Monthly Archives: November 2014

A Blessingway for Baby #2

Blessingways or Mother Blessings come in all different variations these days. Traditionally, the “blessing way” is a Navajo Ritual “created to spiritually support and empower the new mother for her journey of birthing and motherhood.”  They have since been adapted to honor the pregnant mother, honor the baby waiting to be born, or as a more family centered version of a baby shower.

The Sacred Pregnancy book I have been reading describes the blessingway as “a ceremony in which people bless the way of the baby and the mother as she readies herself to birth her baby into existence.”

I worked together with a great mama friend of mine to come up with what my baby and I saw our blessingway as: women close to us gathering for a relaxed afternoon tea, beading a bracelet  for me to wear before/during labor, sharing affirmations/hopes/prayers and participating in cord binding where each woman wraps a string around her wrist one or more times and then gives it to the person next to her, at once making everyone connected. Each women then cuts their cord to create a bracelet they wear until my labor is over. Prior to the birth, when they see their bracelet, they can think of me and send good thoughts. 🙂

It was such a nice afternoon with friends that traveled from all over the state to be there. They left me with a renewed perspective towards birth and shifted a lot of my tension and anxiety to excitement and joy. I thought I would recap some of the awesome affirmations and prayers that were given to me… for any other mamas to be or women with friends that will be birthing soon, let us share and pass on the wonderful feelings of empowerment and love they provided.

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This one actually came from my husband before we left for the gathering, it is so beautiful and simple, I imagine easy to recite in moments of intense labor and or doubtfulness.

“We are the boat, we are the sea. I sail in you, you sail in me.” 

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This Advice From A Tree is applicable in so many different facets of life but I am finding it so cheerful for the rest of my pregnancy, reading through it just makes me smile.

Advice From A Tree

Stand Tall and Proud
Go Out On a Limb
Remember Your Roots
Drink Plenty of Water
Be Content with Your Natural Beauty
Enjoy the View

 

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This provides such a great visualization for me that I can use in moments of weakness and doubt and I know will be useful during particularly difficult moments in labor and “transition.”

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This is especially useful for second or subsequent babies and something that helps focus my perspective that this birth and baby bring with it an entirely new experience that I know nothing about yet. I hope to honor the process with no expectations.

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“My courage is stronger than my fear”

“A women in birth is at once her most powerful, and her most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed unhindered, understands that we are stronger than we know.”
-Marci Macari

“Breathing in relaxation. Breathing out tension” 

“she believed she could, so she did”

and my favorite of all of them…
“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star” Friedrich Nietzsche

 

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“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says The Lord.” Isaiah 66:9

“I am not afraid, I was born to do this.” Joan of Arc

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.” Isaiah 43:1-3

“There is no force equal to that of a Determined Woman.”

 

In addition to sharing the affirmations, each woman brought a bead to string together on a bracelet or necklace for me, they all had different meanings and sentiments and all represent the love these six other women have for me and my baby girl awaiting birth. It is a bracelet now, but I plan on turning into a long necklace I can easily stare down at.

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Another special gift I received was this Unakite bracelet. I did not know the power and uses of Unakite for pregnancy and childbirth before that day and I have not taken it off since!

IMG_4129You can also see my brown hemp cord in the photo above from the cord binding ceremony.

Overall it was an extremely special day with an energy that I plan to draw on the remaining 7-ish weeks of my pregnancy. The affirmations are all going to be placed on a wall in the room we plan to birth in next to a shelf that will contain an essential oil diffuser, sage, quartz and pearls that were also gifted to us.

I hope any or all of these can be used/shared/appreciated and passed on to other mamas to be,  alone or paired with a blessingway they have been very uplifting to my soul.

Has anyone attended or had a blessing way themselves? What kind of ceremonies took place? If you have any other affirmations or prayers to share we would love to read them!

Love and birth,

Cassandra

Coming up: Bradley Day Family Festival

Counting down…two days until the big event I have been working on.  I keep telling myself that after this weekend, life is going to get back to “normal”.  It has been an interesting season – sleeping more, writing less, putting a focus on the Sweet Peas first; allowing all other pulls on my time to roll away so that they have Peaceful Mama mothering and schooling them.  Late nights of blogging while the children are asleep is the “normal” I speak of…and after this season of Peaceful Mama reigning supreme, I may be re-evaluating that.

I won’t lie – this last week it has been hard to keep Crazy Mama at bay.  My default when I am stressed is to yell.  I had a great session with Jennifer Hoperich (Moxie Meditation) yesterday.  We talked through default reactions and “pie-in-the-sky” solutions.  She helped me articulate what would I like to happen instead of my default actions if all things were possible.  It was so neat to talk about best case scenario proactions – I had never thought about it that way before.  I am good at identifying what I do not want to do.  I cannot believe I missed the part of identifying behaviors to do “instead of” and focusing my gaze in that direction.

My whole intention these last few months was to allow my children to feel love, calm, and peace from me despite the pressures that come with planning a public outreach event.  In order to support that goal, after Jennifer and I did the processing work, I had hypnotherapy for the first time in my life yesterday.  All I know is that when I walked out of my session with her, I felt like 50 pounds of pressure had been lifted off of my shoulders – I felt lighter and unbelievably positive about my ability to handle the pressures of this weekend, and still being able to walk in “Peaceful Mama” mode all the way through until Monday morning.  (It’s easy to be Peaceful Mama when there are no pressures; it has been a whole different story when I am stressed.)  Today, I really believe I am going to be able to fulfill that intention and arrive on Monday with Sweet Peas that have been honored, loved, and treated with peace and calm in spite of the swirl of activity.

You can see the announcement for the event I have been planning at the top of the page.  It is shaping up to be A.Ma.Zing.  The event was imagined with the vision of celebrating Dr. Bradley and raising awareness of The Bradley Method®.  To that end, we have invited Rhondda Hartman, RN and author to be our keynote speaker.  She was Dr. Bradley’s colleague fro 25 years, and she created the exercise program we teach in Bradley Method® classes.  In addition to her keynote address on the life and times of Dr. Bradley, she is going to be teaching her exercise program.

You can read more about the event HERE – you will find links to the seminars, family activities, and raffle prizes on the blog.  If you can join us, please stop by and say hi.

Wherever you move through this weekend, walk in love and peace, friends.  I will be setting my intention for the same course – see you on the other side of Sunday.