Lionhearted Soul Seeds
with Sue Penrose-Gould
a Guide for Transformation and Sacred Healing
'I am a seed in the flower of life.'
Honouring our Births
Being born is a key experience in our life. We wouldn't be here without it! Yet we pay it hardly any attention. Here is a simple yet profound ceremony you can do for yourself to honour your own birth.
Honouring the Birth of our Life
Ceremony Guidance at bottom of page
Honouring the Birth of Our Life
Placenta honouring is beautiful work, rich with the ancestry of maternal lineage, full of the tapestry of that which feeds us as we step out into our lives in this moment, taking our first cautious breaths in this curious new world of our future.
As we leave the safety of the times that have been, we can assist how we are birthed into new life.
There was a time when I held in-person gatherings connecting with the Spirit of Mother in our lives. Within these events we connected to the ancestral blood and bones of Mother Earth, to the umbilical cord that roots us to Earth and Stars. We re-engaged with the placenta that nourished us when we ourselves were a foetus many years ago. Through drum journeying, creative activity and ceremony there was opportunity to honour our own lives as much as to honour our mothers.
Now a Ceremony is offered for you to Honour your own Birth and all smaller births of your life. A ceremony you can carry out in your own time and space. See below this section for guidance.
Placenta – who are you?
Standing on a pin between birth and death, a placenta is an extraordinary organ. We take it for granted. As a culture we usually disregard it, neither honouring or releasing it with thanks.
This organ of both mother and foetus is somehow more within its own right. Some indigenous cultures see the placenta as a guardian spirit of the growing child, others see it as a relative. Many rites and ceremonies have been and sometimes still are practiced around the world. For many there is an absolute respect for this mother-organ of connection and nourishment.
An energetic bond with our placenta ripples through the sea of our auric and ancestral fields. For nine months it throbs as a womb-heart within the mystery of generation upon generation. Both breath and pulse of existence itself, embedded deep within the womb-cave, a cellular web of pulsing life with-in and with-out the threads of our being. Essentially and practically it is a nutrient-rich pool of life.
If you have ever stood with a midwife after a birth you will likely have witnessed her wash the placenta; seeing with her hands and eyes the way it lies, the fatty deposits, the flow and colour of tissue. The health of all three - placenta, mother and baby - are encoded in this massive mammalian flower of life.
Yet the placenta is also a filter, a saviour protecting the one to be born from death. Entrapping toxins within its web it ensures that only that which will nourish and sustain this little budding one will be fed through the umbilical cord.
Woven in as always, is a thread to remind us that the gift of life is not only to receive, it is also to know about boundaries so we accept only that which will sustain us.
Creating a Birth Honouring Ceremony
Here we are going to create a Treasure Bag which is symbolic of the placenta that supported you in your mother's womb. This Treasure Bag ceremony can also be used for the ending of any phase of your life that has led to the birthing of something new. It is an adaptable ceremony for your own life's journey.
For this ceremony it is suggested that you have a circle of biodegradable red cotton and a length of biodegradable string.
Make holes around the circle to thread the string so you can draw the cloth together as a bag.
Find a quiet space to be, to discover the treasures of your life that have brought you to this point. That have birthed you so far in life. That have fed you, so you can now be birthed into the next stage, the next moments of being alive.
You may choose to listen to the drumming that I offer here to assist you. You may simply breathe into this quiet time of gaining awareness. see bottom of page for drumming track
This is an activity that you can do as many times as you feel to, so just one or two life treasures are fine to be aware of. You don't need everything from your life so far! Remember: 'keep it simple; keep it strong'.
How you choose to add these treasures to your treasure bag, your symbolic placenta, is yours to do. However please do use biodegradable materials as the ceremony involves the bag being buried in the earth. You could write on paper, or leaves, you could use natural items as symbolic representations of your life treasures. You may have received insights whilst listening to the drumming.
Take the time and space you need. This is your journey, your ceremony, your life.
Fill your bag with writings, items and gratitude for this life you have been gifted with, knowing that all that is no longer needed will be filtered away by the healing energies of earth.
When you feel you have gathered all that is needed for this bag, close it with the string ties.
When you are able to, take your bag to a safe location where you have permission to dig a small hole in the ground to bury your treasure bag. This is a gift back to Mother Earth for the life gifted to you. You may wish to include in your ceremony thanks and blessings to the unseen world we inhabit as well as tangible ground.
Take your time and offer the words and heart full breath of gratitude that is uniquely yours to do.
You may wish to plant a flower or small tree on this site of burial, just as though it were an organic womb placenta being buried in earth. For this treasure bag is acting as just that with all your adult intentions of thanks for the life you have been gifted and the life you have yet to live for the wellbeing of yourself and all sentient beings.
