A Baby Blessing Full of Synchronicities
Altar with chimes and candle for opening centering, special photos, elemental items for blessing and laptop with favourite faraway Auntie participating by Zoom!
On January 27, 2019, I officiated my first baby blessing. In an intimate gathering in the family’s livingroom, we honoured a little boy named Franki as he approached his first birthday. This particular ceremony was so full of lunar synchronicity that it blew my mind.
It's important to me that the ceremonies I write and officiate reflect the values, beliefs, cultures and personalities of the people to be honoured. As I do for all of my ceremonies, I had asked my client (Franki’s parents) about their spiritual leanings. For this particular family, honouring the cycles of the moon and the seasonal cycles of change and growth are an integral part of their spiritual practice. As I researched and wrote the ceremony, I looked into the moon phase at the time of Franki's birth. On the night he was born, the beauty and power of the moon was on full display.
Franki’s connection to rare celestial events
The 2018 January full moon had been much closer to the earth than usual, while also being aligned with the sun and earth in a stunning lunar eclipse. The rare combination of these events is called a Super Blood Moon. For this family, this is considered to be an extremely powerful time, setting the wheels in motion for deep transformation. How fitting, then, that Franki should be born on the same night as the first January Super Blood Moon in over a century and a half! When I uncovered this, I had chills!
But the synchronicities didn't end there. The second January lunar eclipse of this century took place only a few days before the gathering.
Through thoughtful ceremony, his transition from infancy to toddlerhood was marked meaningfully and with intention. Franki’s connections to his community and family—including the generations that had come before him—were deepened and strengthened:
This livingroom-based ceremony was casual, intimate, deeply intentional and full of joy!
His grandparents offered him blessings and good wishes.
Through vows, his parents reaffirmed their love and commitment to him and to their relationship.
Guideparents were appointed, and they pledged to love him and nurture his spiritual and social development as mentors.
Each friend and family member gathered in the intimate circle was invited to share words of wisdom and blessing, which were included in a special wish box chosen for the occasion.
In a very auspicious unfolding of cosmic events, the third and final January supermoon of the 21st century will occur on Franki’s 19th birthday, in 2037. As he moves into adulthood on that day, I hope he is reminded of this ceremony and the promises made there, so that he continues to feel the support and love of his community as he forges his own path in the world.
Great-grandma asks, ‘Are you a minister, dear?’
Meaningful ceremony connects the participants with each other and with something greater than themselves — something that connects all of us — no matter how we name or experience our higher power.
Great-grandma kissing Franki’s head while blessing him with her love and good wishes.
After the ceremony, Franki’s elderly great-grandmother gently held my face, brought my forehead to hers, and told me how beautiful it had been and that she’d never experienced anything like it in her 80+ years.
She asked me, “Are you a minister, dear?” When I explained that I am a Life-Cycle Celebrant, offering meaningful ceremonies that reflect my clients’ values, beliefs and personalities, she simply said, “God bless you, dear” and gave me a great big hug!
This beautiful bracelet gifted to me by the family reminds me of the phases of the moon and, of course, of Franki’s ceremony!
In another kind gesture of gratitude, Franki’s parents sent me this beautiful bracelet a few weeks after the ceremony. To me, the beads resemble the phases of the moon and are a reminder of Franki’s baby blessing and the powerful lunar symbols woven through his story.
I’m so grateful to have worked with this family to celebrate and honour this important transition in their son’s life!
I talk about many of the thoughtful ritual elements from Franki’s ceremony in this video on Instagram:
I leave you with an excerpt from a Kahlil Gibran poem read by Franki’s dad during the ceremony. To me, Gibran’s words reveal the true meaning of parenting:
On Children, by Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Would you like to welcome your baby or your transition to parenthood in a meaningful way?
Click here to read more about collaborating with me on a milestone ceremony or reach out directly by clicking the link below.
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AUTHOR: KARLA COMBRES
As a Legacy Guide & Celebrant, I help individuals, couples, families and organizations make the big and small moments in life count, and shape their legacy along the way. I offer:
Drawing on my vast experience as a Life-Cycle Celebrant and in working with people at the end of life, I am uniquely qualified to help people move through transitions meaningfully and to think about how they want to leave this world so they can live better now.
I’m based in Saskatchewan, Canada and serve clients worldwide. Read more about me here.
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