What if we liberated birth? - with Aimee Aroha, Holistic Counsellor and Transpersonal Birth Mentor

An episode from the 2022 archives with Aimee Aroha, holistic counseller and Transpersonal Birth Mentor, discussing the topic "what if we liberated birth?  

https://www.instagram.com/aimeearoha/?hl=en

https://www.thestonedchrysalis.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, I'm Sophie. Welcome to Big Things Little Things, a podcast series where I sit down with inspiring change makers to discuss the big things they're doing, the little things that make them who they are, and together we vision pathways towards a better future. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording, the Gethable people of the Bungelung Nation, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Welcome back to the podcast. My name's Sophie, and I'm your host. Today I am speaking with Amy Aroha about the new topic, What if we liberated birth? So Amy is a holistic counsellor, a transpersonal mentor for the childbearing continuum, and a postpartum care provider. She is a free birthing mum of three children, a woman of Maori and Irish descent who seeks to decolonize modern healing, counselling, and the provision of care. So I will put all the links about Amy in the show notes so you can go and follow her if you enjoy this conversation, which I do really think you will. It was such a wonderful discussion, like so rich, and touched on so many important topics that I really and truly believe in. So we do touch on some personal and sensitive topics, so I would just ask that while you're listening, you enter into this space with you know respect for the vulnerability that really this conversation kind of embodies. There's a lot of vulnerable sharing in this conversation, and I have barely edited anything out. So yeah, I hope you I hope you enjoy it and you take some something important from it because I do think it's a very important conversation. So if you do enjoy it, I would love if you could leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify because that really helps to get the message out with the podcast, and also um please don't forget to share on social media so that other people can benefit from the discussions that um we're having with some really wonderful people through this podcast. So thank you very much for tuning in, and I'll talk to you on the other side. Welcome, Amy, to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. I've been following you for quite a long time. I um I think I started following you like before I had a home birth because my jeweler was Michelle Pelazzia and she was like singing your praises, and um, she's like, Have you seen this chick's account, Rip Snotto? And I was like, no. And then I followed you. And I everything you know, I see you write is like so eloquent and poignant. And so yeah, I really appreciate your perspectives, and I'm excited to hear what you have to say about birth today.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yeah, thanks for having me. I love Michelle so much. Yeah, we've sadly not been able to see each other for a long time, but she's just one of those people in my life that's a kindred, you know, and you know when you see each other, even if it's been months, years, you know it's all G and you'll kick up exactly where you left off.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

That's right. She's awesome. So I guess we'll just jump right into the questions because I'm super keen to hear what you have, like your thoughts. So I wanted to start out um talking about birth. So, what does the term birth bring up for you? Um, and what brought you into the sphere of birth work?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

What does the word birth mean to me? Um, I mean, so I'm a transpersonal birth mentor and a holistic counselor. So transpersonal birth mentoring is uh a modality that I created, I guess, or put a name to based on all different modalities and experiences that I'd sort of culminated into this one space. Um, and within that space and the way that I work, birth is like a roadmap for all sorts of transitions or all life transitions, and the way that we move through different experiences in our lives. Um, we can look to birth for that roadmap. And so, birth for me is a lens through which to look at the world and to experience my own growth and evolution and the evolution of others and the transition of you know, the collective and things that we move through. Um, so it's also, of course, you know, the hugest, most psychedelic, amazing, profound experience in its really embodied sense of birthing a child. Um, but then for me, it it translates to so much more than that and a way of looking at the world.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

How about like coming into working um in this area? What sort of drew you to do this work?

