For the purposes of this post I choose to denote weaning as natural when it grows out of the natural, that is, real-life setting of the BF couple.  As the real-life setting is often more within the mother's control than within the child's, it could be argued that this is mother-led weaning.  But when the mother is juggling job, other children, and her BF relationship to take everyone else's needs into account, I feel it is unfair to say that mother is unilaterally leading in the dance, as she is often adjusting her dance steps to the nursling so that the process is not a rejection of the child out of hand, but a gentle guidance in one aspect of progress from the stage of mammalian infancy to childhood.
I only have two personal BF relationships to draw on.  Two children whose approach to nearly everything is as different as night and day made for two different BF stories.  With both, I was prepared to BF as long as we both enjoyed it and needed it.  My daughter's natural weaning was mother-led.  She was not interested in trying new foods as a baby, and refused most things on sight alone.  We didn't offer anything but my breasts the first six months, and she never showed any interest in sharing our food until late toddlerhood.  Cereal, yogurt, or anything gushy or bland was non-food in her eyes.  French fries (I know, I know) were the first food she raved about, and seemed to appreciate as much as my milk.  She was nearly three and a half when I had to go away for three weeks, returning home only on week-ends.  She had been nursing once or twice a day for the previous year.  It was never a problem if I was out in the evening and missed her favorite cuddle time-- she went to bed happily no matter what.  She was the kind of child we could take anywhere as she would just find a place to curl up and go to sleep at bedtime, never needing a set evening ritual and adapting readily to new places and people as long as one of us was there.  She never had a transitional object or sucked her thumb either.  This course I had to attend seemed like a good occasion to wean.  I discussed it with her and she didn't object and I have never seen any hint of traumatic damage in her about it. The only sign of how she was working through it was the first weekend I was home, when she asked if she could come and check that my milk was really gone.  She did, it was, and she said, verbatim "when I was a baby, I didn't want a pacifier.  But now that I'm three, I think I might like one."  We told her to forget it and she never pushed it.  She has also never needed to be so close to me physically afterwards.  She is in no way unaffectionate, just seems to have clear boundaries between herself and me with breathing room in between.
My son's natural weaning happened when he was 15 months old and it felt to me as though he took the initiative to it.  I realize of course that my being gone nearly all day five days a week from when he was 8-18 months old had a huge effect on our relationship, not just on BF.  But even before that when I was home with him full time, he was more adventuresome and curious about what we ate.  From three months he would follow every spoonful of food from our plates to our mouths, looking more and more dejected as he saw the food disappearing from the plates.  He was only four and a half months old when he tasted rice cereal and seemed thrilled to be branching out.  So much to taste, so little time!  He fed himself with a fork at age 1 and he never needed a bib as nothing ever came out of his mouth.  When he discovered he was getting a mashed version of the broccoli and potatoes we were having, he shoved the plate away and demanded to have his whole.  He was 9 mos. by then.  He was also a creature of habit who had to do everything from 7 pm in exactly the same order or he couldn't go to sleep.  It also had to happen in the same place every evening so our social life was seriously altered.  When we were away from home it took him two nights to adjust and then another two to adjust back when we came home again.  He didn't nurse to sleep-- no way he would miss out on his story, lights out, lullaby, and backrub!  I made time to nurse him and he usually took me up on it, when he had time.  One day I realized it had been a couple of days since he had nursed, and I decided to see how long it would take him to come and ask for it if I said nothing, was just there as I always was.  Three days, a week, he didn't seem to miss it at all, and I had to accept that it wasn't that important to him.  He was still much more of a cuddler than his sister ever had been.  Now, at 13, he still comes and hugs me several times a day, though not if any of his friends are present.  BTW, he also eats with his fingers.  Cutlery was only a passing fancy :( but his ambition in life is to be a master chef, which he claims is due to the interest in food he developed from eating my superb cooking!
Rachel Myr
further on down mammary lane in Kristiansand, Norway

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