Episode 89: The Four Baskets with Catherine Lightfoot
Catherine Lightfoot
“We are plastic, flexible beings, nothing is set in stone”
Catherine Lightfoot, CPM holds a BA in Psychology with a focus on Child Development and is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) with the North American Registry of Midwives. She has also studied yoga and personal spiritual development at a small spiritual school in southern India.
Catherine believes that birth is a sacred passage for an emerging conscious being, and mutual respect for all involved is a basic human right. She is most passionate about unveiling awareness of prenatal and perinatal consciousness because peace on Earth begins before birth. This is the focus of her sacred work called the Four Baskets. ‘Four Baskets’ refers to the timeframes of conception, gestation, birth and the first hours after birth- this is the primary foundation for our lives. All of our experiences in the Four Baskets create the lens through which we perceive the rest of our lives. Bringing awareness to your Four Baskets is a vital step in birthing your own authentic self, and being the change we wish to see in the world.
Catherine homesteads in the Missouri Heartland with her supportive family and can often be found walking barefoot in the creek.
In this episode, we talked about:
Catherine was a yoga instructor and stayed at a small ashram in India. She experienced her own birth in her spiritual enquiry and went through a process to rebirth how she wanted to. She then decided to become a homebirth midwife (having already been working as a doula)
NARM - the North American Registry of Midwives
Birth as a sacred event and babies as sentient beings
Four Baskets refers to conception, gestation, birth and the first 6 hours after birth from the ancient Vedic perspective
Dasa- meaning guide
The first basket is the container for preconception to the moment of conception (where egg and sperm unite). It relates to the child and the relationship between the future parents and the child until around 8 weeks
The second basket refers to the period from the end of embryological development (around 8 weeks) to the end of pregnancy
The third basket relate to the birth journey from the beginning of labour until the emergence of the baby
The fourth basket relates to the moment of emergence until 6 hours after birth (which is a time where the baby is said to be extremely aware and conscious)
Each basket is given equal weight
Preconception communication
The onset of birth is initiated by a protein from the baby
Mitigating the risk of traumatic events by expanding awareness
Catherine guides people back to explore and understand their own four baskets
What was the story of your beginning and how has it affected your life?
The way you were born affects your birth
“We are plastic, flexible beings, nothing is set in stone”
Early experiences are often referred to as imprints. Bringing awareness to imprints that have arisen from stressful or traumatic events can help to lighten them
Keeping fear in the dark
Most people feel heart-openness and compassion for themselves when they explore their four baskets
Catherine considers the approach as personalised to the individual rather than a specific approach
Communicating with the baby through a myriad of ways such as inner connection, breathing, grounding and centring meditations, Heartmath to connect with the rhythm of the heart
The Heartmath approach is a scientifically validated approach for self-regulation
Healing previous experiences or working
Our cellular memory begins when we are an egg in our mother’s ovary in her mother’s womb- therefore our grandmother’s and mother’s experiences affect us
The red thread as the ancestral connection
Pre-natal bonding is a two-way communication (talking with rather than to)
We experience things in different ways and perceive the world differently
The links between pre-natal bonding has been shown to see reduced postnatal depression, increased breastfeeding rates, reduced caesarean rates
APPPAH - the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, is 40 years old and was started by Thomas Verny, author of ‘The Secret Life of the Unborn Child’, but the wisdom is timeless
Before working with Four Baskets with children, work with your own Fourth Baskets first
Catherine and her children describe their open conversations as ‘heart to hearts’ where they tune in to one another and reflect back
Ho’oponopono - the 4 stages of this ancient Hawaiian healing prayer: “I’m sorry, forgive me, thank you, I love you”
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