SPEAKER_03 4:59

So I have been parenting for 10 years. I had my first child almost exactly 10 years ago. She turns 10 next month, and um so I feel I've been dancing with the energy of birth and that creation energy through mothering for a really long time. Um, but in terms of my career, I had always known that I would work with people, that I would work in either the counseling realm or social work. That's my passion ever since I was a kid. That's what I've wanted to do. Um, so I started working, uh, I created a business with my ex-husband, which was focused on mentoring and um community development through like creative expression, so art, skateboarding, um, and yeah, community events. So I've been working with people for a really long time. And then I moved into studying um counseling, community development, and then psychology at university. And when I was in university, I really started to see how colonized that that lens was through which we were learning, um, and even just the institution itself is inherently colonial, you know, and they're looking at um health and healing through the lens of white supremacy, and that didn't resonate with me. Um, I found it really constricting, and it didn't value the spiritual and um esoteric aspects that I know to be true and important when it comes to healing and wholeness. Anyway, so I had a big sort of unveiling around that, and I left, I consciously quit uni and I moved into an alternative modality called transpersonal counseling and art therapy. As I began that journey, I conceived my second child, Zevan Ahi, where we chose to have a home birth, and I'd chosen a private midwife who was wonderful and had become a mentor of mine, Melanie the Midwife. She's an absolute star and such an authentic midwife. Um, but when it got into I was laboring and it was time to birth, I didn't want anyone in my space. And so we ended up having an unassisted birth, and Melanie came about 20, 20 minutes after. And it was in that experience that I had an awakening, I suppose you could say, in a really embodied sense, um, where I was it was deeply revealed to me how much has been robbed, we've been robbed of our birthrights and our um capacity as humans, as women that are birthing and people that are birthing. It was a profound experience. And so that really, I pivoted through that experience and was like, birth is fucking everything. Yeah, you know, and if we can reclaim birth, we can reclaim so much more of our humanity. Um, and yeah, so then that led me into bringing the art therapy, all my mentoring and and community development work um into this new format, which is transpersonal birth mentoring.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Oh, awesome. Yeah, I totally agree that like birth, yeah, is like so profound. And I really agree with you when you sort of say like we've been robbed, like of that whole experience. I um I didn't have exactly sort of the same, obviously, birth stories as you, but I I had sort of um there's like some overlaps in our experiences. Like I had my first daughter in a hospital birth that was um you know all fairly straightforward and good on paper, but left me feeling hugely traumatized when I couldn't really understand why. And then I had um my second daughter, Margot. I I got Michelle to to be, you know, my dueler and I was going to have a hospital birth. And you know, she just kind of like gently like was probing me with questions and it kind of came out. I was like, I actually don't fucking want to have a hospital birth, I want to have the baby at home. And she really like gave me the confidence to do that. And just having having Margot at home and just being able to really like be there with that experience, like not have anyone else kind of impose what they want onto it. Like I could just do what I wanted and what I felt like I wanted to do. And then literally like that birth experience completely changed like the trajectory of my entire life. Like I, yeah, it wasn't such a like it wasn't like a I can't identify a point in time where there was an awakening, but the entire experience caused an awakening in me where I just suddenly had this different perspective on how we live, like the systems that we have, and like you described with your studying and just how you know everything that we're kind of like presented with in society is through this curated lens by the dominant culture, you know, and so much is not represented there, and so many people are left out. And all of these perspectives, you know, just kind of came through to me after I had that birthing experience. So I haven't really completely put the pieces together yet, but I have this hugely strong feeling that birth is so powerful, and like if if like you know, we do reclaim it, you know, as a rite of passage for ourselves, like the outcome could be extremely profound. So yeah, I love hearing, you know, what you sort of say on the subject. So yeah, just anyway, I'm just blabbering my own experiences.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

But thanks for sharing, it's really important that we share our stories and we live in a culture where um, you know, it's a shrouded in mystery, like the physiology of birth and and the joyfulness that birth can elicit within us and the revolution it can elicit within us, um, and also shame, but not only shame for traumatic and hard stories, but shame for our joy and powerful, you know, life-changing stories because we don't want to hurt people, we don't want to other people to feel small or to feel like we're you know are minimizing their experience. Um, but I think we need to share the joy, we need to share what is happening when we are fully um in our power in these spaces because we need to make space for it to become a reality for more people.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

That's right. So, yeah, I 100% agree. So when we take a step back to look at mainstream birthing culture, what what comes up for you when you sort of take that big picture look at what's going on with our birthing culture and society?

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Um, uh from my perspective, birth is a microcosm of the macro world. So it's a very um amplified version of what's actually going on in the broader picture. Um by that I mean we are infantilized within that space from the moment we conceive a child, we are expected to outsource um our knowing, um, where we look to the expert. So Jane Hardwick Collins would call it the cult of the expert. Um, so first thought is, oh, I've got a positive pregnancy test, you know, better go to the doctor or better get my levels checked, or better do this, or better do that. And we're constantly looking out of ourselves for what is right and true and for the best pathway. And often, you know, 99% of people are birthing within a system without question, often, um, because that's just what we do. That's certainly why I birthed in the system 10 years ago. Was I didn't really think I knew birth for me was a natural experience that I was more than capable of, but I didn't um then go that step further of being like, well, then why do I need to be in an institution, a medical institution, for that to happen? Um, so we're often moving sort of blindly through the world because we haven't assessed what um is our truth. Yeah. So we're looking to others for our truth or for what is right and for approval. Um, and then we just see you know the cascade of that amplifying throughout pregnancies when it's within the system. Um, our rites and our uh rituals that were once woven through pregnancies are now replaced with medical uh rituals and rites. Um, so where we once would see, you know, an elder, an auntie, uh medicine person, what have you, we now see the OB or we see the GP. Um, and these medical rituals are you know replacing this the um deeper, more holistic care that was once woven through family and community systems. Um, and this translates to so much more of how we experience society now, um, where many of us are moving through the world without too much thought or without thinking about, you know, critically about well, what do I actually think about the state of things? What do I actually think about the food that I'm eating, or think about the way food is grown, or you know, um so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, that's it's very true what you say, that outsourcing of like truth for you, and that we're not trusted with for the most part our own intuitive feelings and knowings about the pregnancy, because yeah, I definitely experienced that, you know, where um, you know, there were times when um I was encouraged to go to go in for a scan, and they, you know, told me that the baby was big and you're probably gonna have to have a cesarean, you know. And then I had a home birth and like Margo was an average size, and I absolutely did not need a cesarean. Or, you know, I felt completely healthy and fine, and they said, you know, you've got to go in for a um blood glucose test. And the blood glucose test made me pass out in the shopping center, like it made me really sick, you know, and and I didn't have freaking diabetes, like, but they, you know, and so in the second pregnancy, you know, there were quite a few things that I, you know, consciously I didn't want to do and I I said no to. And that's something that Michelle was very good with, you know, she was uh encouraging me that like it's your healthcare, and you know, you have to give valid consent for everything that people do to you in your healthcare, and you can just say no, like you don't have to say yes, yeah, and you can trust yourself, like you can trust your own intuition. And another thing I love that Michelle says is that you know, even if you do none of these things, the baby will come anyway, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

