An old chameleon looks up at a bush.
He decides to climb it.

As he climbs the bush he meets a caterpillar
The caterpillar is SCARED!
He is supposed to become a butterfly,
but to become a butterfly he has to go into a cocoon.
And the cocoon is dark!
It is lonely.
What if it hurts to become a butterfly?
He doesn’t want to do it!

The old chameleon says…
If you don’t you don’t go in your cocoon you’ll never become a butterfly.
Doing something scary to become something new will be challenging! And you can do it.

The old chameleon leaves and continues to climb.
And then he meets a spider.

The spider is MAD!
Every day he builds his web, and every day it gets destroyed!
Then he has to rebuild it all over again.
He doesn’t want to do it anymore!

The old chameleon says…
If you don’t build your web,
you wont catch any food or have a place to sleep.
Make building your web a normal part of your day!
And enjoy the process.

The old chameleon leaves and continues to climb.
And he meets a honey bee.

The honeybee is SAD.
Every day he collects pollen to make honey for his hive.
But a human keeps eating the honey!
And he doesn’t want to collect pollen anymore.

The old chameleon says…
If you don’t collect pollen to make honey for your hive,
your bee family won’t have any food.
Focus on feeding your bee family,
And just accept that this human eats some of it.

Then old chameleon climbs to the top the bush and he accidentally rests on a flower

He then changes Colors

~~~~
Dearest Atreyu,
The Moral of this story is that life can be hard. Things happen that are out of our control.
We need to accept them and surrender to them. Finding gratitude and being brave.

Maybe… we can even “turn lemons into lemonade.” By accepting what we cannot control, we can make the process as enjoyable as possible.

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As mothers in this very strange world….It’s our job to wash away the pain of our own mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother. We get to change the story of our current culture. We are the empowered mother now.

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Traditions around the world use labyrinths~ and every one uses the SAME number of rings = 7.

My spirit mama told me it takes 7 years to complete a cycle of life. In fact, scientists say that in 7 years ~ our cells have completely renewed themselves! We truly become a new person.

And! When it comes to the transition from maiden to mother, each ring of the labyrinth tells story of our initiation, our decent, our resurrection and our rebirth.

~~~~ We call this the Map! ~~~~~

#1

The first ring of the labyrinth is our initiation cycle ~

 For you, this could have been  the moment you got pregnant. Or maybe it was the moment you went into labor. Honestly, I think the first ring of my labyrinth began when I married my husband Adam.

#2

The second ring represents your descent~

It’s Inanna’s journey into the underworld. The unknown. She must loose herself so she can find herself again… but she’ll be different.

#3

The third ring represents creation~

It’s where new life begins. it’s usually the third year that mother understands what it means to be a mother. And she starts to sink into her new role. It’s also when many of the trials in the first two years subside, and the mother can come more Into herself.

#4

The fourth ring represents completion and a stability ~

In this cycle you may feel more secure in yourself and in your environment. Something that you were working on in the last three cycles, has come to a stable place.

#5

The fifth ring represents resurrection~

You have rebirthed yourself – and you are emerging from the labyrinth with a new personality, a new point of view and a new strength.

#6

The sixth ring represents the rising~

You now feel like you can teach the journey to others.

#7

The seventh ring represents the exit~

Just like the 7 chakras, or the 7 days of the week…

It takes 7 cycles, and possibly 7 years, to fully anchor the mother self.

