closing of the bones
A Sacred healing Ceremony helping you navigate the five sacred thresholds of womenhood
Across cultures and throughout history, life’s greatest transitions were honored through ritual. The Closing of the Bones ceremony helps women release what has ended, integrate what has changed, and step fully into the next chapter of their lives.
Modern life removed the rituals that once helped women process life’s biggest transitions.
Ceremony is how we remember.
The Five Gates of Womanhood
Ceremonies for Life’s Sacred Thresholds
Throughout history, women’s lives were marked by ceremony.
Major life transitions were not meant to be navigated alone. They were witnessed, honored, and integrated through ritual.
Across cultures, women gathered to support one another through moments of awakening, motherhood, transformation, grief, and spiritual leadership.
These moments were understood as thresholds — times when a woman was leaving one identity behind and stepping into another.
But in modern life, these passages are rarely acknowledged.
Women are expected to continue moving forward without pause, often carrying the emotional and energetic weight of these transitions alone.
The Five Gates of Womanhood were created by a shared vision to restore ceremony to these important moments.
Each gate represents a stage of transformation that many women experience at different points in life.
The Closing of the Bones ceremony offers a way to complete these transitions with intention, care, and community. Originally practiced as a postpartum ritual, this sacred ceremony has been adapted to support women through many of life’s initiations.
The Journey Through the Five Gates
Every woman’s path is unique, but many find themselves moving through these archetypal thresholds.
These gates are not rigid stages of life — they are energetic transformations that may occur more than once throughout a woman’s journey.
They represent moments when something within a woman begins to change, calling her toward deeper truth, healing, or purpose.
The Five Gates of Womanhood are key thresholds that shape a woman’s journey through life.
Each gate represents a moment when the old self is being released and a new self is emerging.
Our ceremonies are designed to support women standing at these sacred thresholds:
Gate 1: The Awakening Woman — when a woman begins remembering who she truly is
Gate 2: The Initiated Mother — the powerful passage into motherhood and birth
Gate 3: The Woman Reclaiming Herself — healing and sovereignty after loss or endings
Gate 4: The Woman Between Worlds — navigating life transitions and identity shifts
Gate 5: The Emerging Wise Woman — stepping into wisdom, leadership, and legacy
Across cultures, these thresholds have been reflected through powerful feminine archetypes — women who walked these initiatory paths long before us.
On our altar and within our ceremonies, we honor these archetypal guides:
Persephone, Artemis, Lilith, Inanna, and Hecate.
Each one represents a sacred stage of the feminine journey and the transformation that lives within it.
We invite to explore more about the Closing of the Bones and the Five Gates to discover which threshold you may be standing at.
Across time, women gathered in circles to witness the moments when a life changed forever.
Ceremony was how the soul crossed the threshold.
The History of Closing of the Bones
An Ancient Tradition of Healing
and Integration
The Closing of the Bones ceremony originates in traditional Mexican and Mesoamerican midwifery traditions, where it was offered to women after childbirth.
Birth was understood not only as a physical experience, but as a spiritual and emotional threshold.
During pregnancy and labor, a woman’s body opens. Her pelvis softens, her nervous system stretches, and her identity expands.
After birth, midwives would guide the mother through a ceremonial process using a rebozo shawl to gently wrap and support the body. This practice helped the body physically realign while also symbolically closing the energetic and emotional portal opened during birth.
But the deeper purpose of this ceremony has always been integration.
Across many cultures, similar rituals have been used to help individuals process major life transitions, grief, and identity shifts.
These ceremonies remind us that transformation is not meant to be rushed or experienced alone.
Why Ceremony Matters Today
The Missing Rituals of Modern Life
For most of human history, communities honored life’s major transitions with ceremony.
Birth
Coming of age
Marriage
Loss
Spiritual awakening
These rituals helped people move through change with support, meaning, and belonging.
In modern society, many of these sacred traditions have been lost.
Women are often expected to move through profound life changes without space to pause, process, or be witnessed.
The result is that many transitions remain unfinished within the body and nervous system.
Closing of the Bones creates a sacred container where women can release what has ended, integrate their experiences, and step forward with clarity and support.
This ceremony nurtures healing on the mind, body, and spirit level.
Which Life Threshold Are You Crossing?
The five gates of womanhood
One: the Gateway of Awakening
Persephone — The Initiate
In Greek mythology, Persephone begins as a maiden living in the safety of the known world.
