My amazing friends threw me a Mother Blessing today. The best way I can describe how I feel is that I am truly … blessed. They cleansed and purified my birth space with smudge, wove a garland of fresh flowers for my hair,
assembled beads into a birth necklace for me and a big sister bracelet for M,
henna’d my belly, soaked and rubbed my feet, brought me beautiful objects and gifts from nature for my birth altar,
endowed me with words of strength for my birth,
read me poetry and assembled a book of drawings, poems, wisdom, kindness, love and friendship.
They held candles for me to blow out as I released my fears to the wind, and brought runes for me to choose from that were a window into my heart. We bound ourselves together, and while the threads were physically severed, we each wear a reminder encircled around our wrists to symbolize the web of love and support they wove for me today.
It is hard for me to put my feelings into words. In these weeks approaching birth, I find myself sinking into a place where there are no words, just feelings, existence, being. My heart balks at the idea of trying to capture these ephemeral strands and bend them to my will, shaping them into letters and sounds, and today is no different. I am giving myself permission to be okay with this, knowing that this is a necessary place for me to be in order to birth, and so I will simply say that I feel encircled and supported by this community of amazing women; that I feel blessed … loved.
As the guest of honor, I vowed to fully immerse myself in the day instead of watching at a remove, camera in hand. As such, I have no pictures of the event itself, although my friends took some so there may be some more images forthcoming. In the meantime, I have shared with you the reminders they left for me today, as well as a picture of my birth space (imagine a birth tub in the general vicinity of that round table).
Blessings.