And so I just yeah, I really agree with you that there is just such a huge outsourcing, and to me, it also really reflects that domination, that power over, you know, control. Like with the pregnant woman, there's this real like um tendency in society to want to control that experience and like keep it within specific confines. But pregnancy is so individual, you know. Of course, like if you try to keep a pregnancy within certain confines, like you're gonna come up with issues.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

Yeah, this idea we can um we can manage everything and that we if we have all of the things, then we have full control. And this is like translates to so much more of the human experience in modernity, that we're like so uncomfortable with surrender, with surrendering to the mystery, risk, surrendering to spirit, surrendering to intuition. All of these things are seen as woo-woo, where once upon a time, not so long ago, you know, it was like known that these things were important and true and real for us as human beings, that we had senses beyond um the ones that are valued under this, you know, colonial system.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

In a post recently, um, you you sort of articulated that birth prep is an opportunity to get real with ourselves and to bring our unconscious landscape into the light. Could you tell us more about like what you were sort of saying with this frame, this uh wording?

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Yeah, yeah. So birth is an opportunity from my perspective to liberate ourselves, to divest from oppressive mindsets and systems that we've often gone along with without without question. And this includes, you know, our inner dialogues, how we think about ourselves, what we say to ourselves, what we think about our bodies, what we think about our vaginas, our wombs, our reproductive spectrum. Um, if we go into pregnancy and birth with consciousness and in and an intention to um get to know ourselves better, then there's never a time where the veil is more thin, you know, where we are more in tune with those parts of ourselves that are often able to be hidden. Um and so, you know, a really practical example could be how we have dealt with authority in our lives because the archetypes that exist in the broader culture and within the hospital system and the maternity system, they exist within us. We have those archetypes within us. Um, our inner authoritarian, which usually comes from a parent or a care provider or a teacher or someone you know, we had to be the good girl for or we had to win their approval. Um, and so then we move into the birth space and the OB or the doctor or the midwife becomes that person. And so when we can get real with ourselves about how it is that we deal with authority and where that authoritarian in within us came from, then we can have more consciousness when we move into the space of birth and we have to deal with those people in that system because we can deal with them without becoming energetically hooked into what it is that they're telling us, right? Because they have, you know, this is always like these people that are in the system, have they done their healing work? Have they gotten real with themselves about their inner authoritarian and about the power dynamics that they are um playing into within that system? Yeah, I'm sure there are people that have done that work that work in the system, but there are many, many, many that have not. Um, and so yeah, what I mean by psychologically divesting is reclaiming our energy from these things that have often um been a part of us without our full awareness.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So, do you think like in terms of like bringing that unconsciousness to light, do you think that doing that work empowers you more within the birthing space as well? Because you you have like a more conscious understanding of what what is right for you, and you can more readily identify the behaviors of other people that are not sitting right with you, and you can kind of call that out to dictate your own experience more clearly, just from like one perspective of sort of how that can benefit the birthing experience.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Exactly. So, um, you know, as I said before, 99% of people are birthing within the hospital system. So it's unreasonable to just tell people, you know, which you see so much in in especially free birth and home birth communities, like just birth at home, you know, claim your power. It's not it's not a logistical reality for so many people, and a lot of people don't want to do that. Um, so how can we actually move through these systems um with more autonomy? It's through knowing ourselves. We can't change the system. I don't think we're gonna see the a change within the system in my lifetime in a real way. It's actually getting worse. Um, and so we have to change, and that's fucked, that's shithouse. Like it's not fair. The system should be serving people uh uh in integrity and um looking, treating us holistically, but that's not what's happening. So then, you know, we have to be the ones to change and show up differently. Um, and by no means do I think that's fair, and I really want to, you know, uh amplify that that it's not okay, it's not right, um, but this is a reality that we're living in. And if you're gonna birth in that system, you need, you know, we need to be aware of that. Um, and so, yeah, exactly what you described, having more of an awareness of how we respond to fear, how we respond to um power dynamics, authority figures in our in our lives, because this is who the OB becomes, you know, it's who the um person that comes into your hospital suite to um, you know, put the fucking fear of God in. To you because they want to, you know, do some shit that you don't really want them to do. The quote unquote dead baby card, right? I hate that term, but for yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Got pulled on me too. If you don't push his baby out, your baby will die.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

