We get this spectacular opportunity to step into full embodiment, embracing both the beauty and the challenges of the feminine journey so why is it so frequently hijacked by shame, over-medicalized control or blatant ignorance?? It's not a subtle factor in how women's wellbeings are treated in our current societal climate and it's deeply overlooked in the whole "why are men hurting women more than ever?" "why are birth and marriage rates down?" "why do we have a feminazi OR disempowered woman problem instead of a balanced expression of femininity?" “why are women so chronically underserved by their healthcare system and/or just downright chronically ill?”

Across many Indigenous North American cultures, including the Lakota people, Navajo nation, and Yurok people, menstruation was supported through the use of moon lodges or dedicated spaces where women would go during their cycle as intentional environments for rest, storytelling, teaching, and spiritual focus. Labor demands dropped, younger women learned directly from elders, and menstruation became a predictable pause woven into community rhythm. The result was women who were less chronically exhausted, more internally attuned, and socially reinforced in their roles, which translates into steadier family structures and continuity of cultural knowledge.

We see the trend clearly through history yet only wish we could make the physiological cycles work for our liberation instead of shame, the reclamation is closer than we think.

What actually moved the needle, differentiating women's health crisis culture from empowered, healthy, thriving womanhood in society wasn’t abstract “reverence,” it was structure.

Societies that treated menstruation as a meaningful phase reorganized life around it in small, practical ways. Women stepped out of constant labor, had protected space to rest or turn inward, and were held in a shared cultural story that framed their experience as purposeful rather than inconvenient.

That combination of physiological rest, psychological validation, and communal support happens to stabilized energy, reduced burnout, and create a rhythm where women contribute from a place of renewal instead of depletion, which quietly strengthened families, decision-making, and long-term resilience across the whole community.

I didn't need any science to tell me that the body registers safe, attuned connection as a shift out of threat response bc eye contact, synchronized voices, and being witnessed regulate the nervous system, lower stress signaling, and release bonding neurochemistry. But it certainly does affirm our innate knowing that gathering in a circle is a potent healing experience

Women’s circles have functioned across cultures and history as one of the most efficient and enduring forms of social and physiological medicine.

Why aren't we in the group chats prioritizing our wellbeing by hosting tea parties?!

In ancient societies like Ancient Egypt (circa 3000 BCE–30 BCE), menstrual blood appears in medical and symbolic contexts connected to fertility and life force. While not structured around rest in the same way as my other examples, the association of menstruation with generative power contributed to a broader culture where women could participate in economic and legal life with a degree of autonomy.

Underlying recognition of female biology as functional and potent, rather than problematic, supports women’s ability to operatefrom a more fulfilled place within society.

The pattern underneath is initiation into rhythm, these cultures didn’t just acknowledge the first bleed, they folded the girl into a living system that consistently told her “your body holds sacred timing & meaning.”

Your first bleed was a physical event of course but we rarely put words to the felt sense that our new ability to create life is also symbolic and connects us to all the ecstasy & ache of our ancestral lineage. All the cyclical, ancient, experiential wisdom that allowed us to create life for all these years to sustain the human race and yes, bleeding through your pants at school onto the fabric chair.

Even with the logistics of expelling a whole endometrium in a hygienic manner, the pulsing, primal need to procreate is not just about making babies and it demands to be felt in one way or another as we move through our female cycles & phases.

I go into this in depth as I talk about how closely your fertility is interwoven with your general vitality, it's nature's green light that you're safe, thriving and capable of bringing more of this to the world. Obviously it has a lot to do with your physiology but also the expansion of your nervous system to hold more, your capacity to feel more, whatever it is that inspires humans to feel so deeply, richly, achingly alive that it spills over into the world around them, electrifying everything with desire and awe.

Menarche serves as a catalyst for us to embrace the ferocity of becoming a fertile void and open vessel for anything we want to create, nature's greatest testimony that we don't merely deserve pleasure but can also CREATE from it.

"Uterus" comes from the Greek word hystera (ὑστέρα), which is the root of hysteria.

Hippocrates and other early physicians believed the womb was a living creature that could "wander" around the body, pressing on organs and causing symptoms like suffocation, anxiety, or even madness. The theory evolved into the idea of "hysteria," a catch-all diagnosis for women experiencing depression, anxiety, or sexual frustration. Doctors prescribed forced pregnancies, sexual activity, or even surgical removal of the uterus (hysterectomy) for symptoms that likely had other causes. Women were nonconsensually institutionalized, medicated, subjected to questionable "cures" and suppression of autonomy.

This was one of many points in history where hysteria, a woman’s untamed grief & undirected ecstasy was only a symptom of power unchanneled, not a disorder but a societal expression of wisdom left unrecognized.

You could call it a deliberate erasure of power or we could talk about how unfair our current society’s expression of the wound is playing out in gender politics OR we could rejoice in the possibility of embodying the women inside us that doesn't fear her own depth, lets herself be fully felt & seen without shame, fully in her body, the version of ourselves that societies who saw hysteria as intuitive clarity nurtured. The future our lineage desired for us.

Reorganizing culture via individual embodiment rippled into community is a force so undeniable that it shapes our children's future whether we like it or not.

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When women's bodies are surrounded by supportive environments, it's second nature to recognize the womb as a powerful energetic and emotional center, capable of holding onto memories and trauma, both physiologically and spiritually.

From a physiological perspective, the pelvic region is surrounded by fascia and muscles that can store tension from past experiences, much like how stress manifests in the shoulders or jaw. The uterus is also deeply connected to the autonomic nervous system, meaning that past trauma from birth, medical procedures, sexual experiences, or emotional wounds can become imprinted in the body. Hormonal fluctuations can be influenced by stored trauma, impacting menstrual cycles, fertility, and overall pelvic health.

This is no small deal, various Aboriginal groups across Australia, embedded menstruation in dreamtime cosmology, linking women’s cycles to land, creation, and continuity. We're inherently wise and even if we don't practice the Aboriginal or Native American version of sacred seclusion, we KNOW in our hearts that a deeper connection to our cycles relates positively to everything around us.

We desperately crave a deep sense of identity and purpose tied to biological processes, grounding us women in our role within both the physical and spiritual ecosystem. That alignment strengthens cultural cohesion and reinforced interdependence between people, land, and lineage, which are current points of contention in the world around us.

Even though your uterus (hopefully) isn’t wandering, it's responding to the moon, tides and your life phases. Our cycle is a vital sign, the same way your heart rate or body temperature is, and every phase is actively communicating something about your hormones, your energy, your mood, and whether something like PCOS or a thyroid imbalance is quietly developing underneath the surface.

Most women are never taught this, they’re handed a pill or a heating pad and sent home by someone NOT in touch with the ache nor ecstasy of their lineage.

Tracking my cycle changed my life because ir wasn’t about logging symptoms into an app so my gynecologist has data, it's about learning our own patterns well enough that we feel clarity where confusionwould otherwise live.

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When you bleed, when you’re sharpest, when you need more food, more rest, more solitude, this is information your body has been generating your entire life and nobody told you it was legible.

Fertility awareness is one of the most quietly radical things a woman can learn and I'll die on that hill. Understanding your fertile window well enough to prevent or achieve pregnancy without synthetic hormones is peer reviewed physiology that we've been practicing literally forever until the industrial revolution.

PMS isn’t a personality flaw and painful periods aren’t your baseline tax for being a woman. Cramps, mood crashes, bloating, the kind of fatigue that makes you feel like a different person, these have root causes in nutrition, cortisol, inflammation, cycle phase misalignment, things that actually respond to real intervention rather than suppression.

The practical version of everything these cultures were doing structurally, the rest, the rhythm, the attunement, lives in understanding your own cyclical feminine body deeply enough to build your life around it instead of against it.

Cycle Literacy for Root Cause Vitality is a pay-what-you-can ebook and audiobook immersion that walks you through your hormones, your fertility awareness for both conception and contraception, your cycle phases as real-time health signals, root cause healing for hormonal imbalance, PMS and burnout, and how to build a life that works with your body instead of against it, all practical enough to have your tailored approach built in less than 2hrs.

If you want to start simpler, check your free subscriber welcome email to orient towards cycle clarity & away from confusion in 7min!

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Writing to you from a notes app with 4 drafts in the works, as always, respond to this email or comment on the app to let me know what you'd like to see next, I DIE to tailor my pieces because it gives me a direction that I know will serve my community what they need.

Love, Marley 🦋

This is taken seriously to the utmost degree here because I understand that people never remember what exactly you told them, only how you made then feel and that body-level integration is what turns something from information or useless advice into wisdom.

Wisdom is really helpful in how we use the gift of information, it's wise to use discernment and without it we tend to overhaul our entire lives for a new health trend that backfires in our face because the juice cleanse fixed the symptom but not the problem. (Hello to my previous upset blood sugar but at least no bloat!)

If I wasn't responding from the guilt of eating so much junk food maybe I wouldn't have thrown off the balance of my entire body with a very sugary, zero fiber juice cleanse. Anyway, I got ahold of the false internalized beliefs running the show and instead of cutting the junk food I got addicted to something stronger = fresh salmon marinating in the fridge, homemade kimchi, rice cooked in broth & all the pickled yellow radish I could ever want. (Korean food is my fav, regardless if it's healthy, no fast food could top it for me.)

Kick your false internalized beliefs here ⤵️ and gut health ease enters the chat! Bloat, blood sugar dysfunction & fatigue are out and I'm still able to get DOWN on a Culver's custard.

I especially love how this conversation with Amber at Gathering Ground transpired through all these funsies that aren't always covered in a women's health crash course (holistic health practitioners in SWFL get in here before she blows up because it's a promise!)

Stealing youtubes transcript to drop the Key Topics Covered:

The Phases of the Cycle: Marley breaks down the cycle, explaining that it is not a one-size-fits-all 28-day model (2:46). She details the physiological shifts occurring during menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, and the luteal phase (3:02-4:15).

Hormonal Balance: The discussion highlights the roles of key hormones like estrogen, progesterone, LH, and FSH (5:01-5:40). Marley emphasizes that symptoms like PMS are often signs from the body that should encourage curiosity rather than shame (7:52-8:21).

Tracking and Intuition: Marley discusses the benefits of tracking, including monitoring cervical mucus to understand fertility and hormonal health (18:11-20:45). She explains how sharing this information with a partner can foster intimacy and support (34:13-35:15).

Environmental Factors & Detox: The conversation touches on the impact of endocrine disruptors found in daily life—such as plastics, fragrances, and certain clothing materials—and how to support the body's natural detoxification pathways through hydration and nourishment rather than restrictive habits (21:24-28:05).

Empowerment: The overarching theme is moving from a place of shame to a place of openness, encouraging women to view their bodies as wise and capable of achieving vitality through small, informed lifestyle choices (8:10-12:00, 39:06-41:17).

Critics (my childhood bestie's mom😭❤️‍🩹) are raving over my recent debut:

If when you watch the video or upon reading this dispatch, please comment because I love to engage with you all on the interwebs! It also helps both me & Amber grow our communities more than you know!

