The Placenta (or The Body of Kin)

You came to this world thanks to love and magic of nature.

Have you ever thought how completely insane it is that you grew from a single cell into a hypercomplex and unique being in your mother's belly in just a few months? She was able to create you without any special science, without fully comprehending the process, and without doing anything super specific beyond giving you love and care.

She literally welcomed your spirit inside her own body, placing you as close as possible to her beating heart. She gave you almost unlimited access to her resources, her energy, and the deepest parts of her own soul.

Do you realize the quality of the gift of selflessness and unconditional love she has already offered you?

If you are here, it is because there was at least one woman who loved you enough to give you life by bringing you into this world. She trusted your soul enough to let her own temple, her body, become your everything—your entire existence.

Can you take a moment to truly feel what she has done for you and how much she must have loved you to nurture you and give birth to you?

When you deeply connect with this space of her unconditional offering of self to you, how can you not feel gratitude toward her? How can you not see her unlimited and boundless love that nurtured every single bone of yours with her own blood?

You might think you are smart, believing in stories where woman came from man's rib in some misunderstood universe, but this is foolish nonsense. Look at Nature—she usually has a straightforward recipe for creation, and it rarely involves a man creating a woman out of himself.

You have come into this world through her majestic birth canal. You came out of her. She didn’t come from a man. From him came a single cell of potentials, in her you became a full being with a body and a chance to experience life.

This is the magical and mysterious origin of creation: of you, of the world, and even of the Universe itself. This is the sacred passage, the other world, the void of wholeness—whatever you want it to be, even God himself—but only if she allows entry.

Only if she trusts you. Only if she truly loves you enough to give you the opportunity to become an integral part of her deepest self.

I wonder why this still seems to be a secret and why we keep writing, interpreting, and analyzing various religious texts (or science) for centuries. The truth is obvious and omnipresent everywhere. You already know how creation works and why. It was never hidden, and it has remained essentially the same process before even we became who we are.

The very first God and Earth you ever experienced was inside your mother's body while she was co-creating, nurturing, and caring for you. Even if her intimate temple didn't seem like the perfect place you might have wished for, you should still be grateful you had one—giving you the chance to be born into this world.

Now. We understand already it's important to recognize that we have always been unconditionally loved by our mothers, regardless of circumstances. But the title of this text is about the placenta, so let's focus on that without getting too sentimental about other topics.

The human body is the most sophisticated, wisest, and most astonishing system for any engineer (or a simply curious human being) to contemplate. It works effortlessly and beautifully, even though we aren't even close to understanding its full complexity or deeper intelligence. It can do many remarkable things. For example, while creating babies inside another body, it can also grow new temporary organs just to ensure everything is perfectly optimized for both the baby and the mother.

The placenta is this mysterious, only temporary organ in the human body. It is primarily made of the baby's DNA, although a certain part belongs only to the mother. It is a unique shared system that ensures nutrients, oxygen, and other important information flow freely and safely between baby and mother. It protects the sovereignty of both, and ensures they maintain an optimal state of coherence with each other.

The placenta is honestly mind-blowing when you take time to properly study it.

Unfortunately, not much research is available since it's part of female biology, and as you know, we haven't invested sufficiently in understanding female systems—they were deemed too complicated and less important to society than ensuring men's health. Still, some incredible research is being done around the world, both in conventional scientific approaches and in the revival of ancient knowledge and wisdom.

Even though what science now tells us about the placenta is fascinating on many levels, I'd like to discuss something else. I'll use a different approach—I'll speak more from the wisdom of my inner feminine than the intelligence of my inner masculine. I want to share voices from my own ancestors and from those who haven't been acknowledged and honored until now.

Some say your conscious mind represents roughly 5% of what happens in your head, with the rest being subconscious and unconscious processes. This means that, whether you like it or not, you are more programmed by the superstitions, conditioning, and limiting beliefs of your ancestors than by the actual laws of nature or even science.

The way you were born defines much about your future health and well-being.

