The Missing Role of Ritual in Birth with Haize Hawke

Introduction and Welcome

Britta Bushnell: Hello folks, and welcome to Transformed by Birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host, Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and an all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here today. We're talking about one of my absolute favorite topics, ritual. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we connect with heart led spiritual mentor, Master doula and ritual facilitator, Hazie Hawke.

Before we begin, we start the way we always do by lighting a candle. Just a little nod to ritual there, right? If you want to join me, please do so, or just take a breath. As I light mine, I'm lighting today's candle in honor of the candle itself, the small, simple acts of bringing awareness and presence through conscious ritual action.

We live in a society that has largely forgotten the power of ritual. We mark major life transitions, if we mark them at all, with parties focused on stuff or gender reveals performed for social media's sake, and maybe a quick six week postpartum visit after birth to get cleared as back to quote, normal. But what about the actual emotional, spiritual and psychological threshold crossed? What about marking the profound transformation that's the profound transformation that it's actually happening, not just to the baby, but to the person becoming a parent.

Ritual isn't decoration. It shouldn't be extra. Ritual creates a container for transformation. It offers meaning making, it marks the before and the after. It calls in support and witnesses the crossing of a threshold. And when we don't have rituals for the massive transitions of birth and parenthood, we're left trying to navigate them alone, without the structure and support our ancestors understood we needed.

I'm going to pause for a quick second and turn off this fan that just decided to go on, because that made sense. Okay. I love that intro. My guest today is Hazie Hawke, a heart led spiritual mentor, Master doula and facilitator of Sister to Sister and Brother to Brother, coming of age ceremonies, rites of passage that celebrate and support young people as they evolve into adulthood. Hayes understands threshold moments, whether it's a girl becoming a woman, a woman becoming a mother, or the recovery and transformation of postpartum. She gets that each of these asks for intentional ritual to help us embody what's changing.

In our conversation, we'll explore why ritual matters for birth, for postpartum, how to create meaningful ceremonies, even when our culture doesn't provide them, and what it means to be witnessed and supported as we cross these profound thresholds. Hayes and I share a deep love and respect for ritual, and getting to have this conversation with her is both a privilege and a joy. Welcome, Hayes, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being here.

Reconnecting Through Ritual: Personal Stories

Haize Hawke: Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. So good to see you.

Britta Bushnell: It's so good to see you. Just before I hit record, you reminded me of moments that have, that you have embodied and brought ritual into my life. I'm thinking about the ritual opening that you did for my very first book launch here in Los Angeles. That's right, yeah, that you came to. And then when you were the very first person in my outside world, other than my husband, who came to my new house after I was leaving a home that I had lived in and had raised my children in and connected as hearth and home. And I was grieving the leaving of that home and you came and created impromptu ceremony and ritual for me to embrace and embody this new home. And yes, folks, we became actual, literal tree huggers. Tree huggers.

Haize Hawke: Yes, we did. Yes, we became tree huggers, but it mattered. It mattered. It so cemented that moment in time and space for me, like I can see it and feel it, and I instantly feel my connection with you, which is what ritual does, right? It makes a moment pause us so that we can genuflect, so that we can take it in. We breathe that moment, and it's a part of ourselves. And so when I think of you, I always see us hugging by the river, hugging the tree, and smiling.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, hugging that tree and smiling and marking the moment. And for me, it was you holding the multitude of experience of emotions I was feeling — the grief and loss of leaving something that mattered to me, and the threshold of crossing into something new, new beginnings, which come with excitement and joy, but also fear.

Britta Bushnell: And loss. And ritual has such a way of touching those, all of those. And birth and new parenthood also touch those places. So before we get too deep into this, you touched on it a tiny bit. But what is ritual like? What do we need as a working definition here for this conversation? Or do we need one?

Defining Ritual: Simplicity and Presence

Haize Hawke: I'd say that's what I'm thinking. We need to transform what people's idea of ritual or ceremony is and just kind of drop it into the truth, which is it's a connection to self, a connection to all that is, it is transformation realized and healing, like you're saying — well, you know, being in the big, big moment of grief and sorrow around leaving, but also in the big moment of possibility and new. And those things, you know, pull right. So it occurs in our being as like this huge, monumental, hard place to navigate. But when we use ritual, ritual allows us to ease into it, to look at everything clearly. It allows us to slow down, and then we can make some choices around what we're feeling, experiencing, or how we're being.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, and that slowing down is one of the things that is both confronting and helpful about ritual, absolutely right? Because we're in this modern society that prioritizes speed and quickness.