But when she is drawn into the underworld, she undergoes a profound transformation. The descent awakens her power and ultimately crowns her as Queen of the Underworld.
Persephone represents the moment when a woman begins to wake up to herself.
This gate often appears when a woman begins questioning the life she has been living and feels a deeper call emerging from within.
She may be experiencing:
Spiritual awakening
Personal transformation
The unraveling of inherited beliefs
A longing to reconnect with intuition and truth
This stage can feel confusing, exhilarating, and disorienting all at once.
Ceremony helps the body release outdated identities and welcome the woman who is emerging.
The Persephone Ceremony honors the sacred moment when a woman steps onto the path of remembering who she truly is.
Two: Gateway of Birth
Artemis — Protector of Birth
Artemis is known in mythology as the protector of women and children and the guardian of birth.
Though she herself remained independent and sovereign, she stood beside women during one of life’s most powerful initiations—the passage into motherhood.
Pregnancy and birth are profound thresholds that transform a woman physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Yet many women move through this initiation without space to process the experience or integrate the imprint it leaves on their bodies.
This gate includes women who are:
Preparing for pregnancy
On the fertility journey
Pregnant
Postpartum
Integrating birth stories from years past
The Closing of the Bones ceremony was traditionally performed after birth to help the mother close the energetic and physical portal of pregnancy and return fully to herself.
The Artemis Ceremony honors the sacred transition into motherhood and supports women in releasing fear, grief, trauma, and exhaustion so they can reclaim their strength and wholeness.
three:
the Gateway of Sovereignty
Lilith — The Sovereign Woman
In ancient myth, Lilith represents the woman who refused to surrender her sovereignty.
She chose exile rather than submission and became a symbol of feminine independence and self-trust.
This archetype arises when a woman is reclaiming herself after loss, betrayal, or the end of a relationship.
She may be navigating:
Divorce or separation
Relationship endings
Healing from betrayal or trauma
Reclaiming personal power and autonomy
These transitions often carry deep emotional residue that remains stored within the body.
The Closing of the Bones ceremony allows women to release the energetic ties of the past and step forward with clarity and strength.
The Lilith Ceremony honors the woman who is remembering her power and choosing herself again.
four: Gateway of Transformation
Inanna — Descent and Transformation
In Sumerian mythology, the goddess Inanna descends into the underworld where she is stripped of her titles, her possessions, and even her identity.
She passes through seven gates before emerging transformed.
This myth reflects one of the most powerful stages of human life — the liminal space between identities.
The Woman Between Worlds often appears during moments such as:
Burnout or exhaustion
Career changes or life transitions
Identity shifts
Spiritual transformation
The sense of standing between who you were and who you are becoming
This stage can feel uncertain and disorienting, but it is also the sacred cocoon of transformation.
The Inanna Ceremony supports women in surrendering what no longer belongs to them so they can emerge renewed and aligned with their next chapter.
Five: The Gateway of Wisdom
Hecate — Keeper of the Thresholds
Hecate is the ancient guardian of crossroads, magic, and liminal spaces.
She stands at the threshold between worlds, guiding those who are ready to step into deeper wisdom.
This archetype represents the stage of life when a woman begins to embody her role as a guide, mentor, and keeper of knowledge.
This gate often arises during:
Perimenopause or menopause
Children leaving home
Spiritual leadership or healing work
A desire to share wisdom and guide others
In many ancient cultures, this stage of life was deeply honored.
Women who had walked the path before became keepers of the community’s wisdom.
The Hecate Ceremony honors the transition into elderhood and spiritual authority.
It is a ceremony of completion, integration, and stepping into one’s role as a wise woman.
Step Into Ceremony
SIf you feel called to honor a life transition through ritual and guided healing, we invite you to step through the gate that resonates with your journey.
Ceremony offers the space to release the past, integrate the present, and step forward with clarity into the woman you are becoming.
The Archetypes on the Altar
During our Closing of the Bones ceremonies, these archetypal energies are honored on the altar.
Each symbol represents a sacred stage of the feminine journey and serves as a reminder that the path a woman walks today has been walked by countless women before her.
Through ceremony, storytelling, and embodied healing, we reconnect with these ancient lineages of transformation.
You are not alone in your threshold.
You are part of a lineage of women who have crossed these gates for generations.
Why Modern Women Are Being Called Back to Ceremony
For most of human history, women did not move through life’s transitions alone.
