As I was entering the last month of pregnancy, I felt a deep physiological urge to do a ritual for my unborn daughter. There were two fold in this ritual, one which was to mark my healing journey to the feminine and secondly to give blessing to the future unborn.

When looking at the state of the world, I felt that the next generation had a lot coming towards them. They will need to build new world. If my generation is the one to midwife the decline of an old world, our task is to learn to die with grace and therefore to be the death doula of this paradigm. So it will be on my children to bring forth and birth a new paradigm in the mist of the chaos to come. So I really wanted to offer them a blessing and give them all the strength of the ancestors for the task that they will have ahead.

Below I go through the different componants in the design of the ritual

The prophecy

I wanted to incorporate a prophecy to the ritual as this is the future my daughter will likely face, it is the context for the prayer and blessing. Two participant s ( one male, one female) would be invited to incarnate the voice of the oracle and read the prophecy.

Participation

Having now had quite a lot of experience with dealing with an audience and what my art can and often triggers people, it was very important for this ritual that the people participating felt a true calling to be there, that they wanted to connect with my daughther and this pregnancy and to give their blessing, they were part of my community. I also informed them of the nudity as I had experience where people found the nudity very triggering.

The prayer

Having done during the pregnancy a meditation retreat at a tibetan center, I was deeply inspired by their mantra, I had also been inspired by the sweat-lodge ritual that I took part of. In many rituals certain action were gender specific, I wanted to honour therefore in this ritual sex and gender specific roles, because this pregnancy was a lot about healing my relationship to the feminine and being female. See pregnancy, birth giving and breastfeeding connect me deeply to the fact that I am physically a female mammal. That this body does something very banal and very powerful, which is creating, carrying and giving life.

The sacred sound of prayer

The prayer was to be read by the collective, there is a power to collective declaration, where there is no more an individual voice but a collective sound and voice. As if we are to include and transcend the notion of individual transformation. Indeed individual transformation can only happen in a collective container. Hence the ritual encompass different play between the collective voice and individual one as well as a roar that came out of me while the prayer was being read, as a way to connect to the animal kingdom, a release, a similar roar as when giving birth.

Healing the feminine

Symbols play a big role in ritual, here there were different symbols at play. I drew across my pregnant body a red line with lipstick as to signify the healing work I had engage in with my acupuncturist from the beginning of the pregnancy to heal the wound of belonging I had with my own mother.

I wore a neckless with a dragon that my mother gave me, as both my daughter and I were of the Chinese sign of the dragon.

I also wash my mother's feet as, during the ritual because the development edge I had chosen to start engaging with was to heal my relationship with the feminie. When discovering the sex of the baby, I saw all the trauma I had in my relationship to woman, your children are often your greatest teacher as they reveal to you where your developmental edge is. I therefore knew if I wanted a healthy relationship with my unborn daugther I had to heal and transform my relationship to my mother and other woman. To wash my mother feet was a physical act of love a desire to heal those feet which had been carrying me. This was also symbolise with a braid that I attached around my belly and gave to my mum to re-incanate the ombilical cord that linked my mother and I.

Space

I chose for the ritual to take place in the basement of the Life Itself Bergerac Hub. I was called to go into the belly of the earth, to be underground. Bergerac situates itself down a valley, next to the Dordogne river, which has a very powerful energetic field. The choice of the space, played a crucial dimension to the experience, to go under, to look at what we often do not want to see, to enter the subconscious, to go into the womb.

My friend had purify the space before hand using sage, before I came. There is also something very important which is the preparation to the ritual which is essential, as this time allow us to drop into the scared space innerly and physically. It sublimes what can be mondain to something sacred. With time I have learn that preparation is key, because the more prepared I was the more I could hold space for life itself to show up.

When the community came to participate in the ritual, there were specific place for them to be at in the basement. I was to be at the center as the carrier of life, my mother was to be facing me as a living ancestor, then a circle of woman around me and a circle of man behind the women, supporting them. There was a hotel for the dead on my left.

Offerings

People who participated were ask to bring an offering for the future unborn and the ancestors. I had also made a offering to my father of read wine and having his ashes present during the ritual. It was important for me to link the world of the dead with the world of the living, my unborn daughter being in the liminal world, the mystical world of the womb in between. To presence the ancestors was key as to understand our presence in time not as individual but as a lineage, both a blood lineage and a spiritual lineage.

Below is the prayer that was recited by the community during the ritual. Feel free to use it.

Metta prayer: Blessing for the future unborn

We pray for all beings to find the path to peace. 

We pray that the wheel of violence ceases.

We pray that a healing listening arises so suffering evaporates at the contact of metta.

We pray that our wrong doings may be healed. 

We pray for the veil of illusion of separation and ignorance be lifted.

We pray for all human beings to be blessed by insight and our lives be lifted by right actions and alleviate the pain of the world.

We ask for forgiveness from the future generations.

We ask  help to forgive what we can not forgive so we may be free from resentment and hatred.

We ask to help us see the buddha nature in all beings and experience reality as it is, perfect and complete.

We ask to free ourselves from fear of death. 

We ask to free ourselves from our attachments.

We ask to free ourselves from illusions and wrong perceptions.

We ask to have the wisdom to know when to speak and when to stay silent.

We ask help to dwell in love, peace and compassion.

We ask to protect our soul from the little death of resignation.

We ask to free ourselves from the fear of death of the world as we know and to be open to a new world to be born.

Please purify our hearts from jealousy, greed, envy, fear and scarcity.

Please allow our hearts to open itself to its calling.

May we stay connected to our ancestors.

May we build on the work they did and transcend their limitations and blindspots.

May we connect to the strength and power of all our ancestors.

May we have the blessing of the old sages.

May you give us the strength of faith.

We cry with all the mothers who have lost their children.

We cry for all the men who died in wars.

We give thanks to all that has happened to allow this moment to manifest.

We give thanks to all the animals and living beings who have given their life for us.

We give thanks to all the children who have brought light and joy into our lives and who have lost their innocence.

We give an offering to the underworld.

May the ghosts rest in peace.

May we no longer be haunted by the past.

Who here will be the voice of the woman?

We are the vessel of life.

We are the nurturer of life.

We bless and we ask to bless these mothers, daughters, sisters and warriors.

May they receive the strength and wisdom they need to continue to nurture and birth a new world.

Who here will be the voice of the men?

We are the protector of life.

We are the supporter of life.

We bless and we ask to bless these fathers, sons, brothers and warriors.

May they receive the strength and wisdom they need to continue to build and protect the new world.

Who here will be the voice of the unborn?

(giving room for any one to speak as the incarnation of the future unborn)

Everyone

We bless and ask to bless the unborn, the babies, the children, youth.

We ask to give the future the strength to face the challenges that awaits them.

We ask to give us wisdom so we may guide our children through the darkness.

Sadu, Sadu, Sadu