HONOURING THE MOTHER : The importance of Mother Blessings

What is a mother Blessing?

A mother Blessing, is about bringing women together in order to celebrate a womens transition into motherhood.To help her celebrate her journey from pregnancy, birth and into motherhood.

It's about creating a ritual, a safe space where the mother to be can talk about her journey, her hopes or fears and all that goes with it.

Any Transition we undertake as humans are huge on so many levels and many emotions, deep rooted emotions and feelings are brought to the surface, this is especially true during pregnancy. Creating and holding a safe space where a women can embrace all these emotions and learn from them can really help her and prepare her to make this transition..

I feel that it is important to talk a little about ritual, for me ritual is something that we unconsciously do everyday , from brushing our hair, our teeth,getting dressed, to the more conscious ritual of celebrating birthdays, weddings and baby showers.However I believe that creating ritual to celebrate our many transitions in life is something we should embrace more and reclaim.

I have had the honour of hosting and being involved in a few rituals over the years, from Mother Blessings, Family Blessings, Hand Fasting, Naming and Welcoming Ceremonies and Healing Circles.

It is something I feel very passion about.

As Thomas Moore in his book 'the education of the heart says " Any action that speaks to the soul and to the deep imagination, whether or not it also has practical effects, is ritual"

If you don't like the word ritual then celebration is the exact same thing.

I held a Mother Blessing for a friend a few weeks ago, this will be her first child and I did not have much time to organise it as she was leaving the country earlier that we expected. It was a very intimate gathering with eight women including the mother. But size doesnot matter, what matters is that the mother to be, feels safe and secure. It is always up to her who should come, as often by creating this space alot of emotions can come up and the mother to be needs to be around women/people she trusts.

I always start by explaining what a mother Blessing is and by asking the other women to leave behind any of their worries of the day and focus on sending love to the mother and her unborn baby. As the gathering is about them and the focus is about love and support, negativity is to left outside/behind. We usually sit in a circle if that is what the mother is comfortable with.

We introduce ourselves and talk about how we met the mother to be by sharing happy memories together. It's all about praising and empowering her. We allow her to talk, helping her release any fears. We honour her, this can be done by pampering her and painting her belly but their are many different ways.

We create a community of support around her, a web of support, this can be created symbolically by tying wool around the wrist of one person and the rest of the ball is then thrown around to the others who also tie a piece onto their wrist, this creates a web. This stays tied onto each persons wrist including the mother to be, until the baby is born.

We share our experiences of birth and motherhood. We give blessings, verbally, written down or spoken into water for the mother to drink, so that she carries them with her. We honour, we celebrate, we empower. This can take any amount of time and involve many different activities. By the end of it we can feel a bit overwhelmed, so we feast and reflect.

We do all this so that women, mothers and birth are given the respect they deserve. We do it so that women feel empowered in birth, that they realize that everything they need for birth is already within them. We create community to help support one another as we become parents and continue to do so. This ritual does not just have to be attended only by women, it is up to the mother. I incorporated a women only blessing with a family blessing for one of my pregnancies but for the other two, men were present as that felt right for me.

I feel strongly that we need to honour ourselves, our families , our communities and our planet more and one way to do that is by coming together and creating rituals .

All photos are mine except for the first, thank you http://www.spiritualwomen.org for the beautiful photo.