http://motherhood.susannahrickman.com/

LivModer, Stockholm (2026)

28/01/2026

.
To give attention
is to give life force.

Our attention is our most precious currency,
which is why whole industries are built around trying to capture it.

Choosing to redirect our attention,
according to our own values and beliefs,
is both a return to ourselves
and a way of shaping the world we live in.

Where our attention goes,
our life flows.

And when enough of our lives flow in a certain direction, the world changes with it.

Art by 💧🙏

📝 Want to read my longer text about Attention and Motherhood? Sign up to my mailing list by following link in profile.

27/01/2026

“Life is a short episode between two great mysteries which are one and the same.” (Jung)

Recently I had the honour of celebrating a respected elder here where I live, a man turning 100! The very next day, I found myself at the birthday party of a one-year-old.

The contrast, and the deep similarity, between these two thresholds touched me profoundly.
It also made me very aware of my own age. Mid-forties. Not the beginning and not the end, but quite literally the middle and the liminal quality of this phase where the old identity no longer fit, but the new ones have not yet fully taken shape.

Jung suggested that a meaningful passage through midlife isn’t about rejecting the first half of life, but integrating it. Carrying forward what has been lived, loved, learned, and lost, and allowing it to ripen into wisdom.

Unlike birth, adolescence, matrescence, or even death, midlife is rarely ritualised or honoured.

I had my last two children in my forties, and like many women of my generation, I find myself deep in the tender, messy, exhausting work of nurturing young children right in the middle of life... This means the usual midlife narrative doesn’t quite fit. Instead of turning inward because my children no longer need me (so much), motherhood constantly calls me outward, at the very moment my body is asking for something else.

This past year, Jane Hardwicke Collings gave me language for something I had been sensing. As oestrogen (the hormone of accommodation and self-sacrifice) begins to decline in perimenopause, often described as many women feel less willing to give endlessly and to override their own needs.

I feel this in my mothering and in how I want to develop my work in the future. And yes, it can feel confusing, even guilt-inducing.
But what if this shift isn’t a failure of timing, but an invitation into a different kind of mothering? One that models discernment, self-respect, and embodied truth.

Matrescence is often described as lasting two to three years. For me, it has taken more than a decade. And now, I sense another word on the horizon: sagescence. I’m not there yet, but I can smell it.

Hardwicke Collings has also introduced me to another beautiful word: sagescence.

I am not there vet, but I can smell it. The return from any rite of passage is meant to bring gifts in the form of earned life experience (and eventuallv wisdom to be passed on through guiding or mentoring others. I sense this as a natural next phase of my life and it is a path I have already tentatively begun walking, but now it is starting to make more sense to me.

I can see how my own way of navigating the beginning of this new passage has been through framino motherhood itself as a path of personal development and a spiritual practice. A place where tending to deeper questions of meaning and purpose has been my wav of turning more toward mvself not to distract from mothering, but to find greater fulfilment and depth through it.

✨️ If you are mother in this middle passage of life, does any of this speak to you?

✨️ And if vou are earlier in the cycle, what does it stir in you? Curiosity resistance, longing, relief?
Wherever vou are, I hope motherhood feels meaningful and alive for vou

🌀 I have been pouring myself into the continuing creation of the postpartum doula course I teach (in Swedish), but I am now finally able to turn my attention back to offerings for mothers who want to explore motherhood as a path of personal development and a spiritual practice. A new invitation for these offerings will open in the coming months.

25/01/2026

When I moved to Serra Grande, Bahia, in Brazil, one of my personal intentions was to immerse myself even more deeply in ceremony.

I love how ceremony here is alive and thriving — a necessary ingredient of life fully lived, rather than an optional add-on.

In Sweden, I have often held the role of teacher, and I was longing to learn from others. To be the beginner again. I do feel much more of a beginner here, and at the same time it has been deeply affirming to recognise that the medicine I carry is as valuable and needed here as it has been elsewhere.

This past week, I’ve had the honour of co-creating four very different ceremonies.

