Oops!

I don’t classify the birth of my daughter as traumatic, but some people have done it for me. I remember when she was about seven weeks old and an acquaintance of mine, then childless, pulled me aside. She had heard that I had to transfer my planned home birth to the hospital. She gave me a look of pity. How traumatic that must have been, she said.

I just finished a Facebook Live video on the power of ritual journaling for the Simple Ayurveda Facebook group, led by the beautiful Angela Perger. I was so inspired by what I got to talk about there that I wanted to share it again here. (Join the group and you can see the full video.)

Angela’s topic for the month is the power of ritual. I adore ritual. It marks every part of my day. Ritual is what makes my dinacharya, or daily routine, holy.  When my routines are ritualized, I approach them with devotion. I make them a celebration of my aliveness.

I have found that while all births are unique, they all share this in common: They aren’t what was expected.

And it’s not only in birth, all forms of passage (i.e., the events that fundamentally shape us as humans) have this in common. Because if we knew exactly the course we were going to take, we would never have been able to accept the wisdom that we gained from the journey.