It's constant. Every person I serve, and this is really hard for me to accept, and I really don't want to share things like this, but I have never served a person that's had a hospital birth that has walked away feeling really empowered, really staunch and strong and capable as a mother. Um, I work with people who leave that space feeling um disrespected, who feel traumatized, you know, who feel really, if not traumatized, very shaken up and and um confused about their experience because they've had to deal with multitudes of people in their space, telling them all sorts of things and doing all sorts of things to them.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, no, well, just like for a really practical example, like from my first birth. So when I um came to the hospital, um obviously, as can happen with first child, you're a bit like hyper-vigilant and you often present like way too early, which is like totally what I did. But you know, I definitely felt like I was in labor. But I got there, and the nurse that was on duty, she just said, she said, looked in me at my face and said, I can tell by your face that you're not in labor. But I'll put you on the whatever that thing they tie around your stomach and do the monitor, like the fetal monitor or something. So she um like hooked me up to the monitor and was like, just stay here, you're not in labor. Like this could be come like days or weeks yet away, and um left me on the bed for eight hours, like on the monitor, and then like the next morning when I was like hadn't slept all night, which is so bad. Like, I should have just like anyway, so yeah, next morning on I was like in there still, and like then in so much pain, she's like, Oh, I think you're in labor now. It's all right, my shift's finishing. I'm just gonna hand you over to the next minwife and I'll check you in. And like what I really should have done in that experience is I should have just said, fuck you, or probably not even, because she would have got shit even. Fuck you, like I am in labor, and no, I'm not gonna lie on this bed. That's so uncomfortable. And no, I don't need to be monitored because my baby's moving inside of me. I know the baby is fine. And you know, other like other things too was like the um placenta, like jabbing it in my leg, jabbing the um whatever hormone it is to help get the placenta out, and then them literally yanking the placenta out from me, like in a super painful and traumatic way without really asking for any permission. And and I never even really saw it apart from kind of like a shameful comment about, oh, that's such a big placenta. Like, well, fuck you. I have a very healthy placenta that's made of very healthy babies, like, you know, so there's just some real like small experiences, but like why I behave like that is because I have a very strong good girl mentality. Like, I wanted to please those people who I thought were the authoritarians, like in the situation. I was like, of course, I'll do what you say. I don't want to upset you, like you are the the all-knowing person in this scenario. So I just listened to it where I really should have like not worried about it and gone with what I felt.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

And right, thank you for sharing. Yeah, it's not okay that that happened, but therein lies the medicine, right? Like therein lies the um your invitation, um, which you've just spoke spoken to so succinctly about um, you know, what you took from that from that experience and the lesson that undoubtedly um fueled so much more than your next birth experience, you know, it probably fuels how you move through the world now and a different lens through which you look at the world.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Oh, totally. That's right. Like it anyone who's trying to dictate my experience, like it definitely comes up all the time where I'm thinking, well, like, should you be dictating my experience and should I be curating my own experience to please you? Probably not. So it changes how you do move through the world, you know. So birth is so profound. Um, you brought up Jane Hardwick Collings before, which is cool because like I saw a post that she um she put up last night and it made me think about you and some of like the things I've heard you say. So I'll read it. It's like two paragraphs. So um there was a picture of Jane Hardwick Collings, who is she was a former midwife, and now she um, oh gosh, I don't even know how to describe what she does. She's like she runs the school of shamanic women craft where she's basically like addressing things like menstrual shame and bringing women into their power to like reclaim our bodies and our, you know, knowingness and our rights, and she's just wonderful. And she wrote in this picture with her two grandchildren, she said, It blows my mind to know that these two, in their most original form, were in my womb in my daughter's ovaries for about five moons 34 years ago. They both experienced energetically the second half of the pregnancy of their mother in my womb and her birth, and then they were in her body the whole time until they were the follicle in her ovary that ripened, ovulated, and was conceived. And so that's one of the ways, pathways that feminine energy, knowledge, and ancestral trauma move along our red thread or mother line. This process holds a transmission that we have all received from our grandmothers and mothers and what the females will pass on to the next generation and the next with their own stories woven in. So after I listened to a couple of your podcast episodes, like I've been thinking about, you know, the role of our ancestors during birth. And I was wondering what comes up for you when I mention like ancestors and birthing, um, both in the physical sense, but also in a more spiritual sense.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Uh yeah, so I mean, from my personal perspective, I am a mixed race person, so I am of European and Maori descent. Um, on my paternal side, my lines are from Tararua and Napui tribes. Um, and on my mother's side, we have Irish roots. There's also some Scottish in there, so I'm a real mixed bag. Um, but my journey, simply because that's been um the information that I've had accessible to me, has very much been with returning to my um uh my paternal side, my Mori ancestors, because my dad knows I miss my dad, you know, he's right there. This is our experience, and so I have so much more access to information, whereas the lines um have been much more um blurred on my maternal side. Um, so another reason why I feel drawn to um my paternal side is because um Māori people have been so recently colonized. Um, so it's a shorter journey back to a time where we were um very much in our um tikanga, our rights, our our customs, and deeply connected as earth stewards. You know, obviously that's what we still are, that's still happening, it's current. Um so connection to ancestors is uh a fact, it's not woo-woo shit, you know, it's like we are the living manifestation of them and their experiences. They live on in us, um, in our stored memories, in our how we move through the world, in what activates us, what triggers us, what we're afraid of, what we find joy in, all of it is a result of their stories as much as our own. Our story is their story. Um, and in terms of birth, you know, it was not so long ago that all of us were uh, you know, people that were connected to the land. And when we are connected to the land, we are also connected to our bodies as extensions of the land. So birth was and always has been a natural expression of nature and of you know our humanity. It's just as normal as you know, waking up in the morning or like, you know, making love or whatever it is that our bodies can do. Birth is just one such thing. It's very recent that we've been disconnected from this ancestral truth and fact. Um, so connection to ancestors, I hope that more of us can come home to that reality, that we, no matter our lineage, no matter where we come from, if we go back far enough, we are people of the land. Um, in Mori, we say Tangata Fenua, people of the land. Um, and the sooner we can remember that and reclaim that, the sooner healing can come on a broad collective scale, um, not only to us as human beings, but to Mother Earth as well. Um and I think birth is one such portal where we are, our ancestors are very available to us. Um, and it can be a great source of strength and power to turn to our ancestors for our for answers and for guidance on how we move through that landscape.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

