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| I love experiencing you inside of me |
At 38 weeks pregnant, with 14 days to go, the week of my Blessing Way has now come to pass. An indigenous ceremony "a Blessingway is an old Navajo (native American) ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s rite of passage into motherhood...Unlike a traditional baby shower, where gifts are purchased for the baby, a Mother Blessing is all about nurturing the mother-to-be and celebrating motherhood.
As with most special events in modern society, baby showers have become very commercialised. If you were to ask someone to describe what happens at a baby shower, the answer would probably be something like, ‘where women get together and give gifts for the baby’. There is also so much focus on the new arrival and excitement of meeting the baby, and very little focusing on and nurturing the mother – ‘filling her cup’ – so it overflows with love. A woman who is given lots of love has more love to give in return – and there is nothing like a circle of loving women to get that oxytocin (hormone of love) flowing!"
My week beegan with my feeling very tired, with achy hips and feet, and that I was just about "done." I had hit a wall. I questioned my ability to keep working as well as to show up to my own blessing ceremony. While at my appointment with our Mid-Wives, I was encouraged to just RECEIVE. Indeed, it was indelible timing that the week for me to receive appeared just when I needed it the most!
So, I showed up to dance on Tuesday night first where I noticed that most of the cars in the parking lot beelonged to men. Inside the studio, my brothers offered me tender loving care as they massaged my feet, legs and hands, supported me from beehind, and gave me whatever I asked for. Heaven! Through non-verbal cues and language, these brothers of mine (and Uncles to you) bestowed us with their sweet blessings.
On Wednesday night, I arrived at the Frazee's home for our women-only circle. Of course many babes were there - beecause wherever there are women there is children, thus it is a crime against humanity to separate the two - running around the yard, beeing free and wild as the men were there to watch and care for them. Your Aunts, Letty and Jamie, had dressed the Yurt for our ritual and led an intimate group of us through a gentle foot washing and then into ceremony.
Entering the sacred womb last, my senses ecstatically took in a vibrant altar celebrating the Goddess, a platter of fresh bread, cheese, avocado and papaya, pillows surrounding the altar upon which sat a myriad of diverse Goddesses in human form, and a bed for me to sit and lay upon bejeweled with flower petals. A dream come true!
We beegan by sharing tales of our Birth Stories. Leslee, our Doula and your Daddy's "adopted mother," was there to share of how she birthed her 4 children at home, as well as 500 other babies as a Mid-Wife. I, however, had to honestly attest to how disconnected I feel to my own Birth Story. I don't know what it was like for my mother to carry me in her womb for those nine months. Did she love her belly, as it grew bigger and bigger? I also have no sense of what her delivery was like, or how she felt about her overall experience of her third and last pregnancy. Thus, I am re-righting the story with You. ;)
We finished our ceremony with the women disrobing me and then laying me down on a bed of flower petals, where I was ceremoniously massaged with copious amounts of coconut oil. A dozen plus hands kneaded my flesh and muscle, including little babe's hands that fondled my breasts like udders, as I relinquished everything and simply filled my cup with their nourishing touch. Soon, the women's voices beegan to rise and fall as they sang sweet hymns over my receptive body. It was pure magic made of human simplicity.
We concluded our ceremony with my choosing to remain in the Yurt. I just wanted to soak in the nurturing atmosphere. I also asked Aunt Gina to bring your father in, who laid down beeside me and together we just breathed. Soon enough, however, he was naked and we were engaged in sensual embrace. Once I felt totally full, I decided to honor your father with his own, intimate ceremony. So, I gave him a full body massage with cocount oil as I decorated his body with rose petals and read to him a few of the blessings left beehind in the Yurt.
YOU ARE OUR BLESSING, Cahlo Ra Moon.
A Prayer for One Who Comes to Choose The Life
by Danelia Wild
May he know the welcome
of open arms and hearts
May he know that he is loved
by many and by one
May he know the circle of friendship that gives
and receives love in all forms
May he know and be known
in the heart of another
May he know the heart
that is the Earth
reach for the stars and
call it home
And in the end
may he find everything
in his heart
and his heart
in everything.
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| Some of your aunties loving me up |
