In many cultures, burying the placenta in or near the house is a guarantee that your child will return home.
A young woman called Lilith visited me last week. She came all the way from Belgium to visit her place of birth. She had just turned 21. When her mama was 21 she came all the way from Belgium to birth her here – at my home. Her mama felt that there were few choices in Belgium at the time that resonated with her felt sense of the birth she needed. We had exchanged contacts after drinking tea together in a guesthouse in Darjeeling, India. 12 months later she was making her way overland with her partner and a baby in her belly.
Last year, after many troubled years, Lilith’s mama died. Her papa encouraged her to come over and see the place where they had brought her for her birth – far from the crowds of Belgium – to an Australian bush wilderness, surrounded by birds and kangaroos, warm days and clear night skies full of stars. To remember her mama when she was well, and healthy, and making clear decisions for her baby’s wellbeing.
I walked with Lilith through the places and stories of her birth, and showed her where her placenta was buried. It was within a circle around a big open fire pit, just outside the house she was born in. Around that fire for 21 years since then, hundreds of women have sat and cried, laughed, celebrated, told stories, sung & danced. Back then, when her placenta was buried, we had no knowing that this would happen. But I always had a feeling she would come back. Come full circle.
Jenny B