Mother Blessing

This weekend in late April I experienced one of the most magical and uplifting days of my life. Some of my friends decided to host a Mother Blessing for me! Most people have never heard about this before, but many are familiar with baby showers. This concept is an alternative to baby shower, where the mother is in focus.

I’ve personally felt a bit uncomfortable with baby showers, as I felt somewhat weird about the way it is usually conducted. I didn’t know much about Mother Blessings, but I had convinced myself I was not really interested, and deep down I thought it would never happen to me anyways, so I had kind of forgotten about it. I was so surprised when I heard that some friends really wanted to do this for me, it touched my heart but I really didn’t feel as if I deserved it. I had felt sad, anxious and lonely while being pregnant with my firstborn, even more so after giving birth, living far away from everyone I loved. In the time that followed I got busy trying to create networks and meetups of other people and mothers who think more like me, who want to raise their children more in tune with nature, and who are into gentle parenting, homeschooling and creating strong caring families. And have since found a little tribe of other mothers and families which I absolutely adore!

The Mother Blessing was held at the homestead farm of my friend Marie who is homeschooling 3 (soon 4) children! She is amazing and I admire what she does so much. The ceremony was lead by my dear friend whose name is also Marie, and the amusing thing is that we are all 3 pregnant and due this summer! We were all new to Mother Blessings, so it was really awesome to get to try it out, finding the path and doing it in a way that felt right and natural to us.

I was 8 months pregnant at the time, and was lead into a green room decorated with flowers, petals, crystals, soothing music, beautiful bunted flags and just a very comfortable atmosphere with a view towards forests and mountains and a lake. After being greeted and hugged by my friends and chatting briefly, we all sat down on pillows in a circle, where we were served cacao and having a grounding meditation to settle into our bodies and the atmosphere.

Then everyone introduced themselves (not everyone knew each other beforehand), telling how we met and a few words about our friendship and what they liked or felt inspired of about me. This touched me deeply! I’m always nervous about “being too much”, or that other people are barely tolerating my company and that I’m bad at friendships and so on. Hearing my friends heartfelt words about what I meant for them blew my mind! Sometimes I get long messages online from people I never met in reality which are super heartwarming and comforting as well, but it is something else hearing it from people I actually meet, it’s as if it makes it more real.
I love these people so much, I adore them and if you too have my friendship, I’m ridiculously loyal and will most likely love you forever. Even if I’m bad at expressing it.

I struggled to not cry tears of gratefulness and happiness so many times, afraid of tears pouring down for the rest of the day.

Afterwards, everyone got aquarelle colors and brushes to paint a little card for me, with birth affirmations… and they were all so beautiful and I’ll bring them for my labor!

Some examples of birth affirmations:

Then I got to experience the surreal but highly enjoyable sensation of being placed in this gorgeous velvet purple chair with a footbath full of herbs and flowers! While simultaneously getting my head massaged, hair gently brushed and braided, while some other friends made such a pretty flower wreath which later adorned my head! And Marie painted my belly in a beautiful pattern with henna! I got massage on my hands and shoulders and Camilla joked by feeding me grapes like a spoiled royal 😉 I was also given raw cacao energy balls.

Then we all sat down in a circle again, and everyone was asked by turn to bring me their gifts, and words of wisdom, encouragement and good vibes. I will treasure those words forever. It was as if everyone was speeching from something higher than themselves, and those words reached directly into my and the other women’s hearts, bringing many of us to tears. It was about birth, about becoming a mother of 2, about strength and courage and a beautiful future. About the combined power of all these strong powerful souls and mothers and what we can accomplish!

I got so many great things! For a Mother Blessing, you bring gifts for the mother, especially for before and after the baby is born. I got various herbs (for tea, herbal baths etc), balms, dandelion oil, soap, a green knitted shawl, a plant, a baby wrap, beautiful things like candle holder, a peacock feather, pinecone, wooden mushroom, fairy keychain…

I also got a poem, one of my favorites:

Everyone attending the Mother Blessing got their own white candle to light when I go into labor. The purpose of this is to think of the birthing mother and support her through those hours, sending her positive thoughts and wishes and prayers, and let the mother know she is being supported from near and far. You keep the candle lit until the safe arrival of her baby happens. Positive energy and thoughts matters and can make an impact in this world.

A beautiful way to close the circle is by having a spool of yarn or thread which each woman wraps around her own wrist before passing it to the woman next to her who does the same. Once it has gone around to each woman in the circle including the mother several times, weaving both in the front and the back, some words can be spoken about the web of connectivity and support within her circle of woman friends. This intentionally weaves a web of loving care around the pregnant woman, imbuing her with an energy that will carry her forward into her postpartum days.

Then each woman takes a turn to help cut the strings of the woman next to her. Most of us braided or finger crocheted the thread. Everyone ends up with a string bracelet that stays on until the mother goes into labor. Whenever her community looks at the thread, they will think of the mother. (Perhaps send a text or make a phone call.) The mother will be in their thoughts and prayers continually leading up to the birth.

A communication system can then be set up where the mother or father-to-be lets one person from the community know when birth is happening, and then that person is in charge of texting or calling the rest of the women to let them know.
The thread joins all the women in a circle… everyone continue wearing the bracelet and send the mother positive, loving thoughts and helping her release the baby until they hear the joyous news that the baby is born, only then is the thread removed.

The thread also symbolises our lineage of ancestors, the matriarchal line, recognising the incredible strengths of our foremothers in pregnancy, birth and in daily life. As we sit in circle we call on this strength of the feminine and we ask that healing flows back down the line to our grandmothers, and that it flows forward in time to our children and grandchildren we are yet to meet. (I wore an amethyst necklace I inherited from my grandmother this day.)

“Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother’s ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month old fetus in the womb of her mother, our grandmother.”

Then we went to sit by the table and eat a super delicious dinner! It was spicy tomato sauce with moose meat, beans, rice, and a beautiful salad in my favorite colors; green and purple.

Afterwards we went to sit in the circle again, eating raw cake, energy balls, fruit, berries and drinking herbal tea. I got to read aloud all the birth affirmation cards they painted. We talked and chatted about pregnancy, birth and children until well into the evening, then it was time to take the journey home. It wasn’t that late into the evening actually, but it was the first time I was not at home in the evening putting my soon-to-be 4 year old to sleep. His grandpa took care of that. A surreal and freeing feeling!

The next days I was glowing and my heart felt so warm from all that had happened during the Mother Blessing. My heart was overflowing with love and gratitude for these beautiful women in my life, and knowing they were thinking of me and sending love every time they looked at their bracelet meant so much. I felt so empowered and cared for. I’ll forever be grateful for this! And I hope my yet unborn daughter will get to read this some day and be fortunate enough to experience something similar before giving birth herself.