I feel myself both expanding outward and rooting downward — growing wider in my capacity, and deeper in my trust that ceremony speaks a language older than borders, and that we are always both teachers and students, simultaneously, in all that we do.

Photo: thank you so much for the trust, shared presence and chance to learn from you .matriz .art.natura 🤍

18/01/2026

“Life is a short episode between two great mysteries which are one and the same.” (Jung)

Recently I had the honour of celebrating a respected elder here where I live, a man turning 100! The very next day, I found myself at the birthday party of a one-year-old.

The contrast, and the deep similarity, between these two thresholds touched me profoundly.
It also made me very aware of my own age. Mid-forties. Not the beginning and not the end, but quite literally the middle and the liminal quality of this phase where the old identity no longer fit, but the new ones have not yet fully taken shape.

Jung suggested that a meaningful passage through midlife isn’t about rejecting the first half of life, but integrating it. Carrying forward what has been lived, loved, learned, and lost, and allowing it to ripen into wisdom.

Unlike birth, adolescence, matrescence, or even death, midlife is rarely ritualised or honoured.

I had my last two children in my forties, and like many women of my generation, I find myself deep in the tender, messy, exhausting work of nurturing young children right in the middle of life, and it means that the usual narrative doesn’t quite fit. Instead of turning inward because my children no longer need me (as much), motherhood constantly calls me outward, at the very moment my body and spirit is asking for something else.

This past year, Jane Hardwicke Collings gave me language for something I had been sensing. As oestrogen (the hormone of accommodation and self-sacrifice) begins to decline in perimenopause, often described as many women feel less willing to give endlessly and to override their own needs.

I feel this in my mothering and in how I want to develop my work in the future. And yes, it can feel confusing, even guilt-inducing.

But what if this shift isn’t a failure of timing, but an invitation into a different kind of mothering? One that models discernment, self-respect, and embodied truth.

Matrescence is often described as lasting two to three years. For me, it has taken more than a decade. And now, I sense another word on the horizon: sagescence. I’m not there yet, but I can smell it.

Collings has also introduced me to another beautifu word: sagescence.
I am not there yet, but I can smell it.

The return from any rite of passage is meant to bring gifts in the form of earned life experience (and eventuallv wisdom to be passed on through guiding or mentoring others. I sense this as a natural next phase of my life and it is a path I have already begun walking, but now it is starting to make more sense to me.

I can see how my own way of navigating the beginning of this new passage has been through framing motherhood itself as a path of personal development and a spiritual practice. A place where tending to deeper questions of meaning and purpose has been my way of turning more toward myself - not to distract from mothering, but to find greater fulfilment and depth through it.

✨️ If you are mother in this middle passage of life, does any of this speak to you?

✨️ And if you are earlier in the cycle, what does this stir in you? Curiosity resistance, longing, relief?

Wherever vou are on the journey of motherhood, I hope it feels meaningful and alive for you ❤️

I have been pouring myself into the continual creation of the postpartum doula course I teach (in Swedish), but I am now finally able to turn my attention back to offerings for mothers who want to explore motherhood as a path of personal development and a spiritual practice. A new invitation for these offerings will open in the coming months 🌀

Art by Lucy Pierce 🙏

16/01/2026

I have held so many ceremonies for women at the threshold of birth.
Some are tender and quieter, others celebratory and full of joy — all of them, without exception, are beautiful and meaningful.

Yesterday’s ceremony touched me in a particularly profound way.

It was an intimate initiation ceremony held only for the mother-to-be, the father-to-be, and the grandmother-to-be on the maternal line (with the grandfather-to-be on the paternal side also present and contributing from a distance).

Rather than placing all the focus on the pregnant mother and the baby, I wove a ceremony that honoured multiple parallel journeys, each one unfolding in its own right, and all of them interweaving and influencing the others, as well as the new family member about to arrive.

With every pregnancy and birth, a portal opens, with the potential for deep healing, rippling both backwards and forwards in time, and touching both the mother- and father-lines, moving through the wider ancestral web.