How do you think, like, are there any things that you you would suggest like for people who just maybe don't have much insight into their own personal like bloodlines or like their ancestors? Like, and want to sort of deepen like that feeling of connection, but just feel like at a loss of how to do that. Like, do you have any sort of things that you ever suggest to people like to to begin that journey?

SPEAKER_03 32:11

So uh something that really resonates with me is our body as connection to ancestor, you know, our physiology and how it is that we exist in our bodies. It has always been this way. Um, and my sis Ella Noah Bancroft, who's a proud bunjalung woman, um, she speaks to our, you know, being in a female body, our initiations are internal. Um, our first bleed, our monthly bleed, you know, becoming pregnant, feeding. These things are things that can't be taken away from us. They're in, they are, they are us, they are in our bodies. These are our rights, these are our initiations. And so even when we don't know where it is that we've come from, we know that it has always been this way to be in this body, to be in this body that is our land. This is our ancestral land. We are our ancestral land wherever we are. And when we can come home to our body, um, we can feel closer to the way it's always been. It's always, we've always bled, we've always produced milk, we've always grown the babies. Um, and so that's one way when we're not sure of our story, and often, you know, parents and grandparents either have passed or they feel resistant to going back that far. And why does it even matter? That's why this generation now, it's like, no, it fucking matters. And it it's it's our we have to do this so that our children don't have to, so that our children know that we belong on this earth because this is what the sickness is. The sickness is that we hum humans have forgotten that we belong. You hear people saying shit like humans are the virus, humans are the parasite. No, humans are an integral part of this ecosystem. It's but it's that we've forgotten we're part of it. We think we're above it, we think we can dominate it, we can extract from it, we're different from it, but we're not. We are it. Um, and we need to come home to that and and heal from the lie of disconnection. Um, and our ancestry is obviously one way to do that. Ella also, she came into my mentorship group the other day and shared a beautiful piece that really resonated with um my group, which was the water. The water that exists on this planet, it has always been this water. The water that we swim in is the water that our ancestors swam in wherever they were in the world, you know, that that is their water. And a personal one for me is the moon because um ancestrally we were very guided by the moon. Um Mori people um were yeah, that the moon is very much part of our culture, and it's the same moon, it's the same moon they looked at, it's the same moon that was in the sky when the dinosaurs walked the earth, it's the same moon that um was in the sky when your you know great-great great great great great great great great grandmother birthed birthed her baby. Um, so when we don't know, when we don't know our stories, come home to the earth, come home to the land, and come home to your body.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, I love that. That's awesome. And everything Ella says is like just incredible. Like, I don't know what it is, just she taps into something when she's talking and like she just says stuff. I'm like, whoa, holy shit. Yeah, she's just like amazing. Um yeah, I just like wanted to make a comment just from what you like brought up about like coming back to the land, like and just as somebody who is pretty disconnected from their ancestry myself, like where I notice that wisdom come through for me personally, is like sometimes I like to just go out to the garden, like I love gardening and with without like intention. Like I just go out without a plan, like without an agenda, and just start moving, like just start, just start pottering around doing stuff. And it's really incredible, like the wisdom that comes through that's not even for me. It's like it's like my body starts doing stuff without my mind dictating, and I'll start to start picking things off a plant, like without even thinking why. But well, it's because the plant's showing signs of disease and my body's naturally moving to to pull off the diseased parts of the plant to to let the plant thrive. Or, you know, it notices that there's spaces in the garden that is overcrowded and it needs more air and more sunshine, like to thrive. And so I'll just notice that I'll just naturally move towards parts of the garden and start doing stuff. And I'll get it'll be a couple of hours and I'll come out and I'll look and I'll be like, whoa, I really did heaps of stuff, but I had like no plan. And it's just interesting because then you'll notice, like, over the coming days and the coming weeks, like the garden will just boom, like you know, really start to thrive. And you're like, wow, you know, I don't even know shit about gardening, but my body does. Like it's really, really incredible. And like sometimes that also comes through with like cooking, like and feeding people, like you sort of it'll come dinner time and you move into the kitchen, like you don't really have a plan. Like, this is not everyone's reality because I know a lot of people just like fucking hate kitchen, uh cooking. But um, but you know, I'll move into the kitchen, I'll just start and and a whole meal will come together, something that I've never made. There's no like I've never looked at a recipe for that, but it's like fantastic and delicious, and with you know, fresh food from the garden and stuff. And and it they're the they're the times when I personally find like I feel connected to to my ancestors or to some deeper wisdom that's just like coming through. It's and I find that to be really incredible.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

