How Ceremonialist Kirstin Ford Takes an Ancient Approach to Modern Motherhood

Ceremonies for motherhood hold importance on many levels. First, it gives the mother a sense of stability and belonging. Societies with a rich history of ceremony and ritual tend to have members who understand their roles and feel a sense of importance and belonging. Ceremonies also give women an opportunity to pause, reflect, and integrate this massive transformation. It’s also important to note that today there is a compelling drive to be painlessly perfect—to categorize, control, dominate, and succeed in modern society. This concept is disturbingly obvious in our modern attempt to medicalize birth. We all but eliminate the sanctity of birth by focusing on what could go wrong. We focus on how to control aspects of labor, what skills we lack as parents that must be compensated for by technology, or relying too heavily on a field of experts that can never truly know you or your baby. The simple truth is that you don’t need someone to tell you how or when you should give birth to your child. The intention of my ceremonies for mothers is to reflect back to you—your strength, ferocity, and wisdom.

Ancient and Indigenous cultures have a deeply-rooted commitment to supporting mothers and babies through ceremony. The shared belief between these ancient cultures is that the mama’s well-being informs the health and well-being of her baby, her extended family, and the community at large. Take care of the mother, and you secure the well-being of every other member in that society. This mother-centered focus is vastly different from the baby-focused approach we see today. This is especially true in America, which operates largely within the framework of the industrial medical complex. One of the longer-standing traditions comes from Ayurveda. According to Ayurvedic sacred texts, there is a transitional period of 42 days beginning at birth, through which a new mother moves. Within this six-week sacred window, mama and baby are as close as possible in what I call a “cocoon of calm.” The elements of air and ether, which are naturally high after birth, leave mama vulnerable to imbalances. Through the usage of grounding practices, warm foods, and devotion to mama, Ayurveda asserts that mothers experience increased health and vitality. Calm nerves, good digestion, and increased tissue healing are just a few of the benefits she receives. She is more capable of responding to her baby’s needs. Babies are so vitally enmeshed with their mothers that whatever mama experiences, the baby experiences. If mama feels calm and nurtured, so does the baby. If mama is well-fed, so is the baby. If mama is anxious or depleted, so is the baby.

When a woman chooses to become a mother, she invites the Universe to alter every fabric of her being. Whether she one day holds a baby in her arms or not, the choice to become a mother is a rite of passage in itself. It is her birthright to choose. From this perspective, I created a series of ceremonies honoring each of the motherhood phases. Some ceremonies feel celebratory while others feel healing—but all are transformative. I offer a Womb Blessing Ceremony for pre-conception, Mother and Baby Blessings for pregnancy, the Birth Portal Opening Ceremony in preparation for birth, and the Birth Portal Closing Ceremony for closure after birth. A Womb Blessing Ceremony can serve a woman in two ways. First, to clear and heal before trying to conceive or after some time of trying without implantation. The second is after a pregnancy loss. The energy and intention of this ceremony is to restore a woman’s confidence in the power of her womb as a sovereign and safe place for creation. A Mother Blessing Ceremony honors and celebrates the mother as the holiest creature on earth. She is showered with love and rituals that make her feel beautiful, sacred, and holy. A Baby Blessing Ceremony is for the parents, along with any family and friends they want present, to pray over and bless their baby’s life from conception to their last breath on Earth. It’s an incredibly profound way to honor this new human that they’ll be shepherding into the world. In a Birth Portal Opening Ceremony, mama is tenderly guided to the aspects of birth that feel most foreign, overwhelming, and mysterious. By the end of this special series, mama feels prepared spiritually, physically, and mentally for the immense and sacred act of birth. The Birth Portal Closing Ceremony focuses on closing her body and mind after labor. We unravel the story of her birth together so her body, mind, and heart can integrate this wisdom and transition her into motherhood from a place of peace, power, and confidence.

