Welcome to the Closing the Bones Community Blog!
Why this website?
Welcome to the new closing the bones community – a reflection on 4 years of closing the bones giving and receiving.
When Maddie and I attended Rocio’s workshops back in 2012 and 2013, we could have never predicted how much the closing the bones community would grow and how we would be here today with this new website!
We originally just wanted to keep practising the skills for ourselves and with our community, but then people started to ask us to show them and the closing the bones workshop grew from this.
From the first workshop in my house in 2014 with a handful of birthworkers and therapists, our community of bone closers has grown to 200 members.
Of course word has got around about this amazing ritual, so more and more women are contacting us asking to have their bones closed, from everywhere in the UK. It became obvious to us last year that the system we had in place (a secret facebook group), had outgrown its ability to help us find practitioners for clients.
So the idea of this website was born. It was born out of two main needs: a desire to spread the word about closing the bones, and the need to connect practitioners and women wanting their bones closed.
We hope this website will further raise awareness about closing the bones, because we feel that this ritual is part of something we used to have and have lost. (There is some evidence of similar practises all around the world, including in Europe – and we are busy gathering this too). We also feel that women (whether they’ve had babies or not, but even more so after having a baby) really need this ritual to honour them, honour what their body has done, and reconnect with themselves. We feel it is part of reclaiming the need for sacredness and for honouring new mothers, something that is deeply lacking in Western culture.
So what have we learnt from 4 years of bone closing and bone closing teaching?
First we were amazed when we started offering this ritual, by how simple and yet how powerful it is. Women, 
independently from each other, often use the same words when describing how they feel after having their bones closed:
” The massage and rebozo wraps not only felt absolutely amazing, they also helped remind me of the importance of caring for myself. During the ceremony, I felt so safe and comfortable and at peace, and I was aware of how strong, resilient and loved I am. “
“The massage felt incredibly calming and nurturing and I felt very relaxed (almost went to sleep!) I felt a lot of tension which I was holding from the birth just disappear. “
“Amazing, emotional and cleansing. I feel very supported as a new mum and feel hugged by the love this ceremony brings.”
Recently, a midwife friend of us, Tasmin Williamson, demonstrated simple hip wrapping techniques to a group of teenage girls-and they said similar things:
” A few had quite an emotional response, describing it as feeling : ‘ whole again’ ‘together’ and ‘everything (stresses) just gone’ .”
Four years down the line, we are humbled by each woman we get to do the closing the bones on, and we get to learn from. And we keep on being amazed by the positive effects of the ritual. Many of the women we have had the honour to give the ritual to, have had big emotional releases during the process, and felt much better afterwards.
Women have also, time and time again, told us how significant this ritual was for loss. This shows how much we need this in our lives.
I (Sophie) have a theory about this: closing the bones provides two very primal things: rocking and wrapping. Both of these remind us of our life in the womb, and also allow us to feel the limits of our bodies again. I have had the chance to repeatedly practise the techniques on a local osteopath, who has confirmed the stress relieving, grounding and parasympathetic system-stimulating effects of the technique (the parasympathetic system regulates our “rest and relaxation” state as opposed to our “fight and flight” response.
Teaching the workshop, again we have been humbled and touched by how much this simple ritual resonates with women. How much women get out of a simple practice in pairs during the day, even though it isn’t setup like a proper ritual, and how much they get out of during the group ritual at the end of the day.
“Amazing, I loved, loved, loved the course, the venue, the women, the ceremonial yet down to earthness feel, the course has stoked my heart. Well instructed, nicely paced, nice balance between instruction, demonstration and practice. A really wonderful day.”
“Wonderful. I hadn’t anticipated the level to which I would experience the day.
“Every birthworker should do this study day. It is good to be reminded of the sacred in the postpartum”
Both practising and teaching have also shown us how much closing the bones appeals to women – I think that, deep down, we haven’t forgotten, something in us recognises the need for this, and there is a deep longing, a pull towards it.
If you would like your bones closed, look at our practitioners page here. If you’d like to take a workshop, have a look at this page.
If you’re a woman who has received the closing of the bones, or someone who serves the women in her community with this ritual and would like to write about it and share your words here, do feel free to contact us. We welcome guest blogs!
Much Love,