A Mother’s Blessing—also known as a Blessingway—is a uniquely curated ceremony to bless the beautiful mother-to-be as she brings through a new soul. This is a rite of passage to motherhood passed down from generation to generation and celebrates the pregnancy and becoming a mother. 
The most cherished loved ones of the mother-to-be come together in circle to honour and bless the way ahead for her journey to motherhood. They share their wisdom, help her to prepare, and celebrate with her. Nourishing her, filling her cup, and honouring her as the mother.
The Invitation
Preparing a guestlist of beloved ones of the mother-to-be is the first step and really is the opening of this ceremonial process. Traditionally, guests are chosen to form the circle of support that will remain in support during the pregnancy and birth and into motherhood. Mothers, Grandmothers, Sisters, Aunts, dear friends, doulas and midwives.
The invitation should include all details clearly explained, an order of service so everyone knows what to expect, a list of things to bring or wear or adorn with, and any preparation required.
Creating the Ceremony
It can be daunting putting together the exact elements of the ceremony, as well as the timing and flow of the event. Seek balance, you are providing a safe, nurturing, connecting space for everyone who attends, but most of all, to hold the guest of honour and fill her up with love and joy at the magic she is weaving within her body and spirit.
This is a significant life event. The list of ways to honour and love this divine mother-to-be are endless, and we have included here just a few from the events we have created and curated.
Return always to who your are honouring – the transforming woman, her life, her body, her emotions. She is embodying two souls, and preparing to bring through that little spirit to walk on the earth. It doesn’t have to be perfect—though the most perfect Mother’s Blessing will reflect the unique essence of this Mother-to-be and her journey.
Spend time with her, listen deeply, and make it personal.
Preparing the sacred space
The physical location and time of day for this ceremony are key. Consider the number of guests, the atmosphere we are creating. Will it serve to be held all in nature? Or some key elements? Hosting in the Mother-to-be’s home where the little spirit is being birthed, or brought home to, brings great energy to the space. Is it day, or in the evening, lit by candles and fairy lights? Or will it begin in the afternoon and progress into the evening to allow for more options with mood, lighting, and setting.
The event space is set as a sacred, special, calm, peaceful place. A throne is built for the guest of honour and a beautiful altar in the centre where everyone places their sacred objects to bring meaning and connection to the circle. Beautiful scents and the warming light of flickering bees wax candles, soft angelic music, floral and herb arrangements and a beautiful, comfortable, nurturing nest of seating arranged in a circle. You can use oracle cards and other connection tools. We use subtle aromatherapy to fill the space that indulges the feminine—like rose and wild orange. Careful with your choices of aromatherapy with a pregnant mama.
Sacred Guardians – The Facilitators
The experience of these circles is expanded and enlightened with a talented, open-hearted group of facilitators organising and ensuring the flow of the ceremony. It is important to decide how many facilitators the event will need depending on the number of guests and processes.
Grounding Footbath
A nurturing food bath is a beautiful ritual to begin this ceremony as it signifies the threshold we cross over from the normal world to the special world of ceremony. As each guest arrives, they are invited to pair up with one of the other guests. Shoes are removed and they take turns bathing each others feet ceremonially in warm milky water with rose petals. Their feet are then cradled and dried in a warm towel before being massaged in rose oil.
As they humbly kneel before each other, bathing and massaging each other’s feet, they connect as part of the circle and begin to build a powerful communion of support for the birth. This ritual working on the soles of the feet is humbling and has an intention of keeping us grounded in our support for the mother-to-be. The first footbath of the event is for the pregnant mama.
This can be a great time to collect phones into a basket if you are wanting to minimise distractions.
Purifying Rose Water Wash
Another powerful opening ritual is a Purifying Rose Water Wash. This is an invitation for each participant to wash away any fears they may have about the pregnancy and the birth.
Ask each person to take a moment to acknowledge, and sit with, their fears and worries. A facilitator will demonstrate first, using a bowl of rose water, to lightly spruce the hands, face, and hair, using any gestures that hold meaning for the person to release their fears and connect to the spirit of love and support represented by the circle.
