Briana’s Story: Reclaiming European Ritual & Ceremony After Birth
Briana and I connected during her search for local birthworkers to help her do a postpartum ceremony, after the birth of her first child. She was familiar with the Mexican “Closing the Bones” tradition, although as a white woman, she was hesitant to do a ceremony outside of her lineage and knowledge, nor could she find any birthworkers willing to work with her. Persistent, she kept asking, and she asked me. I was trained once in Closing of the Bones (A Cerrar las Caderas) with Master Teacher Panquetzani of Indigemama. I knew enough to know that the ceremony required advanced training as well as permission from an elder, neither of which I had. Plus, it is also not my lineage.
I’ve been asked by many white women to bypass these cultural permissions because they simply “need” something like this, to which I have always said no. But this year, as the Oshun Center was forming, I found myself in a place of wanting to rebuild and reclaim all that has been lost - for all of us. I offered Bri a proposal.
I acknowledged the danger of culturally appropriating, and I acknowledged her need for ceremony of some kind. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind if I gathered two other Oshun Center healers of European ancestry and allowed us to experiment with her in co-creating and co-remembering ceremony from her own lineage. She loved the idea, and in return, offered to make a donation to the Oshun Center to support us in paying BIPOC healers for events and teaching classes.
I was curious to see if it were possible to create a ceremony that embraces, rather than bypasses, her own European family stories and struggles. Perhaps, also, in a process grounded in cultural equity and antiracism, by choosing which elements of the family to evolve deeper into, which practices to evolve away from, and what new generation of her ancestry would be handed to its newest baby member.
The experience was powerful for each of us in different ways, and for me opened a new line of communication and appreciation for my own European (Polish, Irish) ancestry. But - I’ll let the full story be told in the words of Brianna herself, and my co-healers, Anna, and Erin, who traveled on this experimental journey with me.
Bonus! You can also listen to two additional events inspired by our journey with Bri - a livestream event on Reimagining Healing All of Us, and a story-telling podcast on how creating Brianna’s ceremony has led us to bring ritual and ceremony in simple ways into our holiday celebrations going forward.
Briana’s words:
Closing Ceremony Reflections 11.2021
Hi Ihotu,
I think the blanket of snow today finally calmed my insides long enough to put some thoughts on paper. Thank you for your patience in getting this to you – it’s been on my mind and now I’m glad it can be in your hands. Can’t say these reflections will be profound or even new from what we have already shared, but hopefully they can serve as a personal account and gratitude for what you all helped create. Please feel free to use any of this for the blog you mentioned or promotion of this type of event.
During our interviews, I had talked of me experiencing a wind tunnel from sacrum to mouth – straight up and down. When I found it, weeks after birth, it was cold and void. I knew that closing it would involve healers. I am so grateful there are women out there who will walk with other women as they take on big things, so they don’t feel alone. Thank you for guiding my mind, body and spirit through this closing ceremony.
Anna’s words:
Ihotu put out a call asking for healing helpers with Germanic and Slavic backgrounds to assist in co-creating a “closing the bones” ceremony for a community member who was suffering after the birth of her first child. Ihotu added me to the email thread. It came at an interesting time as I had recently facilitated a ceremony for someone who was not in my immediate family; something I had spent several months wrestling with before navigating all the internal, external, and ancestral complexities in order to say “yes” with integrity to that request. I replied to Ihotu’s thread confirming that I do indeed facilitate ceremonies, but in this case I’d probably be a better background support for the folx leading the ceremony since I am not Slavic or Germanic, but of predominantly Magyar and Székely ethnic descent.
Knowing what I do of Hungary’s history with west-central Europe and how my body sometimes responds in these intersectional relationships, I half expected some of them to be like, “Oh, a Hungarian? Um, thanks, but we’d better not.” They didn’t say that. I was humbled, grateful, and open to stepping in and co-channeling spirit when they did invite me in to be one of the facilitators. To me this is the natural flow and power of spiritual love; it is so strong that it will unite people and concentrate diverse energies so that healing can happen.
Erin’s words:
The preparation for Bri’s ceremony was by far the most important part of this experience for me. After initially receiving Bri’s request for a postpartum Closing of the Bones ceremony, Ihotu encouraged Bri to really think about her own culture and what she individually might need and could draw from for this ritual. This led Bri to share with us that she connected with her German ancestry most closely, and this is ultimately what drew me into being involved. Perhaps my own connection to my distant, but important cultural heritage as German, as well as being a birth doula might be helpful.