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For clarity on where your body falls in all the conflicting information we see ⤵️

As always, sending love from my family to yours! – Marley 🥰

Mostly I'm visualizing drinking tea with you at the table, so while you'll find a lot of tactical work here, (I love science and learning, ancestral knowledge revolves around oral tradition and that lights me UP) you'll also find the unique perspective that differentiates me from someone who tells you something kinda interesting that you think you understand but hasn't actually planted seeds in your life, let alone become a basis of knowing in your body.

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Nothing worthwhile (or intentional) is created from a half-assed "kinda," it's always a full body YES and raw desire that works our unconscious & physiology to create incredible results.

There's a million excuses to not be able to get, have or keep something you want, you're giving all of those reasons your body's powerful "yes, this is true" instead of just allowing yourself to have the thing you want that's already available to you.

Any form of uncertainty is the same thing as infinite potential because it represents a state of uncollapsed possibilities where multiple outcomes are equally possible before an observation or action is made. This is an infallible natural law, you aren't omnipotent so you don't know that uncertainty is bad, you only think so.

If man wants to touch God he will need to stretch his last contracted phalanges, but by not stretching the finger, he can go his whole life without seeking it. “The last contracted phalanx of Adam’s finger represents free will..”

Free will is a gift that we only possess if we think we do. "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.” -Jung

You are giving your negative symptoms a full body “YES! Keep inconveniencing me!” when you say “this is just how my body is, it failed me” and ignore any possible reality where you could feel good.

Ill and well are two sides of the same coin and with that, you'll see all the ways you've been scamming yourself into a reality where you don't have the things you want.

We've all gotten off on false unworthiness at some point but it's not fun for anyone if you romanticize it to chronic illness. By acting only on false internalized beliefs especially around being too broken to thrive, we're taking it out on the ones we love.

People given inert substances can develop real symptoms if they expect harm, placebo can be flipped on its head. Science has proven this, biology backs this message, I'll show you!

Psychoneuroimmunology is a real word (crazy), it exists because people have high paying jobs doing a lot of conclusive research showing that stress, fear, and chronic negative self-perception signal the nervous system into a survival state, raising cortisol and suppressing immune and repair processes. When the body is in this state, digestion, hormone regulation, and tissue repair are all deprioritized, it's almost as if biology wants you knowing you deserve wellness because in contrast, feelings of safety, trust, and positive expectation shift the nervous system toward parasympathetic “rest and repair” mode. This means your digestion improves, nutrients are better absorbed, hormones stabilize, inflammation lowers, immunity becomes more precise, circulation supports healing, heart rate and stress hormones calm down, sleep deepens, and the brain shifts out of threat scanning so clarity, emotional balance, and recovery all increase..

We see regular occurrences of irregular results, so are you willing to believe these people are just lucky or more worthy than you?

You're exempt? You can make yourself believe the lie but as triggering as it is… you're not. You have the potential to screw yourself over, so naturally, you also are your greatest asset in thriving!

How liberating!

A single centimeter slice of your colon has more microorganisms than humans that have ever existed on the planet.

Your own conception is a profound biological miracle, defying astronomical odds. The probability of you existing, resulting from your parents is one in 400 quadrillion.. a number so vast it's virtually impossible to imagine, akin to winning a million lotteries in a row.

A single ejaculation typically releases between 40 million and 300 million sperm. To put that in perspective, that is roughly the entire population of the United States trying to reach one single target, and YOU WON.

The vaginal environment is naturally acidic ( ~4.3) to protect against infections, which is lethal to sperm. Less than 1% typically make it past this first "kill zone" and into the cervix. For 12-72 hours of a woman's cycle, a shift in cervical mucus makes it thinner, more slippery, supportive to the healthiest sperm and creates beautiful pathways for easy swimming rather than acting as a barrier like in the rigid, non-fertile phases.

At the cervix, sperm must navigate stickier cervical mucus that acts as a biological filter and when the woman isn't ovulating, the cervix is closed tightly anyways. Only about 100,000 sperm manage to break through and enter the uterus.

Once inside the uterus, sperm must choose between two fallopian tubes. Since usually only one ovary releases an egg each month, roughly half of the remaining survivors swim into the wrong tube, where there is no egg to find so they just die there.

Even after arriving, being "first" doesn't guarantee victory, as if you didn't swim miles through life-theeatening conditions, the egg itself can release chemicals to "choose" or attract specific sperm that are genetically compatible.

The miracle of your existence goes on infinitely, at one point in your life creation got to do its job so flawlessly because you weren't questioning whether you deserved to fertilize the egg or not. You interacted with desire a lot different before you ever felt guilt, shame or fear and then internalized it. (Internalized means letting beliefs become your identity, ex. “it's my fault.”)

Also, using the specific physiology of how wild it is that you were conceived is super simple to put into practice & to our advantage when we desire to avoid or achieve pregnancy without synthetic hormones.

Or learn it all and walk away implementing it in under 2hrs, join us in the Cycle Literacy for Root Cause Vitality workshop, currently in beta for only $20 with VERY limited spots. Work at your own pace with my support & create an action plan to meet you where you are!

But learning about your body won't do anything if you're stuck in confusion, fear, guilt or any other reason that you decided you aren't allowed to have your cake and eat it too.

The info will be in your brain, imposing on it, telling you exactly how you're not doing enough instead of allowing yourself room to integrate it and push the results into your life with the natural law of ease.

(Don't worry, we clear all this up in the workshop so it's integrated as an asset to you without performance!)

It is legitimate fundamentals of your brain and psychology that:
(Repeat after me)

I can be hot

symptom free

revitalized

fertile but not pregnant OR thriving in pregnancy

AND I DESERVE TO ENJOY THE PROCESS

I don't need to ditch my fav foods

I don't need to rely on meds

I dont need to redesign my entire routine to workout 2x a day.

But the key is, you can't half-ass believe this, if you're only partially on board you're still giving the "okay" nod to something that'll never allow you to be happy.

Don't let the hurt 5yr old within you run the show, I know they felt unworthy at one point but they just need a hug, not a lifelong commitment to needing a savior.

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The tantric cure for these growing pains & a killer older work of mine ⤵️

Love, Marley ❤️

Share Well Womb ~ The Museletter

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There's the onset of fertility and menstruation which is the whirlwind of puberty but doesn't even compare to the whirlwind of pregnancy, birth, postpartum, lactation and motherhood in general, then your fertility comes back which is puberty 2.0 but while wiping butts and boogers.

A second pregnancy has shown me just how different my body can feel and adjust, it makes me excited to explore mysterious menopause when I've finished my baby-growin’ phase, but I assure you, it would NOT excite me if I didn't know what to do for the symptoms that had me basically living on bedrest and granola bars for this first trimester.

Also, and this is key, not one wellness hack, nutrition fact, motivational workout quote or all the background I have after years of holistic doula prenatal care studies actually did a damn thing to get me out of bed.

You could call it depression or lack of will but for how common the “I know better but didn't drink enough water today” phenomenon is, I'm chalking it up to human nature.

Nature's set of laws are better worked with than strong armed and this is the basis for my approach to mostly everything, it feels more genuinely holistic than forcing myself to chug a green drink.

Nobody wants to hear they need to put their phone down at 7pm every night or get more minerals, what a drag to get advice that's basically "never eat icecream again" because WE KNOW that's what we SHOULD do but we aren't all, always living for the moral high ground of never eating a preservative.

There's nothing wrong with that, there's millions of years of evolution showing through our body's wisdom, don't let shame or guilt hush your ability to know what you want. Thanks for that, diet & fad health culture, there's a time and a place for you.. first trimester ain't it for me.

I'll tell show you what actually made a difference and this is what all of my services are based on because it's the only objective way I've found to respond to every unique body in every unique life, it's also the only thing that doesn't feel like a chore because it instills that deep body-level click of confidence and "aha" to actually make your positive shifts stick to your daily experience vs just your manifestation board.

Performance has no place in women's health, I'm big on integration and that's the only thing that makes it easy to parse through the overload of health info to actually implement doable holistic solutions geared towards an easily deciphered root problem.

It doesn't have to be hard, biology wants it to be sooo easy that it'll give you blaring signals if you know what to listen for.

Fertility is the main marker of a thriving species, why would biology normalize problems with it?

This is how I back my root cause philosophy and body-level integration strategy against the “well my body failed me” COLD take :

In nature, it'd be incredibly difficult to suppress ovulation without extreme or sustained stressors like starvation, illness, trauma, or intense physical exertion. It's one of the first functions to go when your body goes into survival mode, lacking resources and safety.

Unfortunately, various forms of cycle suppressants (birth control shots, pills or iuds, low calorie/keto/low carb/low fat diets, painkillers, NSAIDs and anti-inflammatory drugs) are often the “solution” when we believe our body failed us.

It's not about the stats (like the ones below) it's about how we use them. Or really about how I we feel, that puts us in an aligned state to use them to our benefit.

Total U.S. women using any hormonal birth control: ~25%–30% → 16–19 million women.( Cdc.gov) Of those, ~14% use it solely for non-contraceptive reasons →approximately 2.24 to 2.66 million women.

Hormonal birth control suppresses ovulation, stopping production of estrogen and progesterone, receptors for these specific hormones exist in virtually every tissue in the body, their dance plays a role in the health of the brain & neurotransmitters, bones, cardiovascular system, immune cells, thyroid signaling, insulin sensitivity, gut motility, skin, hair, connective tissue, etc.

Synthetic estrogen and progestin artificially elevate hormone levels, tricking the hypothalamus and pituitary into thinking the body is hormonally “sufficient,” which suppresses natural ovarian signaling, prevents the dynamic cycling of estrogen and progesterone, and freezes the endocrine system in a chemically imposed, compounding imbalance. Versus allowing & supporting it to self correct, essentially throwing in a disruptive variable that exacerbates the original issue to such extremes, it could go beyond repair.

Buttt I guess it's okay because the symptoms are masked, 👀 this drug disrupts the feedback loops which causes long-term hormonal imbalances, menstrual irregularities, and difficulty restoring natural cycles & fertility after discontinuation.. at least you aren't feeling it. 👀👀

There's a better way than the bandaids and we know it, but there's so much external noise, desperation and conflicting advice to know what to do.

Your body will tell you, there's a legit way to ask it. It doesn't second guess like the intellectual, baraged brain does.

You deserve more than distrust for your life-changing asset of feedback loops even though they can get uncomfortable, their inconvenient demands for your health are invaluable with interpretation.

We need help sometimes, don't carry guilt about not knowing what kind of help you need.

The mechanics of efficiently integrating and using the information or advice you're consuming.

Your days of dealing with just the symptoms are over, not seeing the full picture down to the cause is what creates confusion and by definition, trauma is confusion that has not been integrated equally in the mental, emotional and physical response.

Right now, most women are going through super unpredictable phases in reaction, noise, second-guessing, outsourcing authority, and just general confusion. It really can be traumatizing enough to not want our cycles, children or a uterus in general. :,(

The disconnected internal state revolves through body signal → ignored or misunderstood → replaced or outsourced with outside input.

We can interrupt the loop objectively, which means it works repeatedly and without fail with no question, not by magic, but because it tracks predictable relationships between your physiology, attention, and lived experience so when you follow it in sequence you move out of mental noise and return to real, physical signals you can interpret and act on with clarity.

• Attention → back into the body. When we skip this you stay stuck in your head, looping. Land.

