writing

Year of the Fire Horse: Momentum, Medicine & the Mothers Who Carry It

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Today begins the Year of the Fire Horse.

And of course, everyone is talking about it.

New beginnings. Momentum. Goals. Big leaps. Bold moves. All the things.

But what if you’re pregnant?

What if you’re stepping into a season that asks you to slow down in order to keep up rather  than speed up?

What if you’re in a space right now where everything feels too big, too much, all the changes and fears, all the hopes and dreams, and the idea of stepping back feels impossible. If that’s you, I hear it – its HARD. Especially with so much unknown. But this baby brings medicine. Their fire is growing in you, so slowing down is vital, for both of you.


The Truth About Fire Horse Babies

Fire Horse babies are special.

The last Year of the Fire Horse was 1966 — and in places like Japan, it was surrounded by deep superstition. There was a long-held belief that girls born in a Fire Horse year would grow up to be headstrong, fierce, and difficult to marry. So much so that birth rates dropped as families chose to avoid having babies that year.

Let that sink in.

An entire generation feared because of their potential fire.

Learning this now, I can’t help but feel that Fire Horse babies are not something to fear — they are an essential ingredient in a changing world. The very qualities once labeled “too much” are exactly what we are being called into now: courage, independence, conviction, heat.

Maybe the world has always needed them, but now more than ever.


If You’re Pregnant Right Now


Being pregnant in a Fire Horse year might mean you’re feeling everything more deeply, and I truly believe that that’s not weakness – it’s your inner wisdom surfacing.

Pregnancy cracks us open. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. It strips away what no longer fits, heightens intuition, amplifies truth. We can be incredibly creative, and especially sensitive, things that serve us long after our babies are earthside.

It’s not meant to be easy, but it shouldn’t be lonely or destructive either.

We are social mammals. We are designed for community. For touch. For shared stories. For being witnessed as we grow the next generation inside our bodies.

If you’re questioning everything: good. You should.

The systems surrounding birth and motherhood are not serving women the way they should. Many of them exhaust us, rush us, silence us. So think carefully about who you want in your space when you birth. Who holds your nervous system steady? Who honors your intuition? Who sees you as wise and trustworthy? That choice can change everything.

You deserve to be nurtured.
You deserve to be held.
You deserve to feel safe as you open the portal and birth your earthling, whatever that looks like for you.

The Fire Horse Runs, But that is not all

Yes, the Fire Horse runs. It carries momentum. It brings heat and acceleration. This is something social media keeps showing us. But horses are also deeply attuned creatures. Their electromagnetic field is 5 times stronger than ours, which means they amplify what’s already present.

So if your pregnancy is asking for stillness… for rest… for self-compassion… The Fire Horse isn’t fighting that.

It’s doubling down on it.

Momentum doesn’t always mean speed.
Sometimes it means depth. Sometimes it means small, consistent commitment. Sometimes it means rooting down, and trusting that the rise will come.

The Medicine of a Fire Horse Baby

Reading all this, and sitting with it, I believe that if you are pregnant right now, your Fire Horse baby may be the medicine you didn’t know you needed. And honestly, medicine you probably don’t want right now.

Because medicine isn’t always comfortable -it stretches us, burning away illusions, demanding growth, and asking us to trust.

Can you trust yourself in ways you never have before?

It’s hard and we resist the unknown, we seek the comfort, even when it holds us back – and these new babies are gently, but firmly (or in some cases wildly!) forcing us to stop, slow down, take the bitter pill and wake up. It feels icky and hard, but the lessons will ripple well into parenthood.

The work you do now — even the quiet, invisible work of resting when the world says run — will pay dividends in the months and years to come.

Fire Horse energy isn’t just about chasing the horizon.

It’s about becoming strong enough to hold it.

So let the energy grow with your baby… lean in, and reach out – seek support, stay the path. I hope your fire horse baby brings all the joy, strength and fierceness that was feared all those years ago – because goodness knows we need it!

With love, Rohana x


Why I don’t rock my baby to sleep

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

I’m holding my one year old and thinking about how I very rarely have to walk him around for sleep.

Before, when I just had my first baby, I thought I needed to help him sleep all the time, especially when all I would read about wake windows and dropping naps etc was that if he didn’t sleep, I was doing something wrong.

I thought that I needed to hold him and walk him and be with him. I thought if I left him alone, I’d be traumatising him. So I stayed.

