At Linda’s request, I’m going to tell my rebirthing story. Now, don’t be confused. “Rebirthing” is nothing at all like being “Born Again.” And, from what I’ve been able to read on the Net, the current methods of doing “rebirthing” are nothing like they were when I did it.
Let me preface this story by explaining that I have always enjoyed experiences that lead me to more self-discovery. Like most people, I find that I fool myself even better than I fool other people. Like most, I’ve gotten pretty good at denying, rationalizing, ignoring, blaming etc. etc. So, every once in a while, I need to find a way to hold up the mirror of truth to my own soul. Of course, being a dedicated dilletante, I don’t just find one system for doing this kind of introspection and stick to it; I like to try out new ones all of the time. Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, Chi Quong, Tai Chi, guided imagery, self-hypnosis, sacred psychology, feminist spirituality, poetry therapy, active imagination, rebirthing…….. Basically, they are all ways of getting oneself out of usual patterns of “thinking” and allowing one’s natural intuition and wisdom to find a way through all of the nasty noises of our conscious and critical and constricting minds.
So, for a while I took a lot of workshops. I took so many that I got so good at some that I started to give workshops of my own — a kind of hybrid of feminist spirituality and guided imagery and active imagination and poetry therapy ……. Someone once said that you teach best what you most need to learn. How true. How true.
O.K. Rebirthing. I went through the process almost ten years ago, but from what I remember, this is how it went. I went to an introductory meeting and made the decision to commit myself to a three consecutive 10-hour days of a rebirthing workshop. I was paired with a buddy, and the agreement was that we would help each other through the process, which took place over a weekend. The process involved long periods of meditation — some guided, some not — and, of course, “sharing.” That was pretty much what we did on the first day. On the second day, after more and deep meditation and increasingly emotional sharing, etc., we were guided to to re-experience our own births — to feel ourselves in our mother’s wombs, listening to what people were saying about us, feeling the physical sensations of safety and warmth being violently disrupted, etc. etc. I don’t know what happened on the third day, and here’s why.

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