**2. Philosophical Perspectives on Pregnancy and Birth**

Birth and death are both fundamental human experiences. Every living being is born and will die. However, only about 50% of the population gives birth. Only women or people with a female biological reproductive system can be pregnant and give birth to a baby. This biological fundament excludes male bodies from the experience of carrying a child in their bodies. Nevertheless, both women and men are always in relation to their own birth. Everybody is born. Then, most people experience the meaning of the birth of a child, when they become parents, aunts or uncles or grandparents. The biological

<sup>1</sup> I will use the term "mother's blessing" throughout the text.

reality of birth is always related to social and cultural meanings. What is more, as I want to argue here in this article, birth also leads to existential and spiritual questioning. Birth is a fundamental life passage, which means that it is meaningful for the individual and community. A new member enters community and is welcomed and introduced.

Next to the joy and happiness felt at birth (Crowther et al. 2014a), giving birth is related to physical pain. The pain is necessary for the baby to be able to be born. What is more, birth opens up possibilities, which also means that birth is the beginning of endless uncertainties (Arendt 1958). Carrying a baby in one's body is on the one hand the most intimate experience imaginable and at the same time it is a stranger and yet unknown person who is living inside one's body (Naka 2016). It is not clear yet who this person is and will be. How will she look like and behave? As Naka (2016) writes, "reproduction consists of giving birth to another being, it is inherently a relation to the Other" (Naka 2016, p. 120). Pregnancy and childbirth, next to the joy, celebration and happiness, also bring forward ambiguous and uncertain feelings (Wojtkowiak and Crowther 2018), such as 'what kind of mother or father will I be?', 'what kind of person will my child become¿, 'will I be a good parent?' or 'do I want this child to be born?'. These types of profound questions that parents (to be) might ask themselves reveal moral and existential questioning. In other words, these are questions of meaning.

In Western philosophy, understanding, analyzing and theorizing pregnancy and birth as existential fundament have, especially compared to death, been largely neglected (Prinds et al. 2014; Wojtkowiak and Crowther 2018; Schües 2008; Hennessey 2019). Hennessey (2019) published a book on birth, imagery and ritual and discusses the lack of theoretical foundations of understanding birth as an existential transition. Hennessey (2019) compares the biggest academic publishers and journals in the field of philosophy and religion (e.g., Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, *Journal of Religion*, *History of Religions*) and found that the term "birth" only constitutes about 25–50% of the number of publications compared to death (p. 10). The term "childbirth" is even less represented with about 1–3% (p. 10). Schües (2008) argues that the lack of philosophical attention towards the subject of birth is related to the societal, everyday understanding of birth (p. 15). This lack of theoretical foundations is striking, considering the fact that every human being is born and therefore has a beginning, in the same sense that every human life has an end. Recently, philosophical studies on the existential meaning of pregnancy and birth have been emerging, unraveling fundamental meanings of this transition (Bornemark and Smith 2016; Hennessey 2019; Schües 2008). It is, therefore, of great importance to reflect on the meaning of pregnancy and birth from an existential and spiritual perspective. What does it mean to be born? And what does it mean to give birth? Studying rituals around pregnancy and childbirth can shed some light on the existential and spiritual negotiations at birth and how humans make meaning of this biological act.

Arendt was one of the first authors who saw birth as existential beginning by referring to the concept of natality, which was originally discussed in her book *The Human Condition* in 1958. Arendt has put birth at the center of a meaning perspective. Being born means, according to Arendt, not only *having* a beginning, but *being* a new beginning. Being a new beginning means that one is able to politically act in the world. Humans are natal beings; they can initiate and influence the world. Birth is thus a biological fact that directly influences one's identity and meaning in life. Arendt was one of the first thinkers who gave a more positive outlook on birth. Previously, in classical philosophical literature, birth was seen as an unfortunate coincidence (Schües 2008, p. 31ff). The eternal soul was seen as being trapped in a mortal body (which manifests at birth) or birth was only seen as meaningful in terms of the birth of one's ego or ratio. Natality, which manifests at our biological birth, focuses on the human potential for action and the possibility to change the world. Arendt makes her point clear in relation to death: "Action, with all its uncertainties, is like an ever-present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in order to die, but to begin something new" (Arendt 1958, p. 246). The beginning of a new human being is grounded in the relation. We are always in relation to our own birth and therefore to the person who gave us life.

This is why the study of rituals surrounding birth is of great interest. In rituals, natality and the relationship between the newborn and her parents, family or community are re-negotiated. In rites of passage, the social transition is marked by the use of ritual symbols and language. In Western, secular societies, we see a new interest in ritualizing birth, such as the baby shower, gender reveal or "baby-party" (when family and friends are all invited to visit the baby for the first time). However, these ritualizations are, first of all, a personal choice, hence not a collective obligation. It is not clear yet to what extend these forms of ritualizing address a deeper layer of meaning or even spirituality. A baby shower or gender reveal are probably meaningful to the parents and those involved, however, the question is: to what extend do new forms of ritualizing, such as a baby shower, differ from a "party"2?

Johnson (2008) argues throughout his book *The Meaning of the Body* that there has been a lack of theoretical reflection on embodied meaning making in Western philosophy. Johnson discusses, among others, thinkers such as Dewey and Merleau-Ponty in order to develop a perspective on meaning making that does not separate the body from mind but connects them. According to this view, we should rather speak of an "embodied mind" or "phenomenological body" for the understanding of how humans make meaning in the world (Johnson 2008). He furthermore argues that philosophical thinking needs to acknowledge aesthetics as a way of thinking and making meaning in the world, instead of setting aesthetics apart into solely the field of arts and culture.

Rituals are by all means embodied enactments of meaning and therefore most interesting as examples of meaning making and embodied spirituality. What is more, rituals aesthetically translate reality into symbolic form (Wojtkowiak 2018). Rituals create a reality that is at aesthetic distance to the actual experience. Rituals give room to feel emotions and identify with the experience, but at the same time create some distance to the actual experience through symbolic enactment. Rituals thus do not represent the world as it presents itself to us, but as we imagine it. In a ritual we can imagine a world, which through symbolic actions becomes temporally our actual world (Geertz 1973). Furthermore, Crossley (2004) argues that rituals are a "form of what Marcel Mauss (1979) has termed "body techniques"" (p. 33), defined as "(culturally) specific uses of the body" (p. 33). Crossley explains that body techniques does not mean that the body is used as an object in the world, but, in line with Merleau-Ponty, inhabits the world. Embodied experience is seen as a "practical and pre-reflective knowledge and understanding" (Crossley 2004, p. 37). This means, similar to what Johnson (2008) states, our bodies are a source of knowledge and understanding of the world. Studying rituals at the start of life, thus, teaches us about how we give meaning to the world, including the role of the body in meaning making. In pregnancy and birth, the embodied reality of carrying and birthing a child is very prominent.
