Mother Blessing: A Baby Shower for the Soul

A unique hybrid project, it offers a glimpse into the tapestry of womanhood, spirituality, birth, and generational transformation.

It began as a memoir about an evening “alternative baby shower” ceremony for the author’s daughter. But it evolved into a wholehearted exploration of the Mother Blessing and the Blessingway tradition. As well as the author’s own experiences and research, it includes letters and art from a range of women: some are mothers, some not; some miscarried, or experienced infant death, some had c-sections, some are mother’s by adoption: all of them transformative experiences, and includes the voices of midwife elders who have seen it all. Mother Blessing ripples outward from a singular and personal women’s wisdom circle, to wider meaning-making: the ceremony's contemporary importance, power, and lineage.

The 152 pages include the ceremony, the author's context and reflections, stories of pregnancy and birth written in first person accounts, parenting wisdom letters, and finishes with a poignant letter from Ava Võsu, weaving personal and historical narratives.

In one section of the book, Calling the Midwives, the author connects with midwives across generations and borders — the United States and Canada: Raven Lang (author of Birth Book 1973), Irene Garden (retired midwife in New Mexico), Holly Rainier (retired midwife in Colorado), and Ava Võsu (retired midwife in Ontario, Canada).

• this is less of a how-to book and more of a why-to.
• some contributors are women for whom “things” didn’t go according to plan - giving voice to a fuller range of emotions around pregnancy and birthing.
• there are also women who did not go through pregnancy and birth - “Motherless Blessing” gives voice to this growing segment of women.
• color photos say what words cannot.

This book was meant to be a scrapbook/photo album for Aspen’s daughter and granddaughter. She was nearing the wrap-up of the project when she realized it could doubly serve as the required final project of her Spiritual Direction program at Haden Institute. This realization meant things got out of her control as the project seemed to have a mind and gestation timing of its own. It took another whole year to finish — to bring in the midwives and more women’s voices, and even weave in Barbie(!) which ultimately made it richer, deeper, and relevant to a wider audience.

About the author:

Aspen Heisey is a Spiritual Director, a Life-Cycle Celebrant®, a mother, a grandmother, a founding partner of Floworks Inc, but her main credential for writing this book is that she is a woman who embraced being female as a spiritual path through many decades and stages of life. Even though she was brought up to believe that there is no higher calling than to be a mother, for her it was not a foregone conclusion that this was her future. When she found herself on this particular path, she made it her own.