Giving Birth

The passage in — the other threshold a community either accompanies or outsources, and, like its twin, named in the canon and not yet written.

Birth and Dying are the two doors, and the canon treats them as one gap with two halves. Both were taken out of the home and the community within living memory; both were handed to institutions that do many things well and one thing badly, which is to hold a passage as a passage. A birth is not only a medical event with a good outcome. It is the arrival of a new member of a body of people, the remaking of a mother, and, for everyone present, a direct encounter with what life actually is.

It is load-bearing because a civilization is made of the formation of its young, and formation starts before language. The canon names the first seven years, the second, and the third as needed Patterns; it names the sacred child, the child's Genius, multi-adult parenting, and Protection Of Children in the same breath. A Cell that welcomes a child is doing the first move of Education As Transformation — form people, and people form organizations — years before any curriculum.

In play, what the canon supplies is again posture rather than method. Gather rather than seal off. Let the midwifing be done by those with the craft and the accompaniment by those with the relationship. Make room in the rhythm: a Circle whose member has just given birth adjusts its Quest, its Commitment load, and its expectations, and says so out loud rather than letting the person quietly fall behind their own word. Mark the arrival — a naming at the table, the child written into the Circle's record, a Story told.

The gap is honest and large. Giving birth, birth centres, midwifing, the rites of birth and coming of age — all named, none written. This is one of the places the seed says plainly that a regrower should build the instrument their community needs and write down what they built.

Also called: Birth-Welcoming · Midwifing Stands on: Temple · Healing · Kinship Opens onto: Dying · Protection Of Children · Initiation · Family In play: table · Home Sources: The LIØNSBERG Pattern Language, Gaps Not Yet Closed — Operational Healing And Public Health, Children and the Formation Of New Sovereigns, and Initiation And Threshold Rites (ore) · lionsberg.wiki: The LIØNSBERG Pattern Language Open: Named as needed Patterns with no bodies written. Nothing here should be taken as clinical guidance.