I with him, but all that did was stress me out. Of course, he mirrored my stress. I didn’t understand that then, but knowing now about mirror neurons, I can see that those hours where whether or not he was tired, sleep would elude the both of us as my stress levels rose wondering what he hell I’d missed or done wrong to mess up bedtime that day. I spent hours walking him around, holding him awkwardly, both of us crying, and damaging my deeply unhealed postpartum body and spirit as a result.

From the very start my firstborn didn’t love sleep… and now, he only loves it when it’s time to wake up!

I look back and see that I was trying to force him to sleep by rocking and singing and doing all the things instead of just relaxing and being with him. This wasn’t because I enjoyed it, I just felt like it was what I should be doing – it was because I didn’t want to face the feelings of inadequacy that having a baby who doesn’t sleep would bring.

And now, as I hold my nearly one year old, my fourth baby I’m so much more relaxed. I don’t really care when he sleeps, just that he does and that he feels safe until he’s ready, whether that’s with me or more recently with his dad. It’s made such a difference to slowly, the more kids we’ve had, let all those expectations go.

I hope that my youngest baby will be more secure and comfortable, while simultaneously work through the guilt I feel about how much I didn’t know with my first and also feel proud of everything I’ve learned. If I could go back and tell the version of me with just 1 kid anything, it would be to relax, to just fucking relax. Honestly, the amount of time I spent stressed out, worrying that I was doing it wrong, and worrying what other people thought and how I should be, and whether I was doing it the way the book said, and the podcast said, and all the things I must have passed so much stress to him. You don’t know what you don’t know though, so here we are – learning. Undoing the stress of those first few years with gentle persistence and support. I can’t change the past, but I can support him to process it; and show up for where we are now.

So I won’t rock them to sleep. I won’t pace. I won’t force sleep right now. And hopefully by doing that, I am laying the foundations for a calmer association with it all too.

As ever, thanks for reading,

Rohana x

Day 9 – Joy, Frustration and love

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Day 9, I’ve found myself avoiding this for an hour; and I absolutely find myself in a sense of freeze over a areas that are coming up in life. I have been so focused on getting to the next thing, and now, I’ve got a few weeks of limbo, where I can do what I ‘want’ and I am stuck…

The good thing is, though yes I feel stuck in my own personal goals, my chosen response is to throw myself even more deeply into finding spaces of joy with my kids. Previously, I’ve ended up in this pattern and got really frustrated at them, at myself, and at life, and often everyone ends up having a rubbish time. I saw this starting yesterday and for the first time, I’ve really managed to tune in and choose differently. So today has been filled with joy, play, time with friends at the park and cuddles to connect before bed. Tomorrow I have intentions for special time with the boys, and I’ll create a window for A after preschool. I am choosing to connect, because I asked a lot of them this weekend driving for my workshop; and I continue to ask a lot of them as we get ready for our house move.

This doesn’t mean they are doing anything specific or extra, but it does mean that they know moving is happening, they know a sibling will arrive soon after our move, and they know that lots is going to change soon. Except, soon actually feels ages away, because to their brains, time doesn’t really exist yet. So lots is happening, and I’m finding pockets of joy and bliss, helped by the sunshine, as well as moments to affirm that they are loved, safe and wanted. This means when we do have ruptures, I can focus on repair and not wallow in guilt or worry, knowing that actually, we are getting really good at understanding each other, and how we need to work through stuff.

Today I had a chat about the way I’ve taught the kids energy fields; and how the energy we send out, returns to us. A friend and I spoke about how so much of what we teach our kids, especially around conflict resolution, bodily autonomy and for me, leaning in to somatic practices and intuition, is stuff that we didn’t have language for as kids. I know from my own experiences that though I grew up practicing yoga and having an understanding of grounding in my body; it hasn’t been until my 20s with my own kids that I have truly understood what that meant.

This generation though, I hadn’t realised has been nicknamed generation alpha; as the first generation of kids born to the conscious parenting movement, where more and more they are allowed to feel their feelings and figure things out. I actually shut A down the other day, and realised a while afterwards that I’d taken the chance to find her own way through the feelings away. It hasn’t come up again, but when it does, it’ll be something I address with her. I can imagine it was so frustrating for her to hear me say I couldn’t cope with the noise of her crying… which, in the moment was true for me, but nonetheless, a bitter bitter pill for her who needed comfort.

We can’t always get it right though, and I know in the longer run, that moment won’t be the only one I have to hold space for her, so next time will be different.

We do the best we can with the resources we have.

I had more thoughts but that feels like a good space to end for tonight. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading!

