A Sacred Rite of Passage
What does a modern day Mother’s Blessing look like? I have been to over a hundred different gatherings of women like this, and each one is unique. It is one of my absolute favorite things to witness: to see women caring for each other, pledging their love and support, creating rituals to honor the rite of passage into Motherhood.
This particular celebration of pregnancy was by far the most impressive! It included many blessings, speaking aloud the blessings offered with each bead in the necklace that was formed as they strung it all together. It included a lot of flower petals - sacred mandalas the women created that were later showered over the new mother. There were women on the couch, stitching embroidery into a baby blanket. I spent 2 hours adorning this beautiful mama, and then did a little photoshoot. Then they all DANCED together! And most impressive - the father-to-be was outside with his circle of friends, having his own ceremony around the fire. Afterwards the men came inside and there was a joyous feast.
Many people refer to this as a Blessingway, but that is a specific Native American tradition for the rite of passage. What we create is not a #blessingway, since that is not our heritage and we are not invoking the traditional spirits and so forth. Instead, this is a #MotherBlessing.
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What an incredible celebration this was! When I arrived, the women paused their ritual and the mama-to-be told me about her design ideas. She brought out this gorgeous, detailed image of a kind of tree of life, with each branch containing a different animal - probably over a hundred were pictured! She wanted me to include as many animals as I could, as well as an unborn baby.
As I went along I received specific requests for a fern,mushroom, moon, stars and worm. So creative! I am grateful to get to spontaneously stretch my artistic skills like this!
#unbornbaby #mushroom #turtle #elephant #hennabelly #pregnancycelebration #bellyblessing #boulderhenna #coloradohenna #mamatobe #motherhood #prenatalhenna #adornment #hennaart #sarahkatebutterworth