Each guest may choose to declare what you are releasing, or perform the ritual in silence, it is just as powerful and meaningful either way.
Once all have released, the facilitator can close the ritual with an affirmation like, “My heart overflows with the divine trust and love of this circle for the magic of this birthing”, inviting everyone to repeat it three times together.
Opening the Ceremony
We open with a prayer, a dedication to the mother-to-be and an explanation of what to expect for the ceremony. Each guest then introduces themselves and how they are a part of the mother-to-be’s life and this little spirit coming through, and why she is special and important. Then their intention for the ceremony. This brings so much love into the circle.
At a Mother’ Blessing for a dear friend, the amazing Goldorang Bunjur Gamu Boorie of The Art of String Theory made tetrahedron lanterns with us before the event while teaching us the significance of this sacred geometry, the balance of male and female and the dreaming of the Seven Sisters. The lanterns hung all around us as a beautiful understory for the blessing.
She opened the circle with a Traditional Acknowledgement to Kabi Kabi Country, built a beautiful ceremonial fire and conducted a smoking ceremony, smudging us all with gum leaves and sharing her Emu Song story telling. We kept the fire alight through the whole event which is amazing because it was raining.
Candlelit Ceremony
The spirit of fire that dances with a beeswax candle is as divine as the magical creators and the healing nectar it once contained.
Another beautiful ritual we have created is on an auspicious moon before the occasion, I make a pure sacred beeswax candle for everyone joining the circle. I make our candles as an invitation for the spirit of fire to come and dance…and from this dance we in turn progress and produce and pollinate our own magic.
The guest of honour lights her candle and each person in the circle lights their own candle from hers, binding the circle. As they are lighting they are giving the mother-to-be words of support and strength and love. This is a powerful and reverend way to begin a ceremony.
At the closing of the ceremony everyone extinguishes their flame and takes it home with instructions to light the candle again when you hear word of the birth.
The handwritten note on each candle read,
“When you hear little spirit has come earth side, light me and sing your lullaby”.
Honour and Adorn Her
As your guest of honour relaxes in her sacred throne, we honour and adorn the beautiful mother to be. Make a flower crown for her. Create beautiful ways to adorn her, the space and each other. Pamper her, brush her hair, massage her if she is open to touch, paint her belly, make a belly cast, nourish her and her guests with healthy beautiful colourful offerings of food, drink and adornments.
In making her look and feel different we honour the transformation she is going through.
Spirit Bracelet Cord Ceremony
Everyone is invited to join in a cord ceremony symbolic of the umbilical cord connecting mother and baby. This is a communion where the mother and little spirit are held, supported and loved so they can confidently journey through this rite of passage to becoming a parent and child.
We gather into a tight circle. Moving around the circle in the direction of the sun (anti-clockwise) each person wraps the red cord around their left wrist three times. As each person in the circle is binding, they introduce themselves as a daughter and granddaughter, honouring our own lineage of mothers—the women who came before us.
“I am <Karen>,
DAUGHTER OF <Denise>,
GRANDAUGHTER OF <Jessie>.”
When all in the circle are bound, we invoke together…
”We are bound in this sacred circle by this symbol of the umbilical cord. We invite the presence and wisdom of all the ancestors and all the descendants. Our collective lineage. We honour and bring the experience of birth from all those who have come before us and brought us life. We honour the mother energy within each and every one of us. Each time we bring awareness to this cord we bring awareness to this communion, to this loving tribe and to this sacred birthing. We shower you in love. You are held.”
The cord between each person is cut and tied off around the wrist.
“We are now connected. We keep the cord around our wrist until we hear that the birth is underway—that this new life is arriving. Then we will cut the cord of our spirit bracelet as a symbol of unity of community, to amplify our shared attention and intentions for the healthy birth of this little spirit.”
Blessings
You can gift the mother-to-be all kinds of blessings. These can be things to bathe in, sacred medicines, healing herbs, and balms and potions for use before and after the birth. It may be blessings in the form of written messages and affirmations, or even prayer flags that offer mantras of support during the birthing. They may be letters to the baby about the mother.
