00:05:47.060And so being able to really articulate and feel what is the sense of desire, what is the yes, what is the expansive reality here that's not just rooted in what we don't want, but focusing on what it is that we do.
00:06:03.440mm-hmm yeah and it makes sense that these yeses have to be embodied and that they're not intellectual
00:06:14.440or rational i think that's really challenging i'm thinking for myself even somebody who is raised
00:06:22.500as many of us were and are in the dominant over-cultured narrative where rationality and
00:06:31.720intellectualism are valued beyond all else. And so that's in a sense of what we've been conditioned
00:06:40.020and trained to listen to. But I find that when I'm in that space, definitely it takes me out of
00:06:46.780my body, but it's, it's almost like I could just go in circles of, is it a yes? Is it a no? Is it
00:06:53.180a maybe? Why, why, why, why? And I could, I could almost talk myself into both a yes and a no,
00:07:00.300just based off like lists or bullet points. And then I almost get more confused and further away
00:07:07.980from attuning. So I guess, yeah, I guess I'm wondering when we aren't attuned to our bodies,
00:07:14.060can we even fully acknowledge or listen to a sacred yes or no? And maybe we can. And just
00:07:21.320in my experience, I find it muddled. Yeah. Yeah. I've, you know, this really,
00:07:27.880ties back with the conversation around consent and self-consent and embodiment and how deeply
00:07:35.940dissociated we are as a whole from our bodies, particularly in our pelvic bowl and our generative
00:07:43.380force. And I relate so much to what you're saying and feel like even though I've been on this path
00:07:49.780of study and practice the entirety of my young adult and adult life, I started deeply studying
00:07:56.180at age 11. But I very much began with very Cartesian sort of mechanical, intellectual,
00:08:04.300rational approach. I was like, ooh, I will learn everything about the body and how it functions
00:08:09.580and how to fix it. And the journey into really occupying and being able to take action from my
00:08:17.420heart, from my womb, from my sex has really been a growth and a transformation that has come
00:08:25.580later it's taken you know took like a decade to move down from my head into my heart and another
00:08:31.560decade to really really move down into my womb and yeah it's always a practice to be able to
00:08:38.280to quiet the mind and to be able to feel what is the truth of your desire and but your body will
00:08:46.320will tell you really if you learn how to listen and it is it is so profound how much wisdom is there
00:08:53.500mm-hmm i want to talk a bit more about these practices whether you want to share
00:09:00.540your personal practices or maybe some of the things you share in so many of your courses
00:09:06.160and guides that help people listen to the cues that their bodies are giving them to indicate
00:09:12.000their wants their needs their desires and positions and cycles and yeah so i'd love if
00:09:18.520you could help us open up our curiosity and wonder about our bodies and what are some of the cues
00:09:25.200that we can start to listen to? Yeah, I think that word expansive is really helpful, expansive and
00:09:31.460open, and that we can have a thought and sort of scan our body to see how it feels in the different
00:09:38.400energy centers. The womb, the heart, and the third eye are three basics that I often connect it to
00:09:46.120if I'm moving a little bit faster, but just sitting in a relaxed space or in a bathtub
00:09:52.180and moving from your root to crown very slowly and seeing what sensations arrive, what imagery,
00:10:03.820what colors, being open to what comes without judgment. And it really, yeah, it really depends
00:10:09.240on what it is that the decision is, right? What it is that we're trying to discern.
00:10:14.560a lot of it has to do with the power of our imagination I think and daydreaming and the
00:10:21.500menstrual cycle and the ovulation cycle is such a powerful divination tool also like paying
00:10:29.460attention to the different sensations and thoughts and beliefs that we have throughout a cycle and
00:10:35.620being able to look at it over time in relationship to our life is yeah a whole other science and art
00:10:44.220Yeah. Well, I want to move our conversation into some of the, I guess, I want to start talking about understanding how knowledge about the body has been understood by the state and heteropatriarchy.
00:11:03.940yeah yeah so uh in caliban and the witch women the body and primitive accumulation
00:11:12.740sylvia frederici writes quote with the marginalization of the midwife the process0.98
00:11:18.420began by which women lost the control they had exercised over procreation and were reduced to0.83
00:11:24.820a passive role in child delivery while male doctors came to be seen as the true givers of life0.56
00:11:31.980as in the alchemical dreams of the renaissance magicians with this shift a new medical practice
00:11:37.980also prevailed one that in the case of a medical emergency prioritize the life of the fetus over
00:11:44.600that of the mother end quote yeah so how can we come to understand modern patriarchy's roots
00:11:54.260and see how they embed in places like the medical industry
00:11:58.700Hmm. Well, that book, of course, is spectacular. And I want to shout out to the Book on Fire
00:12:06.800podcast also, which goes through that book, Caliban and the Witch, chapter by chapter and
00:12:12.240gives synthesis and commentary and is a lot more digestible than the text is for a lot of folks.
