As we live, we birth; As we birth, we live.
As we live, we hold space; As we hold space, we live.
The above statement about how we live being an indicator as to how we give birth, was shared during an initiatory retreat with my mentor and elder, Whapio, marking a transitional moment in my life. It was fall of 2002. With two children under the age of four, I decided to venture south for a 10 day childless learning journey. I knew this adventure would change my life, however, no one could have predicted how much my life would be changed. The knowledge gained throughout my years under the tutelage of Whapio and The Matrona laid the foundation for space holding within non-ordinary states of consciousness. My eventual apprenticeship with childbirth prepared me for plant medicine space holding. There is much that can overlap within these two transformational domains.
I first came across Whapio and her point of view on childbirth and midwifery, online. My dear friend and I were at our regular cafe, with our younglings in tow, and we randomly discovered her writing (magic, I say). We were both hooked. The sacred teachings spoke to our souls. Somehow, as two low income mothers, we found a way to register for the training held in South Carolina. Unbeknownst to me, this training was the perennial phase for my work as a space holder.
Space Holder–what is this word about? What does it really mean?
Would you agree that the title is indeed overused and yet holds gravitas? I know that I greet this term with some aversion, as the new age glamorous hippie movement has co-opted ‘space holding’ as the modern Shaman term. As an edge-walker and a radical at heart (to my torment), I am frustrated that space holding is the new cool thing in town. However, here I am writing about my personal experience with space holding and how I have L(earned) the art of it.
You could say that I was thrown to the wolves and that I was devoured by the archetype of childbirth as a young apprentice of traditional and spiritual birth work. The energy of Creation itself had its way with me. Sometimes, I look back at this version of myself and I think: how could I have been so hubris and righteous? There I was, a young 26 year old mother, attending home births with families who had decided to freebirth. Freebirthing is a term coined by the late Janine Parvati Baker, to which I had the privilege to learn from. Janine was a controversial woman of the post ‘70’s childbirth movement. I was also a student of all the radicals of the time: Gloria, Whapio, Janine Parvati Baker, and the French OBGYN, Michel Odent. I instinctively followed the rebels without recognizing the implications of such a choice. What they had to say resonated; it spoke to my soul and it followed biological logic. So I listened.
I may not have spent the past 20 years training with an Indigenous community in the jungle of the Amazon to learn the wisdom of the plants, but I have spent the past 20+ years practicing how to show up with presence for non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) of which childbirth is a NOSC event. I have gone through the fires, so to speak, and I have garnered deep wisdom.
Childbirth is an initiatory event in a woman’s life and it transcends ordinary reality. In other words, labour induces an altered state of consciousness. As we know, psychedelics trigger NOSC and within the Stan Grof community, we call this a holotropic state. Thus, merging these two worlds (childbirth and psychedelic space holding) was intuitive and logical. Some practitioners believe that at the moment of physiological childbirth both the newborn and the mother’s systems release DMT–the same chemical compound associated with other plant medicines. DMT is known as the spirit molecule, which connects us to the divine. Another powerful altruistic hormone, oxytocin, is present during childbirth, as with psychedelics. Oxytocin, known as the love hormone, is decoded throughout Michel Odent’s book, The Scientification of Love. This bonding hormone is at the root of our social engagement system and is indeed linked to the ventral vagus nerve pathway. In other words, we are wired for love and connection. And, both childbirth and psychedelic substances remind of this truth.
However, as Odent pointed out years ago, when we interrupt the birthing process with medical procedures and protocols, fear and control, and a hyperfocus on safety, we disrupt the intricate hormonal blueprint and thus, compromise the flow of this love juice. The implications are a disruption of the bonding instinct, greater risk of childbirth trauma and/or postpartum mood disorders, and a need for medically managed labour and delivery. As well, the physiological risk of such an interruption is that without the instinctive flow of hormones, the journey of labour can be more challenging with slow progression, difficulty with dilation, increase in pain, decrease in uterine powers, and missed opportunity for a spontaneous pushing phase. The entire undisturbed, freebirth, and unattended birthing movement orients around the teachings of Odent and the mothers who were supported physiologically to birth spontaneously, without intervention and interruption. In Birth Reborn, Odent writes about the thousands of women who gave birth without interruption or with little assistance. As a result, a childbirth movement evolved out of the spiritual midwifery paradigm (hippie home birth movement of the 70’s) and was eventually labelled as the freebirth movement or undisturbed birthing paradigm. I was part of that culture.
Standing at the gate of birth, in all of the ways that it can unfold, is an incredible privilege. Bearing witness to the edge of a woman's power that is unfolding without interruption or management, just before she spontaneously brings forth life, is a rare experience. And taking your birth into your own hands, with no one in attendance, facing the reality of life and death, is otherworldly. Somehow, I have had the honour of being present for all kinds of birthing experiences to witness the initiation of many women into motherhood.
