nBlog

Nice little thing I found out just today (although I’m informed that it is a year old already).

If you go to Google? and type the search word(s) failure, and then click on “I’m feeling lucky”, guess what hit you get? C’mon, try it. Google does know about this, and can explain how it happend: That’s why.

Tsk tsk tsk. Some people are really, really bad, aren’t they? I mean, really bad. This is cynical and not in the least constructive criticism! How can you call this man a failure? Or, even worse, a miserable failure? Tsk. Some people can be sooo mean. I cannot approve.

This is a thing I thought about often. More, of course, when I was pregnant and facing this very obstacle on my way to having a baby. But still today, three years after having had the privilege to do this in teamwork with the baby in question, it is a thing I muse about. I think I will share these musings with you.

As a first of probably several posts about this, I’d like to talk about Britney’s vagina. Well, not too much, as Chrome already did this quite efficiently: Chrome about Brit’s pussy

No, I do not want to rant about the “the seriously braindead [american] bigot front”, as my friend so eloquently calls it. At least not now – you know I usually love doing that.

Imho, the sculpture is quite ok – as an expression of a male phantasy concerning female birth-giving. Not as an expression of female birth-giving.

As I pointed out in Chrome’s Blog: No female in labour would chose exactly this position. It defys gravity, and gravity is the only friend you have when you deliver, believe me. OK, the midwife might be the exception. Of course, Britney would not know that, as she did not give birth naturally, but had a section.

Here is the core of my musings: How did it happen that women let themselves be told how they should deliver their babies? How – and when – did we give all of this out of our hands so completely that most first mums-to-be do not know how to handle themselves? When did we give this topic over to the docs?

Don’t get me wrong. I admire doctors. More than one woman I know would have died in childbed without them. More than one child I know would not be alive without them. I am glad that they’re there.

But still, giving birth is primarily a thing a woman should decide about.

As we started with birth in art, I ask you to join me on a little circuit through history.

A prehistoric painting. Look at her position…

And here: An Attic relief showing woman giving birth on birthing stool, with midwife and kinswomen in attendance. Birthing stools are older than Christianity, and yet, they disappeared from the hospitals completely. Only recently did some very modern hospitals start to think about this possibility again… And here, in Classic Athens, we see the most common position I found in old sculptures, paintings, carvings, whatever: Women are squatting. And usually, there are some other women to support them and hold them upright (remember: gravity!)

Who the heck told women that lying on their backs would be a good idea???

Ancient Egypt: Other time and place, similar position. A squatting woman giving birth, assisted by two goddesses (Hathor and Taweret),? from the Temple of Hathor at Dendera.

India, 15th century, a carving in a temple. And the identical position…

This lovely lady is an aztec goddess going by the unpronouncable name of Tlazolteotl, the goddess of earth, sex, childbirth and mothers. Guys, she KNEW what she was doing. And this is how the birthes the sun: squatting!

Yes, talking about goddesses: Kali, giving birth to the universe itself. And what position did she chose? Yes, you seem to get it.

A Costa Rican sculpture of a woman giving birth. She is kneeling, and she seems to pull the baby with both her hands, too.

Woman giving birth, Lotus Sutra (Chinese), 9th to 10th century

This is an image about a woman giving birth, assisted by her midwife and friends. Published in 1580. Oh, and? the title of the publication was? “Kunnst und Lehrbüchlein für die anfahenden Jungen. Daraus reissen und Malen zu lernen”. One of the very few pictures featuring men, btw: In the background. Looking at the stars.

Gustave Witkowski, Pioneer Birth Scene, 1877. And, interrestingly: The same position, again. So, as you see, even in the inhibited pioneer times, women weren’t prissy about birthing. That seemed to come only with the last half of the 20th century.

And as we are talking about art, here is an artwork about female birth-giving (not about an expression of a male phantasy concerning female birth-giving):

Just absorb it and think about it for a while.

Yeah, well, it was a big deal for Marx and Lenin. Thanks guys. Okay, probably in the ghettos, right. But not for us. Not here. We have no boundaries between the classes anymore – or have we?

There is a talk I had with a friend. It’s almost six months past now, but I can’t get it out of my head. They are a couple, good friends of ours, and they have an almost grown-up son. As they’re both quite intelligent people, I asked him if they think their son is going to study. What he answered was:

“The son of a locksmith and a saleswoman will not have the chance to study. It just doesn’t happen”.

This quote stays with me since then. Don’t get it wrong: These are open-minded, tolerant, intelligent, literate people, it’s not that he would not want his son to choose the career that he wants to. That’s what startled me so about this sentence. It just doesn’t happen in his universe.

My grandparents were craftsmen and farmers, I do not come from a bourgouis family. My mother was the first one to go to university, and the only girl from the area. My grandpa died in the war, when my mum was four years old, and my grandmother made every effort she could to make it possible. And it became real, and my mum became a teacher (and I got my greek name that way, she loved the Greek classes at university).

This story of my family made me believe that you can achieve everything if you just work hard enough for it.

But perhaps that is not right. Perhaps it was the time? Did it work only because our whole country was being rearranged? Germany had to be built up after the war, the cards were reshuffled, and so a craftman’s daughter could go and study at the university?

Could it be that this time is over, that class boundaries start to rearrange themselves? A new world had started, and now the unwritten laws of privileged and under-privileged solidify? Not as Marx and Lenin defined them, but as this new society defines them? Well, it’s true that I can tell the kids who watch TV the whole day from those who don’t – in my classes.

I do not believe in class boundaries, nor in any other society-given differences between people. I do believe that we really can be what we want to, that we just have to try hard enough.

But is that naive, after all?

Berlin is, of course, full of sights and landmarks. Strangely, this little fountain touched me more than any of them, and this poignant, ethereal creature captured me. There were three of them around the fountain, but she was the only one to take my breath away…

Today, someone told me that he had heard the title “Society of Envy” as a characteristic name for our western world. And isn’t it appropriate?

How much time do we spend comparing?

Jealousy is not only limited to obvious things such as wealth and fortune. We begrudge each other our talents and abilities, our ways of life, our very own happiness.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not opposed to competition. I don’t think children suffer permanent mental damage from facing bad marks in school, and I do not believe that we have to play only games where everyone wins. A good rival can be very stimulating.

It is one thing to look around and see if you can do better. But many people seem to look around and grow shadows inside. (more…)

This Quadrology by the Fantasy-Allstar Tad Williams is like “Lord of the Rings” goes “Matrix”. Cyberpunk meets Sword and Sorcery. Horror meets Fairytale. It is impossible to describe the content in a few sentences. There is such a multitude of characters and storylines that it takes a genius to keep a hold on them. Tad Williams is the man.

There are four books:

Otherland 1: City of Golden Shadow.

Otherland 2: River of Blue Fire.

Otherland 3: Mountain of Black Glass.

Otherland 4: Sea of Silver Light.

And now go. Shut down the computer and read!

We’re back from Berlin, and now, there is just so much to do. Isn’t that unfair?

It was really wonderful, and all of us felt like staying. We spent most of our time being our friends’ guests, and we felt welcome and loved and cannot thank all of them enough for it. Once a year is too seldom by far.

Joshua, our little one, did not want to leave, either. When he found out that there was no way he could stay with Violetta and Bilbo, our friends, he decided to take them with him. It was hard to see how much he suffered from this first real experience of loss and goodbye. But then, we all have to learn about it.

I’ll put some photos up from the trip if anyone out there wants to see them.