00:12:18.680Barbara Ehrenrich's work is also extremely helpful as far as references. There's so many
00:12:25.460layers of this. And, you know, I love the inquiry into context and history, because it's very
00:12:33.400helpful, I believe, to understand and orient where we are, to be able to see the evolution of where
00:12:42.140we have been and where this has come from. And the reality that there is a paper trail, there are
00:12:48.200people's names, there are, you know, propaganda campaigns by the American Medical Association
00:12:53.760against midwives, for example. And we could go pretty far back in terms of antiquity if we wanted
00:13:01.520to, to search out the roots and the transformation from the earth fertility goddess oriented cultures
00:13:08.440to the sky god daddy, you know, punitive gods. But I feel like just looking at the industrial
00:13:15.940revolution is even extremely helpful. And the parallel between the industrialization of
00:13:23.180agriculture and the medicalization of fertility and the reality that our bodies are not a metaphor
00:13:30.160for the earth but they are the earth and the the process by which capitalism has severed
00:13:38.140our relationship with the sacred and the divine nature of fertility of the body of the earth
00:13:45.900of cycles in order to exploit it for control and for profit is very parallel, not distinct.
00:13:54.120So that's one insight in terms of understanding, you know, how we've gotten here. It's a
00:14:02.440tremendous, tremendous question. There's like a handful of particular people that have created
00:14:10.740the mechanization, the medicalization, the industrialization, the systems that sever our
00:14:17.240relationship. Even today, looking at Monsanto and Bayer murder and, you know, the manipulation of
00:14:25.560the fertility of the seeds and the soil and the fact that Bayer creates a tremendous amount of
00:14:32.220the synthetic hormonal contraception on the market. Wow. I didn't even put those two things
00:14:39.980together but that is fascinating and disturbing and yeah I I'm obviously for you and probably
00:14:50.180listeners probably would guess like I'm definitely more called to an intuitive way of knowing and
00:14:59.180believing in more earth-based systems and I also know that the medical industrial complex is riddled
00:15:07.500with so much corruption and money making at so much of the core and at the same time that there's
00:15:18.140been advances that have saved people's lives especially when it comes to childbirth or maybe
00:15:23.900not especially but also when it comes to childbirth and so just on that topic alone maybe let's go
00:15:30.720into fertility and childbirth particularly how do we hold the complexity of the destruction that the
00:15:39.340medical industrial complex has brought and also when we can trust certain technological
00:15:47.680interventions and I would imagine this is different for everyone in every situation but
00:15:53.900even if we could wrestle with it in a general sense, that would be helpful for me and probably
00:16:01.740for some people listening. Yeah, well, I think to really understand that it is an industry that
00:16:09.360we're talking about, I think that this is a one of the basic philosophy tenets that I share in
00:16:16.060teaching and client work all the time, I don't demonize the goods and services that are available
00:16:25.980through the medical industry. I think that understanding that it is an industry, not a
00:16:33.540healing modality is extremely important. And our ability to make conscious decisions as consumers
00:16:40.780and understand that that industry is not a source of healing.
00:16:44.660Some of the goods and services that exist in that industry can help us on our path to healing
00:16:50.660at certain times for some of us, but that it is not a source of healing
00:16:55.680and that we have many methods of healing and expansive traditions
00:16:59.880that have been supporting our fertility management for time immemorial.
00:17:06.340And I use this term fertility management to describe the entire continuum of contraception, abortion, miscarriage, birth, menopause, all of these experiences that we have having fertile bodies.
00:17:21.840And that, you know, if we're going to talk about birth specifically, the World Health Organization estimates that about 5% of people actually need any sort of medical intervention in the birthing process whatsoever.
00:17:39.120And so in our country, in the United States, we have probably 2% or 3%, if that, of people giving birth without medical intervention, right?
00:17:50.500So looking at it critically, understanding the profit driven reality of the institutions and in the same way that our food systems, right, that we've created all of this dependency on industry, the choice to be able to go to the store and, you know, purchase some coconut milk to make a curry.
00:18:11.880I love that. That's from industry and from globalization. But the satisfaction of being
00:18:19.820able to grow my own food and prepare it in my home is profound. And I feel like we need to
00:18:25.020be looking similarly at our fertility management practices. When you say the phrase fertility
00:18:33.980management practices. I'd love for you to describe what that means for us.
00:18:40.780For all of us? I mean, it depends where we're at in our journeys, right? What are our goals?
