It’s not a state achieved and remained at status quo and stagnant.

And a half a century of questioning authority taught me this time and again. As soon as we claim a superiority, we separate, and thus we degrade. There is no superiority in this world. The moment we claim to be better or know more is the moment we step into the place of ego, and out of the place of enlightenment. Am I wrong then for sharing what I have found? Maybe…

I do not care to impose my beliefs (and certainly not those of another) but to simply support women in their choices, and am working to have the skills and abilities to do so. It’s about birth and life and maybe a little bit of death and rebirth. How can you have one without the other? Like the inhale and the exhale.

The greatest lesson absorbed from my studies to date is not the message of undisturbed birthing nor the know how of health care. That’s simply part of the package of supporting women in their own choices, rather than imposing mine. Really, it’s the message of humility. That’s what makes a midwife. The ability to serve, to support, to do what needs to be done which may be nothing at all… All of these “skills” come to life within us only through humility. Without humility, we return to it being our beliefs, our trip, our vision of what women should be, birth should be, life should be. Who then are we truly serving?

Oh and one more lesson I’m still working on.

To listen.

I begin by listening to the wind.

And the water.

And one heartbeat at a time.

Rapture of the wild.

November 14, 2015November 14, 2015 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Since I was a child, I have spent hours at a time sitting with her, on her, connecting, as intimate as making love though quiet and without fanfare or explosion of emotion. Sinking, entering, merging, becoming. Finding selflessness and oneness. Connection. I have slept upon, wept upon, bled into her, fed her and she feeds me, tended to her, loved her like a child, a mother, a sister, a friend, an old wise woman. When in greatest need of answers, I turn to her. In my hardest times, I leave and commune with her. For me, she alone has the power to heal, connect, give, love, and allow. And teach us to find the wisdom and truth within our selves. It is there. There, here, it’s all the same. Because of the ultimate connection. We are of this earth.

Recently I returned after fifteen days alone by the river, with my dog, allowing the Artemis in me to run wild. In the cold and snow and darkness and solitude, it is easy to find peace and quiet, easier to look within, look around, connect, feel, understand. In undisturbed practice, we have the opportunity to fully open and receive, tune out and tune in, merge and become the teaching. Then the integration…

The lesson now is in bringing this peace and understanding which grew and thrived in solitude and nature with me back into the “real” world. It’s one thing to find peace in retreat. But what good does this do if we cannot bring it back with us, integrate and implement our greater awareness and understanding in our day to day life.

Already I live in and with and of the mountains, and still at times I am disconnected with the powers, wisdom and love of the Earth. Summer does this to me, with the tourists and distractions and noise. Motors and mouths and everything we do seems to be for them, our way of maintaining us, our life here. Like the Buddha, learning to practice, to find peace within reality is enlightenment – for me the challenge is in learning to find peace and connection during the tourist season, when humans are surrounding, around, a part of my otherwise wild life.

Still, after a long hard season with so many people (yes, relatively speaking…though I find I am one who gives so much, and do not establish and honor my own limitations well, a common trait among the female souls), the time alone in nature rejuvenates. Were I a rich and able man concerned primarily with my own enlightenment first and foremost, turning my back on my wife and child and having others feed and care for me, I too perhaps would sit for months until the answers came. Yes, we know he then spent decades after this sharing and teaching, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. I can’t just go off and sit under a tree for months on end. I’d starve. I’d freeze. My husband and son and all my animals would starve and freeze! But I am not. My path is different. I am a woman. As such, I give, I nurture, I care, and I love. I sense and I feel and I nourish. And as I am these things, the answers and wisdom and understanding come through these things. Through my service of being daughter, sister, mother, wife, midwife.

Buddha tells us we all have the wisdom within, and within us too we have the path to the way if we are willing to walk it, to sit it, to contemplate it. And the way is different for us all. It is work. It is time. It is obtainable by each of us. If we are willing to commit. I am. I waver. I return.

And it is closer every time.

She is my healer. My guru. The teacher I seek when I need guidance and answers most. The community I yearn for, in soil and rocks and trees and fallen leaves, in wind and rain and snow and blazing burning elements found high above treeline in the thin air and intense sunlight. In the hawk flying by in curiosity, and then away, far away, a pin prick, and then nothing but blue sky.

I meditate with softly closed eyes, face towards the low autumn sun, and the light and warmth and radiance enters me, fills me, overflows, and we become one, all of us, everything, everything on this beautiful planet. And yes, everyone.

It is the everyone that is harder for me to connect with and understand and even love than the everything. How interesting then that I should be called to midwifery, to serve my sisters. Indeed we are given the lessons we need to learn. The earth knew. My sisters know. All I can do is trust, and serve, and love.

A farewell to summer days.

August 23, 2014 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

A farewell to summer days.

Time

of the turtle

we withdraw where

in silent spaces

Darkening days we learn

to breathe

within or is it

beneath the surface

Return

to the cocoon

From which we emerged

Soothed by the sound of rain

the promise of browning grass

as the high country pales and fades

Washed over

with a wave of returning stillness

consuming

as a cloud enwrapping

the veil of early morning

silhouettes of what will be

maybe it is the

winds and waters which

hold me

when what I thought

embracing me

was something more solid

A poem in progress.

Words evolving as we do with life.

Yeah, I know. I could leave it and settle for “good enough.”

But good enough is not good enough.

If you only live once, live as fully as you can. Be the best person you can be. Do the best work you can do, and share the best of yourself.

A good reminder from Mother Teresa: “People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway.”

We can’t expect others to be nice, use manners, play fair… All we can do is be the best person we can be.

Learn to trust. Sure, you’ll get burned. Get over it and try again. Practice makes perfect. Not trying gets you no where.

Take the blame if need be – Let someone else be the one to pass it on. Something too heavy for them to carry will only make you stronger.

It’s not just “the new generation.” It’s the old farts, too. And plenty of us finding ourselves in the middle ground.

Oh, the disappointment of human beings. My self included.

Notes to self.

This morning, I thought I’d share them with you.

I have been meaning to share with you my friend, Teri’s blog: http://myeverydayphotos.wordpress.com/

Teri is a talented professional photographer from Washington State’s beautiful Methow Valley. What many of you might be most interested in this. Considering the devastation, sadness, fear and almost a sense of personal violation so many of us here in Colorado experienced over the past years (and presumable in years to come as well) while wildfires rages around us (last year’s Papoose Fire/West Fork Complex Fire is described intimately in The Last of the Living Blue), this year it has been the Methow Valley hit hard. Teri’s words and powerful images tell the story better than I shall try to. If you have a moment, please see Teri’s work here.