For many, these rings represent years of life. For others… it has a different meaning to their soul.

~~~~

When we use myth to understand the human experience~ we need to compare the symbols – from various cultures and traditions.

When we do this the patterns repeat themselves. Those patterns are our map for life.

Pam England calls the labyrinth, “the Laborynth.”

And she explains it as the cycles within the birth journey itself.

Each ring is marked with contractions, and the spiral journey represents the turns the baby makes as it moves through the birth canal.

The labyrinth represents every life journey, because patterns mirror each other.

The labyrinth can represent the labor itself~~

 the years following birth~~

the end of one stage of life and into another ~~

and our entire life journey from birth to death.

Understanding the Life Map, can help us as we transition from one stage of life to another.

And!!! with every ring of the labyrinth there are many turns within it! There will be ups and downs in every stage.

We all need to understand that life is not linear.

And it’s definitely not a fairy tale

(unless that fairy tale is following the hero’s journey model.)

Life is a wild journey. A hero’s journey. For the purpose of our soul’s growth.

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“It doesn’t matter HOW you gave birth, what matters is that YOU DID!”

To all the mothers who birthed at home ~ YOU did it!

To all the mamas who birthed in the hospital~ YOU did it!

And to all the mothers who birthed unexpectedly or traumatically~ YOU did it!

~ ⭐️ 🌙

No matter HOW you gave birth~
all women go through a similar initiation as they enter motherhood.

There will be a death, a transformation, and a re-emergence.

According to myth,
The maiden to mother initiation is a hero’s journey.

And birth is a Rite of Passage in which we shed our maiden form, and through a series of trials, emerge as our mother selves.

The ancients understood this.
And they created rituals to help the people navigate life transitions.

~ ⭐️

The Red Thread reminds us that all women are connected to each other. We are mirrors with similar stories ~ linked through our births, our ancestral lines and our “HERstory” as women.

For me personally,
I’ve been studying myth for as long as I can remember & I have been teaching the women’s mysteries for over 12 years.

In myth, and especially in the women’s mysteries, life is cyclical. We enter periods of darkness in order to transform.

The darkness is MYSTERY. It’s the unknown.
We are uncertain of what will happen and who we will become.

We can embrace the journey—>
By sharing with each other vulnerably in circle!
By doing rituals to prepare ourselves for transformation!
By Celebrating each other!
By Surrendering to the mystery!
& By nurturing ourselves in postpartum!

Then we can emerge as the mother self!

Deeply in love with our child, our family, our community, and ourselves ~ because we are supported, and our inner foundation is strong!

~⭐️

I plan to do this series next year, when I can be away from my baby boy. He is 5 months old!! ❤️

The pregnancy and postpartum groups will be held in a RED TENT… utilizing ritual, ceremony, myth, art, movement and somatic embodiment practices. Bringing care back to the “Traditional” practices of the goddess.

I hope this series can supplement modern doula care ~ as a program that focuses on women’s emotional, spiritual and psychological health ~ during the child bearing year.

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After childbirth you loose yourself

The women’s mysteries would say, “The blood is now milk.”
And the new mother enters a special sort of limbo.

Everything is about the baby.
Self care can feel non-existent & the trial of being a new parent~
may take some to their wits end.

(Thank goodness for those milky love hormones!
I truly, have never been so tired.)

But It’s said “9 months in ~ 9 months out.”
And at the end of this 18 month period (approx), we have been initiated.

Our soul has made space to be able to take care of another human being.

~~~

Next~ comes the return of the BLOOD.

For many moms~ the journey of the milk is more comfortable than the return of their menstrual cycle.

In the women’s mysteries, the menstrual flow is called
“the time when women come back to themselves.”

And, although it is hard to loose ourselves in “the milk phase“~
giving all of ourselves to our child ~ can feel easier than the self inquiry work ~ that the return of the blood now requires.

Our PMS symptoms will remind us where we are out of balance, and that we need to take our space.

….

After a year of normal cycles~

We emerge ~ as our solidified mother self.

The “she” we will be ~ for the next stage of our life.

~~~~

The path to becoming a mother has a rhythm. Much like the hero’s journey.

There is the initiation, the decent, and the re-emergence.

Which happens many times over!

Each cycle breaks us open to cleanse, and then rebuild a new layer of ourself.

Life, when looked at from the perspective of the soul, is a spiral.
And its purpose is growth.

~~~~

Art by Brett Manning

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