00:18:47.180What is our sacred yes that we want to embody? What is our desire? I can definitely speak for
00:18:53.240myself personally. I'm avoiding pregnancy. I worked at Planned Parenthood in my teens,
00:19:00.800And I feel like I was very much indoctrinated in the clinical industrial medical complex that views fertility as a whole as a pathology, as an illness that needs to be treated for most of our lives unless we specifically want to conceive.
00:19:18.180That's a whole other story. But for myself, I observe my fertility markers and confirm my ovulation from being able to be present in my body and feel what fluids are present and feel the position and the texture of my cervix and keep track of my temperature and then communicate with my partner and have their support to avoid pregnancy effectively.
00:19:45.820that's how I manage my fertility personally but each individual right it's got different goals
00:19:52.180and different values and so much nuance and I never want to demonize all of what the medical
00:19:59.120industry offers I think it has some very useful tools but we need to have actual informed consent
00:20:05.580to be able to use them and so I hesitate to go down specifically to talk about ovulation and
00:20:12.460the endocrine system, but we could. That's a big passion of mine is understanding that the process
00:20:18.680of ovulation in and of itself has a lot more value than simply the ability to conceive or
00:20:25.820gestate a child within the ecosystem of our endocrine health. And that a huge percentage
00:20:32.640of our generation is consuming products to suppress their ovulation, which is really
00:20:39.660affecting our bone density, our metabolism, our ability to absorb minerals, our mood. So many
00:20:46.960different aspects of ourself are affected when we suppress ovulation. Whereas a 93% of us can
00:20:55.100detect our fertile fluids effectively when we have proper instruction within the very first cycle.
00:21:02.440And I feel like this is something that can be taught to 10-year-olds, the ability to identify
00:21:07.240fertile fluids and the reality that we're taught that we need a sperm and an egg to conceive but
00:21:13.460in reality we need a sperm an egg and fertile fluids which are generally only present for
00:21:19.780three to six days out of an entire cycle and I will tack on that before taking a pause you know
00:21:25.480that people who make sperm are indeed fertile every single day so for the people who are only
00:21:33.040fertile three to six days out of the month to be taking on this tremendous burden of preventing
00:21:39.480conception is extremely problematic. Keep going. Keep going. Let's go and let's dive deeper. I
00:21:49.760really want to hear more about all of the things you just mentioned. Well, for example, we build
00:21:57.200up to 70% of our bone density between the ages of 12 and 20 as people who ovulate. And the process
00:22:05.920of ovulation creates the hormone of progesterone, which I teach as the progestation hormone.
00:22:13.160And that hormone is not just for fortifying the endometrial tissue in case there's consumption,
00:22:21.400It's also a mood regulator and it's essential for healthy metabolism, which includes our ability to process minerals and function on so many different levels metabolically.
00:22:33.440but bone density is one like very, very tactile, solid concept. I think we need to understand that
00:22:42.260when we're feeding young adults ovulation suppression medications, that we're depriving
00:22:48.760them of the opportunity to properly build bones along with suppressing ovulation so that we don't
00:22:54.980conceive, but that most people that are taking ovulation suppression medications are not
00:22:59.620necessarily even taking them for contraception. They're prescribed for irregular cycles and all
00:23:06.500sorts of other things like acne, which are all symptoms of other issues that are deep within the
00:23:13.680system that are being masked rather than healed through these medications. I think that the
00:23:19.900concept of the body as an ecosystem is really valuable for us to understand, you know, that
00:23:26.540our ovaries and our wombs don't exist in a vacuum. You can't interrupt the conversation between our
00:23:33.140ovaries and our brain, for example, which is the menstrual cycle and a healthy ovulatory
00:23:39.920consistent menstrual cycle is a conversation between our pituitary gland and our ovaries.
00:23:46.160And that when we interrupt that conversation, that it has massive impact on the ecosystem of
00:23:52.000the body as a whole not just on reproduction and then yeah really talking about the fluids right
00:23:58.460like i practice the symptothermal method of fertility awareness for contraception it can
00:24:03.980also be used for conception if you want to make a baby but there are also fluids only methods
00:24:09.920of fertility awareness for contraception or conception and that that is the primary fertile
00:24:17.840fertility signal is our fluids. And so we're really talking about this entire industry of
00:24:24.880contraception, this entire cultural hysteria, hysteria being craziness from the womb,
00:24:33.640this fear of pregnancy that is very irrational. If we were able to actually be somatically present
00:24:43.100with our body if we were able to feel the texture of the fluids on our vulva and in our vaginas,1.00
00:24:51.860that that is literally all we need to know and be able to be present with and then end rape culture,1.00
00:24:58.440of course, so that our partners are always respectful of our wants and needs. And that's,
00:25:04.900yeah, that's one of my fun projects that's in the works right now is actually teaching with my
00:25:09.300partner a course called The Sermon for the Sperman, which is about encouraging our partners0.91
00:25:15.980who make sperm to actually be fully response-able for their power in the ecosystem of our bodies.