• Awareness → of real signals (not thoughts, reactions or external/outsourced opinions). Without it everything feels confusing or overwhelming. Notice.

• Permission → to feel without fixing, which is important to get the full picture without panic or second-guessing. This is where you stop rushing to fix, avoid, or numb out. Allow.

• Discernment → noticing patterns & what actions can you actually take from where you are NOW. When it's left out, you misread what’s actually going on. Clarify.

• Agency → making guilt-free aligned choices with ease & intuitive knowing, second nature action. Autonomy gets you out of feeling stuck, passive, or reactive. Choose.

• Trust → reinforcing that you know what’s best for you and even when you don’t, you’re capable of finding out without abandoning hope so this process happens by default in your body next time before the spiral. Now it's impossible to second-guess yourself. Rest.

Orrr you could journal (but stay in your head)

or meditate (but disconnect from reality)

or track symptoms (but not understand them)

and none of that would actually tell you where you are in your process, what to do about it or get to the root of the disconnect.

Then your choice boils down to questionable bandaids or crippling pain? Absolutely not.

If you go on social media, you could find a 6 week detox protocol to balance your hormones but putting yourself in a new state where you respond instead of reacting to every choice you make from an intuitive knowing of what YOU need throughout the day will be easier, faster & worlds more effective than such a huge hurdle.

What works for some people does NOT work for others and I've had plenty of “healthy” regimens make me feel ill, maybe even set me back or undo progress.

The cycle symptoms and hormones respond extremely fast when you're doing the right thing at the right time, you can figure it out by getting clear emotionally, physically and mentally (in equal measure) on any bit of shame, fear, comparison, resentment, guilt or judgement that you may be holding onto. Then examining the facts, because you know you deserve informed-consent, and responding (not reacting) with your clear decision, even if that means you're gonna think on it & do more searching for a complete understanding.

Now, here's how we're going to get to the root of YOUR silly hormones!

There's sooo much information everywhere, it's not hard to Google it and check your sources.

But if you like my style, I share what I collected from many years and $$$ of study in bite sizes on this free email publication, or wholly and in only 2hrs through my workshop. (Which is currently in beta @73% off!)

You'll find some of the info from the workshop below on hormonal imbalance!

But seriously, just taking in the stats and facts will not get you anywhere fast so everything I share is interwoven with very clear formulas for giving yourself a simple, aligned care plan in minutes. Health tips aren't always worth remembering, that's fine, let's just use what's relevant to your specific body.

If you're already one of my loyal subscribers, hi!! Thanks for your support! Referral bonuses are live!

refer 1 friend = my 100pg sacred woman's guided journal, containing pattern-shifting journal prompts, quotes and gratitude spaces for awakening the parts of your divine femininity that have been hushed for too long. It isn't available anywhere else!

3 referrals = a 1:1 Q&A deep dive, 20min for 20/20 clarity! 2 women connecting & rooting for one another's success is the most powerful medicine. Or you can buy for $20 here.

7 referrals = free access to the Cycle Literacy for Root Cause Vitality immersion! You'll get a value packed ebook + audiobook learning experience complete with powerful somatic integration that you can do entirely at your own pace. This includes a simple, tailored-to -you action plan for how to make cycle supporting habits work for you in your daily life, 1:1 connection/support with me at registration to meet you where you are, as well as the option to go deeper for an hour after or during your completion.

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Common hormonal imbalances, their root & addressing it:

Hormones operate as a coordinated system between the brain and ovaries, small disruptions in sleep, stress, nutrition, metabolic health or environment can shift hormone signals and appear as negative cycle changes.

Cycle discomfort at best but PCOS, endometriosis, thyroid dysfunction, breast cancer, fibroids or cysts when the original imbalance is left misunderstood and compounds.

Tracking a few key biomarkers across several cycles will reveal patterns in complex hormonal functions rather than isolate symptoms.

The core 4 for effective contraception and full hormonal rhythm tracking are

• Cervical mucus pattern
  (estrogen function)

• BBT temperature shift
  (progesterone production)

• Luteal phase length
  (progesterone stability)

• Bleed quality
  (Uterine & estrogen health)

Together they provide a functional view of hormone activity across the cycle, this will show a clear trend long before a diagnosis is even necessary and serve as a vital tool for any care providers that may be searching for a diagnosis.

They can also tell you exactly when you're fertile objectively, no questioning, so you know when to get pregnant or when it's not possible.

Cycle tracking failure rate = 0.4–2%, condoms = ~13%, the pill ~7-9% & apps = a joke. A practical guide for true fertility awareness biomarkers ⤵️

1. Low Progesterone (Luteal Phase Insufficiency)

Progesterone is the hormone produced after ovulation by the corpus luteum. It stabilizes the uterine lining and supports the second half of the cycle.

Common signs
• short luteal phase (under ~10 days)
• spotting before the period
• difficulty sustaining pregnancy
• low or weak BBT temperature shift
• anxiety or irritability premenstrually
• insomnia before menstruation
• breast tenderness
• heavy or early bleeding

Common contributing factors
• chronic stress / elevated cortisol
• insufficient ovulation
• thyroid dysfunction
• nutrient depletion (especially B vitamins, magnesium, zinc)
• postpartum hormone shifts

Support strategies often used
• improving sleep quality
• stabilizing blood sugar with regular meals
• adequate protein and healthy fats
• stress regulation practices
• nutrients that support progesterone production
(magnesium, B6, zinc)

Herbs often used traditionally for luteal support include:
• vitex (chaste tree berry)
• raspberry leaf
• nettle

2. Estrogen Dominance

Estrogen dominance refers to estrogen being high relative to progesterone, even if estrogen itself is not extremely elevated.
This often shows up when ovulation is weak or progesterone is insufficient.

Common signs
• heavy periods
• clotting during menstruation
• breast tenderness
• severe PMS
• irritability or mood swings
• bloating or water retention
• headaches before menstruation
• fibroids or endometriosis tendencies
• acne around the jawline

Common contributing factors
• stress and cortisol dysregulation
• slow estrogen metabolism in the liver
• gut imbalance affecting estrogen clearance
• endocrine-disrupting chemicals
• lack of ovulation

Support strategies often used
• supporting liver detox pathways
• increasing fiber intake (helps remove estrogen)
• cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, kale)
• reducing endocrine disruptor exposure
• supporting gut health

Common supportive herbs:
• dandelion root
• milk thistle
• burdock root

3. Low Estrogen

Estrogen supports the growth of the uterine lining, cervical mucus production, bone health, and brain function.

Common signs
• dry cervical mucus or absence of fertile mucus
• short or light periods
• vaginal dryness
• low libido
• fatigue or low motivation
• brain fog
• hot flashes in some cases

Common contributing factors
• under-eating or calorie restriction
• intense physical stress or overtraining
• postpartum hormone shifts
• low body fat
• chronic stress suppressing ovarian function

Support strategies often used
• adequate calorie intake
• healthy fats in the diet
• stress reduction
• mineral replenishment

Herbs traditionally used to support estrogen balance:
• red clover
• alfalfa
• flax

4. Anovulatory Cycles

An anovulatory cycle occurs when ovulation does not happen, meaning progesterone is not produced.
Bleeding can still occur because the uterine lining eventually sheds.

Signs on a chart
• no sustained BBT temperature shift
• irregular cycle length
• prolonged or unpredictable bleeding
• mucus patterns that never reach fertile peak

Possible causes
• stress
• illness
• postpartum hormone adjustment
• thyroid issues
• PCOS
• extreme calorie deficit

Occasional anovulatory cycles can be normal, but repeated patterns often indicate hormonal dysregulation.

5. Delayed Ovulation

Ovulation may happen later in the cycle than expected.

Signs
• long follicular phase
• extended cervical mucus pattern
• cycle length variability

Common causes
• stress
• travel or sleep disruption
• illness
• postpartum cycles
• nutritional deficiency

When ovulation is delayed, the luteal phase usually remains normal length.

5. High Androgens (Testosterone Imbalance)

Androgens like testosterone are important for energy, libido, and muscle metabolism, but excessive levels can disrupt ovulation.

Common signs
• acne (especially jawline or chin)
• oily skin
• excess facial or body hair
• irregular or absent cycles
• weight gain around abdomen
• difficulty ovulating

This pattern is often associated with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

Support strategies often used
• stabilizing blood sugar
• regular balanced meals
• reducing insulin spikes
• improving metabolic health

Herbs traditionally used in metabolic support include:
• spearmint
• cinnamon
• berberine-containing plants

6. Thyroid-Related Cycle Disruptions

Thyroid hormones regulate metabolism and influence reproductive hormones.

Possible signs
• irregular cycles
• heavy or very light bleeding
• fatigue
• hair thinning
• feeling cold frequently
• slow recovery from illness

Thyroid health strongly influences ovulation consistency and progesterone production.

Thanks for your devoted attention. Let me know what you want to see here next.

Leave a comment

Love, Marley ❤

Still reading?! This is your formal invitation to go deeper.

The following bits are coming from a voice interview, a huge pleasure of mine to collaborate on and you'll see the gorgeous full recording eventually. I was asked who am I and what I do which I feel is timely to publish here as I overhaul my online presence and offer my creations in a much more productive & aligned way.

Later in the article we talk about the most common hormonal imbalances and my experience of them, what I'd tell you to do as a close friend, and what changes I've seen in women's lives from this work.

♡

My name is Marley. I'm a wife and a mom, also a writer, and I teach cycle awareness for root cause vitality, which is sooo all-encompassing for me that it's hard NOT to talk about.

I started writing about it on this developing Museletter but have only just launched a few ways to engage & actually fuel a culture shift around feminine health.

Im endlessly proud of how far I've come since my teen years, about to enter adulthood, looking at my life and my current patterns and thinking, how does anybody ever become a wife and a mom and still feel baseline good and have energy!?

Me, earlier this week with my 2 babies. (surprise!) Feeling mostly good, with enough energy to be beyond excited to mother ×2

I knew that it wasn't normal to be having the hormonal flare-ups that I was having at age 16, but also my gynecologist told me it was normal and that the most suitable thing for my symptoms would be birth control or waiting until I was 21 to get a pap smear.

I wasnt willing to suppress the hormones playing a role in literally every single one of my vital bodily processes and face the longterm outcome of that.

Estrogen and progesterone receptors exist in virtually every tissue in the body, their dance plays a role in the health of the brain & neurotransmitters, bones, cardiovascular system, immune cells, thyroid signaling, insulin sensitivity, gut motility, skin, hair, connective tissue, etc.

Loss of ovulation (how the pill works) is linked to bone loss, mood disorders, metabolic dysfunction, cardiovascular risk and HPA axis dysregulation.

That just wasn't going to work for me, so I stayed up all night on Google, and that turned into years of deep diving into the biology and basic fundamental gaps in our knowledge as women that aren't allowing us to make truly informed decisions. (More on how I handled my experience of hormonal imbalances below!)

To answer what I do besides mothering, I've worked hard to bring my obsession and study outwards to the world by facilitating a learning experience around how your feminine hormonal rhythm works and how to work with it, meeting you where you are and supporting you in implementing holistic habits without overwhelm or performance.

Because really it doesn't take a whole lifestyle rebuild to get aligned with what shifts will make you feel good by remedying the initial catalyst vs just the symptoms, and it's different for everyone.