So beautiful and so simple and so true. Yeah, everybody remembers and and the spirit remembers these things. Um, and you know, we can we don't underestimate it and the power of that, the simplicity. One of my um the members of my group in my mentorship um says knitting for her is is that practice. Um and I've you know, one of my girlfriends has just started slaughtering her um own hens, and she said that the it was almost like she'd done it a million times when she did that. Yeah, that her hands were moving in a way that she had never, you know, consciously wasn't intending. It was just happening. Um, so these are ancestral practices that um yeah, uh are powerful.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Oh, just since you said that with the chickens, like, yeah, processing food, like we had wheelbarrows full of lemons that we had to deal with, like from our property. And and I also noticed it come through with that, yeah, because just we had to juice all the lemons and then we peeled all the peels off the lemons to like dry that to use the brind. And like I really noticed, like it, and it was so joyful just sitting down, the kids were messing around, like playing with the lemons as well. It took hours to do this, but you get into this meditative headspace where you just are doing it and it's just like oxytocin or something starts flowing, you just you and you're just moving with what you gotta do, and you get out of your head and into your body, and it's like such a good feeling. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess anyone who's listening, like if this is like maybe just try and lean into the things that you've you have that feeling with, like just to see if that's a point of starting to reconnect possibly. Yes. Um, we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but I'm just gonna ask this question again just in case anything else comes um comes up. But so do you see any parallels between the mainstream birthing culture and some of the bigger issues that we're facing on the planet today?

SPEAKER_03 39:47

Uh yeah, I mean it's my personal perspective that everything that it's everything, it impacts everything. How we're born impacts everything. Birth is the seed of life. Um, we're born into um, you know, our first breath is constricted, or we're drugged, or it's violent, um, or we're born into fear, babies are sentient beings, we remember, you know, we're talking about um ancestral imprints and whatnot, like we have a birth imprint and we remember how we are born, not consciously, but in our bodies and how we experience, you know, um our nervous system, and there's so much more information coming out about this in pre- and perinatal psychology, how babies remember their birth and carry that trauma with them. So we think about the history of birthing practices and where we're at now in modernity and what's happening within that system, and the fear that you know people are birthing in and being born into. Um many of these people that are now running the country were born at a time where Twilight was the drug of choice, where uh, you know, and that's a whole other portal, but birth practices were extremely traumatic, they're still traumatic in my view, but um, they were then, you know, the boys were taken and circumcised without anesthesia. Um, this is this is the men who are running the world, quote unquote. Um, you know, they were locked in rooms away from their mothers when they were crying, they were left to cry it out. Um these are people that are in positions of immense power that are now, you know, making decisions about the earth, making decisions about our bodies, making decisions about how we exist, the systems that we exist within. Um, birth is the seed of life, and we know we need a healthy seed, we need a beautiful, organic, um, you know, ancestrally well seed in order to grow a beautiful, strong harvest. Um, when that seed is tainted, when that seed is harmed, it doesn't fruit in the way that we need it to or want it to. And this is the same for our human experience. When we are collectively being born through violence, and I know that's a really I have a strong view around this because I I feel that the highest priority on this earth should be bringing a baby in through tenderness and gentleness and love. Even when, you know, of course, there are emergency situations, there are times where that tenderness isn't possible, and that's okay, we can do healing work around that. But for the majority of situations where, you know, birth is happening and it's going to happen and it's okay, and everyone's well, tenderness needs to be at the top of the priority list and love. This is the highest level of oxytocin we will ever experience in our lives is when we are birthing and when we are being born. We are having a DMT release. This is a psychedelic imprinting experience of the highest value. Nothing is more valuable. Um, and why it why is our world violent? Why are our men violent? Why are we dominating and extracting from the earth in these violent ways? We are born into fucking violence.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah. And it really rings true when you say, like, I just I what it makes me feel is like when I'm in fear, I want to control, like I want to control the situation to minimize like the fear. That's my kind of response. And like it's what you see, our leaders have this real propensity to try to dominate and control everything, you know. So that that really, you know, there's no trust, like there's no trust in the natural world. It's all no, we need to control and manage everything, you know.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

And they have inflated that control with power, and it's not power.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

It's also not control, they don't have any control over anything. Yeah, yeah, like it's just. An illusion, it's just crazy because, and as we're seeing with these like rolling natural disasters, like that just keep like showing how fallible we are, you know.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

We think we can control with roads and with you know concrete jungles, but really this like nature can come and trash it in a second if it really like within a matter of days, and we think we can control birth, and this is another way in which birth is a microcosm for the macro world. We think we control nature, we think we can control and dominate nature, we think we can control and dominate birth. And what are we doing to women and birthing people and babies when we try to control them in the most wild and natural experience of their lives? We are traumatizing them, yeah. And we do the same to the land, we do the same to each other, we do the same to these societies that we live within.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

So, how do you reckon we could be doing birth differently? Like, how can individuals reclaim birth as a rite of passage for themselves?

