I’ve been exploring rites and rituals recently. I am fascinated by all of the focused attention and ceremony that used to accompany different life milestones. We’ve lost a lot of the acknowledgment and celebration of many important transitions (e.g., into adulthood, into motherhood) or they’ve been watered down by more surface-level alternatives. It seems to me that preconception is one of these transitions that has been lost.
We often think of the transition to motherhood as happening at the point of birth, or even at the point of conception, but it may start earlier.
Fertility practitioner Helen Zee has shared that “Preconception is a right of passage…it is a shape shifting stage…it starts to shape shift you at the cellular level to prepare your body and mind and spirit for new life to grow inside you and through you.”
I wonder what would shift if we treated preconception in this way. How might we show up differently, both individually and collectively, if we treated preconception as a right of passage? What rituals would we create? What communities would come together to acknowledge and celebrate this transition? What would we be leaving behind? And what would we be embracing in the next stage? Some interesting reflections to consider.
After working with countless couples as an ob-gyn, Dr. Nathan Riley has also shared his belief that birth is more than a medical procedure; it’s an initiation. He believes that if we treat it as a medical procedure alone, we may be missing out on the richness and depth of that experience as a potential portal for growth and expansion. What would birth as a portal look like? Again, an interesting concept to explore.
Some of this may resonate with you; some of it may not. As with many of these things, there is a physiological component - and then there are other layers such as the psychological/emotional and spiritual components. I’m finding it intriguing to look into each of these different components to see what might be there to uncover; maybe there’s something in there for you to discover too.