Kia ora lovely humans!
It was my daughter’s birthday this past week. She wanted a dinosaur cake (!), so in truth, I’d been preparing for it for about a month, creating the decorations for her cake, thinking about what gift we might get her or how she might like to spend the day celebrating.
Her brother felt it too - as we talked about it more and as it got closer, he had some big feelings come up to be heard. I posted about it on my instagram here, and a game that I played with him (which we also played around Christmas) to help dissolve some of that “big event” tension.
I spent some time turning inward for the anniversary of my birthing-day too. Reading over my little ones' birth stories and feeling into what was there for me too.
When it came to the day, I set an alarm for the time of her birth and we connected together at this moment, like we had precisely 7 years before. I ran a “birthday bath” for her and her brother - with bubbles, music, rose petals, essential oils and a disco light and then I sat there and read her her birth story. Then my son wanted to hear his birth story too. It was pretty magical.
I finished the week supporting the screening of “Born at Home” at our local cinema with an epic circle of wāhine, which was an ideal way to finish a week all about birth, birth-days and birthdays.
Do you feel things coming up for you around your birthday or your birthing-days? Our birth stays with us - our own birth and those of our children, for our lifetime. Our bodies remember. It’s not lost on me that so many of us carry our stories with and within us. That we often don’t have the opportunity to share - to rage, grieve, celebrate, feel truly seen and heard or step into our power. Birth is a portal that we travel through - and we come through it, each time, forever changed.
If you feel the call to share your story, to feel deeply held, I’m ready to listen. Read more about birth debriefing here: https://www.honouringmama.com/birth-debriefing
Or book here: https://www.honouringmama.com/book-online
Send me your questions:
I love to receive your questions - please email me if you’d like me to answer a specific question next month.
Māmā melody for the month and a bonus!:
The Māmā melody for this month In My Feels by Bronze Whale - coz it was the theme of the week!
And as a bonus, one of my favourite wāhine sent me this - Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s - When You Could Hear the Trees - an incredible 36 mins absolutely well spent listening to this narrated essay about pregnancy, motherhood and mammalhood. Phew, definitely keeping you in your feels!
Thank you for being a part of my community. I appreciate you!
Sending you so much love and compassion,
Aroha nui,
Kirsty
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