SPEAKER_03 44:55

Uh look, I'm biased as fuck, and I think if everybody could have a uh empowered, undisturbed birth, then that would be incredibly healing for us as a collective. But I also respect and acknowledge that that's not what everybody wants or what everybody needs. Um, so I think at the very least, the person who is birthing the baby must be centered. And we have that in policy, right? We have quote unquote women-centered care, but that's not what's happening. It's bullshit, it's it's industry-centered care. Nobody cares more about your baby than you do. And these people that are framing, you know, themselves as these like altruistic people that care so much about the life of your baby, they care about protecting their own industry from mitigating their own risk. Exactly right. And so, first and foremost, we need people-centered care, women-centered care, birthing person-centered care, baby-centered care, gentle baby care, where this sent this being that has just like come through from wherever they come from into physical form and are taking their first breath is handled with the most gentle, beautiful, loving touch. Where people in these systems that are working within these systems and touching these sacred birthing bodies and sacred beings, these babies, have done the work to heal themselves and their own birth trauma, have healed their own inner war of power dynamics, power plays. It's um imperative that this is what happens so that the person who is birthing the baby can truly be centered. And then, of course, there's the internal revolution that needs to happen for us to know that's not where it's at. That's not where it's at right now. I need to claim my power. I need to claim myself. I need to divest from this idea that anybody knows better than I do about my fucking body, about what I need and my experience and my baby, because then mothers can be strong. Mothers can know that they know how to have control over their power and themselves and their families, or lead their families, I should say. We never if you we never control our families or our children. If someone knows how, tell me.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, like having a two and a three-year-old is just like the tantrums are just so intense. So wild. Um, but yeah, just what you said about like being coming in strong, I do think, especially if you are birthing in the system, yeah, you do need to come in really strong and conscious of of your own like yeah, internal landscape, because you don't necessarily know who's going to be around you. And so I think that you coming in with the clearest possible understanding of how you feel about things, and then also ideally having a strong support person who can help you. Because sometimes when you're in the throes of labour, like you can't you can't clearly articulate articulate what your boundaries are just someone while you're in like a hectic contraction.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

When it's um completely unreasonable that we're expected to within that system, that that women uh and people are um having to literally fight for their rights, for their human rights within that space when what we need is to be completely, you know, safe and able to transcend and able to tap out of our con, you know, our thinking mind and go into our mammalian primal mind. It's unreasonable that we can do that, which is why we often comply to things that we would, we really didn't want to, or we just say yes, or you know, we don't really understand. How can you seek in for truly informed consent from a person who is in an altered state of consciousness?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

That's right. Yeah, that's so true. Never really thought about it like that either. Yeah. Would you recommend that people seek out, you know, things like duolas to to help through the process or to prepare for birth if they're feeling like they they need support and guidance?

SPEAKER_03 49:08

Yeah, I mean, I always say first and foremost, we've been preparing for birth our whole lives. We've been prepared preparing based on our own birth, based on the cultural messaging around birth, based on the stories that we've been told by the women around us and how they feel about birth, by the way we experience our bleed every month, or our our menarch, our first bleed, the shame that we've carried sexually, the shame that we've carried about our bleed and our bodies. All of this is feeds into how we feel or how we approach the birth altar. Um, so spending time feeling into how it is that we, you know, what our experience has been with the energy of birth, what the experience has been with our bodies, how do I feel about my body? Because the messaging is that female bodies are disgusting, that they need to be hidden, that that our blood is disgusting, that our pleasure doesn't matter, um, that we perform uh sexually, that we perform the good girl, that we perform, you know, perform, perform, perform. And so um really going on that quest to excavate your lived experience thus far and how those experiences are going to influence the lens through which you're looking when you are walking towards becoming a mother. Yeah, a fossil adula definitely is helpful for sure. Um, but you know, not all doulas are created equal as well. So I also totally think that um even in really hard, you know, experiences that we have, there's still medicine there. It's like what you were speaking to with your first birth, like that was not your ideal situation. You experienced some painful, you know, um experiences, you had a painful experience and parts, um, and yet you have created medicine from that because that's what women do. We're alchemists, we create magic from even the most shitty experiences. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Yeah, just talking about menstrual shame, like it's even even sharing this brings up shame for me. But like, yeah, I recently had to go to the gynecologist and have an internal examination, which is like I wanted to have it done, but like I had my period, you know, and like I called and sort of queried that with them beforehand because it was a male gynecologist. And you know, he was like, No, it's fine. But just the shame that going to see a gynecologist while I had my period brought up was like really hectic. And then even just like having that internal examination done and just yeah, it just really made me realize like I have so much more work to do, like around around that, you know, just like just because I've had this like the second grade birth experience doesn't mean that like it's all healed and it's all great. Like I still carry immense, I think I carry immense um weight of like yeah, menstrual shame and also sexual shame, like you say, like because like women are just shamed about anything to do with that sphere, like you know, and we're gas-led into thinking, you know, we we can't do anything for our own pleasure, like it's all for ulterior motives or whatever. So yeah, it's just a minefield of work that to do, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

Well, you know, he is blessed to be able to touch your blood, your sacred menstrual blood. And you know, nobody can make us feel shame for something we don't feel shame about.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:42

So that's the internal revolution piece that needs to happen. We need to claim our bodies, we need to claim ourselves back from the lies that we've been told from patriarchy and colonialism and all of the things. Um, because then we walk through the world and it doesn't fucking matter what anyone else says about us. That's their experience, that's their perspective. It has nothing to do with us and our beautiful sacred birthing bodies.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Yeah, it's crazy. Sorry. I just like just even thinking about it, it's just like pretty sensitive things to be discussing. But I think it's really important, you know, to have it.

