The Feminine Power of Yin by Saralee Sky

As I contemplate Babynut's 6th birthday, I feel called to celebrate not only Babynut, but all women and their magical ability to create and nurture life and to give birth. This is the Power of Yin; of nurturing and holding life. It is the power of Shakti, the Feminine Principle.

Here is what Sharon McErlane*, author of Our Love is Our Power has to say about the primal energy of Woman: “Women embody not the yang-based power that is nearly worshipped in our world, but real power. Woman as the container, the wheel, the Mother ship, She who HOLDS. These ideas are foreign in our culture, foreign in our world. For thousands of years woman has been treated as the 'second sex' the 'also ran' of the human family, told to 'stand behind' men and know her place. Woman as shakti, the Feminine Principle, the elemental power of the universe, is not something our culture understands."

To all of the women who read this article, I say, embrace in your power. Visualize yourself as the vessel that you are. Sit in meditation and imagine yourself holding all that you love - your children, your spouse, your family, your friends. Now expand your vessel, your holding, to include the place where you live, all the animals and plants and people in your town, even the people or animals you don't like. Just hold them.

As you get comfortable with this exercise, you can expand your holding to include more and more of the Earth and all that dwell in and upon it. There is no limit to your holding. You are one with the Great Mother.

When a woman holds and contains, she is coming from the foundation of her power, the Power of Yin. Yin is the complementary universal force to Yang, which goes out into the world and is active and strong. But Yang cannot exist without Yin, and for much too long, women have been unaware of their power.

If a woman tries to imitate the Yang way men are powerful in the world, she will be a shadow of her real self. To be powerful, to be the mother that you are, you must learn how to hold, to be a vessel of love and strength and light.

I created Babynut as a way to hold all babies in the womb or newly born, all women pregnant, giving birth or caring for newborns. I believe that the time a child is in the womb and the first few years after birth is the most important time in that child's life. How babies are held in the womb and then birthed and held as they grow strong enough to walk on their own will determine how safe they feel in the world, how much they feel loved and nurtured, and in turn are able to love and nurture themselves and others.

Now is the time for women to own their power. I feel blessed to be living in a time when I can help to heal and rebalance the Earth with the Power of Yin. I am now a grandmother and am in the Autumn of my life. Before it is my time to go, I hope to grow strong with the Power of Yin, with holding. “When the wisdom of the Grandmothers is heard, the world will heal." Native American Prophecy

*To learn more about Sharon McErlane and the wisdom of the Grandmothers, click here.

In a Nutshell - 36: Pearls of Parenting Wisdom and Humor

• A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. (Unknown)
  
  
• Laughter is carbonated holiness. (Anne Lamott)
  
  
• Live in the present. Do the things that need to be done. Do all the good you can each day. The future will unfold. (Peace Pilgrim)
  
  
• Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression. (Haim Ginott)
  
  
• The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination. (John Schaar)
  
  
• Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.' (Unknown)
  
  
• Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved. (William Jennings Bryan)
  
  
• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (Unknown)
  
  
• It’s choice – not chance – that determines your destiny. (Jean Nidetch)

Tend and Befriend NOT Fight or Flight by Saralee Sky

A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research—most of it on men—upside down.

"Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible," explains Laura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. "It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers."

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just "fight or flight."

"In fact," says Dr. Klein, "it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the 'fight or flight' response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead." When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect.

"This calming response does not occur in men," says Dr. Klein, "because testosterone—which men produce in high levels when they're under stress—seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen seems to enhance it."

This information makes so much sense to me! I have on occasion been ready to do battle to defend or protect my children, but my more consistent reaction to a stressful situation is to step back from it if it is dangerous, or calmly try to resolve the issue - talk it out. When I am unable to deal with the situation directly, I will pay attention to other people - my children or grandchildren, baking cookies or caring for them in some other way. I will also start cleaning and attending to minute details to try and manage the overwhelming feelings the stress is causing. I always figured something was WRONG with me when actually I am simply responding the way women are wired to respond.

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic 'AHA' moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. "There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded," says Dr. Klein. "When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own."

Going to friends for succor and support is a very healthy way to deal with any sort of stressful situation. It helps us move the stress through our physical and emotional bodies and begin the healing process. Our women friends can give us the emotional support that the men in our lives may be unable to provide.

So go ahead and call that friend of yours you've been meaning to call. Meet for tea and have a nice, satisfying chat.

*The information in this article came from an article by Gale Berkowitz

In a Nutshell - 35: Pearls of Wisdom and Humor

• To change one's life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions. (William James)



• Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you. (Maori proverb)



• May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. (John O’Donohue)



• Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart! (Erma Bombeck)



• My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. (Mark Twain)



• The most important thing she’d learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one. (Jill Churchill)



• The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears. (Ellen Goodman)



• The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. (Calvin Trillin)



• Sooner or later, we all quote our mothers. (Bern Williams)