Haize Hawke: That masculine, very linear timeline, yeah, whereas ritual occurs — it's very feminine. It moves like this, or like this, or it just holds like this, right? It can move in waves, it can move in like it's undulating, you know, and then it can also just pause, like, just be a moment of stillness.

Britta Bushnell: And so why does that matter around something like birth and new parenthood?

Haize Hawke: Matters big time. Let me tell — yeah, right.

Britta Bushnell: I know. I know you and I, sister, I know that I'm feeling now. Let's talk about it.

Haize Hawke: Let's unpack that. It matters there. It really matters, especially in physiologic birth. In physiologic birth, we're not looking at a timeline that's nine to five. We're not looking at from here to there. In physiologic birth, we are spiraling forward and spiraling back, and sometimes there's just a pause of the whole energy of the space and the baby and the mommy are just chilling. Everything's fine, everything's fine, but there's a pause. And we breathe in that pause, and when we drop into that nervous system of the mama, I'm like, this is okay. We're not in a hurry. You and baby are fine. So let's see what this pause is about. Let's drop in and see what's happening. Is there anything you need to let go of? Anything you need to release? Are you not in the present moment? Are you future tripping? Are you doing the reach back? Where are you? And usually they'll take a breath and they will say, I'm here. And five minutes later, things pick back up again.

Britta Bushnell: And so for folks who are listening and are saying, but wait, where are the candles and the special songs that make that a ritual — what you just described is —

Haize Hawke: Ritual. Is ritual, exactly. And I think that's the interesting thing about ritual is people don't realize they're doing it all the time. If there's something that makes you feel centered, something that makes you feel grounded, something that brings you to presence, like me having my tea, you having your tea?

Britta Bushnell: Here we are. We are, we are both tea girls, we share this.

Haize Hawke: Folks, yes, and so that's a daily ritual, you know, but it could be times a day for me. But right, yeah? Girl, yeah, my tea drawer speaks.

Britta Bushnell: I have a tea wall. I take great pleasure in my tea rituals.

Haize Hawke: Yeah, so those are rituals, you know. And a ritual can be something as simple as going out for a walk after dinner every night, 30 minutes walking. That's a ritual. Reading to your children is a ritual. Walking hand in hand with your partner on a little 30 minute walk. It's a ritual, which is something I do with my clients. Once they have come out of the — usually between four to six weeks and everything's cool — I will have the partner say, you should take mama on a little date. Why don't you guys go walk down to the corner, hand in hand, and then walk back home again.

Britta Bushnell: They love it. Simple. Simple, but simple and mundane are not the same thing exactly. And so often there is a conflation that if something is simple or easy or regular, that it lacks significance or profundity. And that's not true.

Haize Hawke: At all. There's so much complexity in simplicity, that's ridiculous, right?

Britta Bushnell: Complexity in simplicity, yes, yeah. I mean, for me, one of the things that helps identify ritual is a kind of intentional presence, where that breath that you described, in that moment with that parent in a labor room of just checking in — it's like a breathing in a moment of presence. In my backyard with the tree, there was a moment of intentional presence. That walking to the end of the block, holding hands, intentional presence. It's like me when I make my tea — intentional presence. And even if it's short, even if it's microscopic.

Haize Hawke: Doesn't matter, yeah, doesn't matter. It's all about dropping in and honoring that moment with presence and breath.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, yeah. I feel that, hugely. And I think I'm loving that we're starting our conversation with kind of shrinking down the loftiness of this idea of ritual. Because I think the loftiness of the desire for ritual is part of what keeps us ritually —

Haize Hawke: Starved. I think so too, because everyone thinks they have to have a whole pageant or a festival. They need grandeur, big things —

Britta Bushnell: — which has its place too. Gorgeous.

Haize Hawke:  It does have its place, and I love it.

Britta Bushnell: Me too. But yes —

Haize Hawke: But I could also take a piece of sage, or not even sage — I can take my walking altar, which I now have honed, that anywhere I go, anywhere I walk, anywhere I sit, me just seeking connection intentionally, as you mentioned, seeking connection to all that is, seeking connection to myself, dropping into breath. Maybe I'll hum a song, maybe I'll chant, maybe I'll meditate, but that's a ritual. And it's lovely, and it's easy, it's so simple. And that way I can do it all the time, and I don't need to take my altar with me, right? I don't need all the things, because I am the living altar. And I think that when I convey that to my mamas, that they are the living altar holding another altar, that just has them immediately kind of tune in differently. Because most of them just think they're going to have a baby. And I'm like, you can do that. You absolutely can do that. It's your choice. You have free will. You can absolutely do that. And also you could create a transformative event. You could meet yourself in a way that allows you to grow, unfold and evolve into this mother that you dream of, this person and partner that you have always felt you could achieve. Like, why not?

