Seven Years
Yesterday I realised I've been doing this work for seven years.
From teaching baby massage to pregnancy yoga, to working as a babywearing consultant to running parenting groups, providing placenta remedies and of course doula support, I have worked with hundreds of women and babies.
Sometimes I forget how much I have done, how many families I have served. I often forget how much I know or where I learned it.
Some families stick in your memory as you begin to notice babies with certain personality types, as you see the effects of trauma playing out in front of you throwing out symptoms that speak to you like a neon sign. Tears come to your eyes as you see women putting one step in front of the other, for their babies, for themselves, with love.
The delicate dance of what do I know versus what does this situation need. That is wisdom.
Yesterday I got a beautiful text message from a client that reminded me why I do this work.
When you're hiring me you aren't just getting the doula service, or the remedies, or a baby sling... you're drawing upon the stories those many many dyads I have been privileged to walk with.
We are all connected, we are one.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Sovereignty
🏴 Sovereignty 🏴
I was talking to my mother this weekend about what it means to be Welsh, to be a Welsh woman.
Wales is in its essence a matricentric culture- where the home and social life is centred around the women and their doings. Historically Welsh women had much more rights than their English counterparts, they could get a divorce for adultery and once widowed could not be compelled to marry again.
Why so different in Wales?
In the tales of the Mabinogion, the Welsh myths and legends, if you peek through the Christianised telling of the tales about fickle and treacherous women, you can see the Goddess clearly. Whatever happens to them, these women belong to themselves.
In Wales the Goddess is named Sovereignty and what appears to be unacceptable behaviour to men is the divine feminine choosing the best steward for her land. The mistake these men make is expecting loyalty - the Goddess has her own interests at heart and belongs to none of them.
In the Arthurian legend of Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, Arthur searches desperately for an answer to the riddle that will save his life - what do women most want? It takes Gawain literally kissing a hag (embracing the dark feminine) for them to get the answer.
Women want sovereignty. They want to belong to themselves.
My aunt at my wedding warned my husband about marrying a Welsh woman - she wasn't wrong.
Dear woman, the mistake everybody makes is thinking that you belong to them.
With love from Wales x
I Have Served
I have served.
Through heartbreak and homelessness
And breasts sharp with milk
As they call to a babe
That is not this one
I have served.
I have walked and wept with women
With gentle hands and truthful tongue.
Sometimes I wonder
Whether the right choice
Was to keep going.
And yet
I treasure this work that held me together
Like beads and string.
Women weaving
Women delving
Women dancing together
In sacred mystery.
- Jenny Wren