It's my hope, and I've refined this experience so much to ensure, that you leave the conversation with a felt connection to your body and the powerful tool of body literacy that will make it abundantly clear exactly which steps you need to take to reach your health goals - while working alongside your body's natural wisdom.

☆ I love to do this in person but for accessibility & ease purposes the recorded + ebook version is in beta at 73% off to the first 10 participants! Don't worry, you'll still get 1:1 connection and support with me so we can meet you where you are via email at registration, and there's an option for much more live support if you're into that.

The deets!

The most common health struggle I see women dealing with..

is not knowing what's going on in their bodies because there's so many variables, whether it's environmental, genetic, or just having to do with what you eat every day, that it's hard to notice the root cause.

I frequently see and experienced throughout my teen years to early adulthood, scary estrogen spikes.

When progesterone doesn't rise enough to calm our estrogen rhythm back down to a healthy level, you see these rampant unpredictable painful cycles with lasting negative impacts.

Estrogen is a growth hormone, and it starts to cause excess uterine lining production, so hard heavy periods, and that relates a lot to PMS, bloating, water retention, breast tenderness, + many other super normalized symptoms (all of which I had, PMDD then hair/skin symptoms of mineral depletion was a wake up call) and it can also lead to long-term acute conditions like breast cancer, fibroids, cysts, etc

You'll hear about how I resolved my fibroid crisis without any procedure, med or protocol. Still stunned that very casual root cause healing got me out of the fetal position, we don't gatekeep here.

A lot of the women's health crisises we're seeing skyrocket right now has a lot to do with that pesky progesterone deficiency deep down, and this system is extremely responsive so within a few cycles just clearing detox pathways and nourishing our bodies with what they need to calm that estrogen into a healthy force again, balance returns.

Once it gets out of alignment, it goes rampant, and it is HARD to manage, it causes a myriad of symptoms and it's frequently remedied by birth control which exhausts the root cause VERY dramatically. There's a lot of reasons why the pill bandaid boils my blood but essentially shutting down progesterone production, boosting cortisol & taxing the liver makes it difficult to detox estrogen at all.

The root cause we often overlook here is unsupported progesterone and even closer to the source it's poor quality ovulation, because a poorly-fed egg produces suboptimal progesterone. (The pill typically suppresses ovulation)

Progesterone deficiency plays an enormous role in the inability to get pregnant, that's a huge longterm problem for how common this is.

And it's complex, it manifests in so many ways because we all have such unique bodies but when you break it down to the biology… your progesterone needs a little boost, how we can support quality ovulation, and what doable ways you can add fiber to your diet to support your liver in metabolizing estrogen, prioritizing healthy sleep to reduce the stress that makes cortisol support the imbalance, protein and fat in the morning to nourish the whole system, it really starts to become a super clear formula.

You can read about estrogen dominance in this quick zine I made!

Body signals and supportive responses become intuitive with practice! That's what I want to share with you, it's just noticing and having the body literacy to intentionally create a simple shift that could potentially reduce your chronic stress literally, this month. (Turn your phone off at 7pm, go for a walk at sunset and only light a candle when you get back, go to sleep without any blue light/leds after dark, your rampant cortisol will hate you.)

☆ And if you need outside help? You deserve to get it without abandoning your boundaries, sacrificing your self-advocacy or being dismissed & disrespected. There's a million ways how getting in tune with your body will physiologically and mentally set you up to make aligned & informed decisions when receiving care. Not all healthcare is outsourcing your wellness, but it's hard to distinguish without literacy and intentionality.

Anyone coming to mind reading this article? Referring a friend supports us all & I'm giving out generous bonuses for getting the word out!

Refer a friend

If a woman listening today could make just one health change, I wouldn't say to make any healthy habit resolutions, true lasting impact is totally about your goals and what approach you're using to get there. Many of us hate being told to put your phone down at 7pm or just start exercising, what a drag to never eat ice cream again.

I would just encourage you to really sit with your innate knowing that your body was designed to feel good and natural law wants to see you thrive, all we need to do is start getting curious and listening to the signs your biology is giving you. When it comes down to what choices you need to make this week, what's supportive for you will become obvious because youre lit up by exactly what's going on in your body, not the general statistic of everybody's bodies.

The change that I've seen in women's lives and health when they start addressing their bodies this way is so profound that I just cannot shut up about it.

For me, it was a lot of very harsh physical symptoms and desperate confusion to now looking around my life and realizing that everything is curated to help me thrive from the beginning. Nothing is a random guess anymore, when I wonder what’s going on in my body I'm not too far from figuring it out because I see the variable, know I caused it and what to do next. (lol except first trimester nausea/fatigue and whatever bug my family was passing around at the time it hit, rip intentional approach)

This impacts my worldview so far beyond just watching a friend's autoimmune disorder poof into thin air.

Or watching a friend who struggled on birth control for so many years because she was terrified of pregnancy, now transition off, using fertility awareness method and still avoiding pregnancy with actually more effectiveness than the birth control she was on and remedying the long-term osteoporosis problems that it caused her, in a thriving relationship where they get to plan a beautiful future.

That impact is enormous. Besides just not waking up in crippling pain when you're bleeding, being able to eat the foods that you like and not having your stomach mad at you, wondering if you're going to be able to procreate or if you're doomed to have to have children without birth control because that's not the case either.

Besides all of the physical joy, I love the overall impact that it has on how we respond to every single phase of womanhood, thriving in your teenage years and having fun with your friends to attracting a partner and career that is truly supportive of your unique brilliance, loving pregnancy and being excited to give birth, having so much fun with your children and knowing how to nourish them so that when they get to their teenage years, they're thriving too.

That is the true impact of teaching women how their bodies work and watching them make every decision from the mindset of :

“I am not broken. I deserve to feel good, I never need to allow myself to suffer. I am smart enough & capable of making myself feel good. I can get help if I need, without abandoning hope, my boundaries our my self-advocacy. My experience as a woman is deeply valuable to the women, men and children around me.”

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All my love, Marley ❤️

When discussing our life-giving potential, it's important we focus on what's actually effective. From a root cause perspective, it doesn't seem that birth control or condoms fit the bill – male condoms have about a 13% typical-use failure rate, and the birth control pill about 7–9% with typical use.

Correctly taught symptothermal fertility awareness methods report around 0.4–2% failure rates with proper use.

Now this is PROPER USE, which isn't that hard if (key words) it's CORRECTLY TAUGHT.

Fertility awareness via app predictions raises failure rates to as high as 23–24 pregnancies per 100 users per year.

Data from the UK shows a significant increase in women seeking abortions after using fertility awareness–based methods (like tracking apps or “rhythm” methods) incorrectly or having them fail. The share of abortion patients reporting these methods rose over 600% between 2018 and 2023, but importantly this category often includes app-only tracking, calendar rhythm methods, and incomplete fertility awareness education.

These statistics are lumping together many methods but a 2018 study found that the accuracy of prediction by solely menstrual cycle apps was no better than 21%.

Is this why the health conscious girlies are being mocked for using the pull & pray method? Leave us alone!! We're backed by science!

At least for me, i wasnt willing to suppress the hormones playing a role in literally every single one of my vital bodily processes and face the longterm outcome of that.

Estrogen and progesterone receptors exist in virtually every tissue in the body, their dance plays a role in the health of the brain & neurotransmitters, bones, cardiovascular system, immune cells, thyroid signaling, insulin sensitivity, gut motility, skin, hair, connective tissue, etc.

Also, condoms would break and that freaked me out when I was really not in the ideal situation for conceiving. They're just plain inconvenient and plan B is not only expensive but produced a whirlwind of alarming symptoms for me. The obgyn I called lied, she said the only thing I could do for the pain I was in and effective contraception was birth control.

So today we're going to address the undue hate on the simple, free, physiologically supportive contraception method of fertility awareness, but we're gonna do it right. Turns out, that's what makes the difference.

Here's a basic rundown of how to avoid surprise babies, not only symptothermal methods but let's give you the core 4, plus extra add ons for no-doubt cycle literacy & tracking.

First of all: "You can get pregnant any day of the month.”

Conception is only possible during a very specific fertile window, usually about 5–6 days total, because sperm can survive up to five days in fertile cervical fluid and the egg itself lives only about 24 hours. Outside of that window, pregnancy simply cannot occur.

Here's your fertile window overview.

• Sperm can survive up to 5 days in fertile cervical mucus

• The egg survives 12–24 hours after ovulation

Fertility is highest from first fertile cervical mucus → ovulation.

Ovulation confirmation (the true, foolproof, no ands/ifs/buts) occurs when:

• BBT rises for 3 days

• or LH testing shows a surge

There are also plenty of signs of ovulation that do not confirm but offer insight that helps us to confirm and read our hormonal shifts. We're going to look at both BBT, LH and several others below! After I blow your mind on how we can work alongside our fertility (the integral bodily process that generates our ability to procreate and drives our vitality, a system that creates conditions for thriving just so we may have the option to do some baby making and create more vital life) without actually needing to just have babies as much as our body wants (a lottt, from early teen years, the body knows no societal standards!)

"Contraception, birth control, and pregnancy prevention are all the same thing."

Pregnancy prevention is the broadest category, referring to any strategy used to avoid pregnancy, whether behavioral, cyclical, or medical.

Contraception specifically means preventing conception, which occurs at fertilization, and can include methods that suppress ovulation, block sperm, or create conditions where fertilization is unlikely.

Birth control is a more modern, medicalized umbrella term that often refers to hormonal or surgical interventions designed to override or shut down the body’s reproductive signaling entirely.

There are also herbal methods that do not prevent fertilization at all but instead work by inhibiting implantation (pregnancy), which is a distinct mechanism entirely and worth unpacking on its own in a more nuanced, intimate conversation. Implantation inhibition works best paired with other methods or as a backup, I've seen it effectively mixed with the calendar method and herbal spermicide during the fertile window. There's an abundance of ideas in my workshop & ebook but if you're seeking a more clarifying personal conversation, my inbox is open. Perhaps someday I'll publicly share my positive experience witn herbal allies and exactly when I used them during my cycle to support fertility but avoid pregnancy.

Fertilization ≠ pregnancy.

Now here's what we look at to effectively avoid pregnancy via supportive fertility awareness method, this is pulled directly from the ebook that lives in my “Cycle literacy for root cause vitality” workshop. (🔗⤵️ 73% off beta run going on currently!)

1. Cycle Day

Cycle Day 1 = first full day of menstrual bleeding (not spotting).

Tracking cycle length helps reveal your hormone rhythm over time, but cycle length alone cannot predict ovulation because the follicular phase can vary.

The luteal phase (after ovulation) is typically consistent, lasting about 10–14 days.

2. Basal Body Temperature (BBT) Aka, that symptothermal method with the incredible results

Basal Body Temperature reflects the metabolic effect of progesterone after ovulation. Progesterone raises resting body temperature slightly.

☆ How to take BBT –

Take your temperature with a basal thermometer that measures to two decimal places ($10 basic thermometer, or much more for a kit that syncs and tracks for you)

• immediately upon waking

• before getting out of bed

• before drinking water or talking

• after at least ~3 hours of sleep

• around the same time each morning

The process takes about 60 seconds each morning. I keep mine by my bed and scribble the number down on a sheet of paper so I don't have to open my phone first thing.