Britta Bushnell: So many possibilities, yeah. So I want to ask — I'm wondering if you are noticing this as well. So we started by kind of bringing in and bringing down the idea of ritual, simplifying it. And I loved how you spoke about being a living altar — that we are ourselves, this body, we can embody ritual at any time, at any place. We don't need the accoutrement, the social media approved items of ritual. And there is this longing that feels like it's coming from a ritual, or maybe more appropriately, ceremony-deprived society that is hungry for ceremony. Ravenous, ravenous, yeah.

The Hunger for Ceremony and Community

Haize Hawke: And I think again, that speaks to what I said earlier. People are ravenous for connection. That's why they want ceremony, because ceremony is usually done in community, usually done in the village, right? And people long for that.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah. Oh, that's a really, really strong point there — that part of what the craving for ceremony is is actually coming from the hunger for community.

Haize Hawke: Yeah, yeah. Because this is just my humble opinion, but I feel that that is because there is also a need to connect to themselves. And where we see ourselves and our reflection is through community, through other people. You know, we also have the idea of who we are, but how we grow, how we transform —

Britta Bushnell: I like that word, yes.

Haize Hawke: How we transform is in relationship to others, right? It's very hard to grow and evolve and shift by yourself.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, in isolation. Yeah, absolutely.

Haize Hawke: So in the reflection of our community, of our village, that is where we can realize ourselves in a different way, in a way that kind of makes us feel real, to lack of a better word. Like, okay, we are — I am here. I am here.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, there's a witnessing that occurs, yeah. I love witnessing. Well, you want to take that one? I'll throw you that ball. Catch it. What does witnessing by community mean to you? I will give —

Haize Hawke: You a prime example. I have one of my best friends — she's technically my best friend. She is incredibly talented, so ridiculously beautiful and powerful, and an artist and a musician and a singer, right? And her voice carries the ancestors. She got her first tour in Europe, and I could see that she was a little overwhelmed by it. She also was going to be alone. She was doing support work with this jazz musician named Nicola Conte. And I said, I'm going to go. And she said, go where? I said, I'm going to Italy. I'm going to see you — I'm going to bear witness to your milestone, to this moment in time that you've been dreaming of for years, for decades, and you actually have manifested it. I'm going to bear witness. I'll be the proof. And she was moved to tears. And that was just me saying I would go. When I actually came, she just — you know, and that's the power. It's a recognition and understanding that you see someone in their big moment. I'm not going to judge the moments and say whether they're good or bad, they're just big moments.

Britta Bushnell: Moments. I love that. It's a judgment free zone, but not acknowledging the power of the moment.

Haize Hawke: Yeah, the power of the moment — a dream fully realized. And I do it with her all the time, because she had another dream, and I said, yes, girl, yes. And it's a mixed media, multi opportunity thing, and now somebody signed her, and she asked me to be in the video. And I was like, of course, yes girl, yes. I have to bear witness to everything, you know. And I just, I think there's such a power in showing up and recognizing someone's growth, someone's effort. To see how they're navigating that. And to let them know that you're with them, they're not alone. Again, community, again, you know. And she does the same for me, bless her.

Britta Bushnell: I love this — the showing up. And so if we bring that back and we think about ceremony around the rite of passage of becoming a parent, of birthing a child, welcoming a child into your home, welcoming yourself as parent, it makes sense that there is a desire for a baby shower, for example, or a mother blessing, or something of that sort. And yet, often it can feel, for some, like it doesn't quite give them what they're hoping for. Like they they want the party, they want the celebration, and they spend time focused on the aesthetics and the invitations and the various different things and how it will be, and love it and feel joyful about it, and still feel ritually starved. Yeah, yeah.

