Floating placenta in the sky
From sky to earth. Lessons for postpartum.
Five days after the birth of my son in 2023, and the birth of myself as mama, I write in my journal:
You arrived earth side five days ago in the most perfectly mundane and magical way. A story for another time. Our birth playlist has been playing on repeat since you were born. The music acts as a gatekeeper of time. Im neither here nor there, but in a trance of time that feels magically stagnant. The portal of birth continues and I am fully here.
You will be 6 days old tomorrow. Days morph into nights and nights morph into mornings again and I am just in so much awe of you, Soli.
I feel so high. All the trees, the sky, the colours…. they are all just so bright and glowing. When I look at the trees I can see them breathing. Life certainly feels magical. Like I am still between worlds. I guess I am in a way. We both are. I can’t stop staring at you. Nothing else matters. I feel in deep presence with life.
Today we sat in the backyard as a family. Finn and Puss Puss sat beside us, just as much in a trance as we are. No one speaking for some time. We all cuddled and watched the clouds dance in the sky. Wazzy said he could see a baby with an umbilical cord attached to their placenta. I feel us all growing closer. Such a trip this life. I held you while lightly dancing with you in the kitchen today and burst into tears. The happy kind. We stared into each others eyes like we were taking in an old friend we hadn’t seen in a long time. So much to say, not enough paper. In due time…
In the moments, days, and months post birth, my memories are largely painted with euphoria. I felt like a strong, capable and cup full new mama bear. How it should be. It made my experience of sleep deprivation, a baby that had tummy troubles and just the gigantic transition that is motherhood feel like a beautiful dance.
My eyes grew bigger. My energy was estatic. Beaming. It was beautiful to feel. I felt otherworldly. Connected to spirit. Close to god in whatever that means.
Everything was above me.
Floating in the sky.
With my placenta.
They say that before birth, the placenta lives in the sky. It’s said to dwell among the stars, in the realm of spirit, holding the soul of the baby until it’s time to descend to earth.
When conception happens, that celestial placenta comes down with the spirit, weaving the child’s essence into flesh. It becomes the bridge, between heaven and earth, Between spirit and matter.
After birth, it is said the placenta still holds that celestial charge…. it still carries the sky within her. That’s why many traditions speak of grounding the placenta. Burying her in the earth. Returning her to the soil so the child’s spirit can root fully into their body and this world.
In my ancestry of Maori, the word for placenta: whenua, is the same word for land.
The connection is not metaphorical. It is literal, spiritual, and embodied. The whenua nourishes us in the womb, just as the land nourishes us in life.
To bury the placenta in the earth is to honour that sacred reciprocity. To acknowledge that our bodies and spirits belong to the land that feeds us.
It’s a returning, a remembering.
The baby’s first home, the placenta, whenua, is returned to their wider home, Papatuanuku, Earth Mother, grounding their spirit in belonging and place.
From sky to earth, this way in tending and being in relationship to the placenta symbolises to me just how deeply our wellbeing, as mothers too, depends on that same relationship.
Just as the child’s placenta must return to the earth, we too must find ways to root ourselves after birth.
To bring our spirit down from the sky, to settle into the soil of our new life.
Because after the heights of birth, the portal, the opening, the celestial surge, I believe we too are called to land.
To bury what was once between worlds, and let our energy seep back into our bodies, our families, and our homes.
The whenua teaches me:
To live fully on earth, spirit must be grounded.
From sky to soil. This has been my lesson to carry through this postpartum.
For me, that initial long, steady high after birth felt like the fruit of a deeply connected pregnancy, a physiological birth, and a soft, supported landing into motherhood.
I really do feel it’s nature’s design for us to be bathed in this high, that rush of hormones and spirit, so we can bond, fall in love, and truly arrive in this sacred threshold.
But I also believe birth and life is something far beyond us. That we and our babies choose the experiences we need, even when they don’t fit within logical reason or understanding. There’s a mystery that moves through us. One we can’t control or comprehend. One we can only surrender to.
