Issue 138 - September/October 2007
We women have evolved a rather timid ceremony for preparing our fellow females for motherhood: the baby shower. The gifts provide some of the clothing and accessories a new mother is likely to need, but the shower usually shies away from the genuine majesty of this next step in a woman's life. With no malicious intent, most baby showers propagate a commercialism that belittles and "cute-sifies" the experience of motherhood and birth.
A true ceremony is a vessel for the swelling feelings that surround a life passage. It both contains and guides outpourings of emotion and, through its structure of ritual, ensures that our intentions arrive at the desired destination. Practically, a ceremony provides a beginning, substance, and an ending to a gathering of people who wish to honor an important occurrence in a life: an arrival or departure, a union, or an entering into life's next stage. Such transitions are not only witnessed by the surrounding community, but are supported both during the ritual and beyond.
You, brave mother, are just the gal to usher in a new tradition more nourishing to the soul than the traditional baby shower. But, like any expedition away from the status quo, it will take a bit of concerted effort, perhaps even some courage, to explore new and richer ground. If you think your family might write you off as a freak if you ask for a candlelit "wisdom blessing" instead of a baby shower with helium balloons, then begin slowly. There are degrees of transformation, so pace yourself.
Creating Ceremonies
When exploring new ceremonial ground, it helps to have a clear direction, both to guide the creation of the event and to ensure that you achieve your intention. It might be that you want your ceremony to nurture your mothering community, so that you can establish a council of women with whom you can share the challenges of raising your coming child. Do you want this ceremony to specifically welcome the new child? If this is your first child, do you want guidance for being a parent? If you're already a mother, do you want to be celebrated and nurtured for the greater strength you will need to care for another child? Do you want the blessings and prayers of your community?
A ceremony needn't be old to be meaningful, but it does need to be well-thought-out, and beautiful in some way. Simplicity, elegance, and clarity are good goals. A ceremony can braid together various traditions, but do try to keep one through-line that guides and shapes the gathering. For example, even if your event includes a Christian song, a symbol of Mother Earth, and a Rumi poem, it can still clearly focus on nurturing you as a new mother.
Getting Started
Talk with a good friend about the possibility of designing a birthing celebration that will incorporate your values, personality, and beliefs—the elements that stir you most deeply. With this friend, discuss these questions:
* What do I wish to accomplish with this ceremony?
* Around this goal, what images come most strongly to mind?
* How can this goal and these images be shared by a group of people?
* How might this goal be physically represented?
* How can we speak of it?
At this stage it's important that you be open to considering any idea—and take notes. This is the raw material you will use in the next step: designing your birth ceremony.
Designing Your Birth Ceremony
If you lead your guests into unfamiliar territory, they will want to feel that they are in good hands. Give them the security of a structure—one that makes sense and, through its design, conveys your purpose. Your design could be as simple as this three-part structure:
* The Beginning: a welcoming, to establish the purpose of the ceremony and briefly explain what it is and how it will be done.
* The Middle: the substance, to actually accomplish your goal for the ceremony (keep it simple and focused); this is the longest part.
* The End: an acknowledgment of what has just happened and what it means, a thanks to all involved, and a ceremonial sendoff (or a sending-over to the hors d'oeuvres and punch).
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Mandy-Saint Louis Doula
