Planting our placenta
We knew awhile back we wanted to plant our placenta. I say we, but really I was driving this decision and hubby has just come along from the ride.
My research into who/want/how/where why is part of why I've decided to start this blog. This is a chance to record my tips and tricks of whats working (or not) as I am sure in 12 months time I won't remember half this stuff. As is in the title - it's just another new mom's blog.
So, back to planting our placenta. My work had heard we were thinking of this and as a gift gave us a mandarin tree, potting mix and a large pot to do it as I had reservations about planting it on land we might leave (currently no plans to do this, but you never know).
Living NZ I've come to learn the Maori have a deeply rooted (pun intended) culture of saving and planting the placenta. In fact the word for placenta in Te Reo (Maori) is Whenua which is the same word for land. Their tradition has the placenta planted on the ancestral homeland of the child and the placenta acts as a twin for the child (as far as I have come to understand it). One key difference in what we opted to do is that the Maori wouldn't be likely to plant the placenta with a fruit tree. Mixing something with the sacred energy of the placenta and food is a no no (as I've come to understand it) and so I guess that is where we are deviating. I do like the idea of it going back into land and nourishing soil.
Like most moms who take their placentas home, ours has been sitting in the freezer in a zip lock bag in a tupperware container the last (almost) 6 months while I waited until the right time and worked out what I wanted to do.
So after 6 months on a sunny Saturday we planted the tree. At the bottom of the pot I put a layer of rocks from our garden - native volcanic pieces which I wanted to symbolize the land of my sons birth. I filled a big pot with dirt from around our house and used this (with the potting mix) to represent the earth of his homeland and finally I included a few sea shells that got picked up when we took him to the beach for a walk at 3 weeks old to symbolize the water (NZ is an island after all). I told him about the day of his birth and how we were so excited for him to arrive and so thankful that he was healthy and well nourished by the placenta while he was in utero. I used gloves to remove it from the plaster bag and tupperware and planted it on top of the dirt layered over the rocks. I think covered it in potting mix, finally adding the mandarin tree (ensuring the roots were still a bit aways from it as I have read that putting them too close to it can damage it).
And that's that. We are going out to ensure we water it and look forward to seeing how the tree does.
We knew awhile back we wanted to plant our placenta. I say we, but really I was driving this decision and hubby has just come along from the ride.
My research into who/want/how/where why is part of why I've decided to start this blog. This is a chance to record my tips and tricks of whats working (or not) as I am sure in 12 months time I won't remember half this stuff. As is in the title - it's just another new mom's blog.
So, back to planting our placenta. My work had heard we were thinking of this and as a gift gave us a mandarin tree, potting mix and a large pot to do it as I had reservations about planting it on land we might leave (currently no plans to do this, but you never know).
Living NZ I've come to learn the Maori have a deeply rooted (pun intended) culture of saving and planting the placenta. In fact the word for placenta in Te Reo (Maori) is Whenua which is the same word for land. Their tradition has the placenta planted on the ancestral homeland of the child and the placenta acts as a twin for the child (as far as I have come to understand it). One key difference in what we opted to do is that the Maori wouldn't be likely to plant the placenta with a fruit tree. Mixing something with the sacred energy of the placenta and food is a no no (as I've come to understand it) and so I guess that is where we are deviating. I do like the idea of it going back into land and nourishing soil.
Like most moms who take their placentas home, ours has been sitting in the freezer in a zip lock bag in a tupperware container the last (almost) 6 months while I waited until the right time and worked out what I wanted to do.
So after 6 months on a sunny Saturday we planted the tree. At the bottom of the pot I put a layer of rocks from our garden - native volcanic pieces which I wanted to symbolize the land of my sons birth. I filled a big pot with dirt from around our house and used this (with the potting mix) to represent the earth of his homeland and finally I included a few sea shells that got picked up when we took him to the beach for a walk at 3 weeks old to symbolize the water (NZ is an island after all). I told him about the day of his birth and how we were so excited for him to arrive and so thankful that he was healthy and well nourished by the placenta while he was in utero. I used gloves to remove it from the plaster bag and tupperware and planted it on top of the dirt layered over the rocks. I think covered it in potting mix, finally adding the mandarin tree (ensuring the roots were still a bit aways from it as I have read that putting them too close to it can damage it).
And that's that. We are going out to ensure we water it and look forward to seeing how the tree does.
Comments
Post a Comment