Jeannine Parvati Baker - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jeannine Parvati Baker (June 1, 1949 - December 1, 2005) was a Yogini

Yogini

Yogini is the complete form source word of the masculine yogi- and neutral/plural "yogin." Far from being merely a gender tag to the all things yogi, "Yogini" represents both a female master practitioner of Yoga, and a formal term of respect for a category of modern female spiritual teachers in...

, midwife, herbalist

Herbalist

An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....

, published author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. She was also an international activist on the matters of homebirth, unassisted childbirth

Unassisted childbirth

Unassisted childbirth refers to the process of intentionally giving birth without the assistance of a medical or professional birth attendant...

and newborn rights issues.

Biography

Born in North Hollywood, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, to a Jewish mother and Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

father, Jeannine Parvati Baker migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

and Sebastopol

Sebastopol, California

Sebastopol is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, approximately north of San Francisco. The population was 7,379 at the 2010 census, but its businesses also serve surrounding rural portions of Sonoma County, totaling about 50,000 people...

areas in the late 1960s

1960s

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

. She attended Sonoma State University

Sonoma State University

Sonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. The main campus is located in Rohnert Park, California, United States and lies approximately south of Santa Rosa and north of San Francisco...

. She was an early contributor to the fields of natural health and healing, studying yoga

Yoga

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...

asana

Asana

Asana is a body position, typically associated with the practice of Yoga, originally identified as a mastery of sitting still, with the spine as a conduit of biodynamic union...

and meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

. Parvati Baker chose to give birth to all of her children without the use of drugs, which she discusses in her early writings.

Parvati Baker's first book, Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth, was the first text in the Western world on the subject, written during her studies with ashtanga yogi Baba Hari Dass

Baba Hari Dass

Baba Hari Dass was born in 1923 near Almora, India. He is a silent monk and guru who was classically trained in the tradition of Ashtanga Yoga. He has maintained a continual vow of silence since 1952...

from whom she received the name Parvati

Parvati

Parvati is a Hindu goddess. Parvati is Shakti, the wife of Shiva and the gentle aspect of Mahadevi, the Great Goddess...

. In the Hindu myth, Parvati invented her baby from the simple gifts of nature – flowers, herbs, the soil, her saliva, sweat, and some other things. In the following years, other authors such as yogini Geeta Iyengar

Geeta Iyengar

Geeta S. Iyengar , the eldest daughter of Yogicharya B.K.S. Iyengar, focuses her yoga teaching on women's health issues. Currently, she is the director of Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute together with her brother Prashant S. Iyengar .- Teaching :Geeta's focus is on specific anatomy and...

and Janet Balaskas

Janet Balaskas

Janet Balaskas is an author, founder of the Active Birth Movement, and childbirth educator. She is perhaps known best for her advocacy of active birth where the woman is free to move during labour, rather than being placed into stirrups or the lithotomy position...

expanded the Prenatal Yoga realm with texts which further asserted benefits of yoga for healthy pregnancy and childbirth preparation, eventually resulting in one of the most popularized trends for modern women.

Parvati Baker followed this work with Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal as her master's thesis

Thesis

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...

in psychology at San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...

, and later Conscious Conception: Elemental Journey through the Labyrinth of Sexuality.

Parvati Baker practiced as a spiritual midwife in Sonoma County, California for over ten years, before moving to rural southern Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

where she continued her practice and taught Prenatal Yoga while raising a family. She founded Hygieia College, a mentorship program, through which she matriculated over 500 students both locally and internationally.

A keynote speaker at many professional herbalism

Herbalism

Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, herblore, and phytotherapy...

and midwifery

Midwifery

Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....

conferences, and a newborn rights activist working to eradicate infant/child circumcision

Circumcision

Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....

(both male and female), Parvati Baker was awarded a Lifetime Achievement recognition by the International Symposium on Genital Integrity

Genital integrity

Male circumcision has often been, and remains, the subject of controversy on a number of grounds—including religious, ethical, sexual, and health....

.

A self-described "wordsmith", she coined the popular word freebirth to describe unassisted chilbirth in a positive mode, and the lesser known, phenomenological Birthkeeper to describe the spiritual midwife in a traditional shamanic or yogini role.

Parvati Baker died December 1, 2005, aged 56, after a two-year battle with Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease primarily affecting the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus . The infection is often asymptomatic, but chronic infection can lead to scarring of the liver and ultimately to cirrhosis, which is generally apparent after many years...

in Utah.

Quotes

"Practicing Yoga during pregnancy is one way to heal the split between soul and spirit found in our culture. Prenatal Yoga sexualizes spirituality and spiritualizes fertility. It is the tantric
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....

practice of mothers. Once the babies come planetside, our yoga practice shifts into karma Yoga beyond belief. We become servants to our babies and our path is bhakti Yoga, the practice of devotion. Giving conscious birth is woman’s vision quest, par excellence. It is ultimate sadhana
Sadhana
Sādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...

, spiritual practice, – which requires purity in strength, flexibility, health, concentration, surrender, and faith."

"We birth as we conceive."

"Birth is the most obvious expression of "what -is" that we can experience...For a conscious woman, childbirth is self-evidently holy. A spiritual midwife makes the full agreement to support the innate holiness of birth. It is as simple as this: anyone being with a woman giving birth who worships, attends closely and invisibly, follows true, and opens hearts (as well as wombs) is a spiritual midwife. A full spiritual midwife is a healer. She brings a commitment to maintain the wholeness of the birth experience, to keep it holy. She does no harm. In any effort to "save life", she will do no harm, create no extra karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....

."

External links

Birthkeeper Official website
Jeannine Parvati Baker Biography
Freestone Innerprizes Original website

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Biography

Quotes

See also

External links