Today we buried Luna's placenta with an Ari-Ari Ceremony

Here in Bali it is tradition to bury the placenta in a place that is special to you with a ceremony known as Ari-Ari.

So, today we buried Luna’s placenta. Though to be fair one could also call it Sabrina’s placenta. It’s a little bit of both of them. And apparently much more…

Why do the Balinese do this?

When a child is born, it is believed that there are in fact four children born, but only one of them gets to be physical. The other three remain non physical but forever connected with their physical sibling. And as such they must be treated with respect.

So, the non physical three are thought to exist within the placenta. And by respectfully burying them with blessings and a focused positive intention, the growing child will be assisted by them playfully and lovingly throughout their physical experience.

By simply thowing the placenta in a bin (which is what most of us do) the child will be at risk of not being in harmony with the three siblings who will not offer their assistance and potentially even cause a bunch of trouble.

So... now you know :)

We only learned about this tradition when we were handed the placenta in a black plastic bag the moment we left the birthing room six days ago. For those of you who missed it, this is what it looked like.

From here it went to the fridge.

And thankfully no midnight munchers mistook it for a bag of sausages :)

We decided that our special place would be outside our first long-term home in Bali, Taman Petanu, a place we fell in love with and instantly knew was the right spot to leave our three non physical children.

Here you can see Nyoman digging the hole in preparation for the ceremony. Thank you Nyoman! It was super hot and you did it very quickly.

We also decided that a bougainvillea bush would be planted on top of the placenta. I'm not sure if this is traditional practice? It was just something we felt we wanted to do. The roots will eat up all that nutritional goodness and the pink flowers will bloom that much stronger. And in years to come we can bring Luna back here to teach her about this beautiful tradition whilst gazing upon the new growth.

And most important of all our other 3 children will be looking after Luna from a very peaceful spot :)

This very green spot is right on the bank of the sacred Petanu river, a very special place indeed.

Esteban offers his own blessings to the plant.

The ceremony begins. Thank you Dayu & Nyoman for doing this for us.

The placenta is placed in a lovely little pot before burial.

And I was the one to place it in Nyoman's hole.

Esteban enjoyed the filling in of the hole very much and was the first amongst us to offer his assistance to Nyoman...

...at which point we all joined in, taking little handfuls of dirt with more focused intention. Thanks for that Esteban. You really are a super special child. And Luna is lucky to have you as an older brother :)

The waist bands are to hold in our solar plexus & root chakra energies.

After the filling in of the hole, the traditional blessings were made. Thank you Dayu for doing that for us. Dayu's dad is a priest and clearly she has learned much from him.

And here is our plant ready to grow into something wonderful.

Have to admit that I don't know what the other plant is! I was too lost in the moment to think of asking at this point. Clearly it is part of the tradition. And I love it.

Thank you to all involved for making this a really special experience for us and especially to our lovely jungle mother Petra, who took lots of these pictures and made all of this possible us. We love you very much.