Sister Morning Star: Deepening What It Means to Be ‘With Woman’
What an absolutely incredible weekend of traditional birth skills, sisterhood and deepening my understanding of what it really means to be with woman.
I don’t think I knew quite how much I needed this time.
But oh my goodness, once again I have come home changed.
My teaching has grown. My presence has grown. My confidence and practical skills have grown. But perhaps more importantly, something deeper has shifted in the way I understand holding women through pregnancy, birth and motherhood.
And not only that — my network has grown.
My sisterhood has grown.
Our network. Our sisterhood.
There is something incredibly powerful about women coming together to learn, share skills, cook, eat, talk, laugh, practise, witness and care for one another.
Learning from an elder
I wish I could properly describe what it felt like to be in the presence of a true Native elder.
Sister comes from Navajo and Cherokee peoples of North America. She spoke about her people, about land being taken, and about being sent away from her family to school as a young child.
And yet the joy in this woman.
The humour. The energy. The generosity. The pure spirit that shines from her.
Now in her eighth decade, she is still vibrant, energetic and deeply motivated to support women and mothers to bring their babies into the world safely, calmly and beautifully — carrying traditional skills and ways of being with women that have been passed through generations.
There is something profoundly different about learning in this way.
Not simply collecting another technique or qualification.
Sitting beside an elder.
Watching.
Listening.
Practising.
Being together.
Learning through relationship.
It reminded me that birth knowledge has not always lived in textbooks, universities, policies and protocols.
For most of human history, women learnt about birth from other women.
A village prenatal — on my birthday
Sunday was my birthday, and what a way to spend it.
We held a Village Prenatal for three beautiful mamas within our circle.
Rather than pregnancy care happening privately and individually, the women were surrounded by a community — sharing food, knowledge, touch, practical skills, laughter and support.
There was something so simple and yet so powerful about it.
Later that day we held a Closing of the Bones ceremony for a bereaved mother.
Working alongside Sister to hold that ceremony was something I will not forget.
I have already been deeply moved by this work over the summer. Those of you who have been following me will know how awed and humbled I have been by what can happen when we create space for women to be held in this way.
The conversations.
The tears.
The connections.
The stories that emerge.
And the extraordinary relationships that have grown from simply bringing women together.
This weekend felt as though that work reached another level.
It takes a village
None of this happened in isolation.
I came away feeling incredibly grateful for everybody who made the weekend possible.
To our host, Imogen.
To Katie for bringing it all together.
And to Helen, Katie’s mum, who cooked for us, mothered us and looked after everybody so beautifully.
There is something quite wonderful about being reminded that the people quietly making tea, preparing food and tending the fire are as much a part of creating the space as those formally teaching within it.
Perhaps that is part of the lesson too.
Care matters.
Being fed matters.
Being witnessed matters.
Having somebody notice what you need before you have even asked matters.
These are not insignificant things.
They are part of what it means to tend women.
So what am I bringing home?
In some ways, what I have taken from this weekend is unquantifiable.
Yes, I have more practical skills.
More tools.
More chants.
More knowledge.
More confidence.
More people I can call upon for support.
But there is something underneath all of that.
I think my presence at births will have another layer now — a deeper ability to stay with intensity rather than feeling that something necessarily needs to be done.
A deeper holding.
A deeper trust.
My model of care is changing too.
I want the women I support to experience more of this village around them, so I will be bringing quarterly Village Prenatals into my work for my clients and women within our wider village.
Because pregnancy was never supposed to be something women navigated alone.
And birth preparation can be so much more than learning what happens at each stage of labour.
It can be building relationships.
Building confidence.
Learning to listen to your body.
Being witnessed.
Receiving care.
Finding your people.
And knowing that when things become intense, there are people beside you who are not frightened by that intensity.
Trusting what is
Perhaps the deepest thing I am taking home is simply more trust in being with what is.
Trusting that I am in the right place at the right time.
Trusting what I have learnt over almost two decades of working with women and families.
Trusting the knowledge still being gathered.
Trusting women.
Trusting the relationships that seem to appear at exactly the right moment.
And trusting that life is unfolding as it should.
I also came home thinking about balance.
More nature.
More time outside.
Perhaps a little less time attached to my laptop.
Perhaps I need an office!
And yet here I am at 6am, lying in bed, far too excited by everything I have experienced to sleep, typing this because I want to reach out and share it with you.
So perhaps the balance is still a work in progress.
Where next?
The Ireland Birthkeepers Gathering is only a few short weeks away.
And I find myself thinking:
I really love the life I am living.
Not because it is perfect. But because it increasingly feels aligned with the work I am here to do.
I hope, through everything I am learning and everything I offer, that I can sprinkle a little of that magic into your life too.
Through my treatments.
Through my classes and courses.
Through pregnancy.
Through birth.
Through the postnatal months.
Through the circles and gatherings that bring women back into relationship with one another.
And through simply being there when a woman needs somebody beside her.
This is increasingly what I understand my work to be.
To be of service to women, families and babies.
And what a privilege that is.