I remember a few weeks back when I felt a massive tap on the shoulder from Spirit... and this tap told me it was time to release the feeling of not being ready and to fully welcome our baby earth side.

I must note that I am writing this in retrospect and that when this ceremony occurred I felt baby was coming early due to so many signs. My intuition and guidance told me. My body's readiness and baby's engagement told me. My dreams told me. My pre-labour sensations that ramped up... only to peter out again... told me. But here I am now at 40 weeks + 4 days and nada... just some super strong medicine for me to process and many lessons continually learned.

When I felt the tap from Spirit - and I write about it here - I acknowledged that I might be the only thing that was holding up baby from arriving earth side. It was as if my body and baby were ready and my own nervousness was holding up the show.

So I cleared the decks. I cancelled all of my Priestess Calls, I told my groups I might be quiet, the birth space was set and all of the last minute things arranged and it was as if I drew a line in the sand.

And naturally we did ceremony. A beautiful ceremony to release my maiden self and my beloved's pre-papa self (I'm not sure there is a masculine name for it?) and affirm our readiness to meet our magical baby.

This journey from maiden to mama is massive. I remember bawling my eyes out in India when I discovered I was pregnant not because I was sad to be having a baby (as it was my deep yearning) but because the mourning process of who I had been had already begun. Along with my blossoming body (which was more nausea and exhaustion back in the early days), life was changing before my very eyes and it felt so hard! The year of adventures we had planned needed to be rescheduled. The international festival teaching slots postponed (maybe forever), retreats scaled back and I prepared myself for a very different year than my usual nomadic existence which had been known to consist of being in 15 different countries and on 60+ flights.

On one hand I was happy for a change in pace as I knew that without the baby's arrival we would probably still be riding the wave of our creativity which was rapidly leading to burnout. I mean - our life is amazing to any observer but those who live on the road will know how taxing it can be... so on some levels we were both ready for year of a different kind of creativity.

Then came the fears of surrendering my beloved business that I had worked so hard to create. Would I be able to teach much or still run retreats? What will life look like in this brave new world of parenthood? This is still terrain I am navigating but I have to say the deep changes that occur when entering mama-hood takes care of most of this for you. It is as if the other stuff doesn't really matter any more.

This maiden to mama journey has been so potent for me it has triggered the birthing of a book that has been tenderly created over my pregnancy. Like our baby, I'm not sure when it will officially arrive earth side but it is coming soon (I promise).

Back to the ceremony...

As many of you know I love to create potent ceremonies for all things. To honour my mystical moon time, the seasons, the portal days and the lunar cycles. For me there are never any rules when in comes to creating ceremony and I always do what feels best in the moment and simply allow the prayers to pour forth from my being as I know whatever comes is perfect in that moment. But here is a little idea of what you can do to help welcome your baby:

Create an altar - I like to use the medicine wheel and honour all of the elements (Air in the East, Earth in the South, Water in the West, Fire in the North and ether all around) and I place all of my favourite tools (like feathers, crystals, frankinscence, picture of goddesses etc) on my altar to be charged and to help me weave magic. For our ceremony we created this altar in our birth space and it is still there to this day patiently waiting for baby's arrival.
Smudge the space, yourself and each other - I like to use palo santo or sage for clearing but if you do not have it is not necessary. Just work with what you have got. I also incorporate clearing of unwanted energies as part of my grounding meditation which you will hear about in a moment.
Anchor your energy with a grounding meditation - this is part of my minute to minute practice these days as I feel it is so necessary in these high energy times. I get quiet and breath deeply into my belly / womb and open my central channel (prana tube) to be a clear vessel for the energies of earth and the Universe. I plug my roots all the way into Gaia / Pachamama wrapping around her great central crystal and drinking all of her nourishing energy into my being. I then open my crown chakra to receive the energy of the stars / sun and galactic centre and feel this potent energy (which will likely feel different to the earth energy) pouring into my being. I often ask this solar light frequency to cleanse and clear anything that is stuck and unhelpful in my energy field. I feel these energies of heaven and earth meeting in my heart and from here I begin to expand my field. This should make you feel more connected, integrated, grounded and ready for ceremony.
Open the space - Once I am grounded - and if I have not done so already - I like to say a few words to cast the spells of intention for the ceremony. Why we are doing this in this moment. So for this ceremony it was to welcome our baby earth side and to release and fears and feelings of un-readiness that could be holding us back. To release the maiden and step into the mama. As part of this process I also welcome in our Guides, our Multidimensional Selves, the Angels, Ascended Master, our ancestors and keepers of the land, the Galactics all of those beings that love us unconditionally and work with us for our highest good.
Clearing of fear - next we did a fear clearing / purification ritual. My beloved and I both wrote on paper and spoke our fears and sadnesses of this major transition. I spoke my fears of birth and the loss of my identity and we had a bowl / vessel ready with a candle to be our sacred fire (even better if you have a roaring fire!). My husband and I help space for one another to speak from our hearts about what we were ready to released and what had been troubling us and yes - there were tears. Our writing was offered up to the sacred fire and we sang and drummed as we watched it burn.
Calling in our intentions - next we once again held space for each other as we spoke our wishes for the birth of our baby. We spoke our dreams of the life we are creating together and we went big and there were more tears! We offered these prayers out to the unified field that they may make manifest in the physical. Remember our words are spells and we are truly the artists and dream weavers of our reality!
Singing in the soul of the baby - my beloved and I love to make music together so we sang in the soul of our baby. One of us was drumming (I forget who), sometimes our songs had words and other times just sounds but it was deeply potent and beautiful.
Closing of the space - once we felt complete in our ceremony we closed the space... but I have to say it was not in the usual way I would as this space was (well still is) to be our home birth space so we asked that the energy and sacredness remain and that all of our energetic team remain with us to support us through this time which is still in process (OMG)! If I am usually closing a space I would thank the team, thank the energies and call us all back into our hearts to weave the magic, to drink the wisdom into our cells, to integrated what has taken place here.

But really... I urge you to you to do what feels best for you. When Joe and I started this ceremony we didn't know what was going to happen, we simply allowed ourselves to be guided by the energy of the moment and our inner wisdom. Fully receptive ceremonies are always the best kind of ceremonies from my point of view!

I hope this helps you in some way... perhaps in your own transition from maiden to mama and to welcome in your baby. I have to say I thought ours was going to come in the days following but this ceremony was over 2 weeks ago - PHEW - so it appears I have some more lessons to learn in patience, trust, letting go and deeper surrender... or maybe our baby needs to be a Libra.

What I do know is that I am doing my best to be present and to affirm to our baby every day that...

I am ready

I AM READY!