January link round-up

This is a doozy of a monthly round-up.

First and foremost, let me say welcome to the world, sweet babies born to Pagan Families contributors and readers. Welcome Rowan Alice Callahan and Kai Willem Davidson and Skylar.

Now, let’s get to the links.

• This wasn’t new last month, but Marianne Littlejohn‘s work is new to me: “The Spiral Dance is one of the big key secrets of creation, life and birth. When we conceive we wrap ourselves around our partners in a spiral embrace.”
• Tales of A Kitchen Witch featured a great post on fat shaming and pregnancy: “I hate that being too fat or too thin (or being pregnant for that matter) seems to put you into a position where everyone gets to have a say in what you do with your own body.”
• Mothering With Soul shared a blessing way belly dance video.
• Kimberly Kirner launched a new Pagan Health Survey which appears to still be live.
• I published a new essay at About on the topic of spirituality in pregnancy.

I won a lovely piece of birth jewelry from Molly at Talk Birth which I’ve enjoyed wearing to reproductive health gatherings. Then I decided I was enjoying Molly’s writing so much I invited her to be a regular contributor here. And she said yes!

At the end of the month we passed 3,000 likes on Facebook. I remember marveling at hitting 300. The number of likes matters less than the degree to which we’re able to offer support for even a small number of people in their childbearing experiences. Nevertheless, it’s inspiring to think that so many of you thought something like, “Pagan Families: Resources for Pagan Pregnancy and Birth? Yeah, I like that!”

Finally, a Facebook reader asked for help finding pregnancy henna artists in the Bay Area and I was surprised that nobody had any recommendations, so I’m trying one more time here to help. Anybody?