When we spoke with Bri prior to the ceremony, her answers to our questions really shaped the ceremony. Everything from the beautiful altar she prepared to the presence of apples and honey, the use of her postpartum bath salts and all of the incredible aspects of ceremony, energy work, song and healing that Anna and Ihotu provided. It also left some big questions for us as we prepared. Were there any traditional postpartum healing practices from Germany? What about wrapping? Were there traditions we could incorporate that might support her through this ceremony?
These questions inspired me to start a journey that is far from over and really dig into additional questions that have been swimming around in my head and heart and steadily growing stronger for the past couple of years. I knew so little about traditional German practices, and yet had found myself longing more and more to find some cultural belonging and wisdom. This was the perfect opportunity to start digging in.
Anna:
In September, I met with Ihotu and Erin on the white sands of the Misi sipi to bring our chosen ancestors together, make ceremony, exchange cultural wisdom, and develop a particular energetic bond to carry with us to Briana. We opened with prayer to the land and her indigenous people, made offerings, and created a sacred space. I recall sitting with them on the sands, facing west, and feeling deeply moved by the potency of Briana’s energy body. It was her body’s deep knowing and sensing that so powerfully pulled us together and brought forward the parts of ourselves that were needed for her to heal. We sat by the flowing water, shared cultural food, medicines, teachings, and reflections until it started to rain. Water goddess Boldogasszony at her finest.
Through much laughter regarding the rain and the circumstances, we called Bri from inside Erin’s family van. We sat there, engine off, senses on, and asked her questions, listened, and sensed ourselves. My questions were aimed at eliciting the “voice” of Briana’s body, so when I had the chance I invited the portal to open for her body’s energy to connect with ours through a body scan and guided sensing so that her body could teach us what was happening. Briana’s body felt severed and split in several ways, particularly between the right and left; she was also feeling the split and discontent in her emotions and spirit. She sensed a vulnerable blown open “wind tunnel” from pelvic floor/sacrum to mouth. She feared that it was so open that anything could enter and inhabit the vacancy. At times she felt the eerie hollowness as her body’s ill yearning for her daughter as a lost part of her. In the body scan, her body showed us that the psycho-spiritual-physical illness was blue all the way through her body and that the wellspring of groundedness and love flows from her eyes. Her healing energy flowed easily once given energy as subtle as a whisper.
Erin:
I started by requesting stacks of books from the library late one night. My quest was to find anything at all pointing to traditional German practices surrounding pregnancy, birth and postpartum. Searching high and low in these books offered me little information that I was looking for, but did offer some valuable insight for me.
I had a realization that as a white person, it was in fact, okay for me to seek to learn and use things like herbalism and alternate forms of healing. I began to dig through old European books on herbalism, witches, and magic. I learned about St. Hildegaard of Bingen, who wrote about lifestyle and healing practices that are similar to Ayurveda in the 12th century.
I learned about the erasure and killing of healers, especially women healers and midwives in Europe. I read about Germany's (still!) strict regulations when it comes to practitioners who are not medical doctors.
I started to grieve a little more knowingly for what has been lost for me and such a large percentage of the Western, white population.
For a long time, I’ve tended towards not throwing my confidence 100% behind Western medicine, and sought out healing and health in additional ways. But as a white person, that for me has been an ungrounding feeling. If I can’t go to my medical doctor for support in holistic healing, where can I go? How do I find health and healing?
Can I use or practice ways of healing that are from people groups that I’m not a part of? How do I muddle through the messy lines of cultural appropriation and appreciation? What are the things my family and ancestors did to stay healthy? There had to be something, right?!
The books I was looking through opened up some new worlds for me, but I still desired more information on pregnancy, birth and postpartum to be able to offer something for the ceremony. I turned next to my aunt and interviewed her about anything at all that she could remember about birth in my dad’s side of the family (this side of my family most recently immigrated to the US from Germany). Once again, I didn’t really get what I was specifically looking for, but it certainly did whet my appetite for more family stories and to gain a deeper sense of who my people were.
A few weeks later I was gathered with my aunt, an uncle and my dad for my sister’s wedding celebration in Colorado. I was able to sneak them away together and record an interview.
We talked about birth and death, emotions, cultural and healing practices and much more. During this process, I was given access to a document that my grandfather and uncle had prepared many years ago telling the story about my great-great grandfather, H.H. Meyer, who immigrated to the US from Germany and settled in a small community in northern Ohio. He was quite the community leader and business-owner/farmer. I loved reading stories about him and better understanding this important ancestor.
One of my favorite facts about him was learning that he devoted part of his farm to be used for an herbal garden so that a healer in the community could use the herbs. There was healing in my heritage, there was healing and healing practices that came from Europe!
Learning about the genealogy of my family has been important to me for a long time as well, but I realized that now is the time for me to learn even more and to learn as many stories as I can. I spent other time that weekend starting to go through stories with my mom about her side of the family as well.