Mother Blessings, Father Blessings, and Honoring the Threshold

Haize Hawke: Because really, I feel so strongly — really, what they're seeking is a place where they can speak their fears and concerns that aren't going to be judged, a space that will actually elevate them, telling them they can do this, that they are strong enough, and that they have everything they need. That's what I feel like they actually desire. You know, last year I had a couple — when I was telling her about what a mother blessing would be like and sharing my thoughts about it with her, she was like, oh, I want that. I don't want a shower. I want that. And I said, well, you can create it however way you want to. There's some things that normally happen, but they don't have to happen. You can make it the way you like it. And she was like, I love the foot washing. I'm going to do that. And I could see her husband just kind of listening and looking. And I said, why don't you get your men friends together and have them lift you up? You can have a father blessing. He was like, I can what —

Britta Bushnell: Wonder what would happen to our society of men if we honored that transition to —

Haize Hawke: I mean, that just — I think it would shift so much. I think it would shift so much, because they have to drop into the understanding and the power of the phenomenon called woman.

Britta Bushnell: Or even just the phenomenon of the power of parenthood. Because partners get changed —

Haize Hawke: Too. Exactly. And that's what I explained to him, because I said this — there's a postpartum for fathers. They just don't mention it, but there is one. And I said, your life is shifting as well. It just occurs differently. And you're used to her pouring into you. She no longer is going to be pouring into you the same way — she's pouring into the baby. That absence will be missed. You will be starving for her. So what can we do to deepen your connection, to deepen your understanding, to deepen your willingness to walk through the ceremony to the other side and be that father that you're dreaming of? And still be able to communicate well and get your needs met, but understanding how things are —

Britta Bushnell: Moving, yeah. But getting your needs met in possibly a highly different way exactly that is more self —

Haize Hawke: Exactly. And boy, their relationship, night and day.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah. And the — like becoming, if we acknowledged that men becoming fathers have something in them that is also transforming, that they are being changed by the act, that they might have fear, loneliness — what, and and need to be there for another human, or multiple humans, right? Partner, baby, other babies, in a way that society has maybe not taught them to do. What a change.

Preparing Partners for Transformation

Haize Hawke: Yeah, yeah. I think. And that's what I end up doing. That's what I spend time doing prenatally with mine. I'm getting them ready for that. So I'm taking them through all of that, and we're talking about fear. And we do — you and I do similar, very similar work, where we are looking at — we want transparency for them, and we want them to have trust and no expectations, right? So we gotta do the deep work. And that work through all the senses and through art and whatever you know, but doing —

Britta Bushnell: It, which is ritual also, right? We pepper it in there, right? We're like, guess what, folks, this is ritual, but I didn't tell you that.

Haize Hawke: You didn't hear —

Britta Bushnell: From me. But I mean that is the truth, right? As you and I are both feeling the importance of all of that, yeah, yeah. And the longing, as —

Haize Hawke: As the longing and the importance, but even deeper. And I know this is true for you — the necessity. Oh yeah, the necessity for ritual. This is the necessity for connection, the necessity for pause.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, yeah. What's lost for families when we don't have meaningful rituals to mark these threshold moments? Like, they're —

What We Lose Without Ritual

Haize Hawke: Joy is lost there. Because they're so busy and there's lots of miscommunication, and they just don't feel like they're really present and not connected. They're not grounded, you know. So they miss the opportunity to express and be joy. They also miss the opportunity to deepen their love for themselves and their families, because that comes in connection, that comes in pause, that comes in being together, you know. And not just being together like —

Britta Bushnell: We're on the couch watching the pit together. Yeah, yeah. I mean, while you can do that in a ritualistic way, you could absolutely, right? There is not — we're not talking hierarchy of ritual.

Haize Hawke: And if you're interested, we can tell you how later, yeah. But just intentionally setting themselves to do something and discuss — how do they want this to be? Like, one of the things I remember with my children is saying, okay, we're going to the aquarium. How's that sound? How's that feel? Everyone's like, yeah, it feels great. What do you want to have this experience? How do you want to feel when we're coming home from the aquarium? And I would talk to them like that so they could set an intention to be really, really present at the aquarium. And then they all came home —

Britta Bushnell: That's ritual. We're talking — that's how you —

Haize Hawke: Ritualize anything. You were peppering in a ritual framework and a ritual mindset into how you raised your children, with how you went to the aquarium, and how you left the aquarium, and how you prepared for the aquarium, and how you ultimately held yourselves at the aquarium. All of those things is like a thread of ritual woven into a seemingly mundane event called going to the aquarium all the way in Long Beach. Yeah, all the way in Long Beach, right? But I did that many times. And I think that again, we're back to the simplicity does not mean it lacks significance. Because that question — how do you want to feel? What do you want to have experienced on the other side? What is your intention for this time? — these simple questions pack a real force.

