Welcoming our daughters at the threshold of woman hood, welcoming ourselves.... Why us?

How do we attempt to explore rites of passage for our young people when we may not have had an experience ourselves of being well mentored as we grew up?

We live in a time when our own cultural traditions to mark healthy transition into adult hood and other life phases are eroded.

We come in with such deep, visceral longings to be welcomed andmet, seen for who we are, encouraged in our gifts and guided in our stumblings. When this is happening and our backs are well held life is nourished a happy cycle of connection and we can awaken to our natural design. We can find our vision, initiate and manifest our dreams and offer our gifts to ourselves and our communities. When we experience loss we are condoled and can grieve with healthy support. Life renews itself and we are able to be responsive to the needs of ourselves and one another. It is a beautiful picture.

What is the cost when this doesn't happen? When the soul cry to be met is ignored in a society that has forgotten how?

As each potential threshold is missed growing disappointment can brew into rage, frustration, bitterness and lack of direction. It also seems clear that in the absence of healthy acknowledgement people initiate themselves through danger and self harm in an attempt to make sense of and integrate seismic inner shifts.

Rites of passage are not something we do. They are naturally occuring transitions in life that offer an opportunity to transform from one state to another. As women our bodies initiate through the mysteries of blood in the cycle of birth, menarche, birthing of children or projects, menopause and death. Time and time again we are invited into new potentials and possibilities and can transform and let go of unresourceful patterns.

It is not the ceremony we make that is the rite of passage, however we choose to mark it. The thing we do is the vessel that we weave like a basket around the changes that are happening helping the journeying one find out more about themselves and integrate the changes so that power and purpose can emerge.

My teacher Jane said “rites of passage are happening whether we acknowledge them or not”. What is happening during these times becomes a part of what we internalise and learn about what our society values about ourselves. If this is “I am powerful and strong, I am seen for my unique gifts” then this becomes the narrative that can be lived into. If no one notices, or if we get shameful or unresourceful messages about ourselves during these times then this becomes the new normal.

Like bricks layed upon each other, what comes before influences what comes next. We live with a history of colonialisation of land and body. Our mothers and mother’s mothers, father and father’s fathers where often not well supported. We are walking out of a very arid cultural desert.

In my work with birth and with health throughout life phases of women I see time and time again that patterns set up in one threshold moment such as our own birth can play out in the next and in the next until awareness is brought to it and things can change. It is not a formula, but a subtle pattern of causality that becomes the story we live from or the theme we may find repeats on us.

Unlocking that pattern is often the pathway to our greatest gifts. It may represent a healing not just for ourselves but our mothers and our children too. So birth, menarche, birthing and menopause can become windows to see our patterns and to transform them. All traditional cultures understood the potency of these times and the value of attending to them well for everyones sake.

When our children move through ages that we experienced difficulties, those old memories and patterns can get re energised in the whole system and we can find ourselves facing our own wounds and shadows. Without the right support or understanding to acknowledge that this might be going on we can find ourselves replaying our pains out inwardly and perpetuating patterns with our children.

It’s hard to give what we didn’t have. It can also be tricky for others if we try to give them what we needed, rather than what is really good food for them and to see them for who they are, unique and separate.

True culture could be described as the practices that connects an individual to self, community and nature. The Welcoming our daughters program is an attempt to remember and revision healthy and regenerative culture.

The workshops we offer represent opportunities to explore at depth and with good mentoring some of the issues that arise in mothering young people. What do we want for them? What do we want for ourselves that we may never have received in terms of holding? How do support our children in the way that is right for them? How do we find and feed our own longings?

When we talk about rites of passage for our girls and boys we consider it essential to tend our own journeys as women and men. How can we support ourselves with the challenges of mothering and fathering and find ways to heal old patterns that can so easily get triggered as we parent?

We are inevitably deeply influenced and affected by our own early mothering, fathering and early childhood experiences and also what has been carried down through the generational matriarchial and patriarchal lines. We often carry the subtle and often not so subtle messages about gender and entitlement deep within ourselves. We believe it is important to be able to take time out to reflect and deepen our awareness of how and what we might unconsciously be communicating to our daughters and sons in our attempts to hold them well in their own unique journeys.

Welcoming ourselves is our offering in this time of emergent culture to meet our needs for blessing so we can give ourselves what we need as we attempt to fully welcome our children as they are.