Birth of an Atol

You may wonder, my friends, how I came to see birth from a geological perspective?  How I came to be curious about the forces that formed the landscape where  midwives and mothers walk.  I came to see that certain geological events such as volcanoes, earthquakes, and glaciers would determine food sources, clean water and the ability to get to a clinic for care.   Mountains, rushing rivers, droughts and the extraction of minerals would play a role in maternal health,  beyond my imagination.  I gained a curiosity about geology and the role it played in a community's health.

In my community, we live with the certain inevitability of earthquakes and volcanoes.  Fossil fuel pipes, trains and tanks line our river.  It is our geological landscape.  The mothers of Haiti lived through earthquakes and must cross mountains and rivers just to get food, water and healthcare.

Our geological story offers opportunities and challenges.  It contains the stories of our ancestors, of lost communities and migrations for the benefit of future generations.   Mothers and fathers for tens of thousands of years, walked and crossed seas for the sake of their unborn children.   Mothers fled geological events and sought safer landscapes.  This included and includes wars fought over minerals buried deep within the ground.



The Marshal Islands are home to one of the world's most remarkable geological stories. This is a story of undersea volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean; volcanoes that erupted millions years ago and then sunk back into the sea.  The rim of the volcanoes remained and corals slowly grew on the sides of the volcano and finally up onto the rims to create beautiful Atols.  The Atols are now lovely circles of blue lagoons surrounded by coral islands and reefs.  The Marshal islands are composed of twenty-nine of such Atols.  The islands are part of Micronesia in the broader geographic region of what we call Oceana.  It is between the Philippines and Hawaii.

It is where I begin the story of mothers, midwives and babies on the Marshal islands.  It has come to be where I like to start all birth stories; with the story of how the earth gave birth to there landscape which then became the place of the stories.   Without this it will be hard to understand what I will come to share with you.

I enjoyed scribbling down this poem, written from the perspective of the volcano that gave birth to the Atol.

Birth Poem of An Under the Sea Volcano in the Pacific Ocean 


I have opened
my heart for you,
brought forth the
burning fires
of my desire.

Broken down the hard layers
of resistance I carry
 in my soul

I have let the gentle rains
fill the hollow bowl of
my waiting womb
with warm, clear water

Where corals climb
into my arms
laying down layer after
layer of nesting places
of earth and sky and sea

I have opened my heart
for you
watched birds and coconuts
and women in flying
boats rest upon my shores

I have opened up my
heart for you.
Islands in the deep
blue sea floating
beyond time.

My children, my home
My hopes and dreams.