00:25:39.300Many fear my power, my power it is divine.
00:25:57.120I, the church and state, can't regulate what lies between my thighs.
00:28:46.940oh gosh it's like what thread do i pull on from everything that you just offered
00:28:55.680did you say the the sermon for the spermin okay so let's let's talk about that and also
00:29:05.120rape culture and maybe tie that into something you said near the beginning of your response
00:29:11.560hearing the insanity that people who produce sperm, they're not given really any of these
00:29:20.360contraceptions, but the people who produce eggs are for the entire month when they're only fertile
00:29:26.600three to six days. So I feel like that ties in to each other in some bigger way that I'd love to
00:29:32.760hash out with you. Yeah, I feel like the metaphor of the four seasons and four weeks is really
00:29:39.360helpful for educating all humans about our menstrual infertility cycles. There's a big
00:29:45.200movement around that happening. And I just want to give credit to Taoism for having this energy
00:29:52.000anatomy and the polarities of the menstruation and the ovulation and the analogy of the seasons
00:29:59.280of the menstrual cycle and how incredibly useful that is for educating everyone. But I want to say
00:30:06.820specifically children and our male partners and partners who produce sperm of like, you know,
00:30:13.360we're fertile in the springtime. Everything's wet in the springtime. And that's when you can
00:30:18.700plant seeds that will grow. You can't plant seeds in the fall when everything is dying
00:30:24.980or in the middle of winter. And to be able to steward, to be able to be conscious of how we
00:30:33.980impact our environment within our ecosystems being, again, not actually a metaphor, but just
00:30:41.900a reality of how we exist in microcosm in relation to macrocosm. And so I believe that our sexual
00:30:50.360and fertile bodies and sexual and fertile realities in our partnerships and intimate relationships
00:30:57.040ought to be direct reflection and embodiment of the way that we are in reverence for the cycles
00:31:06.200of the earth and the reality that it's absurd to try and create a situation with our environment
00:31:14.760in the earth that is only to suit our needs constantly. That's how we got into the mess
00:31:20.880that we are in currently in so many levels right the obsession with stasis being a very patriarchal
00:31:29.440over culture problem where we like we want to have a controlled environment and we want it to be
00:31:37.020the perfect temperature to constantly be productive in the ways that are suitable to us
00:31:43.440when that is not the nature of reality the nature of our bodies the nature of the earth
00:31:50.380So another metaphor that is pretty profound in that conversation around, you know, Monsanto and Bayer and our menstrual and ovulatory cycles is that reality that synthetic hormonal contraceptive methods of all kinds that are on the market essentially trap us in late fall.
00:32:13.480in terms of that analogy of the menstrual cycle in four weeks as four seasons. It mirrors the
00:32:20.880pre-menstrual week hormonally. They're like creating stasis, trapping us in the pre-menstrual
00:32:28.760week in a way that really mirrors monocropping and the way that soil depletion and desertification
00:32:35.620happens as a result of monocropping. The same thing happens to our bodies and our metabolisms,
00:32:42.200And it actually creates heat and dryness and inflammation and mineral depletion in a way that really beautifully and tragically mirrors the culture of agriculture on the planet right now.
00:32:55.840And so, again, like bringing that into our intimate and sexual and fertile spheres and understanding the level of humility and reverence and sensitivity that people who are enjoying, right, the delicious things that our bodies and the earth have to offer, that it is their obligation, their response ability to learn how to have a
00:33:25.840reverence for the cycle have humility around their role within it and be really intentional
00:33:33.800and conscious of how and when and where they plant seeds i really appreciate you being able
00:33:45.040to connect the earth body and the human body and
00:33:49.240the fields and the monocropping to fertility the industrialized fertility project it's yeah
00:34:02.240i really feel that and i guess i'm coming to a question of where does the pressure
00:34:10.020of female fertility come from like why are we so afraid of death and of these fallow periods
00:34:18.000I mean power the fear of our power and the reality that every single human being
00:34:30.980comes from this power that we are connected to and that we have this capacity with our
00:34:40.360consciousness and will to affect human existence, right? The creation, the fate of our creative
00:34:49.980power is something that we actually can use our consciousness and will to embody in order to
00:34:57.260menstruate rather than gestate. And that that has always been our power. Yeah, I think that's
00:35:04.600hugely where it comes from. There's of course, like many different fractals and opinions and
00:35:09.380and tangents coming from that. But I do think that at its core, it's a fear of our power.