Haize Hawke: So much. Though — last week, my girls were in New York. They sent me video. They were at an aquarium, watching jellyfish swim and saying, looks like placenta, looks like birth.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, they were connecting. I love that.

Haize Hawke: Decades later, that moment stood in their mind.

Integrating Ritual Into Daily Life

Britta Bushnell: So how do — I'm — this is a beautiful example. And what do you share with clients about how they can integrate ritual into their preparation for birth and parenthood?

Haize Hawke: Okay, I'm so glad you asked that. This is so much fun for me. Okay, first of all, I find the whole thing really fun, right?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, we can just play in this sandbox together all day.

Haize Hawke: So I have them, I ask them questions, and I have them do a lifestyle chart for me, because most of them don't even realize how they spend their day, like, what they actually do with their time and their day. And I'm like, oh well, it looks like you guys do this together. Okay, this looks like it's been a few times this month. Why don't you just start with those two things and make them intentional. And then they say — you know, it's like they're off and running. It's just little tweaks, you know, just little things. Because what they were thinking was, oh, well, we have to plan something and make another moment happen. Our schedule is already so full. And I said, no, no, no, no — you're already doing it. Trust me, it's already happening. I said, even if you guys are cleaning the house together, that can be ritualized, especially if you do it with the intention of making it lovely and clean for your family, making it structurally sound for your family, so that they enjoy their laughter and the playtime. It's just about how you think about it, and the vibration and energy that you bring to it. And this family — man, when I say they went, they were off and running. They're really doing it. They've changed their whole life. They've bought land. They're in another country, creating a whole opportunity for other people to come down with their children and learn about farming and education, and —

Britta Bushnell: Starting from a place of what is your intention, of how you want to be. Yeah, yeah. There's a real power of naming your intention. Like what you did with your kids going to the aquarium — there's power to be able to identify and name one's intention.

The Power of Intention and the Spoken Word

Haize Hawke: Yes, yes. I think it's a combination of the power of the spoken word, the power of landing it as an intention, and the energetics around it. So you're doing this whole beautiful recipe conjuring. And then you let it go, because once it's spoken, there you go.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, and then there's the aspect of doing those — the conjuring, the intentionality, maybe even adding in repetition and play as elements. That's a good one. Yeah, those can add another piece. Especially because, as you were talking about — like the cleaning one, my head was like, yeah, I can make that a ritual, but I don't know that I can like it. And then I was like, oh, actually I can. Actually I can. I know I have, because I have turned it into ritual.

Haize Hawke: Yes, yes. My ritual is music up and clean away.

Britta Bushnell: So fast. I have a Morcheeba song that for me is a cleaning song. Like I put it on and I'm like, Rome wasn't built in a day, baby. That is my cleaning song. Like I don't know when I started making that my cleaning song, but it makes my body start cleaning, which is part of the power of ritualized action — it becomes, on — it's like the repetition allows you to relax. And your body —

Haize Hawke: Takes over. Yeah. It's like it just goes, yeah. And it feels like there's no effort.

Britta Bushnell: It takes some of the efforting away, because there's a way ritual can be scaffolding that holds you up. And I love that about — I mean, that's part of me.

Haize Hawke: I love that you just said that.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah. For me, that's part of what the tea ritual is for me in the morning — it's part of the scaffolding for my day. I don't have to think about what the first things are I do in the morning.

Haize Hawke:I know exactly. I know exactly.

Britta Bushnell: Oh, my body —

Haize Hawke: Knows. Your body could do it without your mind being focused on it.

Britta Bushnell: So if somebody wants to start really incorporating more ritual, maybe even more ceremony, in their lives, where do they begin? You talked about — what did you call it — a lifestyle chart?

