A guide to consciously exploring and honoring the spiritual and emotional journey of becoming a parent

In this guide to consciously exploring the shamanic journey of pregnancy and parenthood, Anna Cariad-Barrett offers techniques and ceremonies to honor the transformation of becoming a parent and engage the sacred wisdom-keeper within. She provides tools and meditations to create personal shamanic medicine to support you and your family on this journey as well as connect with the wisdom of nature, expand your intuition, and explore altered states of consciousness. Restoring honour to the shadow side of parenthood, the author discusses the shamanic perspective on miscarriage, fertility, sexuality, postpartum stress and depression, blended families, and adoption as a form of birthing through the heart. She explains how to heal any deep psychic wounds from your birth family and transform negative beliefs you may hold about parenthood. She provides chapters on each trimester of pregnancy, offering specific teachings and techniques appropriate to each stage as well as conception, birth, and the postpartum period.

“Anna Cariad-Barrett has written a profoundly important work for all parents, whether their child is yet to be born or is already alive at any age. Our culture has only weakly supported the most sacred of the rites of passage--birth. Many of our family traditions shared wisdom and positive experiences in raising a child; but many more could only pass down trauma and dysfunction to the next generation. This book is for anyone who wants to transform existing patterns in their own or the collective family and offers practical and spiritual exercises for assistance. Bravo, Anna, the children of the world thank you.”