00:35:16.940And who's controlling people who have eggs or ovulates power? You know, it's, I think there's
00:35:24.720the power conversation is vast, and the controllers of that power, name it patriarchy, or
00:35:36.340I don't know what, maybe we'd still name it patriarchy now. Yeah, it's like, how do they hone
00:35:43.320and have that power be theirs? Yeah, the question of power is really fascinating. And there's also
00:35:51.720this question I'm having around fertility that's not well researched in a intellectual academic
00:35:58.320way. But it's something that I've heard through conversation and maybe more of a cultural context
00:36:07.060around fertility and maybe drops in fertility. And I'm trying to wrap my mind around it because
00:36:15.300I think there's so many different sources that are talking about fertility globally and what
00:36:21.460that means for the human species and of course I know that we are being bombarded with more toxins
00:36:29.720than ever seemingly every day and pollution and factory farms and agrochemical laden produce and0.82
00:36:40.100so I'm not surprised when I hear conversations around a dive in fertility rates but again
00:36:47.240And it's hard for me to navigate this conversation.
00:36:51.560And so I'm wondering in your practice, what have you been seeing?
00:36:56.520Yeah, we are having a really hard time as the earth and the seasons themselves are shifting.
00:37:02.520I feel like a grandmother around a fire telling a creation myth when I even talk about what a healthy menstrual or ovulatory cycle looks like.
00:37:13.320in the ways that these energetics and these dynamics and, you know, the reality of our
00:37:20.460biochemistry and our bodies are, we are changing and evolving. Absolutely. And our fertility rates
00:37:29.020are absolutely dropping for sure, for sure. And there's so many things contributing to that
00:37:34.780in terms of endocrine disruptors. And again, this deep tie between the fertility of the earth and
00:37:41.540the fertility of our bodies and the way that we are existing in connection to the planet and how
00:37:47.780much poison we are made to process currently. Yeah, our cycles and our fertility and sperm count
00:37:54.040are all in decline. Absolutely. And I guess for those people who are wanting to abstain from
00:38:06.940having children, we've been kind of discussing what that is, the practices and paths to take.
00:38:14.760But for those people who would like to bring a child into this world, but are having challenges
00:38:22.220and struggling through fertility issues, and I know this is such a tender topic that I think
00:38:31.080so much there's so much pressure on for folks who are navigating this space what do you say to
00:38:41.000clients or those who come to you who are looking to bring in that life and having a hard time doing
00:38:46.120that are there practices or cues or ways that you help prepare a body yeah well in fact you know it
00:38:56.320would be the same for anybody who is wanting to conceive or not conceive in terms of the reality
00:39:02.720of our regular ovulation and progesterone levels that are needed for conception and implantation
00:39:10.420and a healthy pregnancy are also markers of health for somebody who wants to avoid pregnancy.
00:39:16.880so the basics the very very basics that most people in our culture are lacking I always say
00:39:26.540like we start with sleeping and pooping that is really the beginning are you sleeping and pooping
00:39:33.380well and then are you drinking enough water are you having enough fun there are so many different
00:39:39.820layers of it but it really has to start with that basic basic reality of your biorhythms and like
00:39:46.360what business do we have wanting to bring another human into the world that we then need to teach
00:39:51.060how to sleep and poop if we ourselves are not able to do that in a healthy way and yeah a lot
00:39:57.500has to do with nutrition and mineralization of the body and there's there's a lot to be said on the
00:40:04.400psycho-spiritual levels and the energetics as well and similarly I feel like many people see
00:40:11.000pregnancy as an achievement. And it's got this very, you know, young energy, if we're going to
00:40:16.320use the Taoist terminology of like, they're going to get pregnant, achieve pregnancy. But my,
00:40:22.660my experience and what I've witnessed really is that the ability to conceive and hold is so much0.68
00:40:30.140more yin. And on a very, you know, biochemical Western medical level conversation, we're talking
00:40:36.220about, you know, our sex hormones, our healthy sex hormones of estrogen and progesterone and
00:40:42.540follicular stimulating hormone and things versus cortisol and adrenaline. And the fact that our
00:40:49.200bodies will always, always prioritize the production of cortisol over the production
00:40:54.820of healthy sex hormones in terms of survival. So our stress levels and our psychology and the way
00:41:01.720that we relate to our environment and our lives in the production of cortisol is a very big thing
00:41:08.340to address. Yeah, there's lots of layers there.
00:41:31.720Thank you for beginning that conversation with us.
00:41:50.840I think we need many interviews together, recorded conversations to dive into each of
00:41:56.700these topics, but I do also want to talk about demystifying abortion.
