Saturday, June 26, 2010

Belly Blessing

A close friend of mine is having a baby mid August - around my birthday (LOL).
Today we went to her belly blessing party.
The dads took the children to the park as the women
sat around the kitchen table, listened to a beautiful song and wrapped a ball of wool around our wrist a few times and passed it on to the next person so we were all connected around the table - a circle of friends. One by one we introduced ourselves while we told our stories of our mother's names and how far back we could remember the names of their mothers. It was interesting that most of us could only remember as far back as our grandmas, maybe our great-grandmothers. Some of us read poems, blessings, gave gifts and talked about birth.


After the next six weeks or when the baby decides to come into our world, we can cut the string that bound us around the table.......:)

When the dads and children came back from the park we painted her belly (and another friend who was there and due about the same time). The kids had a great time painting the pregnant bellies. There was lots of giggling by the mums to be and the children. We watched the babies wriggle in their mother's belly as we were trying to paint.

It was a beautiful afternoon. I even caught myself getting clucky for a brief moment...LOL


Katie took a photo of me painting.

The painted bellies!


Katie got inspired to paint her brother's face and anyone elses face she could find.


Katie wanted to be a tiger so she got me to paint her face. I have a new admiration for face painters - it is not as easy as it looks....:)


17 comments:

nocton4 said...

lovely, happy days xx baby blessings for your friends xx

Donna said...

beautiful photos! i held a baby blessing for my dear friend last night. i too love the ball of wool around the wrist, we wrapped 12 woman's wrists as we sang. i love the idea of sharing the names of your mother/grandmother etc xx

Cloudia said...

blessings!






Aloha from Hawaii

Comfort Spiral

softearthart said...

Lovely, pregnant Mothers, the bond of women together is a strong force. cheers Marie

Sea Star said...

Beautiful, I love blessingways so much! You are great at face painting too!

Lynne said...

I've done face painting under pressure (long queues) and no, it's certainly not as easy as it looks!

Ariella said...

Blessings to your friend---love the painted bellies. so beautiful.

Appleshoe said...

Beautiful. I'm filing this away. Thank you for the information on the winter spiral. Bear and I love your blog, you are on the natural path that the two of us are trying to follow. Thank you for sharing your world.

Simple Mama said...

I just posted pictures of the mama blessing I went to. I love blessingways so much.

Faeryfay said...

What a gorgeous celebration!

Pam de Groot said...

oh those bellies, beautiful!!
It would have been great to have you come on sunday but I will do another dyeing workshop. I may tie it in with the nuno workshop ie make stuff to felt the next day. I will let you know either way.

Pam

Kat said...

I am so jealous. I just had my second son in November and I was wishing I knew more like minded women who would be into such a thing. It is such a beautiful and thoughtful way to connect to the mother, and the spirit of the mother in all of us. I'm sure she can remember this feeling and draw on that primal energy created here durring her birth. She is very lucky to have you (and the rest of her female tribe) to guide and support her. Blessings to you and best of luck to your friend.

I need to live in your blog!

karisma said...

Well, I think both Katie and yourself did a marvelous job there! Wow! Blessings to the new mama's, I am also clucky right now! sigh! xoxox

Yarrow said...

Beautiful! I hosted a blessingway for a friend of mine last summer, and it was also a magical time. Blessings to the mom's and babies.

Mette (Mettuska) said...

What a nice way to celebrate!

Cadi said...

I don't think I still have your e-mail. I'd love to send you an angel. Maybe with something else & it will go through???

My place is not filthy, but it was dusty & cob-webby. For the first time in my life I'm hiring someone to come clean once a week til the birth. I just don't feel like crawling around the floor to clean baseboards.

My e-mail is chocolatelilies [at} gmail [dot] com.

It was nice to hear from you!

Love,
Cadi

Stacy @ Sweet Sky said...

I, too, was touched by hearing about this ceremony. I particularly like the idea of the grandmothers and the string. Lovely.

Thank you for your comment on my blog awhile back!!