Haize Hawke: A lifestyle chart, yeah. I mean, I would just start with the inventory of their day. But they can also break it down. They can say, okay, you want ritual in your life. You want to start with it, you want to end with it. Is afternoon better for you, or evening? Whatever part of the day is the most efficient for them to start. For me, my tea, my meditation, my writing — that's all for me in the morning. A little chanting, you know, maybe a little singing. I like, I love bajan, so sometimes I sing bajan. But that's what I would suggest. Look at their day, see what their day is like. And I'll give you an example. I have a client who I'm working with for her menopause. And I asked her what her routines are, what her rituals are. And she says, oh, I don't have any. But, well, I have some, but I want something outside. And I was like, okay, you could do that. That's quite simple to do. Tell me what your day looks like. And so she was explaining her day, explaining what time she goes to work, what time she gets off. And I said, okay, how do you drive? Where do you drive? What's the route? She started telling me the route, and I was like, honey, on your way home, pull over. We're now in the summer months — the spring is here, longer days. You could pull over. That park is right there. Just kind of go for a walk. And that could become a ritual, your summer ritual. And if you want to extend it, to change the time for it later in fall and winter, you can. But let's start right here. She's like, oh my gosh, I love that park, and I drive by it all the time. And I was like, yeah. And you could go sit in the park, or you could lay down on the grass, to your heartbeat, to the earth's rhythm. Whatever you decide your ritual will be, you could do it there.

Britta Bushnell: And it doesn't even necessarily have to be the same thing every time. Not real — ritual. The ritual is pulling over. Going back to how we began, the ritual is the pause. Inserting the pause.

Haize Hawke: Insert the pause.

Britta Bushnell: Inserting the pause. And then —

Haize Hawke: Okay Britta, we got to do a book called "Insert —"

Britta Bushnell: The pause. Insert the pause. Because I mean, here it is. The series implanted right here. But that is part of what is the power of ritual in modern day life — is the fact that we move so fast.

Ritual as Scaffolding and Embodiment

Haize Hawke: So fast. And that's also the sadness. And probably my reason for really holding rituals like I do is because I just hate for people to miss it. Like people say to me all the time, well, why would somebody work with you? Why would somebody try to go for an unmedicated birth? And I was like, well, they can work with me if they want a medicated birth. But I get a lot of people who want an unmedicated physiological birth. That's what they want. But they do it because they want to meet themselves. They want to meet their edges. They want to grow, evolve, and become. And they don't want to miss it. They don't want to miss it. And I've had a lot of mamas who hired me for the second time who had that sadness with them — that they missed it the first time, you know. And that just made me feel so — it still just breaks my heart. Like they missed it. They love their family, they love their child. But I'll never forget this couple. They were like, we just missed it. It was so much happening, it just seemed to be so big, and no one really told us what was going on. And next thing we know, we're pushing, and it's like, oh, yeah.

Britta Bushnell: And that's one of the things that can happen, especially when the brain is on the cocktail of labor — which, right, multifaceted, all those hormones swirling — is that time moves differently. And things that to a non-labor-cocktail-drinking human look like they're moving at a regular, normal pace, feels like it's going 100 on the freeway. NASCAR, yeah, if you — NASCAR, good example, yeah, there you go. That's the metaphor I'm seeking. Yeah, it can feel like it's going so, so fast. And the power of that breath, that moment, that bringing in the pause, that intentionality — it can be just a slowing down of what feels fast.

Which also brings me to thinking about inserting some of that energetic energy of ritual and of pausing into life in new parenthood. Where a lot of people say, kind of like what you were just talking about with the client, I don't have space or time for ritual in my life. My kids are going, you know, 100 miles an hour. But there's also a way in which raising young children is filled with ritual.

Haize Hawke: Absolutely. I think it just becomes too much for new parents — they think, because they're going grand, right? And with my son, who's now very grown, but when he was a baby, a toddler — when he was a newborn, I was wearing him all the time, right? So he was a part of me doing everything that I was doing, my meditation, all the stuff. Then as he started walking and getting his own ideas about things, we automatically dropped into — and it became his ritual. We would get our tea, go into the garden, right? I'm either weeding, I'm pruning, I'm planting, or he's playing. I'm just sitting. Like, that was the morning ritual. We would get the tea and go out to the garden. Really simple. You start simple like that. And then it can be as simple as, let's set the table. That can be a ritual. We're sitting at this table for our family to gather together to receive this nourishment that came from our garden, that we grew the food in. Like, boom.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, that's a full circle one there, yeah, right.

Haize Hawke:  Or it can be the ritual of — maybe we brush our teeth together. Like, any way you can include the children into it and just be intentional about it. It doesn't have to be something separate, something different. It doesn't have to be huge. It has to be something that allows you guys to drop in together and spend time together.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, I love that. And it makes me think of even just the simple act of doing something like lighting a candle before you eat at dinner.

Haize Hawke: Or we do an ancestor plate.

