17. The Vedruss birth

The birthing mother’s mama and grandma would tell her what symptoms to expect on the eve of her labour. Liubomila’s grandmother, in this instance, told her in detail how she gave birth to her own children.1

Vedruss women as a rule gave birth in their own homes, in a wooden tub, something like our bathtub, only shorter in length and not as deep. It was a container designed especially for childbirth. Afterward it served as a cradle for the newborn.

To start, it was filled with pure spring water, heated to body temperature. There were little ledges on the outside of the tub which served as footrests.

The edges of the tub were curved so that it was easy for the woman to support herself with her hands. The air temperature in the room was not measured with a thermometer back then. They said it should feel comfortable for a naked body in a state of repose, with no sensation of either heat or cold.

The tub for birthing mothers was placed on the floor and oriented so that the woman sitting in it would be facing toward the rising Sun. Another smaller container of water was placed beside it. On the bench next to the tub lay four plain, smooth-textured flaxen towels (without embroidery or designs).

During a Vedruss birth only the husband was to be present in the room with a birthing mother. Even the couple’s parents and close relatives, as well as experienced midwives, were excluded.

Just before labour began, the child’s father would light a fire he had already prepared at the outer entrance to the domain, from which wafted sweet-smelling smoke. This was where the close relatives usually gathered, along with the midwife, and often a wise-man.

The birthing mother’s and her husband’s parents would bring in bundles and baskets of food and drink. They would sit down on benches under a tent-roof which had been set up earlier next to the fire-pit by the husband. Vedruss tradition forbade them from crossing the line into the domain. Nor was the birthing mother’s husband permitted to go out to them, or even to talk with them at a distance.

Such rules were not the product of some kind of superstition, but the result of finely tuned psychological calculations. Nobody and nothing was supposed to distract the thought of the father, let alone the birthing mother, from the reception of their child.

The presence of the parents and midwife at the entrance to the domain, however, had a calming effect on the young parents-to-be. In case any abnormalities cropped up, they could always come in to help. But there was rarely a need for such assistance.

During the contractions the mother would constantly talk with her emerging child, giving him words of encouragement, helping him enter upon his new world without fear. The Vedruss people well knew how important it was to communicate both mentally and audibly with the new Man as he emerged into the world. As a result, all three — mother, child and father — were participants in the process.

It was also very important that the mother’s first look at her newborn be without any fright at his appearance (a temporarily snubbed nose, for example, or the birth-colour of his skin), that her gaze be tender and joyous.

The father would pick up the baby out of the water he had been born in, use his own mouth right off to suck the mucus out of his little mouth and nose, and place him on his mother’s tummy. The mother would then offer the baby her breast. This prompted the expulsion of the placenta, which the father placed in a specially prepared container, before cutting the umbilical cord with a knife which had been disinfected over a flame, and tying it.

Then the father took the baby and placed him on a towel. After washing him, he wrapped him up in a second towel and placed him on the bed. Then he washed his wife’s body, using water from the other container next to the tub, dried her off with a clean towel and led her over to the bed where the baby lay

Next the father, using either his mouth or his hands, strained off a small quantity of milk from the mother’s breast and sprayed it over a flaxen sheet, with which he covered the new mother and the infant lying on her tummy or breast.

After that, the father sat down and gazed silently at his wife. If she desired, he would talk with her, but even if she were asleep, he would not leave the room.

About fifteen minutes later, he would light the wood-fire he had earlier prepared in the hearth.

He would then pour out the birthing water, as well as the water the woman had used to wash herself, between the two trees which had been planted soon after conception. Here, too, was where the placenta would be buried.

The relatives that had gathered at the entrance to the domain would see the smoke from the chimney and understand this, along with the father’s actions, to signal that the birth had taken place successfully At this point they began exchanging congratulations and partaking of the food and drink

they had brought with them, after which they dispersed to their homes.

The Vedruss people understood that even in the womb the child could sense relatives’ thoughts and feelings. And after coming into the world, he would continue to find himself in his parents’ aura. If some kind of outsiders, even a relative with good thoughts about the child, happened to be in the birthing room, their feelings — even good ones — would be unfamiliar to the child, and put him on the defensive.

