It is dark already but the path in our backyard is lightened with candles. Women who are part of the ritual create a tunnel with their arms for me. Tara, my doula, who has just washed and massaged my feet, is singing with her powerful voice: “I am walking in beauty, beauty in front of me, beauty behind me, beauty all around me…” and all the others repeat. I am truly walking in beauty. I feel I am melting in love. I feel privilaged to feel such a deep compassion and support from women around me. I feel such an honor to be a woman and to be a pregnant woman carring new life in my body.
I enter the house where the last part of the Mother Blessing Ceremony takes place: the crowning. Women light their candles which they will light again when I will go into labour. Tamsin, who is my other birth partner, is slowly positioning the flower wreath on my head. The very special energy and gentle touch of all women on different parts of my body makes me cry in joy and gratitude. I am recognizing myself in a new form: as a Mother. Blessed mother. There is a new sense of power and pride. Finally I am fulfilling the meaning of my name. Eva or Živa (old slavic form and slavic Goddess) meaning lifegiving Mother.
I get one big hug from everybody at the same time before returning into a more normal reality. We share lovely pumpkin soup and then everybody finds their way home. I need to digest this experience properly so I take time on my own in the backyard watching the candles and my feelings. I go through all the parts of the ritual again: the opening of the circle full of deep emotions, tears and laughter; the meditation to connect with the ancestors; gifts of the ladies in the form of soulful songs and poems; creating the birth bracelet of beads with a special message from each woman, which is around my wrist now… and there is a question arising inside me: Why do we not do these beautiful honoring rituals for all women in our society? Why is it that when it should be completely normal, it can be dismissed as a ‘crazy hippy thing’? And why is it normal to celebrate our birthdays but not our first menstruation, our pregnancy, our birth? When we ‘celebrate,’ why do we do it through alcohol and food but miss the deeper parts – entering the sacred sphere?
Maybe we have forgotten how to enter. Or are we scared to step out of the casual reality in which we know how to function? It definitely takes some extra effort to create the right environment to go deeper inside, but it is so worth it! It is a space where the true treasures of life are. A space where we can overcome our individuality and feel the connection: the Unity with ourselfs, with other people, with the whole planet. It is a space to meet as humans to see the essential aspects of humanity in each other.
I want to say to all women: you are the gatekeepers of the Sacred Realm. Take back this ability and use it, for our planet and all of us
*written in May 2017 in great graditute to doula Tara who facilitated my Mother Blessing Ceremony and to Tamsin, Danielle, Joanne and Mayte who made it happen in the most beautiful way