Birth, loss, initiation, motherhood, and elderhood were held within community and marked with ceremony. These rituals allowed women to pause, to be witnessed, and to integrate the profound transformations happening within their bodies and lives.
But over the past several centuries, many of these rites of passage have disappeared.
As societies became more focused on productivity, independence, and efficiency, the sacred pauses that once honored life’s thresholds were slowly lost.
Women were expected to move forward quickly.
Return to work after giving birth.
Carry grief quietly.
Navigate identity shifts alone.
Hold the emotional weight of families without being held themselves.
Yet the human body still remembers the ancient rhythms.
Our nervous systems still long for witnessing, integration, and ritual.
This is why many women today feel a quiet but powerful call back toward ceremony.
Not because it is trendy or mystical, but because it meets a very real human need.
Ceremony creates space for the body and spirit to complete a transition.
It allows us to release what we have been carrying, honor what has changed, and step forward with greater clarity and wholeness.
The Closing of the Bones ceremony is one of the ways women across cultures have honored these thresholds for generations.
Through touch, prayer, ritual, and community witnessing, this ceremony helps a woman close one chapter of her life and consciously step into the next.
In a world that rarely slows down long enough to honor these transitions, ceremony becomes a powerful act of remembering.
Remembering that transformation deserves to be witnessed.
Remembering that healing happens in relationship.
And remembering that no woman was ever meant to cross life’s thresholds alone.
Our Approach
NOt all closing of the bones ceremonies are the same
While this ritual has roots in traditional postpartum practices from Mexican and Central American cultures, we recognize that modern American mothers often carry unique experiences shaped by medicalized birth, cultural pressure to “bounce back,” and little space to process what they’ve been through.
We honor the traditional ceremony while integrating subconscious reprogramming, nervous system regulation, sound healing with alchemy crystal singing bowls, and energy bodywork.
Together, these elements create a deeply restorative experience that supports the mother’s healing physically, emotionally, and energetically as she closes one chapter and steps into the next.
Each ceremony may include:
guided storytelling and witnessing
herbal bath, foot soak, or cleansing ritual
intuitive bodywork and massage
traditional rebozo wrapping
subconscious reprogramming and emotional integration
visualizations and embodiment
sound healing and chakra alignment
The intention is to support women in completing important life transitions with care, reverence, and embodied healing.
Not Sure Which Gate You Are Standing At?
Each gate represents a unique threshold of transformation.
You may resonate with one… or several.
Many women feel the call toward ceremony before they fully understand why.
If you're unsure which threshold you are navigating, we invite you to begin with a conversation.
Meet your Guides
Victoria Richardson
Neurospiritual Practitioner
Channel
Ceremonial Intuitive healer
Victoria is a mom of two boys hosts monthly women's circles and healing ceremonies. She bridges neuroscience, energetics, and ancestral wisdom to guide women through life’s sacred thresholds — from birth and postpartum to identity shifts and spiritual awakening.
As a Neurospiritual Practitioner and Human Design Educator, she blends subconscious integration, nervous system science, and ceremony to help you embody your design in real time.
Her grounded yet mystical approach supports healing not only for the individual — but for baby and lineage.
Learn more: RapidRenegade.com
Jade Anderson Passamonte
Birth Doula + body worker
Yoga therapist + Sound healer
Jade is a devoted wife, mother of four, and the founder of Whole Mama Wellness Collective — a heart-centered space dedicated to nurturing women through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
With years of experience as a birth doula and childbirth educator, Jade brings deep reverence to the birthing journey — supporting families in feeling informed, empowered, and held through every stage of transition.
Her work extends beyond education into embodied care.
Through intuitive bodywork, rebozo wrapping, and postpartum support, she creates a space where mothers can soften, integrate, and feel deeply nurtured in their healing.
Within ceremonial settings such as Closing of the Bones, Jade holds the physical and emotional container — guiding women through somatic release, gentle restoration, and sacred sealing after birth.
Her presence is grounding, maternal, and profoundly safe — allowing each woman she serves to feel
witnessed, honored, and lovingly restored.
Learn more at wholemamawellnesscollective.com.
The Energetic foundation
This is not about release alone.
It is about expansion through integration.
You are not trying to erase your story.
You are anchoring it in sovereignty.
When a woman consciously seals a chapter, she reclaims her life force.
And when she reclaims her life force — her legacy ripples outward.