Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage

“If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and
hatred, we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life. For that is
where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation or love and trust.”
— Suzanne Arms, Giving Birth: Challenges and Choices

Among the Council we’ve been thinking and talking a lot about rites of passage.

Do you remember yours?

Your first period? Becoming an adult woman in the community? Becoming a mother? Choosing (or having the choice made for you) not to become a mother? When you stopped bleeding? Becoming crone?

What marked these moments for you? Who was there for you? With you? Was there a celebration? Wise supportive women and community around you? Mentors? Admirers and sisters?

For me these transitions are a blur. They were mostly navigated in relative isolation, blending in as a muffled undercurrent to whatever was happening in my external world.

I read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret when I was a young girl anticipating, excited, and anxious about when I would start bleeding. I witnessed my mother in the throes of what appeared to be excruciating pain every month. And that awkward day at school when the girls and boys were separated to learn from the school nurse about our respective bodily functions…

I got my driver’s license at 16, graduated high school at 17, was awarded the right to vote at 18, graduated university at 21, and became a mother at 22. (I’m still not sure when, exactly, I officially became an adult.)

I became an unmarried (shame!) mother at 22. I was stunned even then by the white-walled, clinical, mechanical professionalism of my daughter’s birth, and was an unwilling, un-consenting teaching specimen for a group of young interns learning the ins and outs of birth. My first year of motherhood was riddled with physical and emotional pain that I couldn’t quite name; I was too pre-occupied anyway getting to know my precious baby and doing my best to be a “good mother.”

I navigated menopause in my mid 40’s during a particularly stressful time of my life. I hardly noticed I was perimenopausal, except for some annoying symptoms which were worked up for possible cancer, HIV, adult-onset type I diabetes, or other mysterious autoimmune diseases. All of these were finally ruled out after months of distressing medical inquiry.

Ten years later, I’m settling into crone-hood, finally letting my hair turn silver and acknowledging that my body, my psyche and my spirit are undergoing profound transformation once again. Letting go of youthful appearance and infinite energy is scary in a world that cherishes superficial markers of youth, worth, and beauty; a world where old people, especially women, fade away and become irrelevant. I’m needing more support, wishing for more time to be still and surrounded by loved ones, yet living far from family and still feeling the pull to travel and create in the world.

There is much water that has gone under the bridge, as they say.

At this late date, why ruminate over long bygone life transitions?

A colleague of mine in the field of Modern Matriarchal Studies from South Africa, Annette Müller, wrote a thesis entitled “Analyzing and Comparing Rites of Passage in Matriarchal and Patriarchal Societies: How These Ceremonies Shape the Roles and Responsibilities of Women and Men, and Serve as Foundational Elements in Nurturing and Sustaining a Healthy, Thriving Society”. She articulates the importance of rites of passage like this:

Modern society is facing a profound crisis of fragmentation. Across the world we are witnessing declining birth rates, rising loneliness, weakening communal structures, increasing mental health struggles, and growing disconnection from nature, family, and one another. These shifts are not merely economic or demographic. They reveal a deeper cultural rupture: the loss of meaningful rites of passage that once initiated individuals into adulthood, parenthood, responsibility, elderhood, and communal belonging.

Historically, rites of passage served as the social and spiritual architecture of healthy societies. In matriarchal cultures across the world, these ceremonies embedded individuals into systems of reciprocity, responsibility, and reverence for life itself. Women’s initiation rites in particular were treated as sacred communal events because fertility, motherhood, and female generative power were understood as foundational to societal continuity.

There is much to say on this topic, as socially and culturally integrated rites of passage have long-since been erased from memory and practice, leaving many of us with a sense of void or wounding around the tender transitions in our lives. Most of us don’t have lineage or even written historical records to consult; much of this material—preserved as oral tradition passed down through generations—was likely burned with the “witches” hundreds of years ago.

We’ve got much to do to heal, and to reconstruct, re-imagine, and innovate rites that effectively prepare modern girls and women for the challenges of our time.

We are beginning with an initial conversation on the rite of birth. Will you join us? We’d love to hold you in our circle, or hear from you remotely. Do you have insights, experiences, or innovations you’d like to share with us? You can leave a comment below or send us an email at councilformatriarchalarts@gmail.com.

To whet our appetite for this conversation, below you will find a few resources on the topic of birth. Please don’t feel pressured to view or read the entirety of this material. Pick and choose, consider a reference of your own choosing, or come fortified with your own personal insights.

Suggested Resources

• Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage
  by Rachel Reed
  
• Chapter One / Audiobook Excerpt from Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage
  by Rachel Reed
  
  Additional materials, referred by Annette Müller:   
  
• Giving Birth: Challenges & Choices
  created and produced by Suzanne Arms and Susan Berthiaume
  
• Birth Time: Challenges and Choicescreated by Zoe Naylor, Jerusha Sutton, Jo Hunter, and Selina Scoble
  
• Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives
  by Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore
  

---