How Harvest is Like Birthing and Why My Midwife Became My Mentor

Birthing is the hardest thing you will ever do.  It takes months of planning, careful observation, a litany of good choices and an enormous amount of concentration.  It is a mountain to climb, an Everest, a pinnacle of achievement that leaves a lasting psychological impact.  It is also a gateway to the miraculous and brings into being a new and unique entity never before experienced and all its very own.

Harvest is like this too.  It’s also hard, and joyous and exhausting.  It takes a tremendous amount of concentration and single minded focus.  So single minded that in the midst of it, regular things tend to fall to the wayside – responding to emails, regular meals, laundry or calling your mother.  It is the natural culmination of months of growing, observation, careful planning, good choices and hoped for good fortune in the form of positive outcomes from things you cannot control. 

As with birthing, it’s good to approach harvest with a plan.  It’s also good to know that things will inevitably deviate from the plan.  Like the time you went to the hospital and thought a deck of cards and a birthing playlist was a good idea.  As if you were going on a mini-break to the beach.  Um, no.

Both birthing and harvest are archetypal events and part of ancient cycles.  They are utterly common, having occurred repeatedly over millennia; since the very beginning of our existence.  All of us have experienced them in one way or another, either as the born or the bearer, the worker or the beneficiary.  Both birthing and harvest are the culmination of intense effort and for both, that effort eventually pales in comparison to the resulting miracles. 

One miracle I did not anticipate during pregnancy or the births of our two children, was the miracle of my midwife, Nan Macy WHCNP, CNM.  I did not foresee that her guidance and presence during the two most mind blowing experiences of my life would result in gifts of wisdom that would become forever fundamental to my approach of big things.

She taught in real time the importance of being present, the value of attending, belief in self, maintaining a capacity for nimbleness and the power of inviting joy.

During labor and delivery Nan was present.  She attended even when not in the room.  At four in the morning for the phone call, later at the hospital for check-ins, that moment I was in the bathtub and the faucet was dripping irritatingly and Michael was in the next room with his new iphone (they’d just been born!) and the haptic tone was on…every letter typed a cacophonic tick tick tick that I was convinced was driving me insane.  Nan was there hours later of course for the birth and then hours after that after she’d gone home and lain down for the first sleep in 24 hours.  She drove back to the hospital to sew me up because Otto had entered this world with his fist up to his forehead in a gesture of ‘power to the people’ that called for several stitches.

During pregnancy and labor Nan exuded a deep belief.  Not in platitudes like ‘isn’t this just ducky’ or ‘it’s going to be fine’ but from a deeper place of knowing.  A knowing attuned to universal mysteries that comes with having born witness to both expected and unforeseen outcomes. Her way with me was to facilitate agency.  To accompany me on my own journey and give me space to draw my own map.  At the same time exhibiting adaptation, and an ever-present capacity for nimbleness.  In labor you’ll think you know where you are and how the next moments will be and that you can prepare mentally for them but you really can’t.  You can’t know this thing until you’re in the middle of it, and even then it’s fluid…like trying to walk a straight line on a boat and waves keep sneaking up from unexpected directions, toppling you over.  Sea legs are nimble and open to adaptation.

And then there is joy.  Let’s just say that Johnny Cash’s ‘Burning Ring of Fire’ being belted out by the person about to catch your baby can bring a certain levity and charm to an otherwise excruciating situation.

In Oregon, Labor Day weekend is always filled with the anticipation of another grape harvest.  It has either just started or will in a matter of days.  We brought in our first fruit last Friday and naturally it didn’t all go according to plan.  But we attended and adapted.  We believe in the vineyard and the fruit and the people who helped to make it happen and we believe in ourselves and our capacity to nurture and craft a great wine.  We also took a moment to enjoy ourselves, to start our Harvest 2020 playlist, to sing a little Johnny Cash and to think of Nan.