Sacred Whisper Bellingen: Word Medicine: Handmade Birth Journals

Blank canvas

This morning, whilst listening to the sweet deep sounds of divine feminine singer Peruquios, I am creating the most delicious gift for a mama I am having the honour of attending right now. She birthed a beautiful baby girl twelve days ago, and I have loved the process of prenatal, birth and postnatal doula work.

Word medicine from my own birth journal (a trilogy!)

As part of the Art of Sacred Postpartum training I am undertaking, we learn how to create handmade birth journals for our mamas. This activity resonated so deeply for me, for if I follow myself down to the very core of who I am, I am a story teller, and a holder of stories. There is a lyric from a Mama Kin song- My Friend that goes "You're the alchemist, you're the holder of so many stories, you grab the stars and light the way home,"

The cover of my own journal- Awakening, nourishment, trust: the shamanic, ecstatic birthings of Sammi Mirabai Seed

That's what I see as my medicine on this earth walk, the sacred path of helping people- and more specifically, birthing mamas- find their story, to sit in honour and nurturing and witness of that divine story; to help them find that point of alchemy where story becomes a source of strength and nourishment and growth for them.

So on this beautiful sunny summer morning, my partner and children out swimming at the Never Never (morning swims are their favourite!) I am crafting this birth journal for the mama. With my hands that seek to express the gentle love and care- and honour- I feel in my work, I take paints of oceanic hues that soothe her soul to colour the pages. I will scatter words that come to me from my work with her- arising, the art of grief, meeting each surge, sacred emergence, within the borders. I will paste in photos of her and her precious little one. I will draw a little. I will, in the back, write in the birth story from my perspective with all the amazement I held to witness her process. And most importantly, I will leave so many blank pages for her to write her own birth story, to give life to and integrate that story that had become such an integral part of her psyche.

Birth mandalas are the title page for each child's birth story

Here are some photos from the journal I made for myself- because, of course, until I have fully lived the lesson myself I am not equipped to pass it onto others.