With love,

Rohana x

Changing pace

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

The long weeks over October (at what feels like 100 mph) have taken their toll this week. My body has complained; my mental health plummeted. I try and make time to write, to read, to do some yoga but inevitably, I push myself to the bottom of my priorities, and end up struggling.

This weekend has forced me to slow down. I’ve been too exhausted to do anything else. The universe is telling me I need a change of pace.

It’s hard, because I’m not used to it, but I know if I don’t, I’ll suffer in the long run. Growing a human is hard enough without the added stresses, and I want to keep growing her for another 6 weeks!

Theo forced me to slow down today. He wanted to be with me and cuddle. He made sure I sat down, bossing me about! How does my toddler know what I need more than I do? Or do I just ignore myself?

I’ve made a to-do list for tomorrow/this week. It’s long, but flexible. I’m hoping it’ll help.

For now, it’s sleep-time. I’ll need all the rest possible for tomorow.

From April to August; An Unplanned Break from Blogging

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

My son is currently asleep for his daily nap and I have a To-Do List as long as my arm but today, after months away, I wanted to blog. I have thought so much about why I stopped, why I lost it on my list of priorities and how I miss typing away and sharing my life.

I lost touch with a lot of things over the last few months, adjusting to life with Harrison home, falling pregnant and facing the parenting struggles (and adventures) that come with having a 2 year old. The days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, where I chose to watch useless television or even worse, scroll my Facebook and Instagram feeds, pretending that it was a good use of my time! How easy it is to get sucked into wasting precious minutes mindlessly on these apps. I love the ability to share and connect, but not the ease with which we are trapped into staying on the platform longer and longer.

Turning off my phone, or at least my internet recently has helped, maybe that is why I have found my way back to the keyboard. Or perhaps it was the gentle push from my mother this weekend, reminding me that writing has been a great way to care for myself, express and evaluate, let go of emotions and heal from experiences. If I want to express myself, share my life constructively, and unpack the emotional backpack I am carrying, writing is a much better idea that Facebook scrolling isn’t it?  So here we are, hopefully this time for a long time.

I won’t attempt to relieve all that has gone on since April, but I will fill in all the important bits, at least the big ones; like my little brother moving to Australia, my best friend in Scotland moving away for a year, and TP losing his best buddy (her daughter). My anxiety over TPs birth trauma made an appearance (which I am slowly trying to heal) while we were on our first ever family holiday, and we have had members of both sides of the family come to visit. TPs speech is incredible now, and I learned that even in Scotland, a paddling pool or variation of one is an asset on the hot days. H bought a bike and is using it, and I am driving around a lot more comfortable, albeit locally. We have also begun to really enjoy cooking from scratch and learning how to love the kitchen. The rest, well it’s history, but the future is still waiting, holding stories and laughter and love for us to share.

You might have also caught that I am pregnant – yep! – 25 weeks currently, and a big part of the reason I stopped writing. There were a few weeks in the first trimester I walked around permanently holding either a sick bowl or bag, and crying because I wasn’t able to do much else. But it passed, after a lot of trial and error I found a couple of pregnancy sickness tricks to keep it at bay (another post about this will come) and finally we are over it (mostly!).

Apart from that tiny detail, my first born, Theo Prana turned 2 this July, making me officially the mum of a wild toddler who is the biggest light in my life but also makes me want to curl up under the blanket with a tub of ice-cream and hide. Nobody can prepare you for parenthood and each stage has its challenges, but toddlerhood is by far the most testing. That said, we are working on finding the balance, and thankfully H is very on board with a lot of the peaceful parenting ideas I propose, so we are a team rather than giving TP mixed signals by being confused ourselves.

We also started cloth nappies, and reusable wipes, and as a family (sometimes actually led more by H than myself) trying to cut down our plastic consumption and be less wasteful. This has been an amazing development for us because we both feel like as TP gets older and understands more, we want him to know we did our best for the planet, and we didn’t stay ignorant. It is hard, sometimes we forget, sometimes even though we remember, we cannot afford the ‘planet friendly’ options, but every little bit we do makes a difference in the big picture, like the butterfly who’s wings flapping could be felt across the earth, each step we make, is a step forward.

Oh and lastly, we are moving house! Still a little while to go, so I won’t share much on it yet, but I guess that is also kind of a big reason I have felt like life is so busy, because we have had a few really major things to adjust to. All good thankfully and I am so grateful for that.

Until the next time, 

XOXO

R