What BBT shows:

After ovulation, progesterone causes body temperature to rise about 0.3–0.5°C (0.5–1°F)

Ovulation is confirmed when three consecutive temperatures remain higher than the previous six days. This confirms the cycle has moved into the luteal phase, when fertility has passed.

BBT confirms ovulation after it occurs, which is why it works best combined with cervical mucus observations, I'll get that to you in a sec. How cool does BBT look charted?! ⤵️

Now the 2 biomarkers we covered above are what apps typically use, not also tracking the following biomarkers that make this into a legitimate system for body literacy. Don't get me wrong, they can be convenient as opposed to writing it down on paper, especially when the app sets a reminder every morning and syncs up with gorgeous UI, giving you green and red days for conception. The key is in remembering that technology without literacy produces worse outcomes than literacy supported by tools, the stats are sharp on this one!

So I teach everything I've found through years of study and lived experience in tidbits here (new content rhythm coming soon), or in a newly launched program with casual 1:1 support and 10x the info here in a "easier than a pill or app" resource guide, with exercises for actually implementing all this good stuff. We're beta testing at a discounted price for the next week or so! Test it out, lemme know how you really feel ~ register/deets here !!

3. Cervical Mucus

Cervical mucus is produced by glands in the cervix and changes in response to estrogen and progesterone levels. It's one of the earliest indicators of approaching fertility.

How to check cervical mucus:

Check throughout the day during normal bathroom use. observe by:

• wiping with toilet paper before urinating

• observing mucus in underwear

• checking mucus on fingers when wiping

Focus on sensation first, then appearance. Common sensations:

• dry

• damp

• slippery

Mucus appearance patterns:

Menstrual phase= Bleeding

Early follicular phase = Dry or minimal mucus

Estrogen rising = Sticky, cloudy, or creamy mucus

Fertile window = Clear, slippery, stretchy egg-white mucus

Post ovulation = Mucus becomes thick or disappears

During the fertile window, estrogen stimulates mucus that:

• nourishes sperm

• protects sperm from vaginal acidity

• helps sperm travel through the cervix

Under a microscope, fertile cervical mucus forms a fern-like crystallization pattern that creates microscopic channels supporting sperm movement.

Outside the fertile window, mucus becomes dense and hostile to sperm, reducing survival.

The last day of fertile-quality slippery mucus is often called the Peak Day, which typically occurs close to ovulation.

4. Bleed Qualities

Your menstrual bleed provides information about hormone balance and uterine health, it's more helpful for finding cycle day than actually tracking ovulation.

Things to observe:

• flow volume

• color

• clotting

• duration

• cramping intensity

Tracking bleed characteristics over time helps reveal patterns in estrogen, progesterone, inflammation, and nutrient status.

We get into this in the cycle syncing for natural, root cause hormonal imbalance relief portion of the ebook & workshop, should I share here?

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☆ Bonuses!

LH Ovulation Testing

LH tests detect the luteinizing hormone surge released by the pituitary gland brain to trigger ovulation (egg release).

How to use LH tests (typically urine test strips)

• Begin testing a few days before expected ovulation

• Test once daily, often midday or afternoon

A positive LH test occurs when the test line is as dark or darker than the control line.

Ovulation usually occurs 12–36 hours after the LH surge.

LH tests help predict ovulation, while BBT confirms it afterward.

Cervical Position

The cervix changes position throughout the cycle in response to hormone shifts.

You can check cervical position with clean fingers inserted into the vagina.

Observe three qualities: height, firmness, and openness.

Infertile phase cervix

• Low

• Firm (like the tip of a nose)

• Closed

Fertile phase cervix

• Higher in the vagina

• Softer (like lips)

• Slightly open

Estrogen causes the cervix to soften, rise, and open, allowing sperm to enter the uterus more easily.

After ovulation, progesterone causes the cervix to lower, firm, and close again.

These biomarkers aren't always predictable, that's fine, that's why we include so many methods.

I talk a lot about hormonal imbalances that may create tension with these methods, you can expect an upcoming post on how they work and how to work WITH them here. Learning this process truly was one of the best things I did for my health, my confidence, my autonomy and my unrepressed feminine expression, I'm beyond thrilled to bring this to you in a much more palatable, accessible way than I learned. I did some digging!!

Here are some nibbles from the workshop I'm launching, I'll drop the link again here remember beta testers get the best price while it's hot off the griddle. Literally $20. This is your opportunity to shape the entire offering! It'll take you 2hrs or less to get access to the info my substack followers will have over weeks or even months!

Thank you again to my loyal readers, you are in for a treat as we move into a new era as a more regular, more tactical and more community based museletter.

Submit anonymous questions to my inbox to get tailored content or engage in the comments, I love a Q&A!

Subscribe now

Until next time & all my love, Marley :)

Share Marley Gabrielle

I'm always aiming to be standing somewhere productive because my incentive to learn my body via tracking my cycles was to get healthy again, avoid pregnancy before i was ready and in a healthy relationship, then enjoy the f out of marriage, pregnancy and motherhood. I want to say I have big goals but really it's the bare minimum. Birth control wasn't right for me but it was the only marketed solution so I did deep research and taught myself to track and read my body's signs (with deep love for the intersection of science and ancestral wisdom) but now that this headline is out what are we going to be marketed??

Insert Oura! Or another wearable, AI adopting, women's health product created by a tech company, I'm sure there are a few.

At first my only grievance is that these apps and companies are selling our data (several to other countries) and it seems such a shame when it really isn't all that hard to find a pretty journal and manually read/track your body's signs in the morning, there are some suuuper cute rituals based in sovereign women's health and it really doesn't take long to learn the fundamentals! I teach this! Also, I've heard things on the emfs from these and especially cosleeping & pregnant, I'm not stoked about that!

BTW this was what i shared in a comment on a post promoting how helpful the Oura ring tech can be for women, and how cute the rings are. OP says that it's good that theyre collecting data, we need more data in the women's health field, the gap is huge. And that these tools, if used correctly, alongside body literacy, can change the game more efficiently than the more primitive and less convenient (but MORE effective as detailed below) "write down what cycle day im on" method. We've talked about this on my substack before but I counter her with:

I'm totally on the same page but definitely disappointed to see that even when our current health system has large-scale female-specific data, they aren't using it to better our care. So while that may be pessimistic, my reality is that I'd rather have an autonomous understanding than feed the medical industrial complex blindly.

It's not like our fertility data is being sold to companies that profit off our wellbeing.. actually, the opposite is true in most countries. Oura may be an awesome brand , I can't totally speak on their ethics but my perspective is, why would it not be better on every front to have knowledge of these basic concepts and use tools secondarily instead of outsourcing our entire experience gaining insight on OUR OWN unique & special bodies?

It seems like this is a great way to distance us further from our bodies and build reliance/dependence on technology, I'm all about proper tools but for that matter why aren't we just using AI to learn about this anyways? I don't know if oura is giving anyone a basic understanding of what and why is happening, albeit convenience but that actually is exactly where I see AI being a drain on humanity, when convenience overrides our natural urges to grow and learn.

I hope this doesn't come across as horribly negative but I really feel that in order to make a positive difference in the women's health space we need to be extra mature and clear on what that means. Validation that can often seem harmless can influence us to make decisions that aren't in our best interest, despite the super empowering packaging—what does empowerment mean to you?? People also found thalidomide empowering and many were left dead or severely harmed, where do you draw the line between what should be questioned snd what is just “good”?

Would this be your first choice for a loved one or daughter that is genuinely in the dark on their cycles? I'm ultra passionate about this so for me, my daughter, my sisters & friends, I would not consider this a good idea. It's like giving them a poisoned fish to eat for a day when teaching them to fish could take a few minutes and set families up for generations.

When fertility awareness method is used via app predictions, failure rates rise as high as 23–24 pregnancies per 100 users per year. Data from the UK shows a significant increase in women seeking abortions after using fertility awareness–based methods (like tracking apps or “rhythm” methods) incorrectly, abortion patients reporting these methods rose over 600% between 2018 and 2023, but importantly this category often includes app-only tracking, calendar rhythm methods, and incomplete fertility awareness education. By comparison, correctly taught symptothermal fertility awareness methods report around 0.4–2% failure rates with proper use. For context, male condoms have about a 13% typical-use failure rate, and the birth control pill about 7–9% with typical use.

Technology without literacy produces worse outcomes than literacy supported by tools.

Okay okayyy that poisoned fish sentence was a bit much, (sorry well-meaning OP) maybe it isn't that deep but I really do prefer to deeply and carefully notice culture.

I believe leaders should guide people toward what is best, not present a neutral menu of options. OP believes leaders should hold space for many tools and choices. I say (passionately) if we leave everything neutral, the system with the strongest incentives will decide for us. Op suggests if we reject imperfect tools, progress stalls.

Both are sooo true and pro women, here's where I see the pressure as urgent in this particular context: yes, lack of data on women may result in worse care for women so could my point above be mute with more data collection??

Women were excluded from clinical trials until 1993 and that's bonkers BUT only about 14% of research findings make it into routine clinical practice and it takes an average of 17 years for that to happen so I'm a bit leary that data is where I want to give my energy when talking about what truly helps women's health.

Im sure it's not news to you that our healthcare system makes money when people are sick, paid per procedure, test, prescription, surgery, not because someone prevented diabetes, breast cancer or stabilized their nervous system. The U.S. spends over four trillion dollars per year on healthcare, and the overwhelming majority goes toward hospital care, specialist visits, pharmaceuticals, and advanced procedures.

Public health departments,responsible for nutrition education, maternal support programs, environmental health, and community outreach operate on comparatively tinyyy budgets.

Publicly traded pharmaceutical companies like Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder value, reporting tens of billions of $$ during covid while public health offices couldnt pay staff.

If a drug manages a condition long-term, that creates recurring revenue. If lifestyle change eliminates the condition, there is no product.

Medical schools receive pharmaceutical funding. Direct-to-consumer drug advertising is legal in the U.S., which is rare globally. Healthcare and pharma lobbying budgets are enormous. Preventative nutrition research often receives less funding than drug trials...

I believe with my whole heart that if we give them data, we just may see results in 17yrs but they’ll likely be a product that doesn’t even consider a root cause, let alone your values.Right now we have unprecedented access to information and tools which means autonomy is more possible than ever, using tech strategically instead of passively. I believe selling our data is conveniently passive but strips us of all our power, that’s contraindicting to the deep work of true women’s empowerment and wellness. What do we do about it?

Im absolutely pro science, data and innovation but I want to emphasize that science is a method and we can start using it to our advantage by asking the right questions.

if we ask: Does it improve prediction? Does it measure biomarkers? Is it evidence-based? This will seem like a very positive tool, which it can be but looking deeper at what happens when embodiment becomes subscription-based?What happens when literacy is mediated by algorithms? What happens when reproductive rhythms become investor-backed datasets? What happens when an underfunded field becomes a profit frontier? It shows a few systemic red flags that make this seem a bit more like a product than a solution.

