1. Based on your own reflection, inner listening and experience (not reading or other research that shares the views of others!)…

• what is ceremony?

• why does it exist?

• what is its purpose?

• is it relevant, useful, meaningful?

Having responded to these questions yourself first, feel free to research these questions in any other way, seeking the wisdom of other sources too.

2. Do you have an experience of a ceremony – or a part of a ceremony – that touched you in a way that was positive and healing?

What was happening in the process of the ceremony  that made this so?

3. Do you have an experience or experiences where ceremony has actively not worked for you?

What was happening in the process of the ceremony that made this so?

4. What forms of art, indeed of life, move you? And what is it about them that creates engagement within you? When you create, what is the process that takes place inwardly and outwardly, that leads to ‘something’ being created?

Do you recognise yourself as a creator, and as a co-creator?

5. What are the consequences for you, as a participant of this training, if ceremony is potentially alchemical, transformational, alive, change-inducing?

Write, or draw, or record in any other way, all that you know about your birth.

If this requires you to do research that involves others, go ahead, AND don’t let this be an obstacle to your own inquiry.

If you don’t ‘know’ then imagine…

This is a key suggestion in this work, for you may find yourself feeling zoned out, or resistant, or spacey, or any number of other feelings, sensations or thoughts. In the process of doing this work on Birth and Welcome, almost more than for any other subject, pay attention to your energy and its expressions in thought, feeling and sensation. All of these are the great keys and clues into your deeper and perhaps less conscious inner material related to this subject.

Discard nothing, and gather it all up. We won’t ask you to share or submit any of this work.

Please take great care of yourself as you undertake this work. 

Before doing any of these questions, which we urge you to do over a few days, create Sacred Space for yourself. Pray to the God of your Understanding – to the Sovereign Light within you – to be with you in this process, and to not leave you. You are in fact this light, but our sense of this is not always so integrated, so ‘asking It to be with you/ me is healthy.

Throughout the time that you set aside for this exercise, notice your breathing – do it gently and deeply – and notice your feelings, and thoughts. Notice peripheral rememberings or vague dreamy associations. They are all relevant. Notice your dreams, and the language of life showing up to answer these questions in other ways – billboards, books, words someone says, newspaper articles, the bird that flies by. You are entering a non-rational landscape, a pre-verbal landscape, and a time of the most acute awareness and unity.

Be gentle with yourself in ways beyond your concept of what you might usually allow yourself as an adult.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

1. What do you know about your actual birth: who was there, what was happening, how did it happen, where did it happen, why?

2. What do you know about the time in history, politics, economics, belief systems, at the time of your conception, gestation, birth, and first year of life? What is is that is being thought in the world and by the people closest to you about these things? This is the pot into which you arrived.

3. What do you know about the beliefs of those people closest to you – parents, grandparents, siblings, other carers – in relation to children, babies, birth, childhood, the meaning of life?

4. What did your carers believe about welcome and celebration, and what did they practice to express this? How were you welcomed? Were you welcomed? What part of you was welcomed? What part of you was not?

5. Through the process of each of these questions, what are you feeling, thinking, noticing in your body?

Go back to the invitation to find a photo of yourself as a baby or young child, or to imagine into this time in your life.

How might you also bless this new-born who is you, and express your self acceptance and love in personal ceremony or prayer?

Find a photograph of yourself as a baby – as young as possible. If you do not have a picture of yourself as a baby, make a drawing or shape some clay, or represent your infant self in some other way.

Place this image on your altar. If you don’t yet have an altar, then you are invited to make one now. It can be as simple as the photograph, a flower or other presence of nature, and a candle. Every day for a week, spend 5 minutes in silence with this image. Centre yourself to feel yourself supported, and in your adult self.

Try this ‘Self Light’ visualisation exercise, anchoring yourself between the above and below, and sitting in your heart space in the middle of where all things meet. From this place, with soft and love-choosing eyes, gaze at the baby, at you. Sit with your thoughts and feelings and sensations, breathing them along, and witnessing them as the deep observer that you are.

Spend a few minutes writing or drawing about anything that comes to mind/ heart/ awareness following this five minutes.

Give thanks, and release the exercise.

Stage 1: preparation before start of ceremony: minister personal attunement to what is about to take place, solo (or with fellow ceremony-holders if they exist)

Stage 2: opening: state intention, welcome all, do invocation/ attunement: all of this signals that we are moving into connection and with intent.

Stage 3: moving into connection more overtly, with each other and with ceremony intention: …seeking to link with stage 1….create something/ s that support this movement towards the central purpose/ intent (song, prayers, ritual, etc, anything) …and connect to next stage about to begin

Stage 4: central purpose being expressed intensely/ climax/ etc: …..seeking to link from stage 2: create something that overtly expresses & delivers the core purpose of the ceremony, & in the spirit of our work expecting that something transformational will take place, whether we feel it or not….and connect to next stage about to begin

Stage 5: cooling down from intensity of high energy of stage 3: …..seeking to connect with stage 3: do something that allows reflection, integration, expansion of the intensity of stage 3, etc (anything song, dance, prayer, movement, readings, rites etc)….and connect to next stage

Stage 6: moving into conscious ending and separation: ….seeking to link from stage 4:bring ceremony to close by doing thing/s that signal ending, separation imminent, purpose achieved, and that blesses the whole of what has occurred, the process of ending, and the future that lies on the other side of the ceremony

Stage 7: release at end after ceremony: minister does something on own, or with fellow co-celebrants, to ground, release, integrate, both immediately and later via supervision of some form

Deep Dive Exercise into Birth and Welcome

Write, or draw, or record in any other way, all that you know about your birth.

