birth art

Birth art sessions are an opportunity for relaxed and reflective birth preparation.  You don’t have to be an artist (at all!), just willing to explore your own feelings about birth.  £15 per group session/ £35 private class, including materials.

There is more to birth preparation than reading books and learning from others!  Everything we already think about birth is going to shape the experience we have.  Birth art is an opportunity to find out what conscious and unconscious preparations you are already making deep inside.  It’s an opportunity to work with that inner process, and shape your birth experience ahead of time…     

In each session we begin with a guided relaxation practice (yoga nidra) in which participants just rest and let go of any conscious intentions for birth.  Yoga nidra opens up a deeper more intuitive thinking which is extremely valuable for birth preparation. 

After yoga nidra we sit quietly and are introduced to a birth related theme: it could be about our body, or expectations we have about labour, or about baby’s journey for example.  Using soft chalky pastels we then draw anything that comes up for us related to that theme.  We make colours, marks, shapes and/or images.  We continue for twenty minutes.  There is no right or wrong way to do it.  It’s non-verbal expression.

To finish we write a short journal entry, reflecting on any themes, thoughts or surprising realisations we gained from our drawing.  We take these realisations and reflections forward.  They are often very illuminating and give us guidance as to new mental and practical preparations to make, which new questions need to be asked or what support found. 

All materials are provided.

In addition to her yoga background, Hannah bases these sessions on her training in birth art by teachers Pam England and Virginia Bobro (Birthing from Within), and on her study of therapeutic art.