Maternal Ayurvedic Balancing Sessions help create a foundation for health that increases a woman’s chance of successfully conceiving, carrying, and birthing a healthy baby while improving her own health. We focus on balancing the unique blend of energies present in her body+mind before, during, and after pregnancy. In Ayurveda, these energies are represented by the elements of Air, Ether, Water, Fire, and Earth. Keeping these in balance is a lifelong, fluid, and dynamic dance. I weave ancient and modern medicine into our sessions as I have seen the power of marrying wisdom from many traditions. In our sessions, we first identify her dominant doshas: where her imbalances might present as pregnancy proceeds. My main precept in her overall care is to bring awareness to what she consumes—the obvious ones like food and drink. But also what she consumes with her other senses: eyes, ears, hands, nose, skin. What is mama watching, listening to, touching, smelling, feeling? These are all experiences she takes in. These are all experiences she passes on to her child. In preconception, we focus on preparing the body, mind, and womb for the massive job of growing a baby. We dedicate sessions to connecting with the soul of her baby and securing the mother-baby dyad that will continue for life. Along with balancing her doshas, a lifestyle assessment is included to identify and remove environmental toxins in her home or life that may be harmful to her and her baby. Throughout pregnancy, we continue to focus on nourishing her body with the right balance of foods, and we establish wellness practices for a calm, intuitive, heart-based pregnancy. In postpartum, our focus is again on nutrition, warmth, and a quiet presence in order to create the ideal cocoon for mama and baby. Sessions often include Ayurvedic-inspired treatments like warm oil crown massage, body wrapping, reiki, sound healing, and somatic practices. I’m also part of her support team, meaning I communicate, when necessary, to family and friends about how to nourish and support mama in a way that aligns with her needs. Often, this aspect is neglected due to all the new and overwhelming tasks a mother has to focus on; she may never have a chance, or the energy, to speak up for herself and ask for something different or more. Advocating for mama may very well be the most important thing any caregiver, partner, or hired support person can offer her. All of this forethought and intentionality pays dividends. Mothers feel supported, stable, and whole. Instead of feeling like she is constantly at the end of her hope or on her toes, she is steady on her feet, nourished in her heart, and free to do what she knows to do: grow, birth, and care for a perfect and miraculous baby with grace.

The Birth Portal Closing Ceremony is a three-week series that brings mama’s body and mind closure after birth. It re-establishes the flow of energy in her body, closing the door on the fluid liminal space she has traveled in order to bring her child into the world. When necessary, the ceremony also sutures the heart and womb from the events that led to her birth as a mother. Because no two births are alike, her birth story is uniquely encoded with wisdom that only she can interpret. Over this three-week period, we move through various aspects of her labor. Storytelling is a powerful tool for healing—she recounts her entire birth story aloud, first to me, then to her loved ones in the following days. The next sessions focus on honoring her former Maidenself, exploring her new identity as a Mother, and reconnecting her to her body and womb. It’s a return home for her, but not to the home she once knew. It’s a return back to her heart, her true north. The world around her may change. Her baby’s face grows older. Her priorities shift. But in her heart, she is home. And rooted here, she is nourished, balanced, sovereign. The final session is an elaborate and stunning formal ceremony during which she will cross a physical threshold she has built out of beloved objects from her home and found in nature. This final act signifies her willingness to close the door on this chapter and step into her role as a mother. This ceremony can feel especially healing and heart-warming for mothers who have birthed before. She will integrate aspects of each of her births. The most incredible outcome is possibly understanding why her children came into the world in their own unique ways and what wisdom she gained from each. For mamas who want more community than an individualized experience, I created a four-week postpartum circle based on this private ceremony. It’s the perfect container to celebrate your birth and witness other mamas in their power. My next circle starts on September 1^st on Zoom, and there are a few spots left.

Add a ceremony to her Little Honey Money registry! A Ceremonialist is a person equipped to guide people through these sacred moments. Throughout my work in ceremony, I tune into what is most aligned and meaningful for my clients to curate bespoke experiences that they remember forever. If you’re more of the do-it-yourself type, you can create your own ceremony. Gather the mother’s loved ones, put flowers in her hair, draw her a ritual bath, massage her feet with oil, and sing her praises. In my Mother Blessing Ceremonies, I always do a Water Blessing. This special ritual is one of many bespoke rituals that I offer clients—and it’s beautifully simple. Fill a mason jar with purified water, cover it, and set it out at night during a full moon. Pass the jar around at the ceremony so each guest can pray over the water. Infusing this water with love and blessings is a simple and profound gift that the mother will then drink throughout labor and delivery. Ceremonies can feel grandiose and celebratory—sure. But it can also be profoundly simple. The most important aspect in creating ceremonial moments is to be vulnerable, present, and willing to hold space for the guest of honor.

Imagine returning home one day, and every single thing in your home has been moved. You walk through, room by room, inspecting your belongings that feel familiar, but nothing is where you left it. You’re suddenly disoriented and overwhelmed. There is no time to put anything back because you look down and see you’ve been carrying the most beautiful and precious gift, your baby. This is new motherhood. And this is the origin of my first ceremony, The Birth Portal Closing. This ceremony was the catalyst for every other offering I’ve created or included ever since. My ceremonies are a necessary part of processing these big life moments. And they aren’t just for the mama who had a challenging birth. They’re for every mama. It is her birthright to integrate the wisdom encoded in her experience of giving birth. The transition into motherhood through the Birth Portal she creates is the most profound transition she will ever experience. Her transformation through ceremony reverberates through all of time. She is not only encoding her own DNA with this wisdom, but she is altering the genes of her lineage—past, present, and future.