00:42:01.720And I know that you have supported so many people through this and also written extensively about it.
00:42:13.340And so I'd like for you to just take this very, again, tender and robust topic and kind of walk us through what demystifying abortion means to you.
00:42:26.580I think first we place it on the womb continuum. And I use this term womb continuum to talk about everything that touches the womb and our reproductive and sexual lives and to understand that the physiology of abortion, regardless of the specific tools that we might use from modern medicine or not, that it is a part of nature and it's a part of the womb continuum.
00:42:55.680It's an ancestral practice. I also want to include contraception and abortion in saying that every species, I believe every species has some form of contraception and abortion, that there will be the beginning of a reproductive phase that is then interrupted before it comes to full fruition.
00:43:17.040and that our psychology, the human psyche, is in fact part of nature, not separate from it,
00:43:23.880which is, I know, a big philosophical leap for some folks and maybe controversial. But yeah,
00:43:29.700contraception and abortion are natural. They're part of nature. And the physiology is very
00:43:36.220important for us to understand in general as a whole, as humanity, as womb bearers,
00:43:42.280But especially folks that are working in the realms of fertility and pregnancy. And, you know, I've been in the realms of midwifery and doula work, and it's been shocking and saddening how much ignorance there is around the basic physiology of abortion and how to support it.
00:44:03.300in that it's the same physiology that is connected with most miscarriages and that one out of five
00:44:10.800pregnancies we know will end in a miscarriage. And it's more like one out of four pregnancies
00:44:15.960are ended in abortion globally currently. So, you know, first putting it in that context of
00:44:23.360the ecosystem of nature, of interspecies realities, and then ancestral and historical
00:44:29.240realities, that abortion is not something that we created in the 20th century to have a political
00:44:35.600debate about, that it has been like all fertility management and all points on the womb continuum,
00:44:44.040primarily social and spiritual and ecological rather than medical in nature. And that similarly
00:44:52.880to the way I was speaking earlier about the medical industry offering wonderful goods and
00:44:58.360services and tools that we can choose to manage our fertility without those tools and that we have
00:45:05.560been for time immemorial. And of course, plants, we've been working in synergy with plant medicine
00:45:12.040to manage our fertility throughout human history. So I'll just take a pause there and see which
00:45:18.120pieces you might want to pick up. Gosh, I know this is such a challenging topic.
00:45:28.360especially in the United States. So it's hard to pick where to pick up because I think so many of
00:45:37.420these themes are tied together, but then get lost in maybe it's fear, belief systems, patterns,
00:45:45.420conditioning, understanding of natural cycles, allowing people to choose their own lives.
00:45:53.620so I guess I I'm gonna leave it up to you to see what threads you think need a bit more pulling on
00:46:02.560in this moment I think moving into that understanding that the sacred yes is a potential
00:46:12.440part of the process for many humans that a lot of people if not most people having abortions
00:46:19.560already have children is also really important to understand. And that it's just as much about
00:46:26.040saying yes to a quality of life and to things that we desire as it is about saying no. And that
00:46:34.180physiologically, we need the same education to support ourselves with healthy menstruation and
00:46:41.440miscarriage and postpartum from childbirth, that these are basic human rights, basic skills that
00:46:49.840we all need to be having in order to understand the physiology of the womb and the way that it
00:46:54.840moves and how to support it. I think that's a huge thing philosophically that I love to communicate
00:47:00.940with folks is the intelligence and the capacity of the womb to release, that that is actually what
00:47:07.700it is built for. It is built to release and replenish, release and replenish. And that in
00:47:15.060our lifetimes, we do so much more bleeding than birthing of babies as a whole. And there are ways
00:47:23.300to support the release and the replenishment of the womb, no matter what the method is that you
00:47:30.460are choosing for abortion, no matter what the stage is of a miscarriage or childbirth, but that
00:47:37.040these are basic skills that we all need to have and that self-care actually is something that we
00:47:44.420need to let go of in order to really create true community care that it is actually the obligation
00:47:51.280of the people who are not bleeding to carry the weight of nurturing and supporting bleeding bodies
00:47:59.200regardless of the reason that they're bleeding and that that has been an ancestral and cultural
00:48:05.240practice again for time immemorial this reverence for the fact that we have this power rather than
00:48:11.120the fear of it there's oh yeah there's so much there's so much there i guess on a little you
00:48:18.300know bit of a political commentary around the u.s and just like the mass misunderstanding around it
00:48:25.580having much of anything to do with religion and wanting to place that in a historical context that
00:48:31.300the persecution of fertility and management as a whole, whether it be contraception or abortion,
00:48:37.620has always historically had huge economic and political motivation, so much more than religious
00:48:46.120or moral, that the religiosity and the moral guise is an illusion and that the real important
00:48:54.380thing to pay attention to is the economic implications here and that we've seen massive
00:49:00.080persecution of fertility management and the people who hold the skills to do so outside of
00:49:05.860bureaucratic and regulatory systems, you know, with the plague in the Middle Ages,
00:49:12.200within the Industrial Revolution, and now with COVID, and that a lot of it
00:49:16.380really does have to do with labor force economics.
