When the announcement was made that two beautiful light beings in our community, Navteja and Carissa,  were bringing a new life into their home, it was a time of great joy. This couple shows tender love and compassion toward each other, nurtures each other, and has taken time, years of work bringing their lives into harmony, to prepare for this sacred event.

When these elements – time, tenderness, and the wisdom to allow oneself to mature into the people that learn to set appropriate boundaries, to care for individual needs as well each other – are in place individuals have entered into the consciously lived ceremony of life. It is not easy to be fine stewards of time, the most valuable commodity we have, or to live consciously, but the rewards of doing so are great. 

To honor the beauty of what they are, the time they spent preparing, and the time of parenting that they were about to enter into, I drew on a Navajo tradition called “The Blessingway”. This spiritual tradition blesses the pregnancy and protects the mother and child from averse conditions. It is usually a gathering of close women friends and is held near the end of a pregnancy. For our event, everyone in our community was invited, men included. 

Prior to the gathering, I invited guests to bring a gift of a short blessing in the form of a poem, a song, or few thoughts that they wanted to share. Guests were also asked to bring one or more beads infused with their love that the new mom, Carissa, could string into a labor mala, prayer beads, to help her through her labor. I created paper prayer flags with the expected new baby boy’s name, Ever Truman, integrated into the design. Colored pencils and fine tip markers were supplied for guests who, in meditation, enhanced the flags infusing them with blessings and love. Later, the soon to be mom, could string the flags up across the baby’s room and crib carrying the blessings into the babies’ heart and surroundings. 

Each guest read their blessing in turn wrapping the soon to be parents in love as they received their Blessingway gifts, beads, and blessings written on their prayer flag. To conclude the ceremony, we all formed a circle around expectant parents and Ever Truman in utero and sent our loving energy to them to ensure all would unfold beautifully. 

Ever Trueman’s arrival date was several weeks later, but he appeared a few days after the Blessingway Ceremony. I feel sure the little one waited for our blessings and then sprung into action. A beautiful bundle of joy ready to be held in the loving arms of this special pair of parents.

Copyright@2019 by Barbara E. Verchot