Still in search of something specific to use for Bri’s ceremony, I was able to connect with a colleague who is from Germany. Carolin looked through her German books and recalled some of her own memories to share with me. This was the most helpful in terms of tangible preparation for the ceremony and led me to feel strongly about adding chamomile to Bri’s bath at the end of the ceremony.
I was also excited to prepare tea for Bri’s ceremony. She said that anise was an important spice to her, and this resonated strongly with me. My great-grandmother Eileen Ansorge on my mother’s side was so well known for her cookies made with anise oil that they were served at her funeral. I had also learned from my dad that his maternal grandmother made a cookie with similar ingredients. I was eager to incorporate anise as part of our ceremony as well.
Anna:
My conscious preparation for making ceremony involves daydreaming, prayer, reflection, and simply following energetic pulls in my body. I gathered blue fabrics, blue glass beads, a blue candle, blue stones, and blue lights. Yes, Blue, we will see you, honor you, learn from you, treat you. There was one fabric in particular, a bright, deep, shimmery blue that wanted me to cut him into strips. I held the strips and felt that they were energetic wrappings. Healing with color has always come naturally to me, I learned later in life that it is not my personal creative imagination, but more likely my ancestors coming through, as my three predominant ethnicities all use color medicinally. I packed my ceremony bag with good energy and prepared Magyar spell bags for spiritual protection.
I believe the “ceremony” started the moment Briana made a sound. Called out. Asked for help. Trusting that what her body, mind, and spirit were telling her was important and honoring it even without knowing how. I believe asking for help is a sacred act. It creates deep relationship, healing memories that fold into our DNA like soothing salve. Rather than grabbing quickly for what we think might fill a void or take pain away, it entails being with pain or hollowness and feeling powerless, knowing you can't do it alone, whatever the unknown “it” is. I think that when we reach out for help, it brings people together, and that community is the paramount power of humanity, our healing human magic.
So, for me, the “ceremony” had been underway and building energy for a couple months by the time the day of the scheduled invite to Briana’s home arrived. Briana had invited her mother, husband, and daughter to be present as well.
Bri:
Closing. For me, closing meant many things throughout the night. One vivid moment where I felt a sense of closure was as I validated my body for all it had to do to bring Ferrah into the world. I had to validate it out loud, saying “That was necessary. You had to be that open. But now you don’t.” When Anna asked me what I needed to tell it, these words fell out of my mouth as easily as pumpkin pie goes in. I had no idea how ready I was to allow my body the permission to move beyond the state of openness it had been stuck in for the last five months. Nor did I realize how open I had remained.
Anna:
I greeted the space, honored the space, protected the space, made offerings to the local spirits. This is not just because that is a “good” or trendy thing to do, but it is part of my own Magyar and Székely lineage to work with the sacredness of what and who is here and where we are; which means that without the truth of reality, we are disembodied, we can be more likely to cause or perpetuate harm, and it would also be disregarding abundant resources without which the ceremony will not be as powerful. When I speak of making offerings to the land and space, it is an acknowledgment of what I do know and what I do not know.
In this case I know that I am a white-bodied displaced settler initiating spiritual healing ceremony on land that is the birthright of the Dakota people; land that was wrongfully taken through a series of forced, illegitimate, broken, and disregarded treaties in the 1800s and the horrific internment and forced removal of the Dakota from here, their homeland. The very ground we are trying to heal upon has been soaked in blood, has not healed herself from the loss of her people, and I have a “home” on this land for gut-wrenchingly unjust reasons.
I know that the rent I pay now continues to fuel the wrong side of history so I pray that my actions be conscious and reparative or, at least, make space to grieve the absence of the reparations I am powerless to make. (As a mental health therapist, I often say that my psychological life depends on reparations...it is life or death. Truth is the starting point for mental health.) Reparations through money, action, word, deed, thought, prayer. I require myself to pay monthly reparations in the same way I have to pay for my basic living expenses; and I give extra when I can, particularly if money comes to me through this type of intersectional spiritual work. As I am a conduit in giving energy, so I am a conduit in receiving energy; none of it belongs to me.
In asking to bless the space, there is also an acknowledgement of what I do not know: I do not know the history of the individual families throughout time that have traversed, made ceremony, were born, died, and slept on this exact plot of land. I do not know the spirits who are rushing forward to help, I do not know who sent them or to where they will return. I do not know what Briana will do with the healing energy she is gifted with. I do not know how the healing ceremony will unfold as we dance in the space between what we know and what we don’t know.