Besides, either deliberately or inadvertently, the relatives might distract the parents’ thought from the infant. It was in the parents’ mental field, after all, that the baby would feel the most comfortable.

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A little experiment should help prove what Anastasia has said here.

Many women are aware that during breast-feeding they should not allow themselves to be distracted by random conversations and thoughts, especially on negative topics. They are concentrating their whole attention on their child, on his feeding, and mentally conversing with him.

For evidence that the baby really does feel the mother’s thought, try entering the room where a mother is nursing her baby and strike up a conversation with her. The baby will at once feel uneasy, and may even stop his sucking and start to cry. He has become uncomfortable, and his Mama’s thoughts about him have weakened or have wandered off somewhere.

But perhaps the baby was simply disturbed by the stranger’s voice or odour?

I telephoned my daughter Polina. She picked up the receiver and started talking with me. Thirty seconds into the conversation I heard the cry of my granddaughter Mashenka.

“Why is she crying?” I asked my daughter.

“I’m breast-feeding her, Papa,” Polina responded. “She doesn’t like it when I’m distracted.”

I tried to end the conversation quickly I did the same whenever I rang at an inopportune moment. My granddaughter would always start crying.

Many nursing mothers who are familiar with the culture of breast-feeding will confirm this phenomenon. But it does not happen, as a rule, with children of mothers who are unaware of the importance of mental contact with their nursling, who chat away at feeding time with all and sundry or spend the time thinking about their own problems. Why not? Because their child has no concept of mental contact with his mother. It is something he never had, and so has no point of comparison.

There’s an old saying: He took it in with his mother’s milk. What are our babies today taking in with their mother’s milk?

Human society has learnt to create all sorts of satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles, ^et at the same time it has lost something more important — the culture of giving birth to and raising Man. As a result, people end up aiming these missiles at each other.

Now what possible connection could there be between the culture of prenatal education, the breast-feeding of children and wars? A most direct connection, indeed!

Many still remember the account of the Rostov serial killer Chikatilo. He performed sadistic acts on young women and then killed them. Such maniacs have appeared in many other cities, terrorising the populace. Each time hundreds of policemen are despatched to hunt down and capture the killer.

But an interesting pattern emerges from this. It has been established that in the case of three Rostov maniacs, at least, their mothers had all made unsuccessful attempts to abort their foetuses in the womb. As a result, when the foetus was born and grew into manhood, it then began taking revenge against women.

Now tell me which is more important for high-school graduates: to get high marks in physics, chemistry and a foreign language, or to acquire a high knowledge of the culture of the conception, carrying and raising of a child?

I would say the latter is by far the more important. And yet the disciplines which present such knowledge are not even taught in the school curriculum. Hence there are graduates of schools, colleges and universities who give birth to children which they have conceived haphazardly. They often reflect on whether to give birth at all, or perhaps an abortion would be better?

They may end up giving birth, only what kind of babies are they giving birth to? The kind that not only should not be exposed to the achievements of physicists and chemists, but should even be kept as far away as possible from knives and sticks.

The birth of advanced spiritual thinkers is especially important in this age of scientific and technological progress.

It is a tragedy when a maniac like Chikatilo kills and tortures women. It is a blessing that nobody like him is sitting at the controls of nuclear missiles.

A blessing — a blessing, okay — but the caveat must be added: for now. The worst will happen if society does not change its attitude toward the culture of giving birth to Man.

Anastasia continued:

With their knowledge of this culture, Radomir and Liubomila effected the transition of their first-born son from his mother’s womb to his new world quite smoothly and painlessly Possibly, even joyfully both for themselves and for the infant.

Liubomila had an easy and fear-free birth, and a cheerful one, too. When the baby came, she let out not a cry of pain but a cry of joy, of welcome. She herself drew him out of the water and embraced him.

When Radomir washed Liubomila with pure water and then dried her off, he felt like kissing every corner of her body He even wanted to get down on his knees before her. And he knelt beside the bed as his smiling Liubomila lay under the sheet with her newborn son. As he stood there on his knees, he said softly and penetratingly:

“Thank you, Liubomila. Ifou have co-created a child, you are a goddess. You can make dreams come true.”

“We have co-created a child, Radomir,” Liubomila responded with a smile.

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