If this requires you to do research that involves others, go ahead, AND don’t let this be an obstacle to your own inquiry.

If you don’t ‘know’ then imagine…

This is a key suggestion in this work, for you may find yourself feeling zoned out, or resistant, or spacey, or any number of other feelings, sensations or thoughts. In the process of doing this work on Birth and Welcome, almost more than for any other subject, pay attention to your energy and its expressions in thought, feeling and sensation. All of these are the great keys and clues into your deeper and perhaps less conscious inner material related to this subject.

Discard nothing, and gather it all up. We won’t ask you to share or submit any of this work.

Please take great care of yourself as you undertake this work.

Before doing any of these questions, which we urge you to do over a few days, create Sacred Space for yourself. Pray to the God of your Understanding – to the Sovereign Light within you – to be with you in this process, and to not leave you. You are in fact this light, but our sense of this is not always so integrated, so ‘asking It to be with you/ me is healthy.

Throughout the time that you set aside for this exercise, notice your breathing – do it gently and deeply – and notice your feelings, and thoughts. Notice peripheral rememberings or vague dreamy associations. They are all relevant. Notice your dreams, and the language of life showing up to answer these questions in other ways – billboards, books, words someone says, newspaper articles, the bird that flies by. You are entering a non-rational landscape, a pre-verbal landscape, and a time of the most acute awareness and unity.

Be gentle with yourself in ways beyond your concept of what you might usually allow yourself as an adult.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

1. What do you know about your actual birth: who was there, what was happening, how did it happen, where did it happen, why?

2. What do you know about the time in history, politics, economics, belief systems, at the time of your conception, gestation, birth, and first year of life? What is is that is being thought in the world and by the people closest to you about these things? This is the pot into which you arrived.

3. What do you know about the beliefs of those people closest to you – parents, grandparents, siblings, other carers – in relation to children, babies, birth, childhood, the meaning of life?

4. What did your carers believe about welcome and celebration, and what did they practice to express this? How were you welcomed? Were you welcomed? What part of you was welcomed? What part of you was not?

5. Through the process of each of these questions, what are you feeling, thinking, noticing in your body?

Ceremony on Child and Family Blessing

Reflect on what it would be like to honour and bless your own being and where this welcoming still awaits attention within your own life.

Write a blessing and naming ceremony for yourself as a newly born child, or for a newborn child or child in your present life, or from your family’s past life, honouring and blessing this being as if it were you or your own.

Based on your reflections, meditate upon this opportunity to create a ceremony that truly welcomes a child and their family if appropriate, be this in current time, or as a healing intention for yourself.

Perform the ceremony within your study group for practice, feedback and support.

Guidance notes:

For the assignments that relate to the creation of Ceremonies, the length of the work should be between 2000 – 3500 words (roughly between 4 and 6 pages). Each ceremony is written as if it were the script of a play, with both the words to be spoken in the ceremony, as well as the guidelines for how this unfolds – the stage directions – and any materials needed for the ceremony to take place.

A helpful way to think about this is to imagine that someone other than you might be able to pick up the ceremony and use your script to deliver it in the way you had envisioned. This is not an easy task so be patient and compassionate as you learn to do this. It can be most satisfying and endlessly creative.

Please make sure you include a half-page reflection at the start or end of your written ceremony about why you chose the material that you did, and what the process of working on this particular ceremony and personal material has meant to you in terms of your inner development on all levels – eg. your body, spirit, psychology, family, environment, and so on.

It is essential that you perform the ceremony with your study group for practice, feedback and support.

Further Guidance on Child and Family Blessing Ceremonies

Purpose

To welcome, celebrate, and affirm

the sacred nature of the child,

its spiritual presence,

and its purpose,

and

to welcome, celebrate, support

the sacred presence of the parents

and family

and community

Process

1) Initial Contracting Conversations: way of working, date, time, fee approach, intention

2) Meetings: (2, 3….) to design ceremony and to hear the family story,

and to hear the story of the child’s arrival into the world and into the family

…..spiritual counselling….,

and to affirm the vision of the family, and the sacred nature of the child

3) Finalise Ceremony

4) The Ceremony Day: arriving early, pre-ceremony personal preparation, delivering the ceremony, leaving, own support and reflection post ceremony, self- care (due to expansion and contraction in minister)

5) Follow up and supervision

Possible ceremony outline and components

• Entrance, arriving

• Welcoming, opening prayers, music, intention etc – creating the energy field

• Welcome the central family and The Child – and other children – emerging out of family work, need to know who the family really is, and bring them all in, and also all the children need welcoming

• Honouring the Grandparents and Ancestors – can be human and other realms of life, past, present…name it all, according to family’s understanding

• Welcoming the Godparents / “extra and deep support” – family may have its own names for these roles – can be focussed on keeping a very special eye on the development and love for the child, and also in support of the parents in the challenge of parenting

• Prayer for the Parents – respecting ‘the orders’ of love it’s really great to bless and pray for the parents at this point; can be the first time that the relationship is actually made visible in this way if the couple/ parenting unit have not had a blessing of some kind.

• Blessing and naming of The Child – the work of love!

Anointing (with oil or water)

The naming

The blessing

• Parents prayer for their child – very moving experience for the parents to be asked to prepare their own blessing/ prayer, and to say it spontaneously or to read it as prepared. 

• All gathered bless the family

• Final blessing for the family and all gathered

• Ending – prayers, music, etc

Nicola Coombe

February 2021

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