And what your great-grandmothers believed about the placenta still impacts your deep psyche and even your unconscious behavioral patterns and emotions.

Each culture, tribe, and region has its own beliefs, traditions, and interpretations of what the placenta is, what to do with it, and what it represents spiritually or metaphysically. No matter where you look around the world, virtually all indigenous communities have sacred rituals of great importance involving the newborn's placenta.

Some cultures burned it. Some buried it. Some sent it to the open sea. Some ate it with their entire families or decorated trees with it to feed animals. The range of practices is potentially endless.

However, one thing is certain: they would never discard it as garbage. They would not treat a placenta without respect, honor, care, and awareness.

They would not dare.

In most traditions, the placenta is considered sacred. Even before modern science, people understood its incredible value and importance.

Let me share one truly astonishing scientific fact about the placenta: it contains stem cells, the most versatile cell composition possible. With such cells, you can create any new biological tissue. You can heal seemingly incurable diseases with just this one organ.

Now, back to ancestral considerations about our majestic placenta or its potential superpowers.

Some cultures believe the placenta is the personal divine source of the newborn—what connected them to everything else before they came into this world. Some believe the guardian angel of the baby lived in the placenta; it was their personal home. Some consider it to be the body of the first lover or the soul twin of the baby.

Regardless of beliefs, this organ was clearly very important to the baby's existence in the womb. Just imagine yourself before birth.

You are literally in deep water in a dark uterus, in a closed space. The main thing sustaining you is a cord coming from your belly, attached to this temporary organ called the placenta. This thing is your everything. It is your food, your blood, your air, your waste disposal system, your protector, nurturer, and doctor. Your mother is like your God, and the placenta is your sacred intermediary with her.

If a baby is truly conscious while in the womb, they probably love, cherish, and value their placenta deeply. They are closely attached to it, and being disconnected might feel very frightening. So, if a baby is also conscious when born, they are probably in great distress and shocked to see how we treat their placenta—especially when we cut them from it as quickly as possible and throw it away like useless medical waste.

I'm sharing something extremely personal and intimate now. This isn't just some random rambling about curious facts or my personal judgment about how we culturally handle childbirth.

After many years of an intense healing journey, I reached the stage where I felt called to integrate the trauma of my prenatal experience, birth, and immediate post-birth period.

I was deeply destabilized and saddened to realize that I wasn't even traumatized by my mother or the birth process itself. That was orgasmic, transcendent, joyful, and blissful on many different levels and in various dimensions.

I was deeply hurt and traumatized by where exactly I was born, the hospital, and how medical personnel handled my soft placenta, our deep relationship and my fragile body of a newborn.

Everything happened so quickly and drastically.

From complete darkness, I was introduced to intense lights, changes in temperature and humidity, fresh water, white towels, very serious strangers, and cold sharp scissors cutting me from my source, my food, my everything.

I cried and screamed as hard as I could, hoping they would wait a bit—let me stay connected a little longer, to adjust to my new environment, to properly grieve and let go before losing my placenta forever.

But no one cared. They all acted fast and professionally, like in a factory. Apparently, it was more important to make me clean and dry, and to dispose of my first source of life as medical waste in the garbage before even placing me on my mother's beating heart and naked skin.

This was cruel. This was traumatizing. This practice makes no sense—not scientifically, morally, or humanely.

This is premeditated and legally sanctioned abuse at the most vulnerable and fragile moments for both child and mother.

This kind of trauma can be extremely complex and take a very long time to properly heal.

Sometimes, you might go to therapy for 10 years to realize that you're not even angry at your mother or father or the messed-up world, but at the trained professional with sophisticated credentials who decided that this way of delivering babies made any logical or coherent sense.

As part of this long process of trauma healing and consciousness regeneration about my arrival into this world, learning more about the placenta became pivotal on my journey—especially learning how my own ancestors viewed it before they were forbidden from maintaining their own beliefs and practices.

Before the massive campaigns to eradicate, shame, and criminalize the ancestral knowledge and traditional wisdom of my people under the communist regime, my ancestors apparently had rich, mysterious, and profound spiritual considerations around something as seemingly simple as the placenta.