00:49:19.420yeah and almost the centralization of that power and economic growth right like
00:49:30.820if corporations want to own the quote cure or own the power to heal or be the ones that everyone
00:49:41.900turns to then they centralize the power and the money to them and then everyone else becomes
00:49:47.640untrustworthy and unregulated and dangerous. And so I have definitely seen that pattern
00:49:54.000through so many facets of our culture. And then of course, the misinformation through the media
00:50:01.980that we know is also bought and sold. So like, yeah, it's, it makes sense that sometimes we
00:50:08.300don't know who to turn to in those moments of need because of how we've been taught and who
00:50:15.020we've been taught to trust and how that is continually reiterated consistently and then
00:50:22.760the pressure of death on top of that you know it's like if you don't make the right decision0.78
00:50:27.680if you don't trust the corporations we've been telling you to trust you'll die or you'll kill
00:50:32.300your child or whatever it is and you know I have a lot of compassion for all of us humans as we try0.90
00:50:38.700to navigate listening to our bodies setting up systems for self-care community care collective
00:50:45.120care when we're being told we are endangering ourselves and others by trusting the non-establishment
00:50:53.700and then it almost becomes it don't like I find myself sometimes even second guessing or
00:50:59.940worrying that I may be irresponsible to tell other people to listen to their own bodies
00:51:06.220and i'm like oh no uh how do i even remedy that in myself um because of course these large
00:51:18.940projects complexes are saying that if if you tell somebody to trust themselves then you're
00:51:25.800putting them in danger and then you're a part of the chain of their distress and so it's really
00:51:32.860complicated. And I, I don't know if there's anything you want to say to that. I don't know
00:51:38.380if it's like a psychological issue we're dealing with, or I mean, I guess cultural narrative
00:51:43.560belief systems. Yeah, it's massive. I, I really do feel what you're saying. And experience it
00:51:52.360very frequently. It is it's very challenging. When I teach one of the metaphors that I use
00:52:00.020and introductions often is, I am going to offer you a buffet of information. It is the most
00:52:06.340wonderful ideas that I can possibly, that I have had access to, in my opinion. Here are the best
00:52:12.880ideas that I know of. And you're responsible for what you choose to consume and integrate and how
00:52:19.300you digest it and what you do with this and take some and leave the rest. This is for your
00:52:24.980nourishment that I'm laying it out for you at your feet. Like it's intended for your nourishment
00:52:29.820and you take what you want and leave the rest. And it really is. I mean, that really brings me
00:52:38.660to the edge of certain levels of my own evolution in, you know, for example, when we met seven years
00:52:48.520ago I was on my first womb sovereignty teaching tour and I use that term womb sovereignty all
00:52:56.520the time and I'm seeing it all over the place now and I didn't back then but I I'm even questioning
00:53:02.580this term sovereignty in such a big way these days and how to communicate how important it is
00:53:08.540for us to take care of each other right and like how to communicate the complexity between you know
00:53:14.320the importance of being able to have agency and make autonomous decisions about our fertility,
00:53:19.780but that nobody exists in a vacuum and that we actually really need community care.
