Spiritual experiences and changes during pregnancy
I was a daily practitioner until I got pregnant. There were some immediate stark changes I had to make in how I practiced. For example, my bread and butter pre-pregnancy was spell candles and lighting incense. But incense isn't healthy for the baby, so I had to stop that. The smell of a dressed candle made me sick. Even a plain candle, snuffed out, used to be a pleasant smell, but became a stench. Dream work and Dream analysis are a big part of my practice. My dreams stopped being introspective narrative pieces about my inner world. They became a jumbled mess of snippets on any sensory input from the previous day. Very incohesive, and dream recall was non-existent. This stagnated my progress on my path, on how I was doing things before. However, pregnancy is a spiritual experience in itself. I took it as a time to pivot my focus in my practice for the time being. It was a little jarring at first. All my expectations of pregnancy were on physical, emotional, and mental changes. I honestly never considered it would impact my practice.
The deeper I got into the first Trimester, the harder it was to pull a card. I was still able to do divination through tarot. It took a lot of energy. This seemed typical, as everything is very tiring in the first trimester. My usual practice for New Moons felt draining instead of revitalizing. One of the hardest things for me to navigate was not feeling in touch with the moon phases. For the past two years, the moon has been an amazing guide in helping me understand my inner world and hormonal cycle. Pregnancy doesn't follow that cycle. I did not have a planet or a natural cycle I could use to anchor myself onto to be my compass in all the internal changes pregnancy brings.
I also felt a relationship shift with another guide, my physical body. I felt like a passenger held hostage. I was forced to ride, sit, and be quiet while my body was preparing and doing miraculous things. I did not feel like I was the one making a baby. I felt more like a vessel the force of life was crafting inside of. I wasn't a creator of life but a lucky bystander who gets to intimately witness the pain and beauty of the process. I was able to apply a lesson I had learned pre-pregnancy. My practice should be adaptable to my lifestyle and needs. Easily, I resorted to enchanting more mundane tasks to be connected, like wearing jewelry with certain intentions, placing certain crystals at my desk. Sometimes after work, I lie down for some meditative rest. I turned to kitchen magick and prayers.
I was curious how others had adapted their practice during this time. So I searched online. Online, I see a lot of other pregnancy posts describe having intense spiritual growth during pregnancy. Even though I saw some improvement in astral projection. Such as developing hearing in astral. I attributed this to just how much practice and how long I had been practicing. Only changes were what I was doing, but I didn't see "growth", just differences. I wasn't advancing, but I didn't feel I was regressing either.
The only other topic I saw was feeling a spiritual connection with the baby. Some posts talked about being instantly connected to the baby at conception or when they found out. There were so many posts saying how they knew they were pregnant even before receiving a positive test. I did not feel connected to my baby until the end of the first trimester. Even though I know I shouldn't have, I felt guilty. I pressured myself to feel shame for practicing for a few years and not knowing if I was pregnant. That I was a dream witch, and I was having dreams about having a girl. When in fact I was having a boy. Silly, I know. But it made me doubt my abilities and my practice a bit at the time.
It was not until I found out the sex, and I had a name, that I felt a connection. When I say connection, I do not mean I spiritually feel this baby, or that I can read his soul. I was just starting to care and slowly feel attached to my baby. My husband and I had been trying for a few months, and this was a very planned pregnancy. I mention this to give some context that even though I took the steps to have this baby. It still took time for me to develop care and attachment for my baby. Towards the end of the first trimester, I did have a cool meditation session where I could sense ripples in my energy field. I felt this was my energy and my baby's. I have not had that experience again.
I would like to mention that please do not take this as a sign that you will and should feel connected this early. It is very normal not to be connected to your baby until sometime after the baby is born. This doesn't make you a bad parent or a bad practitioner. The body is going through so many intense changes; everyone is going to process this experience differently, despite spiritual growth or maturity.
