The Unknown

Being a doula means living in the unpredictable and the unknown. All humans must face and accept that they are not in control of how events in their lives unfold, but to work in birth means to live in that crack of awareness so you feel it acutely and constantly. To be a birth worker means you need patient friends or a patient partner, those who have also accepted their day may be interrupted by a “My client…” that will change the shape of that date, day, weekend. The amount of love and preparation that goes into one baby’s arrival, that you would never even consider… all invested in that new life being born as gently and surrounded by as much loving support as mama and baby require.

For me being a doula means always having a candle burning. For the families who come into your experience, for the women you may have never even met in person, who bring their story to you. It is being priestess of home and hearth, wearing red bracelets round your wrist. It means hoarding tender secrets and truths like a gentle, soft breasted and bellied dragon. When my teacher Ana Otero was asked what advice she would give to women looking to start their own spiritual business, how she did it herself, she answered “I pray.”

Already this weekend I have posted a placenta pack to a client who has rebooked for her second baby (one of my favourite things!), had a beautiful conversation about planning a mother blessing I will be space holding for (another one of my favourite things!), and agreed to be backup on-call for a dear doula sister of mine who is currently having her own experience of accepting things that are not in your control.

All those things interspersed with preparing meals, washing dishes, having conversations, going to the market, poking round the charity shops, hanging out washing. The landscape of my day could change in a minute, as indeed your could too. I am, as ever, in that crack of awareness.

Ahava and blessings,

Jenny xxx

Integrating Initiation

You’ll see the word “initiation” tossed around the birth world, in quotes and memes, in advertising material. I recently realised that nobody had ever taken the time to dissect with me the phrase “take up space” before. Of course I’ve seen it used hundreds of times, but what did it actually mean to me? I followed the garden path of my heart and mind through hairstyle choices, sacred spaces, triggers and reactions, through the shadows that control our unconscious behaviour. I now feel I have integrated taking up space to some extent.

How do we integrate initiation?

There are three stages of initiation - separation, ordeal and return. Initiation is vital to how we see ourselves in the world, how a rite of passage can make or break us. I think of so many adult men I know who are wandering the world lost, because each stage of initiation is necessary, and in our modern world what chance to separate, what ordeal, what celebratory return is available to them? I think of adult women who become fractured mothers because nobody has held each vital stage during the birth process. This is what makes an experience empowering or traumatising.

I think of Inanna the sumerian goddess descending into hell, stripped of everything she knew, only to return triumphant due to the intercession and compassion of those who loved her. Those who were not afraid to walk in the shadows. Those who knew she could come through better than ever, enhanced by that sensitivity that is often a result of experiencing suffering. I recently observed to a mother waiting for her baby with equal parts anxiety and anticipation - giving birth is a bit like the tv show “stars in their eyes”, once you return from it you don’t know what version of yourself is going to walk out from behind the curtain.

In my work, I love to play the role of the fool - I believe laughter is often the best remedy. In the divine entwining of opposites, we laugh to reveal how seriously we are taking things. I think of Baubo the belly goddess dancing to make depressed Demeter laugh while her daughter was lost in the underworld. Often the sacred and the comedic intertwine. Laughing with postnatal mothers who are feeling the weight of the responsibility on their shoulders. In this laughter, we are celebrating - you returned, you are here, you have completed.

In my course on the wild feminine, we discuss how to complete initiations. At major life events, such as first menarche, first sexual experience, first birth… which part of your initiation was not held? Were you not treated with respect and understanding when you attempted to separate, to declare your identity, to choose your path? Did you experience love while going through the experience, or did you feel shame and fear? Were you celebrated afterwards, honoured, acknowledged as changed?

How can you give those things to yourself now? I work a lot with ceremony, which can be very healing and satisfying to the heart and soul when it comes to initiation. In the Mother Blessing, we honour the separation. In doula work, we are present for the ordeal. In Closing the Bones, we celebrate the return.

I hope this has brought you value when contemplating your own initiations, and deepened your awareness of the landscape of your soul.

Ahava and blessings,

Jenny xxx

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