My Hands

Thinking this morning about doulaing and mothering and this song comes on in the car...

When I think about hands it makes me think of the story of Granny Bonne and how the fairies gave her a wish for being a good midwife to them. Wise Granny knew material things can be lost or taken away so she said "make my hands so's they'll always be of some use"... she receives into her hands "comfort and goodness and tales and tears".

Most of mothering and doulaing is rolling your sleeves up and using your hands in service and for comfort. Preparing a meal, washing hair, cleaning bodily fluids, tender touch. It's the sacred in the mundane. At the last birth I went to, my dungarees were soaked with pool water and dried out on my body three times. It's being able to hold all the stories of the families you've served and dispense collective wisdom with tea and reassurance. It's being a small woman and still giving the firmest counterpressure when needed.

It also makes me think of the scapular the Mother gave us as a gift to show that we belong to Her, and how writer Perdita Finn while researching it realised it was nothing more profound than a mother's apron. And yet what could be more profound, more loving, than showing up and doing what is needed?

Ahava and blessings,

Jenny xxx

This Is Not Just A Cake

I am feeling so much magic in the air as the reverberations of Autumn-Violet’s birth portal are crashing like waves on the shore of my psyche. From a tearful, grumpy morning, to debates around the term “freebirth”...

I once walked through the door of a psychic and he said to me “you’re a midwife”. When I explained what a doula was, he clarified - “a soul midwife, and right now you’re not physically strong enough to carry these souls”.

For my own daughter’s birth, I had a soul midwife, call it freebirth because it was free of medical interference, but the terms mean less and less to me. Like I said to an expectant mother today, whoever is meant to be there will be there. These babies that are choosing these mamas are wise and know how they’re meant to be born. From unassisted birth at home to birth in theatre. We can’t dictate their soul’s journey, we can only lovingly witness and help in any way to make the transition full of love.

My own NHS EMDR therapist I call “healer in disguise”, she’s a wise woman in uniform and has never made me feel violated.

So this is not just a cake. This is the first cake I have made for my children that I made from scratch, because I’m not strung out, traumatised and exhausted, because I’m full of peace, and my milestone includes using real ingredients, including eggs from the chickens that I feed leftovers to every day. I have no regrets for the past - these journeys were vital and necessary and the gifts I gained from them could not be replicated. Wherever I'm going, I want it to be away from purity and towards Love.

I’m taking the time today to feel the appreciation, the magic and the wonder. Letting sun, grace and gratitude kiss me like a lover. Thank you thank you thank you.

Ahava and blessings,

Jenny xxx

All Women Make Altars

All women make altars - consciously or unconsciously.

I once met a woman through Airbnb who had constructed a bathroom altar to her god, bleach, and even as my stomach wanted to reject the Jack Daniel's and cokes I had drunk, my sense of the sacred held back my vomit. I instinctively knew it would be a violation to empty my stomach in front of this lovingly arranged display. I only knew that I couldn’t do it - later I realised it was because I felt it would profane her altar. I did not know you could control certain bodily functions until that day, and it was a revelation to me.

I have been reading about Hebrew priestesses, to understand why my heart sings the songs it does, relearning what was passed to me through mitochondrial strands instead of whispered at the feet of my elders.

The role of the Jewish woman is one of shrinekeeper, the home as sacred, “living in a shrine of your own making”. One of the gifts I received from trauma was the need to deliberately create beauty, to be my own shrinekeeper, the well maiden offering art as sustenance to weary travellers.

Our mothers had altars. My mother, vials of perfume. Evelyn Rose, for anointing the priestess of the home. Wrists, behind the ears, kissed by flowers and embodying that blessing throughout the day as dishes are washed and children tended.

The jewellery box inlaid with mother of pearl, our small fingers turning over the familiar items as we bargained with the death crone for our share of the treasure. “When mum dies one day, I’m having the opal ring” I remember saying confidently. It glowed like the moon in its silver setting.

One thing I have found difficult recently is deconstructing altars that hold the memory of who I was, that have held space for me. Even as I make new altars that bring me joy and hold the intentions of who I am becoming, seeing the empty space left by hours of incense, chanting and prayer feels like walking through a graveyard.

I said to my mother this morning what a relief it is to cry, to feel so much, after years of numbing. To leave something beautiful for something beautiful is poignant, a privilege.

One of my close friends told somebody she was dating about my wishes for after my death. I had informed her that all my dear friends can choose a Virgin from my home to keep. Then, I told her, she could make an altar if she wished, and if she included a photograph of me she could light a candle to get my attention - it was my intention to continue being a helpful friend in the afterlife.

“Ask me for help with anything” I assured her, thinking of my friend Sally who had passed over a few years previously and is continuing her doula work on the other side. She is a great comfort and help to me.

“Jenny is a weird friend.” her man had replied.

I don’t mind. I send my words out in the hope they resonate with just one person “with eyes to see and ears to hear.”

Ahava and blessings

Jenny xxx