Britta Bushnell: And yet you can do that even when your children are really little, because children pick up on ritual through osmosis. Like they get it just through the energy of how it's addressed and shared in a family. Yeah. So ritual — I find ritual to be a thread that I'm constantly sewing the fabric of my family together with.

Haize Hawke: I agree. It keeps them, gives them a strong foundation, keeps them woven together, connected.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah. And kids — back to what we were talking about regarding it being that place you can relax into, that scaffolding that the ritual holds us in. In the morning, you and I both know how our mornings go, because we just don't have to wake up and think. We wake up and do. And kids have that same relaxation in the face of ritual, like bedtimes. If there is not a better time in the day to ritualize other than bedtime, I don't know when it is — with babies and toddlers — so that they don't have to think about what's happening. They know. They know. They know.

Haize Hawke: With their being, their very essence of themselves. They know and understand.

The Embodiment of Ritual and Ancestral Memory

Britta Bushnell: Which I love. And that you were just touching your heart, because I think that's one of the things we've talked around but we haven't named — the embodiment piece. Like what's the importance of embodiment, of the doingness in ritual? Ritual isn't just something you read a book about.

Haize Hawke: You don't just think it. You don't just read a book about it. It must be actualized through the physical so that you can take it in cellularly, you know. And then it becomes this memory. And then all we're doing is remembering the rituals from our lineage — you know, it's already there. Most of them have already been there, yeah, and it's just about tapping into that. But in the action of doing, being — whether I'm pouring libations or I'm using Florida de Agua or whatever, in a cleansing of myself or somebody — it is that action. How many think about this? How many centuries has this been done, the pouring of water over one's head, or the actualizing of the smoke in the hand and then pouring over the head? Like that is ancient movement. So when we do that, someone in our lineage has done that. It's there and you can remember it, and it feels grounded and it feels —

Britta Bushnell: Ancestral, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me — growing up in a pretty secular situation, a secular family, my parents were both religious but left the church and said, we're not doing that. And then decided they wanted to raise us more secularly. But my mom in particular carried some of the rituals that had been important to her in her life, including what doesn't sound like a ritual but was very much a ritual — stories at bedtime, reading. Oh, I love that. Reading books and stories. Like it may have been secular, it may have been disconnected from the religion that she was raised in, but it was ritual connected to her ancestors. It was connected backward in that act of snuggling and reading and connecting in that way. How many generations back were mothers curling up with their children and telling them a story, reading, or —

Haize Hawke: Telling — it's some of my favorite memories.

Britta Bushnell: Me too.

Haize Hawke: Me too. I can still feel it.

Britta Bushnell: I still feel it. Because I just did it with my grandson, oh, weeks ago. And getting to kind of feel that carrying on, and the same kind of language of the body. And he's now two, but we've been reading him stories since he was a baby, even before it made sense to read stories to a baby.

Haize Hawke: Absolutely, absolutely, definitely.

Britta Bushnell: Where you're like, they're not getting this, but they —

Haize Hawke: Get it. He got it. Yeah, they understand at a deeper —

Britta Bushnell: Level. To the point where his body just now responds to it in a very embodied way, that feels connected to lineage. Yeah. I mean, there's so many things. And I want to ask you just a little more pointedly about ceremony around — so many people want ceremony, and I'd love to hear you speak a little bit about people who are hungry for that ceremony. That element of ceremony that we talked about earlier, that's about community and honoring and being witnessed. What do you have — do you have ideas about what can help do that, especially in new parenthood, in that right? Because that place, that time, feels so vulnerable and tender and sacred. It's like ripe for ceremony.

Ceremony for New Families: Building Community

Haize Hawke: It is absolutely. It also takes a presence of mind, you know. So they have to know they want ceremony. They have to know that they want that connection. They have to be willing to be in ceremony, right — willing to be seen, and willing to just be the explorer. That's really important.

I just had a client who said, I need some more dads. I just need dads, and I don't know any out here. And I said, okay, and he's talking to me, he's talking to me, and I'm taking mental notes about what he's looking for, who he is. And I said, I know exactly the two dads I want to introduce you to, and then you can run with it. I called up my friends. I asked them if they would be willing to talk to this youngin. And they did. They got together, and — boy, magic. Now it's escalated into a whole thing with these dads coming together. It's like — I forget what they call it.

Britta Bushnell: Daddy — so they're creating community, and they're creating —

Haize Hawke: Their own community that does ceremony. And the ceremony is dropping in at the beginning of their circle, and telling — you know, two truths about their experience that day or that week.

