Resources
Trusting Birth
A visual and audio exploration of the nature of giving birth by noted photographer, author and midwife, Harriette Hartigan.
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Harriette Hartigan, BA
Harriette Hartigan, artist and midwife, has been photographing the childbirth experience for twenty years. She produces educational resources and art work including posters, note cards, art prints, calendars, art shirts and photo essays.
Birth is Nature
- Exquisite
- Powerful
- Elemental
- Profound
- Full of Mystery
In each flower we see the nature of creation ... beautiful details of energy and form ... each season every season.
We trust the flowers to open to new life again and again...in a deep and believing way, we wait for the buds to appear and grow. So can we trust birth. Birth is as safe as life gets.
The word Nature comes from the Latin NATUS...to be born.
We are born to the nature of birth...Women are born with cellular wisdom to grow and birth life.. Remember how ancient this beautiful heritage of women...passed from generation to generation...women living with great courage and strength...trusting themselves to the energy of creation moving through their minds, bodies, spirits. Grace and certainty even in chaotic intensity. The uterus, strongest muscle in the human body opening...opening...opening fully to the presence and will of another life to be born. Sensations extraordinary and passionate. The effort is epic. An elemental, holy drama lived daily by women!
To care for birth, this personal yet universal experience, with respect, skill, experience and love matters deeply. To attend the power of birth, guided by awe and mystery that one feels in the presence of the sacred, is deep privilege.
Both as photographer and midwife, I witness the wisdom of women and birth again and again...and my trust grows stronger.