What I'm getting at is that businesses marketing often doesn't give you the full picture on what it means to use their technology, it's up to us to decide. So while the product isn't necessarily predatory and I wouldnt hate someone for buying it, it will subtly encourage ongoing dependence and the ecosystem is profit driven, this is actively working against what I (and allegedly OP) believe—that self understanding and education should be the foremost important part of women's health.

An empowering ad I found fitting.

Also, I looove science and it proves that frequently women with acute conditions say they feel failed by not being educated. What are we doing about this?? We're getting to the nitty gritty here.

This does not mean we go caveman, I'm not rejecting the nuance that tech and tools can be helpful. I use an app! It's called FEMM! I used to use the natural cycles app that does all the work for you, it was great and well worth ponying up my period data to whoever owns it but no wearable gadget could top the body literacy I have so now it seems silly to even consider a product. Would sure be cool if that was the norm! What would Oura and the medical system do to keep that from being the norm?

This is where OP suggests I am not respecting that both perspectives have a place in this conversation and that BOTH can be good, if you know me you know I'm into nonduality and not a good vs evil stickler.

But people (and companies!) claiming to serve women owe us integrity so I think we should all sit with and learn to expect from our care that when we say “either one is good!” we lose a great moment of discernment that is extremely necessary in making informed decisions.

I don't think oura is going to educate us, even though they come across as empowering we need to look at what that means and what YOU believe bc it's different for everyone. The definition of disempowered is to withhold someone's power, their profit model would crumble if they didn't but that means we are prey and that hurts my heart.

Good tools or not, it goes without saying that there's tons of nuance, what do we do with it? If you want to be a good leader and teacher: exercise discernment.

I hate to see my doula peers say “whatever you choose is valid” because OBVIOUSLY it is and nobody denied that, it always goes without saying so it feels sooo odd to hear "you know what's best for you" because brother why are you clarifying the obvious?? but in the instance that we’re talking about an episiotomy which most do not need and cause unneeded harm (thanks again bunk science done by men!) , it is the moral obligation of someone positioning themselves to serve women, to tell them “girl I'll be here no matter what, here are the pros and cons, in my expertise this is what I suggest.”

I'm in no way saying tech bad, medicine bad, I'm just saying what are you going to do to make sure this pans out the way you want? I'm talking longterm.

Because if we wait on these mega corporations to give us what we really need, we will be sad and sick for a very long time. Not conspiracy, scientific method also proves that over and over and over.

For me, I get educated for myself and I share to anyone who will listen, that's how I shift the culture, in doing so for many years I find this product sillyy. I respect autonomy and informed consent, trusting oura is neither and will not give a strong case for truly serving women. I get that not everyone wants to track on paper, I love my app, but where do we draw the line on how to make something an ethical tool? There's sooo much room to discuss this and the nuance but I do feel like if you truly are an advocate, you, by default take some responsibility for at least your own body and if you want to offer some knowledge on other people's, it matters what you believe will be good for us longterm. it's worth not leaving it at “either way is fine” because our children are the ones who take on the repercussions of our lack of clear, value aligned, moral backed, unique discernment.

I don't care if you think more high-quality data helps women long-term because I think corporate tech capture of our bodies weakens autonomy long-term, both are pro women.

But I absolutely refuse to fence sit and the most important thing is that we're actually doing something about what we stand for.

Our gal feels like I'm accusing, misinterpreting and shaming but I think this is so productive.

I've been sleeping on my "doing something about what we stand for" moral obligations a bit just because writing is such a big part of my life but I've been publishing none of it. I even archived a ton! In my defense,

I wanted to put all of my educational insights into a more experiential, personal connection form than solely essay email format, so I've been working hard at that. We received a great amount of interest in the cycle wellness for root cause vitality immersive workshop we launched but the friction for making it happen seems to lie in the scheduled zoom meeting facilitation, no problem because the team (my husband and toddler daughter) are working around the clock (during nap times and between precious memories) to bring a this to you as a prerecorded, work at your own pace while still receiving my attention for Q&A, pay what you can, immersive workshop! So you can access deeper autonomous understanding of root cause hormonal balance and how to work with it in easier tailored to you steps than updating your tracking app... during naptimes and between precious memories.

One thing I want to be very clear about before you leave this page is that you don’t actually need me or what I offer. I didn’t learn cycle literacy because someone handed me a program. It was actually the opposite, I spent a long time doing meaningful research and testing it through lived experience, this is a journey i recommend to all women everywhere. It is unmatched in terms of life-changing potential. Get your truth from someone with integrity, it doesn't have to be me but if you want to learn the fundamentals & how to implement them with a clear path and compassionate experiential support in a speedy 2hrs, here's the link!

The recent headlines about carcinogens in hormonal birth control are going to shake a lot of women awake. For many of us it could be the first moment we realize the “default solution” might not actually be designed with our longterm wellbeing in mind.

This is the real opportunity in front of us right now. Let's not panic and swing between “trust the system” and “reject everything.” let's simply become literate in our own biology and start automatically expecting a better standard of care.

What would happen if more women understood ovulation, hormones, stress, metabolism, and nervous system health before reaching for a product or prescription? What would happen if we expected education first, intervention second? We can shift culture by asking the right questions.

☆ Ask questions so you can exercise discernment in making value-aligned, informed decisions. After you've done the due diligence you deserve, it'll be obvious which tools are best for you.

Leave a comment

This is where I'll sign off with all my love, thanks for reading XOXO because I've expressed my point enough to not need stats pounding it into your head, but below is the end to the comment thread for the statistic, what-corporate-conglomerate-owns-what-company (oura) interested folks:

OP drops a link to a (sorry again girl) yawn worthy study on a 2024 systematic review on the impact of wearables on major adverse cardiovascular events found that wearable use was associated with a 36% reduction in all-cause mortality and a 25% reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events.

I read the study, 2 lines down they write "The certainty of the evidence in the literature was low or very low."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512224002810

The study above is backed by this quick Google search, a study among several others I've found and these investors:

Elsevier, a private, publicly traded company based in the Netherlands owns and publishes:

Embase (Excerpta Medica Database)

Scopus (another giant citation database)

ScienceDirect

Many other journal platforms.

Multiple meta-analyses show that studies funded by this industry are more likely to report favorable results for the sponsor’s product compared to independently funded studies.

This has been demonstrated in:

Pharmaceutical research

Medical devices

Nutrition research

Tobacco (historically)

Mechanisms include: • Study design choices

• Comparator selection

• Statistical framing

• Selective reporting

• Publication bias

Notoriously tending to favor:

• Big claims

• Innovation narratives

• Emerging tech

• “Breakthrough” framing

Risk analyses get few citations, it's attention economics inside academia.

Once again, who is funding your research? Is there also science to back that the research is frequently falsified? Yes, here it is.
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:8210aa01-6f54-4de7-abab-07a6d4479675

Also, another on the fda's buried evidence of fraudulent medical trials.
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:7429b316-0b72-42c7-b592-6bce20cbf892

On oura:

Major investors connected to Oura include large global capital firms whose portfolios stretch far beyond health tech. Temasek Holdings invests across finance, biotech, infrastructure, and major global companies like BlackRock and JD.com. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 backs high-growth tech ventures worldwide, following a pattern set by earlier SoftBank investments in companies like Uber and other platform-scale businesses. Fidelity Investments manages trillions in assets and holds large positions in companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon alongside emerging health and tech startups. ICONIQ Capital focuses on growth equity and tech investments, often serving ultra-high-net-worth tech founders. The common thread isn’t women’s health specialization but large-scale capital seeking growth, scalability, and return on investment across multiple industries.

I dont know much about this stuff but I do know and feel very strongly about the health of the women around me.

I sincerely hope you'll see the results you want in women's health throughout your life, I'm pretty dedicated to making it happen. Once again, I love the innovation, context is necessary, let's use it wisely!

I haven't written to my dear readers in so long, for good reason, please know that I love you all, read on for my brief explanation or skip ahead to collect a really informative, fun zine handed out at a women's health expo and join us for the most exciting celebration of womanhood in the whole world!

I love that Jacques Ellul quote “Most people are not religious; they are merely superstitious.” because his moral philosophy was shaped by helping Jewish people escape Nazi controlled areas, so he was no doubt doing real things under real pressure versus just talking out of his ass. It makes perfect sense to me that you aren't actually religious, at least in the way of the definition, if you aren't telling everyone you love to accept The Lord into their heart. You can't tiptoe around the idea that Jesus is our savior and hell really sucks if you truly believe it, you've gotta tell anyone that'll listen with a special vehemence for those you love.

Some time ago I wrote an article on here called “planting seeds of womb sovereignty” that I was endlessly proud of because I poured my heart out in good old substack essay fashion and I had this grand vision that all my subscribers read the entire 14min article, absolutely love it and wake up to feminine cycle literacy as their one true personal savior.

I am RELIGIOUS about my simple wellness practice & education because it's afforded me a thriving marriage and family, the privilege of feeling good in my body or least not feeling in the dark when I don't feel great, also reproductive autonomy and sexual trauma alchemization that I desperately needed. All in only a few moments a day and a basic grasp on a few concepts, I radically changed my life… maybe the Bible doesn't work for you but there are other ways to find purpose & joy.

I'm so vehement about all this that my husband has accidentally become a cycle syncing, women's hormone regulating pro solely due to my endless yapping. I have to watch my shove it down throats tendency when I'm excited.

I understand that my last article was polarizing and blatantly irrelevant to the actual problem that I want to see shift in the world. I wanted to trigger people but instead I was so amped up that it was horribly written and it didn't land with even my most dedicated readers, let alone provide any accessible solutions!

That's okay, I've channeled my rageful essays, joyful insights, late night rants at my husband and hours of religious studying into something so spectacularly grounded in actually serving the women around me.

I'm enthusiastic and proud, when I republish my polarizing article or more, the triggered readers will actually have a productive place to land and I've done my absolute best to shove all the value I possibly can into a super impactful learning experience that hopefully a slog or mental overload. It's the objectively educational women's circle of your dreams, I swear.

I'm posting this zine as photos here, it's fun and ideally you implement one small insight or it sparks a curiosity to go deeper. Either way, I'm linking your pay-what-you-can, join-from-anywhere, bring-the-kids invitation below!!

Here's your formal invitation to a value packed ebook + audiobook learning experience complete with powerful somatic integration that you can do entirely at your own pace.

You get a simple, tailored-to -you action plan for how to make cycle supporting habits work for you in your daily life, 1:1 connection/support with me at registration to meet you where you are, as well as the option to go deeper for an hour after or during your completion.

This is well above the standard of care we often see in women's health (availablefor under $100 and currently in beta testing for only $20) and I've done a lot of work to keep it that way!

Your invitation!

I'll be back with more soon!

Love always, Marley 💞

The plan since my husband and I quickly, wholly, committed ourselves to one another had always been to leave our soul sucking jobs for a more aligned way of supporting our hopes for a big, healthy family, then hitting the road in “the roamstead.”

We didn't even know what that meant back then, it's materializing as we go along but we had a set of values to uphold and this crazy idea that we could make our way in the world on different terms than the norm. We're doing it.

We brought it home in May to this otherworldly sky, nothing can convince me that this wasn't a sign.

Now that we've hit the road and have lived in our little, badass, converted 1999 Ford shuttle bus since June 2025 full time, I'm remembering that hitting the road meant traveling to spaces where we could hands-on learn how to tend land, live sustainably and build, necessary skills for our eventual self reliant homestead.

