Placentophagia

 Oskar's and My Placenta, Steamed

In East Asian Medicine, human placenta is a healing post-partum tonic for both mother and nursing baby.

For the mother, the placenta provides nourishment on the order of restoring the qi and blood that was lost during birth. As such, taking the placenta can enhance lactation, uplift the spirit, and provide a new mother with some much-needed ballast.

For the nursing baby, here is a rare and precious opportunity to boost her/his pre-natal jing. Pre-natal jing is the treasure and inheritance that each person receives from her/his parents, and is therefore something that cannot be renewed or restored. We consume it continuously as we live our lives, and death comes to us once this store is spent.

Personally, Dan and I felt there was something very special about consuming the placenta. It represented the organ  that grew out of the powerful love that Dan and I had for each other, so powerful as to call forth and hold a new life. It represented the organ that provided an important, sacred boundary between Oskar and me; it both bonded him to me as well as shielded him from me during his forty-one weeks inside. Eating it was the most natural thing to do. It was also very exciting and sensational!

Here is the recipe Dan used in preparing the placenta. It is best for the placenta be prepared with intention and love.

1. Rinse the placenta;
2. Steam the placenta, with a hot pepper, slices of ginger, and a slice of lime in the water, over low heat for 15 minutes;

3. Turn it over and continue to steam for another 15 minutes;
4. After steaming, slice the placenta into thin strips;
5. Lay the strips on a baking sheet and place them in the oven on warm (lowest setting);
6. Dry the placenta strips until they are dehydrated enough to snap (about 8 to 10 hours);
7. Break the dry strips into smaller pieces and then grind them to powder with a mortar and pestle.

8. Consume daily, and store in a cool, dark place.

How did it taste?

To me, very gamey and primal.

I felt like a wild animal when I took my daily tablespoon dose.

First Food

 

Oskar's pure diet of breast milk has been infiltrated by small amounts of bath water, flower essences, and (a larger dose of) nose. Some time in the coming weeks, we'll be introducing him to food. Although he's already had a first bite of banana ("It just happened," is how Dan describes it!), this will be the first time he's been fed with intention.

In East Asian medicine, the two primary choices for first food are rice porridge or millet porridge. The choice depends on whether or not the child would benefit from more heavenly or earthly influences. With rice, its fluffy whiteness is reminiscent of clouds, whereas millet is round and yellow like the earth.

We're going to start with rice for Oskar, because he is already plenty grounded and also because of the strong relationship between rice and his Korean heritage. His Danish half has not yet been able to mount a compelling argument for pork or butter, much less pork with butter.

The benefits of rice porridge are manifold: it can easily be digested and assimilated; tonifies blood and Qi; harmonizes digestion; and is demulcent, cooling, and nourishing. The longer it is cooked, the more potent its health-promoting properties.

Recipe: 1 part of white rice to 7 parts water cooked overnight in the rice cooker until the grains loose their form.

My Life as Dog

On the other side of motherhood, this movie becomes even more moving and painful and gorgeous.

One of the things Dan observed and said to me in the early, shell-shocked, post-partum days was how awesome and serious the responsibility was of being parents to our boy: that he would love us no matter what we did.

I had always wanted to be the object of unconditional love, but, like so many things, I hadn't thought it completely through.

The sheer weight of is just staggering.

If You Liked Yesterday's Book, Check This One Out!

An excerpt:
"... this is love. The feeling you have for your child is so indescribably deep and consuming that it must qualify as one of the few transcendent experiences in your plain old ordinary life. It arrives spontaneously as though part of afterbirth. It is miraculous and supreme and irrevocable. It makes all things possible...

There is a certain attitude, perhaps unavoidable, that most of us seem to adopt as we grow up. It is a kind of self-satisfied conclusion that our parents didn't love us. Oh, they might have loved us, but they didn't love us enough. They didn't love us the right way. They didn't love us just so. Have your own child, and you will penetrate into the utter absurdity of that idea..."

From Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood by Karen Maezen Miller

Joy in Parenting

I am so happy in parenting right now, and part of it has been inspired by reading Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn's Everyday Blessings.

Oskar's Birth

Oskar was born on Sunday night, May 31st in the water at our home in Brooklyn. I am powerful beyond all my imagining, and it was revealed to me that night. I can't wait to do it again.

Firewalk

At the Goddess Conference this summer, three fires were lit for walking: the maiden, mother, and crone.

Having just borne a child, the mother fire called me.

The ritual for walking across this fire called for an offering to be made, something to feed the fire, something for the fire to consume.

My post-partum period was one of the most difficult of my life. One of the most vicious demons that haunted me was perfectionism. So I offered it, along with some incense, to the mother fire.

And, though I wasn't expecting to find the strength, I walked.

It was exhilarating.

It was a gift.

It was a healing.

100 Days

One hundred days of Oskar and of motherhood. A crucible of one hundred constantly changing days: the transformation of my family from vesica piscis to the tripod of life. Today, a celebration of life. Hooray!

I am a new mother, besotted wife, second-generation acupuncturist, priestess, happy Brooklynite, world traveller, and I plan to write on a broad spectrum of things I want to share.

I hope you enjoy.

Love,
Nancy