The parallels between making love and giving birth are clear, not only in terms of passion and love, but also because we need essentially the same conditions for both experiences: privacy and safety.

Experience of the phenomenal capacity of our birthing body can give us an enduring sense of our own power as women. Birth is the beginning of life the beginning of mothering, and of fathering. We all deserve a good beginning.

Each time we deny our female functions, each time we deviate from our bodies' natural path, we move father away from out feminine roots. Our female bodies need us now more than ever, and we too need the wisdom, the wildness, the passion, the joy, the vitality and the authenticity that we can gain through this most intimate of reconciliations.

We cannot birth our babies through sheer force of will. We need to learn the more subtle, the equally powerful, path of surrender.