If you’re just arriving here, you’re invited to read the Maiden to Mother series in sequence: Introduction, How to Create a Preconception Ritual, My Conception Story, When Conception Doesn’t Happen, Pregnancy and Intuition, The Story of Inanna, My Journey of Descent, A Simple Ritual for Grief, Through Adversity We Find Our Strength, A Ritual to Make Peace with the Changes in Your Body, Rituals for a Mother Blessing Ceremony, and A Ritual for Pregnancy Loss

I want to recognize that motherhood is not a path all women will walk.

There are women who never feel the longing to become a mother, and consciously choose a life without children. There are others who long to become a mother, but for whatever reason, whether it be their choice or not, it doesn’t come into form.

In either case, there can be a complexity of emotions that arise around the topic.

Many would say we live in a culture that expects women to become mothers, and even measures a woman’s worth by fertility or birth-giving. Women who choose not to have children often find themselves having to explain or justify that choice—to family, to friends, or to the wider culture. There can be painful (spoken or unspoken) judgments that they receive— that their choice is selfish or somehow they’re incomplete in their womanhood.

In many ways, we have inherited a narrow understanding of what it means to be a woman.

There is often an unspoken expectation for a woman to become a mother, and yet, there are many paths a woman may walk in this lifetime. Some are called to birth children. Others are called to birth a creative project, a business or other form of art or service in the world.

The creative life force that lives within us is not limited to physical birth. The womb is a source of potential, a place of becoming. It is where ideas are conceived, where visions are nourished, and where what is unseen begins to take form.

This creative power exists in every woman.

The Goddess, in her aspect of She Who Brings Life Into Form, is present whether or not a woman has carried a child, and whether or not she has a physical womb in her body (because of hysterectomy). The womb (or womb space in the case of hysterectomy) can be understood as both a physical and energetic space—a center of creation that lives within all women.

To walk a path of creation may look like tending to others, supporting life in quiet or visible ways, or offering one’s gifts in service to the world. It may also take form through art, music, writing, dance, or a body of work that is devoted to improving our world.

These creations are all expressions of the creative life force.

To create is to participate in the unfolding of life.

In this ritual, we honor the many ways a woman brings the formless into form.

We honor the courage it takes to listen inwardly and choose a path that is true.

We honor the devotion required to nurture what is being created, whether it is a child, a body of work, a community, or a vision that lives in the heart.

Each woman is invited to connect with her own creative center, to bless the life force within her, and to name what she is bringing into form.

This is a ritual of remembering that the power to create, to nurture, and to bring meaning into the world lives within us.

This ritual comes from the work of Ruth Barrett in her book, Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries, A Guide for Intuitive Ritual Creation.

A Ritual to Honor the Choice to Not Become a Mother

Ideally, this ritual would be held in community, with other women who are choosing a path without children. If this is not possible, a woman may invite a sister or two to be there to support and witness her sharing.

Each woman brings a symbol of her creativity with her.

The ritual begins with each woman speaking aloud the internalized, harmful voices of her culture, religion, parents, and/or her own self about childbearing.

As the words are spoken they are written down, and the paper that contains them is burned to release each woman from others’ expectations. (The burning can be done after or during the ceremony. If burning the paper is not an option, it could instead be be torn up, submerged in water, or buried).

Then there is space for any women who deeply longed to have a child, but didn’t or couldn’t, to speak their grief. To share and hold sacred the imagined future they held for so long in their womb and their hearts. This offers a moment of release while being held and witnessed in a supportive circle of sisters.

The ritual space is then purified with herbs to clear the energy and make a transition space for women to honor the choices they have made.

A circle sister speaks about the womb as the literal and symbolic source of potential and fertility that each woman knows.

Her words honor the womb as the source of creative power, to be channeled how each woman chooses. She encourages the women to internally reclaim their wombs as their cauldrons of creation.

In turn, each woman blesses her womb, anointing her belly with an anointing oil. (An anointing oil can be any body oil infused and blessed with your favorite essential oil or oils.)

Each sister says aloud what she creates and how she sustains and protects her creations: how she is a Creatrix.

As she speaks about her creativity and how she nurtures and protects life, she adds her symbol to the group altar.

Each woman follows this sister’s example and declares how she uses her womb to create beauty and meaning in her life, then adds her own symbol of her creativity to the altar.

The ritual concludes with words that honor their choices and all the many ways women use their creative life force energies.

~

Stay tuned for next week where I’ll be sharing more rituals on the path of motherhood.

With Love,

Meredith

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