My own interest in the implications of being cesarean born was not purely intellectual. It was motivated by chaos and discomfort in my personal life. Beginning to understand what it meant to have been born non-labor cesarean seemed to bring some clarity and direction into what otherwise seemed to be a hopeless morass of emotion and failed social and relationship situations in my life. It also connected my body and feelings to the sense of light I was pursuing in my photographic work.
Who knows what it really means to be cesarean born! I am not just cesarean -- I am also white, female, living in far northern California at age 55 in 1997 (and at age 77 in Vermont in 2020). I can only write about what happened for me during the years I have used "cesarean born" as a lens through which to look at the world and at myself. I have been beginning to define the term "cesarean born", at least the psychological and spiritual aspects of it. Others will extend, refine and change the definition. They will reshape the lens from the inside through their experiences. The lens can also be reshaped from the outside through observations and scientific studies of cesarean born people. Both kinds of redefinition are useful. They are complementary.
It has been an amazing journey. The works listed below show the evolution of my thinking - the later works not necessarily being better or "more true" than the early ones! My intention with this website is to give away the goodies that have come my way during these years of exploration.
The Big Picture - Being Cesarean Born - a one page summary of 50 years of exploration - 2021
The Gift of Expanded Boundaries - stories and musings from a non-labor cesarean born person - 2021
An overview by Jane English - with art and writings (1.6 mb pdf file)
Birth Poem and photograph - 1981, included in Different Doorway
Cesarean Birth and Psychotherapy - first published writing by JE about cesarean birth - 1982
Story of the first cesarean birth - from a shamanic journey - 1984
Different Doorway: Adventures of a Cesarean Born - 1985 - a book
Being Born Cesarean: Physical, Psychosocial and Metaphysical Aspects - a paper published in the journals of both APPPAH and ISPPM - 1992 and 1994
Four Perspectives on Being Born Cesarean - talk in Heidelberg, Germany - 1995
Cesarean related paintings by Jane - some are color versions of Different Doorway illustrations
Technological Birth - brief notes
Review of William Emerson's video on healing cesarean birth trauma
Cesarean birth as a different native culture - notes
Questions for further study - notes 1984
Jane's homepage - more about her
and about her photography and publishing business.
Snail squirming grey slime
Tail long in water
Forming
Unforming
Clear starlight silver shimmer
Soft fire above me
Breath exploding in fragments of light
Expanding to the limits of the universe
Disintegrating
Dying
Heavy stone
Holding me against the explosion of
Light & Touch & Sound & Breath
A cool still dark center
I am