The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world, to a large or small extent, has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime, guilt ~ and there is the story of mankind. John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952

Breastfeeding bonding and baby-carrying bonding are the first events of life, which the newborn/infant/child learns about love and non-violence. Love is first learned at the breast of mother and by being carried on her body ~ like in utero, where the first lessons of being connected with mother are learned.

Carly Elizabeth is eight months young and doing exactly what she is destined to do, learning explosively every moment. This month has been one breakthrough after another. Tossing one hip over the other. Rolling onto her tummy. That was big. Then, pushing with her arms backwards to sit upright. From there it was getting her knees under, butt up. Finally she pushed one arm out and then the opposite knee, and she was off. ‘Huston, we are in orbit.’ Life changing.

There is no attention deficit here. Carly is moving, touching, reaching every second. Ops! Watch the plant, the kitty, no, the banana. That was only two weeks ago. What was so difficult and frustrating is now routine. Carly practices her moves like Ben Hogan hit golf balls or Michael Jordan shot hoops, just to see what they could do. Self-imposed conflict and resistance seems curiously absent. There she goes again. Today she is exploring ‘up,’ reaching up, standing up, even climbing up. Just a moment ago she pulled herself up on the leg of a white wooden stool, stood there, waited for our attention and giggled. I know this is no big deal but somehow it all seems miraculous. How many billion years? From bacteria to one of those transparent jellyfish like creatures in the primal oceans, to plants, reptiles, furry mammals, on and on to you and me and now Carly Elizabeth. And all of this without texting or Instagram, without words, verbal concepts, comparisons, judgments, grades, shame and trophies. A miracle indeed!

Carly, born Tuesday, July 29, 2014. Today is Friday, November 14, 2014, 108 days, almost three and a half months new depending on how we calculate the equinox. There is a distilling of awareness and attention, a distinct and growing capacity to balance, to see, to be startled by a sharp sound or emotion and reaching to grasp. Carly’s attention, how stimulation moves from her eyes into her brain creating intention, extending down her arm, past the elbow and wrist to the outreached hand, tiny fingers grasping is today’s lesson.

Ouch, too hot, said Goldilocks, pain. Ouch, too cold. Ahhhh, just right, she said, pleasure. As I have come to understand, mostly due to my twenty-year friendship with James W. Prescott, PhD, pleasure and pain rest at the foundation of our development as human beings. We are drawn to and seek experiences that are comforting, pleasurable and we avoid, withdraw from sensations that are painful. Not very complicated, obvious, but we forget.

This rude awakening came as quite a surprise, shocking really. The sun, moon, planets and every living thing does not revolve around me. Life is reciprocal. The more we naturally give to life, the more life nurtures and empowers us.

Dear friend and inspired mentor, Joseph Chilton Pearce speaks of parenting demanding this realization; giving over our self-as-center-ness to the joyous, though not always easy, service of others. We can look at the entire developmental process as a slow transition from me to we, from mine to ours or us.

Violence is Failed Bonding/Attachment - Continued
Two key points: violence, along with a long list of other maladies; depression, ADHD, addiction, chronic stress related diseases, child abuse, domestic violence and rape are expressions of failed or impaired attachment AND the biological fact that males are more vulnerable than females focus our attention sharply. At least it should, but often doesn’t, which is indeed curious. For some strange reason the closer we tread to the heart of violence the more our attention is distracted, rendering us less capable of embracing and embodying the truth.

GENDER EQUALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS and REPRESENTATION 
AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

E-Mail correspondence below calls for a different priority.

Rabbi Lerner—It is time to launch an “agonizing reappraisal” of the destructive role that religious institutions have had upon Humanity.

The continuing violence against women and her children throughout human history must be understood within a religious framework. Transforming Cultures of Violence into Cultures of Peace is not possible without a transformation of values and assumptions of gender inequality inherent in religious theology.

So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27-29).

The Role of the Paleocerebellum in Eliminating Violence in Mother-deprived Primates and Permitting Expression of Affectional Behaviors Not Possible Before Paleocerebellar Surgery.

James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

It is well recognized that Violence by Homo Sapiens throughout the World threatens species and planetary survival. Violence begins with the individual and must be understood before Cultures of Violence appear. The brain is the organ of behavior and how the brain is encoded for Peaceful or Violent Behaviors is the great challenge to Humanity.

The Time cover Mom Enough, marked the 20th anniversary of The Baby Book by William Sears, MD, labeling attachment parenting practices such as child-led weaning as “extreme.” No surprise, expected really, by echoing a professional party line dating back over 100 years times ten and more.

Please review and share the fabulous re-shoot and Pathways Family Wellness Magazine follow-up on Times most provocative cover story in decades.

To understand why, first realize that a woman’s body was built, among other tings, for pleasure. In a culture where pleasure is BAD pleasure becomes a commodity, something to be possessed, sold and controlled, especially by males whose normal sensory development has been retarded resulting in a cultural hyper-need-response to what is deprived, driving up the value and the compulsive need to possess and control it.

Ashley Montague notes in the Dehumanization of Man (and Woman via children), ‘the central issue of Western thought and civilizations is freedom vs. control.’ In 1932 with the publication of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley predicted an increasing and rapid centralization of power and control, not through oppression and terror, we have that too, but rather through the subtler devices of conditioning, persuasion, new drugs and distraction. What does rapid centralization of power and control have to do with breast feeding and equally intimate circumcision?