Creating moments of sacredness through rituals and creating space for healing requires an element of surrender. Perfectionism is often the first barrier to creating the time and space for healing practices. I recommend first letting go of the need for an idealized vision in your mind. When you have the time to go all out, do it. Buy the flowers, draw the bath, light the candles, pull out your journal and make an “hour alone” feel incredibly nourishing for your spirit. But, sometimes, you simply can’t allocate an hour or two to rituals that open you up to inner shifts, especially as a mother. Surrendering to what is possible is much more powerful than trying to control every detail or forget it altogether. Five minutes of focused and intentional breathing can change the chemistry of your blood. Sitting in stillness with your bare feet on the earth can discharge energy to lower inflammation and bring balance back to your body. When you aren’t running on fumes or at the end of your rope, you create space for healing to happen organically with fewer resources. Beyond curating these small, significant moments, I want mamas to know they can include their babies! There is no replacement for a moment alone when you need to step away, but equally powerful is an intentional moment with your child that offers healing for both of you. My husband and I love to pray with our sixteen-month-old son before dinner. We give thanks to the plants and animals. We pause to smell and see our food. My favorite ritual I share with my son is to recount his day with him as we nurse before bed. I love this for many reasons. Among them, I’m intentionally connecting with him without any other distractions. He watches my face as I speak, and he nods or grunts in acknowledgment as I recount his day. I’m also helping shape his brain to have a model for rituals shared between people—something we don’t have a lot of in our growing and often disparate communities today. I’m teaching him how to show interest in other people by showing interest in him—and he’s learning a foundational concept in emotional intelligence—specifically, inner reflection. Together, we slow down and reflect on all the people, activities, and feelings he experienced. My hope is that this open communication eventually leads to a relationship in which he can comfortably talk to me about everything in his day without fearing how I’ll react.

There is a lot more familiarity and desire for sacred gatherings like the Mother Blessing. It’s such a beautiful shift in our culture. While they’re becoming more common, there is still a serious lack of support and emotional processing that happens before and immediately after labor. Women are becoming more intentional about birth and postpartum prep. However, the overall trend still focuses on prepping for the baby, the physical aspects of birth, and new parenthood. I’d love to see more families and soon-to-be parents focus on the unhealed pain and shadows they’ll be carrying into parenthood. Ancestral wounds, the parents’ own births, and life experiences through adulthood are all equally important. In ceremony with me, this is a critical aspect of our work. We must also recognize that women, especially mothers, have the unique ability to extend themselves far beyond their means. Mothers have a seemingly endless well of love, energy, and attention that they flow into their people. Through my work and the many other incredible maternal health resources, I hope that as a society, we can create healthier boundaries for ourselves while also creating safe spaces for mothers to process the immeasurable weight of their new role.

Everything in motherhood is magnified, whether you have yet to meet your new baby or are welcoming your second or third. Every pain point, every moment of joy, every memory has a heightened significance. There is a “her” before giving birth and a “her” after giving birth. Crossing that threshold into motherhood means surrendering everything while holding it all in your arms. It’s the ultimate dichotomy. You will feel the greatest joy you’ve ever felt while painfully aware of its impermanence. You will feel the greatest love you’ve ever experienced while grieving aspects of your former life. When you focus only on the good—the positive, the light—you’re creating a narrow band from which you may operate. This can lead to disembodied living. Dulled emotions are so overwhelming that you feel you have to escape them. There is a safe way to invite aspects of yourself that you find hard to face. In ceremony, I create a safe space for you to explore these subjects, memories, and beliefs in a way that is unifying for your whole system. With my mamas, I show up with a willingness to hold all of you so you may have the courage to do the same. It’s not sunshine and rainbows all the time, but there is immense beauty in this work. In a world obsessed with shiny exteriors, I encourage you to rebelliously and ceremoniously invite in all aspects of yourself—the dark and the light. It’s here in the shadows where our power lives. It’s the ability to embrace our unlovable bits with the warmth you’d hope for from your grandmother.

A baby shower can take on ceremonial energy by including traditions and rituals that are meaningful to the mama-to-be. My advice is to try shifting away from the party atmosphere and creating a more meaningful way to connect with her and honor her journey.