Yael Nehama

I love an empowering birth story and I particularly love it when I know the mother. A dear friend of mine and fellow child birth advocate recently birthed her third hypno-baby. Yep, three successful hypnobirths! Obviously this is not fluke of nature, Hypnobirth simply works! After the second one she became a Hypnobirth Educator. What a gift she is giving to the community women! Reading her baby's birth story thrilled me and reminded me once again how important it is for all of us to tell and share our stories. Inspiration, wisdom and empowerment are what it is to be gained. We no longer gather at the well to share our stories but at least we have email, right? After reading her story and mulling it over and decided to ask if I could share it here. She said yes, because she too wants to encourage and empower you with her story. So consider this our well, the well of this particular village and read on to hear this empowered woman's story. Drink deeply and let it empower your hea...

Each New Moon for the past 10 months I have helped to erect a Red Tent Temple in the Philadelphia area. It is a traveling Red Tent, visiting the home of any sister who would like to make that space for the Temple. We have red fabric draped everywhere to give a physical manifestation to the Red Tent. There is often music softly playing in the background and a low hum of conversation. Often you will see a sisters sharing hearts in the kitchen, enjoying soup or other nosh that someone has brought to share. Other times you may notice another sister quietly coloring a mandala or reading a book. And other times you may just see her sitting on the floor with her head thrown back and her eyes closed simply feeling the peace the permeates the Tent. The Red Tent is a drop in which helps to maintain the relaxed feeling and openness of the Temple. Women are free to come and go during the time the Red Tent is open. Later the women are called to an informal circle and Ritual begins. That ritual too ...

“There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it! It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open." ~ Martha Graham graphistolage.com Martha Graham spoke these words from her Dancer’s heart. You are a unique expression of the Divine. A facet, if you will, of the Diamond of Divinity’s love for the world. You were born as a gift to the planet and the human race and it is your responsibility to express that gift. By being you, a free and wild human being, you gift the world with that Love. Your work is not to figure it out, or to encumber yourself with a label or persona, your work is to simply be you. You in all of you...

As a believer and a contributor to The (peaceful) Revolution, I was looking for preschool songs of peace to share with my children. I discovered this lovely gem written by two teachers form Scotland, Jan and Randy Prichard.

Beats Antique pays tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, " Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."

Today's Musical Monday post contains tribal belly dance, or what I like to think of as my sanity maintainer. Truly, it matters not what kind of week I've had, or if I'm not feeling quite so dancey before I get there, the moment I walk into class and see my sisters I am well. The music starts and life just got a heck of a lot better. If I am not dancing, another sure fire way to put a smile on my face is seeing these lovely ladies. Along with my own troupe Tribal Spirit , they are one of my top ten favorite troupes. Wild Card Belly Dance! I go absolutely fan-girl crazy over them! Their smiles, their skills, their transitions, the absolute joy of their dance and fun they are so obviously having assures a smile on my face and sets my heart aright every time! Have a peak yourself and see what I am talking about!

Walking down 4th street on a break and I discover glints of light on an otherwise gloomy alley Closer I venture to the building that turns into a stationary disco ball of sorts. Beauty is hidden everywhere in Philly Even masterpieces lurk in dark alleys and side streets.

(Caveat: this is a stream of consciousness kind of post. In other words, I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go. You have been forewarned.) I want to write and yet I find myself staring blankly at the keyboard. Oh, I occasionally reach for the mouse and then before I know it, here a click there a click and I have found myself in distraction-land. Being a metaphor lady I am currently searching for the lesson in this. It is too simple to say I am easily distracted. It is too easy to blame it on lack of inspiration or the absence of old fashioned stick-to-it-tive-ness. Well, my friends it may be simple and easy, but facts are facts , I am too easily distracted, particularly when there is a task that I deeply desire to do. One would think that if you want to do something you would simply do it. Not so, not so at all. It seems to me that simply wanting to do something is not enough. Deep desire does not seem to be enough. There mus...

I like Mondays. Not as much as I like Sundays, but Mondays are definitely one of my favorite days of the week. As I know many folks do not feel the same as way I do about Mondays, I thought I would help to cheer your Mondays up with a little musical joy! Yeah, this video is just another hopeful reminder that there is so much good and beauty in humanity. Peace through music!! Quoted from the video: "okay- what you are about to watch is a true new york experience. what originally started out as a typical nyc subway ride turned into an awesome performance by two people who have never met before. i captured the whole thing on video. the singer continued with another great song after the entire subway car demanded an encore. her name is jessica latshaw- make sure to check out her music. props to the conga player as well. check out his stuff- Quoom1. filmed and uploaded by Matt Schwartz"

Once upon a time, as this we know dear children is how all good stories begin, in a land that flowed with blacktop rivers and concrete shorelines, there was a small and modest garden. The Garden was in fact a smallish incline of dirt, too small even to be called a hill, and was really more of a mound of earth that provided living quarters for fat wiggly earthworms. (These earthworms then in turn provided food for the rather greedy robins, but that dear children is another story for another time.) At the top of the smallish hill, which was really a mound, grew a rose bush, or at least this is what the village wisewoman thought it was. She was never really quite sure, for it never bloomed all the years she lived in the cement forest. Each year she pruned it back, each year she offered it gifts of crystals and food and each year it did nothing. Oh once, she thought it would bloom, when it grew taller than it had ever done before, and even shot forth one tiny bud! ''This is the yea...