Together you can build a nursing box filled with calming and nurturing things which she can easily get to during those long feeds, or anything else you believe will help support her in this sacred time.
Birthing Necklace
Ask each guest to bring a small meaningful item that will be threaded onto a necklace as a gift for the guest of honour. Crystals, beads, pendants, shells, etc.
They may also choose from a selection of items pre-chosen by the facilitators and the Mother-to-be. Including some blank items which guests can paint, draw, and/or write on.
Munay-Ki Womb Ritual
At one event I attended for a dear friend, a group of sisters were led graciously and lovingly by the amazing Christine Sanson Maudy from Living Inspired, The Creative Path, through the 13th Munay-Ki (energy of love) Rites of the Womb.
This powerful ceremony of healing was the first hour of the Blessingway and dropped us all into a deeply connected space.
Closing the Ceremony
We are the children of the mothers of our lineage, and so our mothers and grandmothers have handed on their creative spark; the seeds of all the flowers that they bloomed and the hidden thorns of all that they suffered. They taught us how to be and how not to be, they gave us themselves and their mothers before them.
We carry the mothers of our lineage in our cells and in our hearts, they have given us the best of ourselves and another chance to transform their thorns into roses.
—Caroline de Lisser | Source of the Earth
As you close the blessing ceremony, with final prayers of gratitude and celebration, you will feel the love and connection in the sacred space you have so lovingly prepared and created together.
The guest of honour will be cradled in the love of those dearest to her, and she will feel prepared for her birthing journey. Energetically, the circle will remain connected.
Celebrate and Nourish
Finish with a bang!
Dance, sing, beat drums and shake rattles, whatever you like, just celebrate, live, love, connection and community. We made the most of having a belly dancing instructor present at one of our mother’s blessing.
It’s a great idea to ask everyone to bring a plate of healthy beautiful food to share. Perhaps sharing a recipe that has been passed down to them from their previous generations.
Prayers—Poems—Stories
It is a beautiful part of the ceremony to ask someone to present a prayer, reading, poem or story.
Here are some examples:
May you be blessed with an easy transition
from mother of one to mother of two.
May you be changed in all the ways
you hope to be changed.
May your body open easily and then heal.
May those surrounding you during birth guide you
through what’s coming.
May you know joy in bringing another soul to the world.
I am grateful for this new being
who is small in body but great in Soul,
who has come into our midst as a gift.
May I be sensitive to the sacred
as I nurture and learn from this child.
Give me patience. Give me strength.
And grant me wisdom and love
to help my baby learn to sing her own song.
—Annie Spring
A woman in birth is at once her most powerful and most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed understands that she is stronger than she knows.
—Marcie Macari
Close your eyes and breathe deep.
Breathe in peace, breathe out pain.
Imagine your feet, toes curling into dirt.
Think of yourself as rooted, think of your place in the earth.
How did you come to be here?
Through generations of women named
A maternal lineage. Think of their birth stories,
What you know, what you believe to be true.
Realize that their births carry deep wisdom.
Each birth is a powerful experience, each birth traces down to you.
Just as you pass this knowledge onto your baby
Understand that your birth is your own.
It will be different from all others, like the swirls in your thumb.
Your birth will have a unique pattern, unfolding with each contraction.
Rising and falling like a newborn’s chest,
This birth belongs to you.
This birth is the end and a beginning.
May this blessing of birth come to you without fear.
May this blessing of birth come to you with great understanding.
May this blessing of birth make your heart soar.
May this blessing of birth bring shouts of delight to your lips.
—Natalie Evans
Today we gather in gratitude. We are grateful for the new life we are about to welcome into this world. We are grateful for the presence of [Mother’s name] in our lives. We also gather in preparation. We intend to prepare [Mother’s name], giving her strength, support, and clarity in mind, body, and soul, for herself, for her birthing, and for her baby.
—Author Unknown
Thank you for your beautiful photos:
Kim Grimley
In loving service 