Yesterday was a beautiful reminder of just how potent this threshold can be when people are ready, open, and willing to meet it with presence and intention and to do the inner work it invites.

I feel the deepest gratitude for the trust placed in me to hold space for this, and for the privilege of being gifted the opportunities to offer this as part of my work.

The Elements gifted us a reminder of the uncontrollable and unpredictable nature of all rites of passage, and of how grace unfolds when we offer our trust and surrender.
After very heavy rain and raging stormy winds, by the time we walked down to the ocean, the world had grown still. Twilight held us as the pregnant mama navigated the labyrinth I had drawn in the sand. And as we finally sat down to light the fire, the sky opened into a vast, silent canopy of stars, as if the night itself had come to witness and bless us ✨✨

02/01/2026

As a ritual to mark the turning of the year, I felt called to create something that would continue to remind me in the coming year, of my capacity to gather and recycle elements, objects, and memories to make something new that offers me meaning and beauty.

So I made a new drumstick (been wanting to, ever since our dog got hold of my old one and chewed it quite a bit).

I used a branch of the cacao tree that grows in my garden, and a piassava seed I found in the river that flows through the Tupinambá village I visited not long ago, the same kind of seed which my pipe was crafted out of from one of their elders.

Inside the seed, I placed a small piece of dried umbilical cord from each of my three children, along with a small lock of my own hair, to honour the bond that will always exist between us, and my own ability to nurture new growth.

As I looked for something to wrap around the seed, I found the small leather purse my partner made for me many years ago. Inside that purse, I have until recently carried a chestnut seed for over a decade, from the tree beneath which my grandfather’s ashes were spread. It was the exact size to hold the seed. My daughter eagerly helped me thread a string through it, and together we wrapped it with a crochet ribbon I picked up once in a Swedish charity shop.

I cleared out my fireplace and set the stones anew, marking the eight directions. I lit a small fire, sang my intentions for how I want to lead my family in the coming year, and burned the papers on which I had written what I am ready to leave behind. I prayed with my pipe, blessed my new drumstick, and then drummed and sang until my youngest woke up. Just as she joined us some friends arrived and ritual flowed naturally into play and hang-out.

✨️ I'm curious to hear if you marked the turning of the year with any ritual, or other activity that felt meaningful to you?

02/01/2026

✨️
The year has just begun.

It’s so easy, right now, to turn toward planning, mapping, doing.
To ask: What do I need to make happen this year?

Before the lists appear.
Before the plans take form.
Before the familiar pull toward doing…

What if you let yourself turn toward receiving?

Receiving through your senses.
Through beauty that meets your eyes.
Through sounds that soothe your nervous system.
Through touch, warmth, scent, taste, movement.

Receiving asks for a different posture.
Not reaching, or striving, but softening into availability.
And this often requires laying something down,
whether it's over-commitment or old expectations and beliefs.

Receiving is not passive, but rather an intentional opening.
A choice to welcome what nourishes, and to lovingly but firmly decline what does not.

May this year meet you with all that you want to receive.

✨️Art by Jungsuk Lee

24/12/2025

May we remember what lies at the core of this holy night of Christ-mas.
A story of Birth.

For God to enter this world in human form, He had to travel the same portal every human has passed through:
the womb, the va**na, the v***a of Woman.

So much has been said about the birth.
Today I find myself contemplating what followed, Mary, mother of Jesus’s postpartum, so rarely spoken of.

What were those first days and weeks like for her?
As people arrived to see the child and offer their gifts, who listened to her story?
Who brought her nourishing food?
Who rubbed her aching back?
Who held her?

The Son of God depended, after birth, on her recovery and ongoing, devotional labour of care.

May we honour the mothers.
May we remember the postpartum.
May we recognise the sacred labour that continues long after birth.

