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What It Really Means To Be a True and Powerful Space Holder-Why Modern Festivals are Not Safe Spaces.

  • Writer: thewombwitch1
    thewombwitch1
  • Aug 1, 2024
  • 6 min read

Updated: Dec 16, 2024


What does it mean to be a true and powerful space holder?


I believe this to be an incredibly valid question, especially considering the times of now as it seems that the term ‘space holder’ and ‘safe space’ are thrown around far too lightly.


I feel I have extensive lived experience to be able to speak into what it means to be a true and powerful space holder for this has been my work for over 13 years, the work of a midwife, a mother, a guardian and gatekeeper of women, the womb and incoming souls. I  believe that the ‘midwife’ is the most powerful space holding role that exists.  Especially when it comes to the evolution of humanity, the healing of the next generation, the mother, the womb, the great mother beneath us, families, communities, society and of course facilitating the birthing of the New Earth.


I know and believe that it is the process of birth that can teach us more about life than most.  I know birth intimately and what I know to be true is that the womb will NOT open for anything less than love and the key to love is SAFETY. If the womb has identified something in the space as unsafe, she will not open, it’s that simple.


My ‘job’ for over a decade as a midwife was to hold a powerfully SAFE space for the womb to birth her creation. This means so much more than ‘creating the space’, dimming the lights, lighting the candles, running the bath, infusing the herbs and the essential oils, playing the music etc.  Yes creating the space is one thing, a beautiful thing, something I love to do!  but truly HOLDING the space is another thing completely.


To me holding the space means ensuring a strong and true connection with the woman in my care, ensuring she feels SAFE to express herself fully in every moment, allowing all e-motions (Energy in Motion) to move freely without judgement, without changing anything, simply observing and allowing whilst gently guiding the woman through the underworld and back, into and through the void, into the darkness back to the womb, back to the body, back to the breath.  But more than anything to hold the space means to be hyper-aware of the ENERGY in the woman’s birth space. I am there to PROTECT the birthing space and this means being so super tuned in with the woman, her womb and her unborn baby, that I can clearly SEE and FEEL if and when there is anything or anyone that is negatively impacting the safety of the birth space. The womb is wise, she is not easily fooled, she feels deeply, she knows all, she is crystal clear in her communication and will express when she is safe and when she is not, often long before the woman herself has become conscious of what it is in her surrounding space that has stopped the flow of energy from moving, stopped the womb from feeling safe enough to continue surging, softening and opening. It is not the woman’s responsibility in labour to identify unsafe energy and assert her boundaries it is the responsibility of the space holder, the midwife to read the woman’s body and her womb so well that she knows when the womb of the woman has expressed and identified something as being UNSAFE  in the space.


As a space holder it is my role then, to identify the energy negatively effecting our ‘safe space’ and REMOVE IT. This means opening my throat and expressing my observations and concerns to the woman, gaining her consent before taking action by gently removing whatever or whomever it was from our space.  A very simple process, but not an easy one and not a practice that many ‘space holders’ are familiar with let alone do well.


Midwives as space holders are very familiar with GUARDING the birthing space. When attending births at home this is not such a big role as the woman herself has the power to choose who is in her space from the beginning, but if for some reason we were birthing in a more public setting ie, hospital or birthing centre I would guard that space with all my power, quite literally stopping humans at the door from entering and sending them away, this could be doctors, students, other staff midwives, maybe friends who thought they could pop in as they knew labour had commenced, or even family, mother in laws, brothers sisters etc… stopping their entrance into the birthing space did not mean I perceived them to be a bad person, or projected any ill will against said person/ people, it simply meant, right now you cannot come in, because we are in the process of birth and new energy in the space is not conducive to birth (of course this is a huuuuge topic and the relationship/ partnership between woman and midwife is paramount to being able to safely and powerfully hold the space required for the opening of the womb) of course not everyone would be turned away, my point is however, we were very familiar with the process of saying NO you cannot come in, NO you are not welcome or have NOT been invited into this space right now, knowing that it only takes one person, one energy to completely dismantle the safety of the space, especially when this was a being the woman did not know, for how can we possibly feel safe when we do not know the person? Safety requires TRUST, and trust is earned over time it is not simply given.


I do not believe that we can call ourselves space holders unless we are willing and able to open our throats, speak up and take action.

This may look like asking certain people to leave a particular space or simply not inviting specific individuals into spaces if others in the space have either individually or collectively expressed that they do not FEEL SAFE in their presence.


Unfortunately when it comes to ‘holding space’ for large groups of humans for example in the festival scene, it is IMPOSSIBLE to ensure a safe space for all when you simply do not know all the individuals you have invited into the space let alone their intentions.  You cannot claim that a festival of 1000’s of individuals is a safe space because that is simply not the truth.


However if you DO wish to create as safe a space as possible then you MUST listen to those who have expressed their genuine heart felt concerns regarding their SAFETY. You must KNOW and TRUST  that the women in a space will feel into unsafe energy faster than the men, this is the gift of having a womb, the gift of the divine feminine, the power of the heart and our INTUITION. The MEN in the space MUST listen to the women, they need to trust the women’s intuition more than their own and IF the collective of women have expressed they feel unsafe around certain energies in a space whether this be physically and/or spiritually this must be taken seriously and ACTION must be taken to remove this energy from the space. This is how we will create safer spaces, spaces where we don’t feel the need to ARMOUR up to protect ourselves from PREDATORS and the PROJECTIONS of others.


These safer spaces will ONLY happen when the Masculine and Feminine work together in sacred union, calling upon the strengths of one another to find balance, harmony and safety.


Unfortunately many festival creators seem to be more focused on PEACE, LOVE, LIGHT and UNITY, all accepting, all allowing.  Rather than embodying the core attributes of a true and powerful space holder which will mean saying NO to this, that and those which do not align with their core values and impact the safety of the space.


The great mother is the most powerful space holder of all and yet she is most certainly NOT open to all things all of the time. She will ONLY open when the environment is just right! This is not simply a want, this is a NEED, a REQUIREMENT. Just as love and safety are required for the womb to open. If we want to create safer spaces we must embody the great mother, we must assert strong boundaries, we must remain discerning and sniff things out fully before leaping in and allowing in, we must trust that it is OK to be closed to some things and some beings.


This is how we will keep ourselves and others safe.


And so it is.









 
 
 

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"A woman who heals herself, heals her mother, heals her daughter and heals every woman around her"

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