SPEAKER_03 53:19

Well, it's the only way to break the spell is by talking. And it's what we've always done as women. We've always talked amongst ourselves, but through oppressive systems and cultures, we've had to whisper, and now we're done whispering, and we have to speak louder because there's no, it's not a secret. It shouldn't be a secret anymore that we have these beautiful bodies, you know, the sacred waters of our amniotic water, the sacred blood, um, the sacred river of our blood, you know, these things are and have, they should be as they were before, revered, um, just as the earth's natural cycles are revered.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

And on that, like what I am really noticing, like just in the women around me, is there's this real just they've reached a point of like rage where they're like, no, like no more. Like everyone is just getting fed up with with complying with bullshit, you know? And I just am witnessing that in in women, like all around me, it just seems to be this natural thing that's happening, which is freaking awesome because I think that's what we need to do is just like stand up and just change, change the story. Um so on your website there's a uh you've written a piece that um has a sentence saying, I believe each person is a sacred expression of nature and has the capacity to nurture seeds of change within themselves when the right support is available. So I was just wondering like, what kinds of outcomes do you think could be possible if we saw a radical and profound change in birthing culture?

SPEAKER_03 54:55

In birth, I think it would be um in a vastly different world. I think um if we saw, and this, you know, birth culture extends beyond just the physical birth experience, it extends into postpartum care, um, and then of course into mothering and parenting. So birth is the foundation of that, right? So when we get the foundation strong and well, then what we build upon that is strong and well, or has more of an opportunity to be strong and well. If mothers mothers are doing the primary care around the world, um, mothers are and have always been largely the primary carers. Of course, it's not always the case in unique family, in you know, individual family circumstances, but generally that's who's raising, doing the the bulk of the child rearing. Um we need well mothers, we need strong mothers, we need powerful mothers who are walking through the world knowing that they need to be centered, knowing that their needs matter, because then the children are imprinted with that too. And mothers, our cycles are innately woven with the cycles of nature. We are the stewards of the earth, we are um protectors of the earth. The earth cycles are expressed through us, and so when mothers are well, when mothers are strong, when mothers are feeling powerful, we protect the earth as well, we protect our communities, and our children see that, and our children become people who do the same. We can't this is we're living in a culture of violence, and that violence is beginning from birth, um, from our birthing experience. We need to live in a culture of balance, of um, of natural rhythms. Um, and the the only way we can do that is by having strong, healthy families.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

Yeah, no, that really just gave me some goosebumps. That's awesome. So if anybody listening wants to to um hear more from you, um, could you tell us like where they can find you and also maybe tell us a little bit about, I think you said you were doing a course, like a liberated birth course.

SPEAKER_03 57:17

Can we talk about that actually? Yeah, yeah. So online, yeah. My website is thestonedchrysalis.com. Um, you can find all my offerings there and you know, send me an email directly. Um, I am Rip Snorder on Instagram. I am currently facilitating a 12-week mentorship container where we had guests, we had Jane, we had Ella, um, we've got a few other guests coming on. So that that container's closed, but I hopefully we'll run it again next year. And then I believe it's on the 13th of November, but don't quote me. It's sometime in November I'm facilitating an undisturbed birth workshop. So the way and the way of um uh you know, my people, my ancestors, is to teach through story. Story is integral to learning. So I'll be using the birth and pregnancy of my third child, Ember, to hopefully facilitate group learning about undisturbed birth and how to prepare for undisturbed birth. Um, yeah, and what else have I got going on? I think that's it at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Well, that's heaps for a mum. That's a lot. Who's also what I think you're also growing a lot of your own food and stuff like that, too.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

We are growing, we just got some more hens. We've got 12 hens. Grandma just died, she was 13 years old, the grandmother chicken.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

13-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Yeah, that's impressive.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

She's very impressive. So she was the matriarch of the family, she's just passed, so now we have 12 hens. We are picking up some new uh milking goats next week. She's uh just weaned her baby at five months, and they are coming to live with us. So we'll be getting fresh raw goat milk every day, which is very exciting.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Oh wow, that's so cool. Yeah, we've been thinking about goats, but our fencing situation needs some rectification before we can commit to goats.

SPEAKER_03 59:19

Yes, we are deep in the fencing situation right now. Yeah, so I mean we pick them up on Monday, but it'll be okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Oh well, that's that's so amazing. So thank you so much uh to Amy for coming on and sharing her wonderful wisdom. Um, I just loved having this conversation, and I've loved re-listening to it, and I hope that you also enjoy it. So next week we'll have a different but related topic. It is what if we reclaimed postpartum as a critical rite of passage? And I will be speaking to the wonderful Naomi Chrysalarkis. She's on Instagram as Cocoon by Naomi. She's a postpartum care provider, and she has some awesome insights into how we can take back postpartum for ourselves. Okay, I'll speak to you next week. Thanks, guys.