*5.1. Ritualizing Pregnancy: Mother's Blessing*

The mother's blessing is inspired by the traditional Native American Navajo blessingway ceremony (Biddle 1996). Biddle conducted an ethnographic study at a Navajo reservation and interviewed

<sup>6</sup> Ritualization is what people do unconsciously and decorum is what they think one "ought to do" (Grimes 2010, p. 37). Decorum is face-to-face between two or a distinct number, and ceremony involves large-group interaction.

56 women of whom 14% had had a blessingway. Traditional blessingway ceremonies consist of singing, chanting and sharing stories to wish beauty, good and harmony to the mother-to-be.7 The songs and stories are shared during pregnancy and childbirth. The singer, who is a traditional medicine man, performs the songs. Biddle (1996) explains:

"The Blessingway relates back to the legends and therefore establishes a connection with them and with the world today [ ... ] Wyman explains the translation of the word Blessingway, "Hozhoonji". The stem, "Hozhen", is like the Greek "arete", which is usually translated as excellence, but covers all forms of human excellence and implies an ideal of wholeness and harmony. The Navajo term includes everything that a Navajo thinks is good... concepts such as the words beauty, perfection, harmony, goodness, normality, success, well-being, blessedness, order, ideal do for us. The ending, "-iji", expresses in the direction of, side, manner, way, and so we translate the name as Blessingway.". (p. 20)

The songs and stories are important for the mother-to-be and shape her view of childbirth and family life. Through the chants the woman is spiritually connected to her ancestors and the past and future (Biddle 1996, p. 22).

A new type of mother's blessing has been ritualized within secular contexts. The ritual reveals pluralistic elements. It does not "demand" a specific worldview or spiritual background but has references towards different religious or cultural rituals. The name and concept have been taken from the Navajo tradition. What is more, some mother's blessings can include an "altar" being made for the mother or Henna tattoo belly paining. Henna tattoos are traditionally used in wedding rituals in South Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African cultures.

A modern mother's blessing is described as a "celebration of a woman's transition into motherhood that's rooted in Navajo culture. It is a spiritual gathering of the woman's closest friends and family who come to nurture the mama-to-be with wise words, positivity, art and pampering."8 During a mother's blessing the mother is blessed by other significant women before the baby is born. Most of the time, the other participants are her mother (in law), sister(s), aunts and friends. However, variations are possible and sometimes males are also present. Although mother's blessings still appear in the margins, they are growing in popularity, spreading around Western societies, such as the UK9, USA10, The Netherlands11, Belgium12 and Germany13.

From an Australian interview study with 30 women who had planned or underwent a mother's blessing during pregnancy it was revealed that the ritual is seen as a conscious choice against the mainstream baby shower (Burns 2015). During a regular baby shower, material gifts are given to the mother, which are intended for the baby. The interviewed women in this study explained that they did not connect to the meaning or purpose of a mainstream baby shower and they missed a meaningful exchange. They claimed to not be looking for "just gifts" and "silly games". Another difference is that the mother-to-be is at the center of the ceremony and not the baby. During the ceremony, symbolic gifts are given to the mother in the form of wishes, symbolized by beads, which are then threaded into a cord or string. The beads and wishes are brought in preparation of the ritual. The giving and threading of beads is the central moment of the ceremony and enacts the blessing of the mother.

The focus on female participants during a mother's blessing stresses the importance of gender-focus in this pregnancy ritual. Although men also experience birth as a significant life passage, the biological and embodied aspect of pregnancy and birth are shared among women or persons with a female

<sup>7</sup> https://www.britannica.com/topic/Blessingway.

<sup>8</sup> https://www.milowekids.com/the-mag/your-guide-to-throwing-a-virtual-blessingway-baby-shower-or-gender-reveal.

<sup>9</sup> http://www.sueboughton.co.uk/blessingway-ceremony.

<sup>10</sup> https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16247/tired-of-baby-showers-try-a-blessingway-ceremony.html.

<sup>11</sup> https://geboortenis.nl/creeer-je-eigen-blessingway/.

<sup>12</sup> https://innata.weebly.com/blessingway.html.

<sup>13</sup> https://mummy-mag.de/blessing-way-das-besondere-ritual-fuer-werdende-mamas/.

reproductive system. Perhaps this is why during this ritual the presence of other females is preferred. Excluding men from this ritual stresses the importance of a gendered, female community. McGuire (2008) quite rightly states that "spirituality involves people's material bodies, not just their minds or spirits" (p. 97). Within the temporal space of the mother's blessing, women's material bodies, with the pregnant body at the center, as well as material, ritualized objects, embody "the sacredness of the divine" (McGuire 2008, p. 791). The body of the pregnant mother-to-be is ritualized in many ways, such as combing her hair, massaging her shoulders, washing her feet and belly painting.

As pregnancy is a significant and irreversible bodily transition, the woman carries the baby that is growing inside of her, the embodied meaning of pregnancy is stressed in the ritual. Burns (2015) acknowledges that she was unsure about using the term "feminist spirituality" in interpreting her data, but the interviews reveal that the presence and participation of the female group is of great importance. Statements such as "I wanted that feminine energy" (Burns 2015, p. 788), which is not seen as a reaction against male presence ("I've got some beautiful men in my life, but I just wanted an afternoon of feminine energy" (Burns 2015, p. 788)) stress the role of the importance of a female community.

What is more, the ritual starts with matrilineal introductions: each woman introduces herself in terms of her maternal line, such as "daughter of", "granddaughter of", etc. The matrilineal introductions enact the female community beyond the physically present or living female relatives and can go back to female ancestors. Beginning the ritual with this introduction round immediately states the ritual space within a transcendent, inter-generational meaning. This is in line with what Schües (2008) explores as the generative meaning of birth: every birth, although unique in itself, is related to what has come before and will come after. The baby is born into a world that already exists. It is a new beginning within an existing community. Birth is always relational.

Other rituals during the mother's blessing are painting on the pregnant belly, belly plaster casting and wrist weaving (a ball of wood is passed along and wrapped around one's wrist sharing some words about the symbolism of this connection). Most of these rituals are taking place sitting (on the floor in a circle), which creates an intimate space among the participating women.

During the mother's blessing, the female participants are not passive observers, but they actively enact their relationship with the mother-to-be. The central moment of the ceremony, the symbolic gift giving and stating of wishes, points at negotiating the uncertain future of the mother-to-be. A female community is enacted through the different rituals that are part of the mother's blessing. The blessing is an enactment of what people wish as good and beautiful to the mother.

Birth, same as death, is a mysterious event. As described earlier through the concept of natality (Arendt 1958), birth is the beginning of new possibilities. Pregnancy is a relationship with a "stranger" within one's body. In this ritualizing, we see negotiations of what the community wishes for the mother and baby. As birth is a transition and new beginning, during this ritual the participants give a glimpse of what they wish the unknown future to be, hence the ritual being a reaction to the mysterious and unknown. Stating a wish also has a moral dimension: what you think is good is what you wish to somebody else. The entire ceremony is accompanied by food and other delicious threats, the mother-to-be, as well as the other participants, dress up, for example, using flowers as decoration in their hair. The beautiful attributes express a relation to the majestic. The wishes that can refer to beauty and positivity also refer to the majestic.