Erin was there first, starting to make tea, scenting the entire home with anise and honey. I walked around the home, placing offerings and protection in key energetic locations to seal and concentrate the energy. Ihotu opened with a song, sending out vibrations to open our hearts and minds, inviting healing power in. Ihotu led us on a meditative journey through our mother’s and grandmother’s wombs. I journeyed to Budapest in the 1950s, then to Székely land in Transylvania in the 1910s, then came back to Mni Sota Makoce.
Bri:
Closing also meant hello. I find it interesting in life when you must go backward in order to go forward. The guided meditation where we nested in our mothers, and then nested our mother in her mother and imagined their surroundings was very powerful. I think in this moment, we opened a doorway to go back and listen to our ancestors, their wisdom, and honor them despite who they might have been. Afterall, we are only here because of them and the beauty of their births. This connectedness continued for me throughout the night.
Anna:
We each spoke. My body often tremors and goes through temperature swings when channeling. I follow spiritual and bodily instinct, while not disregarding any of my teachers. There was a jagged, cold, jerky energy that started to intensify; I just kept moving, breathing, grounding. My drum, István, helped by singing loudly to break up rigidity and to welcome all the hearts there to steady their flow beat. He wanted to concentrate the vibrations directly around Briana, so I asked permission to drum around her and she instinctively reached for her infant daughter to join her. I followed the flow of energy around them and it struck me that István was creating a womb-like energy sac around Briana: his drum voice like a mother’s heartbeat.
Bri:
Full stop. I must talk about the drum which was unlike anything I had experienced before. Holding Ferrah, a rain of vibration come over us. It washed us. I will treasure this experience I now have with my daughter who has now felt in her bones the song of a drum. Also, those photos are wild! I am convinced of the spiritual dance that was happening around us.
Anna:
I could sense Briana’s spirit-energy coming closer, but it was still hovering above her, at times falling right and left. I asked if I could touch her and I sat by her with my hand on her leg while the others moved around, tending to the tea, food, and herbal salt bath. I channeled energy within and around the energy sac and magnified her movements in my own body in order to help pull her spiritual healing power close and support keeping it in her body. Once it was down to her toes I had others help bind key areas and joints in her body with the blue strips.
Yes, blue illness, we hear you, we honor you, we are listening, we are here to help. Her energy started to sink and (as usual) I had to toss my prior human ideas and follow the flow. It was like watching ice melt in a bag as she shifted to lying down. All of the water knows what to do, knows how to heal, it just needs some containment to not spill out.
Briana’s energy started to soften and open up as she laid down, I positioned myself so that she would not strain her neck and eyes as she looked at me. I asked her to ask the wind tunnel if there was anything it wanted her to know. She paused, looked and listened inward, then it spoke. Her body “had to be that open” in order to birth her daughter. Her body is amazing, a portal of life. She honored how necessary the tunnel was, and in the process, her body’s innate physical and spiritual wisdom was honored as well. There was nothing more the tunnel had to say, she felt ready to seal and heal. She closed her eyes and trusted her body’s energy.
I could feel the edges of her subtle body, they at first felt airy, then soft, bubble-like, then like very thin glass, I could see the potential for soft clay starting to form. So after I laid the most gentle pressure of blue fabric over her body and Ihotu started to sound István more loudly, I asked Erin and Briana’s mother to help me knead, shape, and smooth the surface of her subtle body. I told them “like smoothing clay” and their bodies knew exactly what to do.
Briana’s breath and movements started to change. We followed the direction of the wind tunnel, from the bottom of her feet, slowly working our way up to her head. I was at her head when the energy moving through her became sharp and electric, like a bluish lightning and I had to quickly move the excess energy out and away through jerking movements and snapping. Then all of our breathing slowed, deepened, and it was time to smooth and seal it all in from head to toe. At the end, we all helped the energy ground and settle through the drum sound, and holding each of her feet and the top of her head with hands on contact.
We then sat on the floor in a circle, sang songs, each reflected openly on our experience. Many songs came through. Songs that held stories embedded in relationships known and unknown. Songs that connected the past to the future in that present moment.
We sang lullabies. The songs sung to us as children to close the day.
Bri:
Closing. It was honor, relief, getting small to get big. It was dance and song. A cleanse and permission to fully reside back within myself. It was inviting others to reside there with me.
There were several times through the ceremony where closing meant song. Also, last night, my dad was holding Ferrah in the exact spot I was lying – and you’ll never guess what song he started to sing. “I love you, a bushel and a peck…” came out of him as I looked with wide eyes. This was not a song I grew up hearing, but I think somebody was reminding him that he did.
Me and my family will carry this with us for many lifetimes to come, and I can’t be more grateful you, Erin and Anna took a risk on this.