I have come to understand that this knowledge is a rare and sacred privilege. I say rare because most people, including birth workers (midwives, doulas, nurses, and obstetricians), only know the medically managed or interrupted way of childbirth. They experience the miracle of birth as a medical procedure, or an emergency that needs the assistance of modern medicine. They may also witness or be part of a spontaneous and well-managed birth at a birthing centre, hospital or at home. Mostly, within Western dominant culture we still consider a well-managed home birth with medical professionals in attendance as a radical (wild) choice.
On that note, I am inviting you to take all of what you know about childbirth and remove it from your psyche for the remainder of this article. I invite you to suspend it all for a moment and let the ground beneath you fall away. I am going to paint you a new picture of the raw, animalistic and sacred act of birthing–something that is rarely witnessed these days.
Let’s begin with the sounds. The sounds of a human animal in labour is off-putting and slightly arousing. It is the combination of a woman in orgasmic pleasure but met with the intensity of an unusual pain that cannot be described using language. There is vocal groaning and moaning, sobbing and slobbering, met with a stillness at times that can be eerie in texture. The smells are indeed wild. They are sweet, pungent, intense, and change throughout depending on their stage. I remember always noting that the smell in the room would change just before birth. I can’t describe the scent but let’s just call it the scent of birth. The density of the air or energy in the space changes as well. The deeper the mother would enter into her birth zone, the stranger the texture of the space would feel. It would go from light and airy, to dense and thick, and cold or damp. The difference between moving through feathers to that of Jello. In other words, so much is happening in this space that is often missed in modern birthing practices.
I now understand what I was feeling within the birthing field as a result of a recent psilocybin journey. I intellectually understood that the field consists of plasma. However, I was gifted with the vision of seeing plasma in the environment. This substance is Jello-like and from what I can comprehend, is what holds matter together in 3D form. Thus, the density in the room shifting makes sense to me now from this point of view. It was as if I could sense the plasma field all around during the childbirth process. As a result of entering into a holotropic state and dropping into presence, the plasma field was more palpable for those sensitive to it.
When we think of childbirth we often think in 3D materialistic terms. The physical body creates the baby and the physical body gives birth; somehow the baby moves through the birth canal and is born. When you really think about the size of the baby and the size of the female anatomy you can’t help but be in awe and perhaps fear that this creation thing works. I know I was when I was first pregnant 24 years ago. However, it was during my third childbirth experience, 19 years ago, that I was shown a secret about the nature of reality.
I freebirthed my third child. This meant no one, except the father, was present. No one to manage me, keep me safe, check on me, or support the delivery. I understood that no one could save me or my baby. Leading up to this birth I sat in meditation often facing my fears regularly: fear of death, fear of getting in trouble, fear of complications, fear of not knowing, fear of needing to be transported, fear of social services. This was not a fearless experience. It was courageous, however. I am not suggesting that more people choose freebirth. I don’t believe that this is a better way. It is one way of being initiated into motherhood.
That said, one of the most memorable experiences was the moment I was deep in a holotropic state of consciousness and an internal stillness was all around. My consciousness entered into the transpersonal cosmic realm and in a moment I saw and understood that we do not give birth from matter or the 3D plane of reality. In fact, I saw my body particulate and create space–so much spaciousness. In fact, it was all space. My pelvic area was a bunch of coherent floating cells or particles made of energy, and they were moving out of the way for the baby to emerge. In an attempt to bring words to an experience of this nature, it was like the baby was swimming in water and my pelvis was water, moving out of the way to bring forth life. Very soon after this vision I was catapulted into a spontaneous pushing phase. Within a few powerful contractions her head emerged. I wrote about the remainder of this story in my book Healing After Birth. The reason for this story however, was to support my point that childbirth is a holotropic event and therefore, we can compare space holding for childbirth with space holding for psychedelic journeying.
Let’s continue…
“Do not disturb the birthing space” was stated over and over again throughout my training. As a novice birth worker, I was trying to make sense out what this actually meant. I now understand the complexity of this teaching. However, it took me years to learn this practice. Initially, I took it literally–do not physically interrupt the labouring mother with your protocols and practices. Sometimes this left moms feeling neglected during their labour. However, it is far more nuanced than that. It has more to do with the energy you bring to space–emotionally, psychologically, and physically. The state of the space holder is infectious, meaning if you come in with adrenaline and fear, or hubris ego, you will impact the metaphorical and literal birthing atmosphere. As well, if you are in a state of calm, connected, presence you will become a safe anchor for the space. This means that the responsibility of the space holder is significant and that the (L)earning of space holding is more about your personal healing journey than it is about the so-called tangible skills.