✨Art, image slide 1:
Mary Breastfeeding Baby Jesus, by Kelly Latimore

Kelly Latimore writes on her website about this piece, that in the early Church, it was not the crucifixion but the lactating Mary that stood as a central symbol of God’s love for humanity. The oldest known image of Mary, from a 2nd-century Roman catacomb, shows Jesus nursing at her breast. Over time this image was revered, then later suppressed, coming to be seen as “inappropriate.” Yet it remains one of the most beautiful and forgotten images of the incarnation: God made flesh, sustained through a mother’s body.

✨Art/Photograph image slide 2: I love this artwork by (slide 2).

I wish someone would create equally striking images of Mary and Jesus in the postpartum days. The images we inherit from stories, myths, and religion quietly shape how we understand, and feel about, our own life passages, and what we are able to see, including the truth that the divine enters the world through every birth, and is sustained by the ordinary, holy labour of mothering.

❤️ Now it is time for me to go and tend to a postpartum mother. Today, this honourable task feels, if possible, even more filled with meaning and reverence.

22/12/2025

An early Christmas gift from me to you, dear mother ❤️

In the swirl of December, with its long to-do lists, it’s easy to feel pulled in many directions.

I’ve created this simple yet beautiful free resource to help you check in with yourself and reconnect with your inner knowing.

You already carry your own Mother Compass within.This gift is here to support you in coming into deeper contact with it, and to help you gain clarity around the values you want to carry as you lead your family into the new year.

🧭 Follow the link in comments to receive this FREE gift

🌟 I would be most grateful if you would consider sharing this post, so I can reach more mothers who might appreciate this kind of support and reflection right now.

21/12/2025

I love this perspective so much.

💛 Art and words below by (repost)

“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future...”
– Margaret Atwood

"I love this quote. It reminds me that the present moment is, in a way, always a solstice. That still point between light and dark, winter and spring, yesterday and tomorrow. Each only exists in relationship to one another."

💙 Art by

15/12/2025

.
One of the clear heart callings of moving to Brazil for me personally, was a deep longing to learn from other women devoted to serving girls and women through the rites of passages of Womanhood.
Women who choose to live in alignment with inner and outer cycles, in intimate relationship with the land, the plants, and a Ceremonial way of life. And to share my medicine with them.

I feel immense gratitude as this vision continues to unfold slowly but steadily 🌀

Thank you, thank you, thank you Agustina Sosa , Gabriella .matriz, and Nora for the invitation to co-create yesterday’s Closing Ceremony.
I am in awe of the way you walk this earth with such beauty and integrity. Feeling blessed for being gifted the opportunity to walk beside you ✨️🔥

04/12/2025

.
This beautiful artwork by .zena stirred feelings in me and made me think of something my wise reminded me of recently:

Our responsibility to care for all that we birth into the world, not only our children, but also our creations, projects, and dreams. How this requires much tending, nurturing, and protection. And that this caretaking requires much of our life energy, energy that deserves to be both honoured (not least by ourselves) and reciprocated.

I’ve tracked a pattern in myself, a pull to move on quickly once a new creation has been born, rather than staying to root deeper and help it grow to gain wider reach.

So I’m committing to changing that.

Instead of scattering my energy across too many new beginnings, I’m going to center my focus on what I most deeply feel I came here to do and what I have already birthed into being lately:

✨ postpartum education (in Sweden)
✨ providing supportive containers for mothers to explore motherhood as a path of self-development and mothering as a spiritual practice (online, in English)
✨ and my ceremonial (body)work offerings (both online and here in Brazil)

I feel excited to open a new cycle of all of the above at the beginning of next year.

For now, I’m tending the soil and giving my loving attention to what is already growing.

🌱What creation of yours are you choosing to nurture more deeply?

Art by .zena 🧡🙏

LivModer

28/01/2026

27/01/2026

25/01/2026

18/01/2026

16/01/2026

02/01/2026

02/01/2026

24/12/2025

22/12/2025

21/12/2025

15/12/2025

04/12/2025

Adress

Webbplats

Aviseringar

Kontakta Praktiken

Genvägar

Dela