One of the wisest women I know, a woman who also happened to be my doula for both of my births, said to me before I conceived my first child:

“Transitioning to motherhood takes two to three years.”

At the time, given the trepidation I was feeling about motherhood, I could have taken this as a warning. That seemed like an awfully long time to get used to this gig.

But instead, hearing that made me breathe an enormous sigh of relief. I had two to three years to start feeling a little bit more “at home” in my role as a mother. I had two to three years to screw it all up sometimes, not really enjoy it sometimes, maybe even regret it sometimes, and we could all come out the other side a-okay.

Becoming a mother is so much more than just birthing a human (which is, of course, a fairly superhuman feat in and of itself). As you birth your baby, you are also birthing yourself. You, as mother, will become a different person than you were before having a child.

Becoming a mother is a total identity shift.

In cultures long ago and far away, women were ushered through the transition to motherhood with the support of a community of other women, with ritual and ceremony to celebrate their shifting lives. A Navajo practice being increasingly appropriated throughout the world is to hold a Blessing Way for expectant mothers. This was a ceremony of special chants and songs that would help to support women in their passage into motherhood. In Mayan culture, postpartum women were given a “closing of the bones” ritual or sealing ceremony, where they were bathed and anointed with oils and rebozos, or long scarves, were tied tightly around their bodies to allow them to feel physical and emotional closure after the vulnerable experience of birth. In many Asian cultures, women observe a forty day “confinement” period, during which they remain in bed, nursing their baby, while they are cared for and fed special foods by the rest of the family.

While our North American, modern-day culture has begun to recognize some of these practices as being healing and helpful for new mothers, the vast majority of us experience something quite different as we prepare for birth. We attend prenatal classes, where we likely learn the numerous ways in which we must advocate for ourselves within institutions that have medicalized birth beyond all recognition of the natural physiological process it is. We are given one or more baby showers, where we are literally “showered” with material possessions meant to support our mothering experience. We receive a massive influx of only-sometimes-helpful visitors in the postpartum period whose primary desire is not to do a load of laundry, but to hold the baby. And then, in a few short weeks, our collective society seems to deem us officially Mothers, and generally loses interest in women’s transition into the experience of motherhood beyond that point. In fact, motherhood itself is quite often portrayed in our society as being something undesirable or lesser-than: women are made to feel like the blood, sweat and tears that often come with raising small children are not glamorous enough for mainstream media. Mothers are certainly not commonly seen as the warrior women they are.

In the Celtic tradition, the Divine Feminine is represented by the Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother and Crone. The Maiden, also associated with the new moon, represents new ideas, bright energy, experimentation, and a sense of being carefree. As women transition out of this phase of their lives, they transition into the Mother. Associated with the full moon, the Mother comes into full fruition. She is ripe and mature and fully-fledged. She’s done with the experimentation: the Mother knows who she is. Women don’t have to have birthed a baby to transition into the Mother archetype: the Mother is, at her core, a creative being, who brings forth life, whether that is in the form of a baby or another creation. The Crone is the wise old woman. She is the wisdom-keeper of all the women around her, and her role is to pass along that wisdom to the Maidens and the Mothers.

Seen this way, becoming a Mother is a Rite of Passage within the context of your womanhood, and it allows you to access parts of yourself that were previously unrevealed. It allows you the opportunity to become fully-fledged, confident, to take your place in the world.

This is more like it! This is what I want for all the women of the world, mothers of children and the Mother archetype alike.

Imagine what possibility might lie ahead for a world that revered its mothers in the way other cultures or other eras did. Imagine if we were supported to not just bring babies into the world, but to see motherhood as a doorway to becoming more deeply in touch with Who We Are, and what is possible for our lives.

Imagine if we saw motherhood as a sacred Rite of Passage that allowed women to access their deepest power.