This is all fine and dandy as long as everything within the journey (and birthing) space is unfolding as expected or known. However, there is a huge uncertainty factor that is always present in transformational and initiating events. It is these factors that can destabilize the space holder’s state. Preparation for the unknown is not an easy task to accomplish. Protocols and procedures such as risk assessment practices are implemented to mitigate potential bad outcomes. Almost all modern obstetrics, for example, is designed around mitigating risks and ensuring that birth is safe through protocols and procedures. When x appears, do y, and so on. However, even in well-managed and highly controlled terrain, there is still no guarantee of a safe outcome. Safety, in such a paradigm, refers to mitigating death at all cost, even if it physically or psychologically damages either the mom or baby. Safety does not equal well-being, nor does it include the complexity of the human experience. I am starting to wonder if safety is soon to become a trademark of practices and protocols for psychedelic guides as well. The conversations within the mainstream psychedelic movement seem to be pointing in this direction. Of course, safety is important. However, safety over embracing the unknown is missing the point of such an initiation.
A friend of mine who holds the rights to a Blackfoot sweat lodge guides people on fasting quests and helps prepare them for sundance agrees that safety is in the preparation and tending to the space through rituals and ceremonies. However, once in the fasting terrain, there is a surrender that takes place and everyone knows there is no guarantee that they will leave alive. This is the point of an ordeal–to face our mortality and fears–to pray harder, as I have heard her say. We could say the same holds true for psychedelic journeying and childbirth, especially if we see it through a sacred and initiating lens. If we only see it through the mechanistic and objective lens of modern medicine, we might not understand this point. Alternatively, we might see it as primitive, idealistic, and dangerous. Why would we embrace an old way of doing things when modern technology has advanced us so far? I am digressing; that is an entirely different conversation. Back to the point: how do we ensure safety even when prevention of death is not a guarantee? Granted, in psychedelic spaces the risk of physical death is statistically low in comparison to childbirth. However, the risk of one losing their mind, so to speak, or never returning to normal and being lost in a realm, is indeed real.
So as it relates, when we are talking about safety and space holding for psychedelic journeys and mitigating risks we are talking about psychological safety. Physical safety is of course a need to take into consideration, however, like I said above the risk of death is low. Whereas, with childbirth it is flipped. Physical safety to prevent death is at the forefront, and psychological safety is rarely even considered.
Let’s return to my position on the matter: space holders must manage their energy (psychological, emotional, and physical) so as not to disturb the holotropic space even when unknown or unpredictable events show up. I am suggesting that this is difficult to learn because it is not a tangible skill; it is an internal skill that is cultivated through lived experience. Thus, we are in a bit of conundrum with mainstreaming psychedelic assisted therapy and guides in so much that we are educating people through a Western lens, in the same way that modernizing and medicalizing of midwifery took place. Something gets lost. Often that something is the sacredness of it all–replaced by techniques, skills, and credentials–all in the name of public safety. Suddenly, the optics are that the space holder is the one who is responsible for the journeyer's experience rather than the space holder being the one who helps to set the container and help to prepare the journeyer for their experience with the Divine. Through this lens, the journeyer is self-directed and takes responsibility for their journey with the medicine. The guide is there as an anchor–trusting in the process of initiation. Trusting in the medicine. Trusting in the holotropic state. Trusting in the Inner Healing Intelligence. Trusting in their inner guides. Trusting that the context and container were set. Trusting that the human can feel all that they are experiencing and come out the otherside. In the same way that a birth worker, who works in undisturbed birthing spaces, trusts in the intelligence of birth and human biology. Trusting that the journeyer will call upon the space holder, the Midwife of the Soul, when needed. Ultimately, the space holder does not fear the unknown or death itself. In this, how do we train people to show up with this amount of capacity?
Without land-based practices and attachment-based communities that might have raised people to be space holders, we are living in a bit of a shitshow with courses and retreats popping up all over the place. I think we are doing our best given our current circumstances. In the same way that I have finally surrendered to accepting that within the culture of childbirth, we are doing our best given our current circumstances. Will we ever return to ancient midwifery practices in which the community midwife was not prosecuted if there was a death, because death was accepted as part of the risk of childbirth? The answer is obvious. Thus, I posit that we are moving further and further away from the ancient art of shamanic practices because there isn’t room for this paradigm within Western culture. Humans have been stripped from the roots of their land base for centuries now. Those who have survived the cultural genocides inflicted on attachment- and land-based cultures are desperately trying to hold on to ancient knowledge (all the while, heal from the generational trauma). Space holding for psychedelic medicine is significantly more than holding head knowledge, being certified, or learning skills to manage preparation, journey, and integration sessions. Space holding is about having the internal strength, stamina, and coherence to hold steady when the wild rushes through the terrain and the psyche of each journeyer. Space holding is a do no harm invisible skill set that has everything to do with having deep reverence for the Mystery and a profundity for Life itself. This leaves us once again with the question: how do you train for such a role? I don’t have a well fleshed out answer to this question. Not yet anyways. All I do know is that I feel humbled by the initiations I have had to endure to learn the art of space holding. And, I still don’t believe it has been enough. I feel the grief of lacking a community and culture that can prepare me for the weight of responsibility that this role holds. This is why I dance–to remind myself that on the other side of all of this seriousness, is play, connection, and creativity.