Britta Bushnell: I mean, again, we're coming back to the simplicity and profundity. Two truths. Just — what are your two truths? I mean, how simple and how meaningful. And to have that again — community, connection and ceremony interwoven. I love that. So, what gives you — I mean, this is probably connected to that. But what gives you hope right now in this regard, with — because having babies and becoming new families right now is challenging. We're in a time when we're ritual starved and community hungry. So what gives you hope in ritual and for new families?

What Gives Haize Hope

Haize Hawke: Right now, what's giving me hope is that the people who are coming to me want a deeper understanding, a deeper connection. They are already clear that they want to do the deep work with me. I love that. And that is becoming so much more prevalent — where they want to honor their pregnancy ceremony, they want to honor the birth ceremony and the postpartum ceremony. And I love helping them navigate all of that, you know. So much fun. That just really gives me a lot of hope and a lot of joy around birth. Because the other side of birth, as we know, is looking crazy. But there is this new desire — not even new, returning desire.

Britta Bushnell: Reclaimed, yeah. Return, reclaimed.

Haize Hawke: Returning desire to be really present, to be really intentional, to slow down, to really honor the self that's in that moment. And I think that's the best thing ever. I think it's just great.

Offerings and Where to Find Her

Britta Bushnell: Oh, I love that. So where can people learn about working with you, about what you offer? Do you have any programs you're offering right now? Where do people find you on the socials, like what's all your things?

Haize Hawke: All the things, which of course we'll put in the show notes. But right now, they can find me on HayesHawk.com, and that's H-A-I-Z-E-H-A-W-K-E.com. And on Instagram, I am Hayes Hawk. LinkedIn, Hayes Hawk. I am Hayes Hawk. Facebook, I am Hayes Hawk. Guess what, brother — go ahead.

Britta Bushnell: I'm Hayes Hawk. I know you are. You are Hayes Hawk. I love it. And do you have any particular — what are you — how are you offering your work in the world right now?

Haize Hawke: Well, right now I've just completed — I thought it was done several months ago, but I actually had some other things that came up on it. So my postpartum course is now complete, and that's going to be released in the summer. I am doing another doula training in the summer, my Get Rooted doula training, birth worker training. It's a 12 week course, it's over 120 hours, it covers everything. And there's also three in-person sessions as well. And for my people who are not in California, we zoom them in so that they can participate in those in-persons, but we cover all the ceremony work and all of it. And yeah, I love it so much. I love my training.

Britta Bushnell: I've known people who have gone through it and loved it. Oh nice, really? Oh yeah, oh absolutely. So as we begin to bring our conversation to a close, I like to end with one question. Okay, are you ready? Ready for my final question? Oh, it's — what's one thing that you feel passionately about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this profound period of their lives?

Closing Question: One Thing for New and Expectant Parents

Haize Hawke: Oh wow, that's so beautiful. That's beautiful. Okay, the one thing —

Britta Bushnell: Well, I mean, of course there's going to be like 50,000, but just pick one in this moment popping up for you.

Haize Hawke: I would say — take the time to be in connection. That the world will keep going. The world is always going to be there, and it's always going to be spinning at, you know, full tilt boogie, space in place. But that family, that incubation period, that time of that newborn into infancy, into toddlerhood — like, just drop into it as much as you can. Drop into it. Take those moments to pause and really see your partner, really see your baby, really check into yourself. Like I really encourage people to just slow it down. If they could do 40 days, do it. I know that's a big ask, because not everybody is privileged enough to do that. But even if they get three days that they are just dropped in with their family, their newborn family — and just be there, and be transparent in their truth. Cry, laugh, experience, but be really present. That I would wish that, because I see a lot of busy in the postpartum period. The busy room. I'm like, why are we busy?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, we're really busy. So I feel like the theme of this episode has been about the pause and the slowing down, and that is part of the medicine that is being asked for.

Haize Hawke: Yeah.

Outro

Britta Bushnell: Hayes, thank you so much for being here, for being with me, for sharing your heart and your wisdom with me and my listeners. I always love time with you.

Haize Hawke: Likewise. Thank you so much. And thank you. I love you too, sweetie.

Britta Bushnell: And thank you, listeners, for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted, supported or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produced this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible. To show a little love for the podcast and these conversations, please follow, rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at Transformed by Birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of Transformed by Birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode with an inhale — breathe that in — and on the exhale, I'll blow out our candle. Until next time, bye friends.

Haize Hawke: Bye.