Blessing for Anne

Yesterday a blessing was held for our friend, Anne, who is due at the end of this month (though she most likely won't last that long). I had the honor of transporting the Lady of the Hour to the site of the blessing, at Rachel Bell's house at Tide Mill Farm. She and her husband, Sam, and three children live in a gorgeous home that Sam built on an extensive farm that sits on a lovely piece of land on Cobscook Bay in Edmunds, ME. Anne, Olive, and I arrived fashionably late, as Anne was taking her time with a bowl of green curry when I arrived to pick her up. A blessing, for those unaware, is a gathering of women to celebrate and honor a woman about to give birth. Anne gave me a blessing in January, and it was a wonderful experience. The plan was for Anne, and anyone else interested, to take at dip into the frigid Cobscook waters. When I initially heard of this, I was gung-ho, always loving to be in the water, but, as the weather was less than favorable - overcast, sprinkly, and in the lower 50s - and I've been getting over some unpleasant respiratory business, I sat it out (one of only four adults who didn't take the plunge). I was a little bit sorry that I didn't go in, but our friend Amy suggested that we do it again when they throw a going-away party for us when we leave Maine in a couple of months. Good deal.
Darwin, the darling son of Anne's friend, Choe. He was fascinated by Olive, but who isn't?
That's Anne there in the purple towel in the middle. Molly, down in the lower left, was among the few of us who opted out of the dip.

Afterwards, we congregated inside in a circle, Anne with her feet soaking in a bowl of water and fresh herbs. Amy presented her with a crown of vines and spring buds. She looked beautiful, and I regrettably neglected to get a picture of her. Rachel passed around a basket of birch bark scraps for us to write blessings for her, then we passed around a nest and wove the scraps into the nest. We went around the circle and gave our women lineages while holding a pot of burning lavender: "I am Heather, mother of Olive, daughter of Debbie, granddaughter of Nell and Betty, great-granddaughter of Alice." It was great to hear the names of all of the women from whom we descended. Then we ate - lots of delicious food - grain salads, greens, strawberries and chocolate, baked brie in phyllo with cranberries and walnuts, chips and salsa, pita and tabbouleh, chocolate chips and raw almonds - wonderful. Olive was a perfect angel the entire time, staying away for much of it and taking it all in and not fussing once. Here she is as we prepared to head back home, as well as some shots of her and Amy's daughter, Cora.