Before modern hospitals, fluorescent lights, and sterile protocols, the placenta was not discarded as medical waste. In Eastern Europe, including the Volyn region where I had the privilege to be born, it was a sacred part of birth—a bridge between worlds, a guardian of the newborn's soul, and a reminder of the unbreakable bond between child, mother, kin, and earth.

To the people of these lands, the placenta was not simply an organ. It was often called the Body of Kin or The Second Soul. Just as the mother's body was seen as a divine vessel of creation, so was the placenta—a living, breathing entity that tethered the baby to the womb and the ancestral spirit world.

One of the most common practices in Volyn was the ritual burial of the placenta. After birth, it was carefully wrapped in natural fabric and placed into the earth, often beneath a fruit tree planted in honor of the newborn. The belief was simple yet profound: as the tree grew, so would the child, drawing strength and protection from the roots. The tree became a living testament to the child's presence in the world, standing tall as a guardian for life.

Some families believed the placenta held the essence of the child's spiritual twin or guardian spirit. Burying it near the home ensured the spirit's constant protection. Others whispered that the placenta was the Book of Fate, carrying the stories of past and future generations within its delicate tissues. Returning it to the earth honored both the newborn's lineage and the land that sustained them.

In many cases, the burial site was tended to with care, serving as a sacred grounding point for the family. People believed that as the tree absorbed nutrients from the placenta, it intertwined the child's spirit with the land itself, anchoring them to their ancestors and the cycles of nature.

The Tree of Life was not a mere symbol; it was an embodied connection between the body, the soil, and the eternal spirit of the earth.

In many villages, the burial of the placenta was accompanied by prayers and songs. Women gathered around the mother, singing ancient lullabies to bless both the child and the earth. Some placed grains, honey, or milk alongside the placenta as offerings of gratitude. The earth, in receiving the placenta, was believed to offer blessings of health, prosperity, and resilience in return.

This act was often called the First Offering or the Gift to the Land. In a world where forests, rivers, and soil were revered as living beings, giving back a part of the body symbolized an acknowledgment of that sacred relationship. It was a way of seeking protection for the newborn and aligning their life with the rhythms of the natural world.

Another belief held that the placenta was a Veil of the Mother—a thin, liminal layer separating the worlds of the unborn and the living. Just as the veil in Slavic folklore symbolized the boundary between the seen and unseen, the placenta represented the tender space between spirit and flesh.

Some said that the placenta's membranes carried the final whispers of the womb, containing the mother's prayers and the echoes of the child's first dreams. In this sense, it was believed to act as a spiritual garment, protecting the newborn's soul as they transitioned into the material world.

The Destiny Knot was another concept closely tied to the placenta. According to tradition, the twisting blood vessels within the placenta symbolized the intertwining paths of life. It was believed that the way the cord was knotted held messages about the child's future.

Some midwives and elders read these knots as signs of prosperity, hardship, or the child's innate gifts. By honoring the placenta and its mysteries, the family embraced the unpredictable and yet so sacred flow of life.

Some Eastern Slavic traditions spoke of the placenta as the child's Invisible Twin. It was said that the twin spirit lived in the placenta until birth, offering companionship and protection. Upon being severed, the twin remained in the spiritual realm, watching over the child from afar. This belief led to careful handling of the placenta, ensuring it was not harmed or disrespected.

In other stories, the placenta was the vessel of the baby's First Guardian. Before the ancestors could take over their watchful role, the placenta shielded the child from misfortune. A mother would often whisper her prayers to the placenta before its burial, calling upon it to continue protecting her child.

The decline of these traditions came swiftly under the pressures of modernity. Hospitals began to treat birth as a clinical event rather than a sacred passage. The placenta, once revered, was now deemed biological waste to be discarded without ceremony. Women who questioned this practice were dismissed, their ancestral wisdom seen as outdated superstition.

But even within the sterile walls of hospitals, some whispers of tradition remained.

