My first experience of having my ‘bones closed‘ after the birth of my daughter was with Rocio, a shaman, healer and ethnobotanist from Ecuador, who touched my body and could feel straight away how my energy was both blocked and leaking out of me. It is a bit of blur what followed but suffice to say I felt quite different when I left the clinic that day after having been jiggled and massaged by Rocio’s warm healing hands. Some years later, as a doula, I heard about a technique called ‘Closing the Bones’ being taught by two doulas, Maddie and Sophie. At the time I didn’t realise it was the same technique that Rocio had given to me, but I felt drawn to the idea of closing the body after birth so decided to learn in order to offer it to birth clients postpartum.
It turned out that Maddie and Sophie had been trained by Rocio to pass on the techniques. During the workshop I had a profound experience with the woman I was working with. As she rocked my pelvis with a rebozo in a technique called sifting, I felt held and nurtured. I went back to a memory of myself in my own mother’s womb; energy started to flow throughout my body and I experienced something similar to a full body orgasm. I wasn’t able to formulate any words for several minutes after. It felt like my whole body had been bathed in a healing light. I continued to experience the effects of what we had experientially learnt during that workshop for several days. One of the most poignant realisations was of feeling like I had come back home to myself. I felt centred and complete, which meant that I was able to be with my daughter in a completely different way.
Continue reading “‘Closing the Bones’ – Every mother’s birthright”
Heart of Birthing 