Attachment Parenting / BondingBreastfeedingChild development

The View From The Shore – October 2015 Letter from the Editor

By Lisa Reagan, Editor On Oct 22, 2015

This Letter from the Editor is from Kindred’s October 2015 E-Newsletter.

Sometimes, it seems, it is just as important to sit on the shore and watch the waves as it is to get out there and try to ride them. That’s how I have felt these past weeks as one after another consciousness-raising wave from multiple and diverse sources crashed through my own awareness resulting in one face palm after another (the kinder, gentler face palm for those of you who need that disclaimer). The “DUH!” reaction is how I know I’ve momentarily glimpsed a Crack in the Cosmic Egg, as Joseph Chilton Pearce would say: when an initially profound idea is so obvious in hindsight, so practical, it effortlessly supports personal and collective “grounded expansion.”

This is the phrase – grounded expansion – that leapt to mind and out of my mouth during my audio interview with Miriam Mason Martineau, a pioneer on Integral Parenting out of British Columbia. As Miriam described how we can be present with children as we bring our full story to every moment, I could energetically feel the possibilities of Integral Parenting were both grounded and expansive. Listen to our call and read more below about the body, mind, spirit, soul perspective in Parenting As A Spiritual Practice below. (You can still join Miriam’s annual course offering this week!)

BreastSLEEPING

Perhaps the most stunning DUH! goes to James McKenna, PhD, the world’s leading mother-baby sleep expert who announced in the prestigious European journal, Acta Pediatrica, “There is no infant sleep and there is no breastfeeding. There is only breastSLEEPING.” Why is this research-based insight so important? Because, as Dr. James McKenna shares with us in this audio interview, three million parents a night are cosleeping with their babies with no safety guidelines because our government wants us to believe sleep and breastfeeding are separate, unrelated biological functions – hence the national campaign against cosleeping and America’s last place breastfeeding ranking among developed nations. McKenna is a world renown researcher at the University of Notre Dame and a fierce advocate for parents. (See him defend and support cosleeping parents in our New Story Video Series.)

Celebrate Attachment Parenting Month

And then, celebrate Attachment Parenting Month with an interview featuring Attachment Parenting International founders, Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson, who reveal how Mindful Parenting Is The Spiritual Essence of Attachment. Well, of course it is! Attachment parenting advocates simply being responsive to our babies and children, which requires our mindful presence, which results in a spiritual approach to parenting… head slap, ow! Their book,Attached at the Heart, provides parents with the practical guidance for integrating the eight principles of AP into the reality of their daily lives. Lysa and Barbara’s Parenting As A Hero’s Journey is now ON DEMAND. The PAHJ retreat is a way for you to join the Fellowship of the Sling for needed self-nurturing.

The Attached Family magazine‘s interview with me in this month’s issue also celebrates Attachment Parenting Month. I was very honored to be asked by Rita Brhel, AF’s editor, to share with her a rumination of almost 18 years of wave-riding and observing in the conscious parenting movement. The 6,000 word interview covers the gamut, from the founding of Families for Conscious Living in 1996 to finding answers and insights to transforming human consciousness at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, IONS, many years later. As I share in the interview, “IONS’ scientific research and reports helped to form questions that people had not asked before, and are still forming. IONS was founded by the sixth man to walk on the moon, Edgar Mitchell, who experienced a profound shift in his own consciousness while in space. IONS’ current president, Cassandra Vieten, PhD, wrote the book, Mindful Motherhood. Think about that for a minute… astronauts and mindful mothering…” The interview provided a wonderful opportunity to look back on how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go. Enjoy it here.

The Cave You Fear To Enter – With Meryn Callander

Also featured on the cover of Attached Family magazine is Meryn Callander, Kindred’s advisory board member and contributor who is leading November’s LIVE Parenting As A Hero’s Journey virtual retreat into the Shadow Realms of Parenthood. If our ideal is to be “conscious” parents, then we are agreeing to bowing to all of the experiences that show up for us on this path, including the long shadow-side of parenting.

As Joseph Campbell says, “The cave you fear to enter is where your treasure lies.” Join Meryn, who is also the co-founder of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children, aTLC, and author of Why Dads Leave and After His Affair, to explore the culturally prevalent shadow aspects of parenthood. Meryn takes us through the terrifying hell of the Hero’s Journey and leads us to the skills and insights for finding the buried treasure these dark realms offer for soul growth and wisdom.

Rest for a Cause – Conscious Parenting In Africa!

PLA Africa photo — PLA partner, Association for Parent Education in Africa, holding facilitator training manuals at South African workshop.

Finally, after a day of wave-riding, what if you could REST FOR A CAUSE? What if you could learn how to find restorative rest in 15 minutes a day and support a worthy cause like the Parent Liberation Alliance’s conscious parenting work in Africa? YOU CAN and this brilliant gentle head slap idea comes from Karen Brody who is helping PLA, a sister initiative, raise needed funds with a Rest for a Cause. Starting November 3rd all registered participants in Rest for a Cause will embark on 15 minutes of ‘rest’ practicing a sleep-based meditation technique from Bold Tranquility for 21 days and simultaneously raising money for the Parent Liberation Alliance. Please support this worthy cause here.

This is the nonprofit vision and mission of Kindred, to bring to you, our readers, the pioneers of the conscious parenting movement that, as Robin Grille says, leads to the recognition of children as human beings with human rights to wellness and wholeness. I would continue outlining this month’s offerings, but I am going to look for some salve now. Thank you for being and sharing the New Story of Childhood, Parenthood and the Human Family. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, ideas or thoughts to share.

See this month’s e-newsletter here. Subscribe to Kindred’s e-newsletter here.

Blessings,

Lisa Reagan

Photo Shutterstock/Tropical Studio

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