(***Please assume nuance here. I hold deep reverence for all the ways birth unfolds and how that impacts a mother’s experience).
However, I read recently that just because you have a beautiful birth, doesn’t mean you get to skip postpartum… and gosh, does that ring so true for me.
I’ve written before that those first 3–4 months postpartum were euphoric, but I can see now how I poured that energy outward rather than containing it. I instead, acted on it. Used every inch of it. And though my postpartum was gentle and nourishing in many ways, I can still recall so many micro and macro moments where I went and did too soon. Where I didn’t receive as much as I could have. Where I didn’t ask for what I needed because I could do it myself.
I rode the high, and it was beautiful, but I also got lost in it.
I forgot to ground.
To contain.
To hold.
To pour that same light back into myself, and into my family, first.
And, as a result, I really do believe this was a big piece in why I was severely depleted from 5-6 months until after 2 years postpartum.
This pregnancy has been such a humbling teacher. Each month, I experienced migraines (among so many other things) arriving like messengers, pulling me inward after a day or two of that same sky high energy I once felt postpartum. It took me two trimesters and outside support to realise what my body has been telling (screaming)/ gifting me.
A opportunity to practice the art of holding.
In preparation for my next postpartum.
The art of learning to contain.
To ground.
To stay steady in the swell.
So I can be strong, grounded and sustainable with my energy and as a new mother.
Because this next version of mother requires this of me.
How clever is my body.
Thank you body.
Now, in these final weeks of pregnancy, I find myself free of migraines, more rooted, more whole from much internal work I have been doing.
I am proud of myself.
Postpartum is truly one of the greatest opportunities in a woman’s life to build a strong foundation, for herself, for her baby/ies, for her family, and for the many seasons of womanhood still to come.
It’s not just a recovery period.
It’s an initiation, and a sacred window of rewiring.
In the western world, the way we relate and treat postpartum care is actually quite rare compared to how many other cultures honour this sacred time. Across much of the world, postpartum is seen as a vital period, often lasting weeks and beyond forty days, where the mother is deeply supported by her community. She rests and remains close to her baby, is nourished with warm, easy to digest nourishing foods, and receives tender body based care to help her body heal and replenish.
They say the way a mother is nourished in the first forty days shapes the vitality she carries for the next forty years. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this sacred window is seen as an opportunity to replenish Qi, Blood, and Essence… the deep foundations of life. It’s like a magic portal of renewal that, when tended to with care, can propel health and wellbeing far into the years ahead. Through warmth, rest, and nourishment, the body rebuilds its reserves, restoring balance to hormones, emotions, and vitality itself.
How a mother is held and acknowledged during this time also shapes how she meets the world again. When she is cared for, her family is cared for. When she feels safe, seen, and supported, her nervous system and soul become the ground upon which her child rests. Yet, this also depends on a women’s willingness to soften inward, to allow herself to change, to evolve, and to simply feel, be and then root in the threshold that is still unfolding.
Her becoming.
I truly believe this work is more than a personal plan, it’s part of creating a legacy of change in how we, as a culture, support mothers and families during this sacred window of time and contribute to a healthy ecosystem and world.
This postpartum, it is my intention to honour and live my lessons that were and have been practiced.
To rest.
To receive.
To hold.
To let my body be the soil that holds new life and allows it to flourish.
To go slow.
To ground.
Because I now know…
Just as the placenta is returned to the earth so the baby’s spirit may root deeply, the mother too must plant herself in the soil of stillness and care.
To ground the spirit is not to lose the magic, but to make space for it to live on.
That’s how we grows roots, not just for now, but for the lifetime of mothering ahead.
This postpartum, I’ll bury our whenua, within the earth, and within myself.
Rooting deeply.
Grounding my spirit.
Building the foundation for the next forty years.
So much to learn from the placentas wisdom! So vital to ground in the postpartum, the lessons from one baby to the next x
Ah. The tears came reading this. So beautifully felt in this season of postpartum.