I don't even know when we both consciously set these intentions, it was a given that even without a plan we would go experience the world and buy land eventually, my deepest desires bloom into fruition so naturally that I'm just set on enjoying the ride without rigidity.

There's no plan or right and wrong decisions here, only intentions. This way there's still room for us to learn and shimmy other directions as we go, there's the possibility that we could actually find ourselves in a better position than we could put ourselves in, when we release control.

We planned to purchase an old dreamy Ford Tioga motorhome in June ‘24 that I'd hoped we'd park by serene Wonder Pond and birth our baby inside, life had other (better) plans.

We thought we knew what we wanted, I'm grateful I knew that when I got what I wanted—it'd be worlds better than whatever I could've forced into alignment.

However the roamstead would come about, planning a lifestyle shift like this put us in thorough (maybe excessive) conversation about what sustainability actually looks like as we build artistic, intentional, family-centered routines to support ourselves.

Not just financially—but energetically, spiritually, emotionally and how this all fits into living our best lives in a 150sq ft space (+an oyster of a world, the great outdoors) as fully present parents and partners.

We're very pro attachment, pro family, pro eachother, our lifestyle standards are high and these take priority over excess income. Nobody has ever watched our child but us, we've maintained ourselves as a family unit that doesn't HAVE to separate—we haven't HAD to separate once since welcoming our child to the world. Parents and partners are the only roles that we cannot be replaced in.

She just turned one, one whole year of this sacred way of life, my capacity has really grown with this type of support and connection. I believe that the way we've structured our family roles and lifestyle makes me a better mom and wife and self, it lets me enjoy it to the fullest extent, I get the privilege of ruthless presence with the people closest to me and it isn't always easy but I feel it'll pay off long-term.

I cherish that it works for my family regardless of concerned relatives wondering how we could possibly be staying afloat by happily hanging out together all day, every day, in a van down by the river. At least for right now, this is part of our sustainability, a cog in our efforts towards bliss.

Although it isn't always glamorous or easy and constantly requires great effort, I think it's working, whatever “working” is.

I don't think there's such thing as a code to crack but every moment we spend in the flow state I can feel a glimpse of bliss, this is especially important because we've been solely relying on our very fresh entrepreneurship to support us since our daughter was born.

My husband quit his well paid and thoroughly hated welding job on the spot after delivering her with his own hands, we chose baptism by fire. Sitting in bed with huge leaky boobs learning how to feed my week-old baby with no long-term plan or income felt scary and romantic, putting that flame under my ass to really move towards my hopes and dreams. But there I was, cuddled up to my favorite people in the world, knowing that we were safe to experiment with creative entrepreneurship and shedding old thought patterns. Liberation.

Keeping the bills paid and food on the table are motivators that create a much bigger fire when you have a small family relying on you, I'm lucky I don't have to bear the brunt of it—shout out to Tanner for never letting me get too stressed about money. But really, I think it's a blessing to have such a precious little being that could potentially suffer if you don't succeed, failure ceases to be an option and you can't fathom giving up on them.

Making money off things that light you up is great but it feels impossible at first when you've set the boundary that this is the sole way you'll make money. We associated income with hours spent hating what we were doing, we couldn't have a thriving family within that paradigm but man, it's deeply ingrained.

Even though there's enough money to live comfortably, I have this endless urge to make something of myself, to prove that I can not only pay the bills with efforts that didn't pull me out of my flow state, but that can also build steady savings and investment accounts.

Somewhere along these lines is how I define success. I celebrate being debt free, adding money to our daughter's investment accounts, owning our home even if it's a bus and affording Culver's sometimes.

I'm endlessly grateful we took this leap knowing we could have all of these luxuries while still enjoying our days together, it took a lot of courage and we made shit happen.

Our decisions to jump out of our stable jobs and rental that we hated left my family somewhere in the in-between, in the fertile unknown. Where the uncertainty reflects ultimate potentiality, negative and (hopefully) positive.

I want to be a good steward of the nerve-wracking transitions, to respond with grace and tact, because I know these trials can initiate my growth and help me pull that glowing, stunning, positive outcome right out of the unsure ether.

I've done it before and I'm learning how to replicate it, even though I feel grateful there's still desires for more, I wanna keep my hunger and continue pushing my edge. We didn't come this far to only come this far.

I've learned that some things just feel RIGHT, like the bus, others don't click the same and I find myself forcing in the name of discipline.

Misguided devotion doesn't work for me, I get frazzled and really start to stress about the money, among other things I associate with safety, stability or success.

I want to be the peaceful mom and wife, to let my family play and guide them with warmth towards the next place that their play will create bliss and success.

They do it on their own, I just want to hold space for the unfolding, be a container for the richness they bring to the world when they're in their own flow.

As a mother, I want to make the most of this opportunity to become primaly rewired to care deeply about the good of all. Mom-brain is a rewiring of the systems and growth of gray matter, I'm on a mission to use this to my advantage!

When I consciously decided to become a mother, it was a radical act, a pact made between my future babies and my maidenself—to thoroughly enjoy ourselves while making the most of biology, in an attempt to truly thrive.

As I'm going into my second year of being an intentional mom and exploring conscious entrepreneurship with my husband while simultaneously converting, moving into and finally living in an offgrid bus among a million other things—I'm getting so real with what it means to sustain thriving life.

So what do we really need?

I dunno, I think it was fairly easy for me to learn that all we “need” is a few gallons of water, a warm/dry/shady shelter, a hearty meal, some clothes on your back, etc when we went 2 weeks without our bus living out of our car. Beach camping was a pleasant adventure but “going without” is really no fun, part of sustaining is quality of life, we always hope it's on an upward trend.

Survival mode is the death of creativity, eroticism, fertility… ugh. At best, it's exhausting.

I feel blessed to live with capacity for 40 gallons of potable water, a propane stove, reasonable solar power, an electric cooler, insulation, a mechanically sound foundation, etc. We've managed self-contained bus living with minimal reliance on the grid and I frequently feel abundant even though we have a bucket for a toilet, it's not for everyone but I'm comfortable, I prefer to pee outdoors anyway.

My quality of life has gone up exponentially for countless reasons, I usually give the most credit to the fact that I spend significantly more time doing meaningful tasks. The best thing you could ever do for yourself is take radical autonomy over your wellbeing and time.

When I say I'm striving to live with integrity I mean I only want to do something if it serves our goals, values and purpose. Sometimes I falter but I'm making attempts to become a ferocious rottweiler over my time and energy.

Deleted meta so I cannot fall out of the flow and into a scroll-hole anymore, I can't entertain self-sabotage because nobody is coming to save me from the reality of a leaky roof or a busted brake line (except Tanner, up there patching the leak in the dark and downpouring rain) and afterwards dinner will still need to be made. The spinach needs to be used and Irie needs to go on the potty.

I care deeply that my organic spinach and stunning heirloom tomatoes from the community food forest island don't go bad and I have a blast balancing that with presence in teaching my daughter. All of that piled on top of the whole “chop wood, carry water” lifestyle is no joke, if I don't respond in the spirit of playfulness I get so pissy because it's all so much work.

So much meaningful work that I actually want to do, deep down. It's so much more confronting to care about what you're doing and pursue things that align with your values, it takes incredible willpower.

My will has truly increased recently, I repeatedly show myself how much strength I can muster and it feels really good, not the stretched-thin sentiment I used to associate with strength. I get rewarded so much more fully than I would if I was pursuing dopamine hits.

I think if you feel like you've maxed out your capacity it's less likely that you're doing too much but really that you're not doing enough of what you love and truly prioritizing it.

Living with integrity feels like the ease and flow of the offerings, blessings, gratitude cycle. It pushes you into a place where your inner resourcing can shine, it isn't always blissful but you don't need it to be because you know you're on track. You don't need to be affirmed externally because you intrinsically and physically feel that you're in alignment.

You know, your deepest desires are the natural consequence of embodying your most aligned self.

You know that “successful” self, however you measure success, deserves to prioritize their needs and that martyrdom can never truly serve them.

I spend so much time refining just how intentional I can be, how little waste can I produce and can I make it beneficial to the planet? How else can we live in symbiosis with land and community? How can I engage my family in learning opportunities and hone our skills? How can I provide more wholesome meals and what medicine do we need through our nutrition currently? What phase am I in and how can I support our fertility and vitality? How can we celebrate the changing seasons? Where is Tanner in need of support in his creative projects and where can he offer his help with mine? What activities or experiences can I prepare to create a rad childhood for my baby?

There's no rigidity with this, only intentions but somehow I still find myself in moments where I have everything I ever wanted. And more!

My daily practices after a moment of neglecting them have been writing and a walk. I like to be gentle with myself so I start simple but I already feel the flow and thus clarity on what I need to be doing, thus fulfillment.

My fertility has returned, survival mode has lifted! Turns out, I was doing it to myself.

To reconnect with myself and my purpose has been astounding and imperative as we come up on a whole new season—6 months straight of travel is just around the corner for me! Family centered, creative entrepreneurship on the road?!

How do I thrive in all of this uncertainty, this change, this potentiality for brilliant outcomes and scary learning curves alongside this team?!

I hope you enjoy Ode to Womben as much as I did when I meticulously selected each prompt to alchemize my own sexual trauma and grief, the 17yr old Marley that created it during the nanny kids nap time would shit herself out of excitement for what's to come in this wild life.

Snippets & a meditation to accompany your copy of this book! ⤵️

Share Marley Gabrielle

Offer your support by sharing my work with people who would resonate??

While they’ve empowered countless women to reclaim their autonomy, their rigid, one-size-fits-all stance can feel just as dogmatic as the medical system they critique. I don’t think the founders are evil masterminds but I do see how they've morphed a deeply meaningful movement into a capitalizing, manipulative, exploitative, mean-girls club that looks pretty close to a cult.

Free Birth Society has sparked an important conversation and helped many women find their power but true empowerment doesn’t come from trading one form of doctrine for another.

No matter how you're birthing, it matters who you have around—FBS can be a game changer or downright dangerous depending on the scenario, as the drama surfaces I want to explore why.

💌 This will be a two-part piece, in this first article you’ll find it's mostly centered around Emilee Saldaya and the harmful environment she's created to profit off the nuance of risks in birth, plus a few potent stories and where they leave me on the FBS good/bad spectrum. The second part will touch more on Yolande Norris-Clark: why everyone is triggered by her philosophy of life, nefarious psychopaths capitalizing on vulnerable women, and my story as one of those women.

During my first pregnancy, I couldn’t find a midwife I was confident wouldn’t sabotage my birth. Everyone assumed that meant I was going to give birth in the hospital, when in reality, I went to an OB for one ultrasound and some bloodwork, then ghosted the rest of the appointments.

I remember having a strong urge to wait until I was 20 weeks for my first appointment, I felt too vulnerable and like I didn't need or want anything from them anyways, something told me to give my baby and body a chance to get close before we entered the medical system. I listened to this urge and was met with a very concerned receptionist asking me how I even knew my baby was alive, this didn't make me any less confident in the perfect, symbiotic growth happening in my womb until the day we drove to the clinic. I kept thinking the baby won't have fingers or toes, pregnancy brain is a hell of a drug. What if they called me negligent or kicked me out for refusing virtually everything they offered?

