Why "Salt and Cedar"?
Naming a business. Hours spent at Better Living Through Coffee in Port Townsend, phone calls, and exchanging messages with photos of our scribbles. My future business partner, Meredith, and I asking ourselves, “Who are we? What is midwifery care about? How is the environment of the Sound in conversation with midwifery?”
It’s an interesting task to simultaneously hold the values of your midwifery practice and the realities of the business vessel, with its metronome of paperwork and faxes.
We want to start by infusing the practice's bare bones, like the name, with the juicy stuff we hope arises from it.
A few names didn’t make the cut.
Salt and Sage Midwifery: “Sounds like a great restaurant. If you don’t use it, I’m taking it,” said my boss and chef at the restaurant where I worked.
Wild Abundance Midwifery: “Sounds too… wild,” said my mom.
Mountain Rose Midwifery: "I think we just like Mountain Rose Herb products," said both Meredith and I.
Salt and Cedar Midwifery. Here we go. We have licenses and a logo and a website. What’s behind these storefront logistics?
Salt gives and holds, heals and rejuvenates. It works nutritionally within to nourish us. It soothes and comforts (have you ever taken an epsom salt bath?!).
I’ve been with people circled together around a bowl of salt, mixing it with their hands and speaking aloud their desires. They spoke of current challenges and possibilities they wish would manifest. I’ve heard a woman warn, “Be careful and specific with the intentions you put in the salt bowl. I said I wanted to get pregnant, but I didn't say with how many babies. Now I’m due with twins.”
Magic salt? In a different way, though. The real magic is created when people come face to face with those in their community and request, “Please listen to me. Witness these desires and sorrows, reflect them back to me, and support me.”
Salt holds space for whatever needs to happen. Midwives do the same.
Cedar trees are grounded in the area with the Sound as their community. Trees, with their evolving and reaching, parallel the inner and outer growth of humans. Alas, the childbearing year isn’t fundamentally a grounded period - some days it is, some days it isn’t. As midwives, we want to help explore your roots, and your ever-stretching and shedding desires and fears. We introduce you to community resources, and also witness and assist as you stumble and glide along your solo path within this community.
Environments are physical and tangible, like the place where you sleep at night and the roads you travel everyday. Environments are abstract, like the energy created in a house where yelling is the norm, or where understanding and peace are abundant. Our minds are an expansive, intricate environment. And within all of these types are the complexities of habits, barriers, creativity and flexibility.
How do you define your environment?
What constitutes your environment?
What did you choose?
What didn’t you choose, or how were your options limited?
What can you choose?
At Salt and Cedar Midwifery we acknowledge and await the opportunity to impact your health and environment. Depending on the day, it may look like promoting a comforting, loving atmosphere when you most need a listening ear, or offering education and recommendations for community resources to expand your access to nourishing foods.
We are thrilled that home birth with Salt and Cedar Midwifery is an option for people on the peninsula. We are on the other end of the phone if you choose to call, and we can’t wait to meet you.
phone: 360.620.4517
e-mail: morgan@saltandcedarmidwifery.com
Photo by: CBR Photography