00:53:26.680And what is the mutual aid and the community care and the co-regulation and the reciprocity
00:53:33.360that is not transactional, that is healthy between our kin that is human and non-human
00:53:39.980when we talk about fertility. But the importance, again, of decentralizing the power that the
00:53:45.320external authority of the industries that are built on misogyny and abuse and slavery, quite
00:53:52.800literally, should not be given the power of external authority. And we should not be investing
00:53:58.260all of our faith and hope that they're going to save us. That it is our responsibility to take
00:54:04.560care of not just ourselves but to take care of one another uh and to to decentralize that power
00:54:11.480yeah there's so much there's so much there i think this you know this coming full circle back
00:54:19.700to consent and rape which is you know what culture are we cultivating the difference between
00:54:24.940power with and power over and that is the difference between consent culture and rape
00:54:30.860culture is that power with versus power over and that that also applies to the cycles of our womb
00:54:38.420whether it's menstruation or miscarriage or abortion or childbirth that there is innate
00:54:45.280power and intelligence to the womb that we can learn how to be reverent with and how to support
00:54:53.060that power rather than try and dominate it and control it and that that is a huge source of fear
00:55:00.660right both for individuals and for the culture as a whole that we do have this pervasive insidious
00:55:07.660fear of our blood of menstruation and abortion and childbirth and that we're afraid of the power
00:55:15.700and that we can use our intellects and our will and our emotional and spiritual bodies and strength
00:55:22.060to learn how to have synergy to have power with rather than power over these cycles that are
00:55:29.420innate innately divine and connected to the earth and that that is the source of incredible
00:55:35.640suffering is this fear and that power over that desire we have to have power over these cycles
00:55:42.800gosh yeah and when i think about rape culture specifically it's so insidious because it's
00:55:55.240everywhere. You know, the movies, TV shows, ads. And then of course it seeps into our everyday
00:56:04.380culture where I wonder for both parties who are playing out these power dynamics that are
00:56:14.860associated with rape culture. It's like, am I playing these things out because it's just what
00:56:19.600I know, not because it's what I want. And I think back to the beginning of our conversation,
00:56:25.880the full circle-ness of it, of the sacred yes and consent and dissociation. And I think you
00:56:34.860call it sensory gating. You know, we have been taught, maybe the majority of us, if not all of
00:56:42.140us have been conditioned that rape culture is sexuality. It's like, that is what we're supposed
00:56:51.620to want. One person's supposed to want to be dominated. The other person's supposed to0.90
00:56:56.360dominate. You know, if we want to look at just so much, so much film and TV, the woman is saying,0.93
00:57:04.280no, no, no. But then she's saying, yes, it's like, what are we doing? And then we find ourselves in0.68
00:57:10.960those situations when there's nobody around when the doors are closed because we have seen these
00:57:17.360images thousands of times in our life thousands of times are being reiterated and re-stamped in
00:57:25.760our memory you know and then of course so many of us aren't taught about embodiment and we don't
00:57:31.100even feel ourselves in so many ways we don't even feel the grief of the anthropocene or the
00:57:36.660extinction crisis so of course how are we going to feel pleasure or like what is even another
00:57:42.600option other than power in sex you know it's just like if we see one way how do we even know that
00:57:51.080there is a whole world of connecting sensually and sexually and so i gosh with the rape culture
00:57:59.440There's just, I see so many of us playing into it unconsciously, unknowingly, and it's a huge
00:58:08.420tangle to unravel. It's like just a huge knot. And maybe as we wrap up, if you could just,
00:58:18.520maybe just circling back, like putting us back in our bodies, helping us do small things because
00:58:25.100yeah it's like it's just so big all of this is so huge and I want us to walk away I know I want
00:58:30.660to walk away from this conversation feeling like okay you know what like I might not be able to
00:58:36.020solve rape culture today even in my own life but I will be able to take small practices and cues
00:58:44.820from myself to start to like relax into the yes I just one of the most important practices
00:58:59.520I believe is really just what is my body need to feel safe right now and letting go of stories the
00:59:08.240ability to actually be present to bring your breath and your consciousness to this moment
00:59:14.300of your body and without judgment and to feel where you have desire and connection and that
00:59:24.440the expansion versus contraction I think is very helpful you know it's like if there are thoughts
00:59:30.600like what helps me feel expansive with this thought what do I feel authentic desire do I
00:59:38.300feel energy in my body and if you don't then that's your practice is really just coming back
00:59:44.040to your breath and can you bring breath and consciousness into your body and into this
00:59:48.680moment? It sounds like very simple and cliche almost, but I feel like that really is the best
00:59:56.160thing is letting go of as many stories as possible and being able to be present and
01:00:03.100interoception, that word interoception, which means to be able to feel what is happening inside
01:00:09.200of your body and that that is a practice. It's a meditative practice. And just huge shout out to
01:00:14.820Taoism. Huge fan of Taoism and Taoist practices in terms of energy anatomy and sexual energy and
01:00:24.620sexuality and the exact opposite of rape culture and the understanding of our fertile sexual vital
01:00:32.060energy being health and wellness and life force that is can be connected to reproduction but is
01:00:40.240essentially connected to divine creative healing energies in our bodies and wanting to have access
01:00:47.860to and cultivate that energy is important regardless of what our intentions are for reproduction
01:00:53.900oh samantha this has been so deep and moving and challenging and loving and all the things
01:01:08.160so thank you for your work in this i want to say i want to say underworld work i don't know why
01:01:16.620that word came to me but it's like absolutely yeah and it's I just appreciate your bravery
01:01:23.820and your willingness to be in this space with people and with us today so um yeah thank you
01:01:32.240yes you're so welcome and thanks for having this conversation and
01:01:37.640all of the light that you are carrying into the underworld of these really hard questions