Midwives from rural backgrounds often found quiet ways to honor the placenta—offering silent prayers as they placed it aside, or encouraging mothers to hold their newborns for a moment longer before the cord was cut. Fragments of the ancient ways lingered, refusing to be fully erased.

To remember the placenta is to remember the sacredness of birth. It is to remember that we are not born alone. The body of kin—our first guardian, our first connection to nourishment and protection—deserves reverence. It is not something to be discarded, but something to be honored.

Perhaps it is time to listen once more to the voices of our ancestors. To reclaim the rituals that grounded our existence in the earth. And to offer gratitude for the sacred body that held us, nourished us, and, in its quiet, unfailing presence, reminded us that we belong.

The purpose of such contemplation is to help my inner newborn heal more efficiently and systemically. It is to make her feel more connected to where she comes from and why. To honor her original land and her ancestors.

To forgive the disconnect, the separation, the wound of losing my placenta, and the professional cruel negligence about what was still so precious and dear to me when I first arrived in this world.

I have no idea if this will help my inner child feel safer and completely heal from that profound trauma, but it seems important to take time to at least show her that I care. That I can feel her deep pain and confusion about why it happened this way. And I also trust that she is far more powerful and more creative than any of her wounds.

We can learn how to forgive and how to consciously transform even that kind of pain.

We are connected to our land, to nature, to our ancestors, and to our spiritual wisdom no matter how difficult some parts of our birthing experience were.

I also want to inspire future mothers to see more widely and holistically.

To feel. To listen. To do their own research.

To ask their deep intuition, their grandmothers, and the soul to be incarnated about what is possible and what is truly coherent and desirable for them personally to experience. There are many ways to give birth, and it is important that each woman feels completely free and supported to choose what feels most appropriate, meaningful, and safest for her and her baby.

There are still countless things we don't know, and maybe never will. But some wisdom and knowledge have run through our civilizations and in our bones for a very long time.

Potentially, our ancestors understood some things even better than we do now. They felt the interconnections between all things. They were smart enough to observe patterns and create meaningful strategies or traditions based on what they were learning.

They were clever and wise enough to create stories that told their children something more uplifting, empowering, and more coherent with how nature truly works. They created beauty, meaning, and interdependence with everything they experienced.

They dreamed wild, wide, and deep.

They knew what collective consciousness is, and they perfectly understood that they were actually creating a future not only for their children and future generations but also for their elders and even for themselves and their entire community.

Everything was a fractal to them. A beautiful and unique part of the divine endless field of love and power dancing together. And the placenta seems to have been a unique and special fragment in their way of perceiving and experiencing their shared reality.

So, perhaps we still have something to learn from them to ensure we honor all their struggles, their resources, their powers, and their timeless gifts of forever-living wisdom.

Maybe we can ask them. Maybe we can listen. Maybe we can feel deeper into their truth.

In the space between modern medicine and ancient wisdom lies a path forward—one that honors both the miraculous advances of science and the profound spiritual understanding of our ancestors. The placenta, this extraordinary organ that exists in the liminal space between mother and child, between being and becoming, reminds us of our fundamental interconnectedness.

As we reclaim these forgotten rituals and buried knowledge, we aren't simply looking backward—we are weaving a new tapestry of understanding that might heal not just our personal wounds, but our collective relationship with birth itself. When we honor the placenta, we honor the threshold moments of our existence, the sacred passages that define us in such mysterious ways.

Every birth carries within it the echo of all births that came before it, stretching back through time immemorial. In recognizing the sanctity of the placenta—this temporary yet eternal companion—we recognize something essential about ourselves: that we are never truly alone, that we are always in relationship, and that even in our most vulnerable moments, we are held in a web of connection that transcends time and space.

Perhaps this is the most profound teaching the placenta offers us: that separation is an illusion. That which nourished us, that which connected us to life itself, remains with us always—if not in physical form, then in the indelible imprint it leaves upon our souls.

In honoring this truth, we begin the journey of coming home to ourselves, to each other, and to the earth that has always held us, just as surely as our mothers once did.