I wanted bloodwork, I had never had it done before and thought this was a good time. I also took a pee test though I don’t remember what for, besides this and our ultrasound I declined anything else they called standard prenatal care. I didn't want it and didn't end up needing it, yay! The ultrasound gave a glimpse into the unseen, watching our baby move left us literally speechless but the hum of the machine carried a quiet sensation of violence, like peering into holy space with tools too harsh for something so tender. I felt stupid for feeling that the machine would harm her because it's the “non-invasive” modern norm but I regretted it afterwards. My doctor didn't inform us or share the research on altered cell development and cell death, health professionals neglect to talk about this enough, I hope I'm never faced with a reason to get another but that's a post for another day.

My pleasant OB walked in after I had just peeked in the magical high-frequency womb-window screen and said she had news, (insert 5 second panic attack here) she followed up with the affirmation that baby and I were impressively healthy—she really talked me up as if I hadn't grown this baby off excessive amounts of Culver's.

This was all perfect. I screamed “THANK YOU, THANK YOUU, THANK YOUUU!” to the sky on my bubbly, ecstatic way out of the building.

Even after she called me glowing, I had no intent to birth my baby anywhere near her unless it was an absolute emergency or I had a burst of intuition take me to her office, there are too many reasons to list on why I made this decision but truthfully it was never a list, I just knew I wouldn't be back.

My husband was fine with this, it took no persuasion for us to passionately agree that (healthy) birth belongs outside the medical-industrial complex and that setting intentions to just *birth* our baby (alone or in the company of whoever we wanted at the moment) was most aligned with us.

I spent many months deepening my connection to this child while consuming all of the undisturbed birth content I could find, FBS is the largest representation I had (and have, to date) ever seen of physiological undisturbed birth anywhere. I had marveled over birth before, cried as newborns emerged and ached over wanting this miracle for myself, but never like this—I was wholeheartedly affirmed that I could absolutely bring my baby down and out into this world without it being a dramatic, horrific ordeal.

Photo and quote from Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Spiritual Midwifery, this is one of my absolute favorite books and top recommendation for birth stories if you're looking to find more ethical sources!

It was intoxicating to binge these gorgeous videos (and read this book) when I was having a blissful pregnancy, I found real excitement for birth that nobody but freebirthers seemed to understand.

This is a gift for me and the women who are finding their footing on the motherhood path, I'll always be grateful for the women who generously and bravely share their birth videos/experiences online. They opened the door and stoked a fire for me, the results were the extraordinary undisturbed birth of my daughter—my ultimate favorite experience. I owe you all the same “thank you” as the sky received.

Due to this, I can safely say Free Birth Society changed my life.

The podcast offered me a lot of incredible (obviously cherry-picked and biased but still riveting) birth stories that hyped up my connection with my body, birthkeeping and my impending labor/birth/postpartum in a way that restored a lost power within me—although I wouldn't call it academic, it could be educational here and there if you can get past the host.

Anyone I share the podcast with also hears my opinion on Emilee Saldaya (the podcast host, face of the company, IG presence, etc.), which isn't my kindest take and I'm not the first or hundredth person to speak on this. Even before I had any dirt on her I can remember telling my husband and friends that she ruins her own podcast, I thought she was extremely condescending, underqualified and really horrible at doing her own job.

It never sat right with me that she's been to allegedly 5 births in the last 8 years yet holds such a self-righteous authority over the women she's speaking with. She's loud and opinionated about her limited perception of sovereign birth and it comes across as divisive, exclusionary and actually just unpleasantly rude in a way I don't see helpful for pregnant women or honestly, anyone.

When people are looking for community and validation in such a deeply personal and intense experience, it’s easy for someone charismatic (or manipulative) to take the reins and shape the narrative. It gets murky when leadership forgets to stay humble and serve the community rather than shaping it to fit a personal brand, or simply creating a cash grabbing cult out of it.

Unfortunately, you can find a lot more about her here, a reddit page dedicated to exposing FBS—from her rude comments to (borderline? or confirmed?) malpractice, there's a lot to digest so if you'd like a quick piece from people who know/knew her, here's a substack post from one of the redditors in this group.

Exposing Free Birth Society

Understanding the Pattern: A Closer Look at Emilee Saldaya's Behavior

Inside the Mind of Someone Like Emilee…

Read more

a year ago · 28 likes · Exposing Free Birth Society

Emilee’s tone sometimes feels like it crosses a line between fierce advocacy and almost militant dogma, which doesn’t resonate with me when the whole point is autonomy and freedom.

There’s also the fear-based rhetoric—ironically, something they claim to stand against. The way they speak about midwives and even doulas, painting them all as potential saboteurs, can create paranoia—the ultimate birth saboteur.

Birthwork is full of systemic problems, but does that mean every birth worker is a threat to autonomy?

No, of course not.

However, regardless of how confronting it may be, we can't deny that this is where FBS has been pivotal—they talk openly on undisturbed birth, informed consent and shine a light on just how much sabotage exists in the birth world.

Many people assume hiring a “holistic” or “hands-off” midwife/doula guarantees support, but freebirth spaces expose the harsh reality that even well-meaning birth workers are often conditioned to intervene, manage, or control birth in ways that subtly (or not so subtly) undermine a woman’s autonomy. Freebirth forces us to question what true support looks like and whether having someone there, even a trusted midwife, might shift the energy in ways we don’t anticipate.

FBS taught me how to spot these dynamics and how to exercise my autonomy, before listening to the podcast I wouldn't have known I COULD decline some of the things my OB offered because she didn't give me the option. FBS gave the the exact definition of informed consent, something we all deserve but that's rarely fully understood by medical birthworkers.

They also speak on the state regulations that may force a certified midwife to sabotage an otherwise healthy birth solely due to her licensing—that was helpful for me. Midwifery certification prioritizes compliance over intuition, regulation over relationship, and liability over liberation.

Many state-regulated midwives are trained within systems designed to appease medical boards, this strips midwives of their autonomy and often forces them to abandon the true needs of mothers. It teaches them to fear lawsuits more than honor physiology, instead of holding space, they're taught to manage risk.

The motherbaby ends up caught between a midwife’s license and their own inner knowing.

A midwife will serve whoever is signing her checks—you can’t expect her to risk losing her license for going against state rules, even if she knows the birth is safe. In some states this includes attending breech, twin, or VBAC births, or supporting someone past 42 weeks. If they don’t transfer to a hospital fast enough during labor, or if a client refuses standard tests like GBS or glucose screenings they can be punished. Using herbs or natural remedies might be considered outside their legal scope, even small paperwork mistakes or delays in reporting a baby’s condition can trigger an investigation. Some have even faced consequences for speaking out against hospital practices.

Obviously there's an abundance of spectacular midwives out there but when I witnessed a harsh sabotage during my extremely brief doula career, it didn't sit right with me. I didn't have the words for it until FBS so I assumed it was normal, they were positioned as authority so I saw them “save lives” instead of “saving the lives they put at risk.”

I watched a client's concerns be dismissed, the screams, her blood flowing rampantly, her request for an ambulance denied because the labor had gone longer than the contract allowed, faces going pale with panic and then the shot of pitocin being administered without warning or consent—the client was my mother, I thought all the drama and risk was just how birth was because even though this experience was intense, it was far less traumatizing than my own birth.

There are many other women who hold stories like this, another reason I was dedicated to learning about physiological birth even if I did invite a midwife into my space to support me.

I would've been transferred 3 or 4 separate times during my very healthy daughter's birth if I had hired a legally certified midwife, I could've ended up with a surgical birth that obviously would've been wholly unnecessary.

We can only ever speak on our own experiences, these aspects of my journey to motherhood (3 day labor, meconium stained waters, occiput posterior positioning, inconsistent contractions, etc) could've easily been an emergency for someone else, no doubt this is why it's important to educate yourself as well as practice intuitive body literacy.

I knew in my bones AND my brain that my particular experience with these symptoms wasn't worth panic, to a medical birthworker it may be a surprise that my baby turned around on her own, labor picked up without intervention and I fully dilated within 8 hours, baby came out via fetal ejection reflex with no meconium on her face or in her lungs, a healthy placenta came out shortly after and I had the most blissful clarity that I didn't need or want support from anyone else.

Story medicine is incredible but please remember that you'll never have my birth, body or baby so this isn't a standard protocol. Birth is deeply personal, and while radical self-responsibility is powerful, it’s not always realistic.

Not every woman SHOULD freebirth, we don't all have the same resources or life circumstances to freebirth safely, and dismissing any form of assisted birth as "giving away power" can alienate those who still seek sovereignty within a different framework.

Rejecting help/support/care out of pride or undue fear is NOT autonomy—it's dangerous for FBS to encourage any form of this in women who are already vulnerable, it's no small feat to give birth and we all want what's best for our babies.

Unfortunately, I don't believe FBS educates enough (or at all) on the real world risks that come with birth and claiming that they do is just another coercion tactic to position them in authority, it's a business move that's costing lives.

There are several stories of transferred or "failed" freebirths because women trusted FBS to give them the rundown on everything, I heard one story where a woman said she didn't even think of what she would've done if she needed help after the baby was out until AFTER her baby was out.

It blew my mind, I realized that I'm not as radical as people assumed from my own choice to freebirth.

I studied neonatal resuscitation, not that you need to and hopefully I never need it, but my baby's life is MY responsibility regardless of what Emilee’s (Aka random internet stranger's) opinions are.

Because she isn't trained to resuscitate your baby, I believe she isn't thoroughly trained on any physiological process actually, and she doesn't care about your baby. She doesn't have to live with any grief if death is part of your story.

For a freebirther to blindly trust in these courses shows a lack of autonomy and radical sovereignty that they typically claim they stand for, it can result in a tragedy.

Then who do we blame?

Shame on FBS for marketing with bold, probably false claims, no doubt. But is it victim blaming to say that a portion of the transferred freebirthers should've did their due diligence getting thoroughly clear on the intense, individualized, paramount, uncertain, journey they're embarking on? And exactly what they need to know to be prepared?

There's no way to be fully prepared and birth will always be a mystery that demands our respect, but in the age of the great wide internet—some of this lifesaving wisdom is one google search away. There are always exceptions, there are always actual victims that don't deserve blame, fyi.

When I was pregnant I saw a reel of a lady claiming she lost her baby due to FBS misinformation. I cried and cried for her and feared I was making a mistake by planning to freebirth—maybe she was clear and educated, maybe she did know neonatal resuscitation.

Either way, a death is always a tragedy and nobody's "fault" but when a death was avoidable we'll always cast blame because we want to make sense of the tragedy.

There's no arguing that modern medicine saves lives but I was surprised to see this same woman sharing that we can never be sure if our babies will survive even in the hospital, I was taken aback because she's very right and very brave for bringing such a confronting point to us.

If you've suffered a loss, especially in freebirth, my entire heart goes out to you. What I can offer you is a hand to hold in spirit and a reddit thread from the FBS-scam page on the objectification of loss moms and lost babies. 💞

One quote from Emilee that stuck with me is: “The idea that hospital births are inherently safer is an opinion — not an absolute fact.”

Around 7 out of every 1,000 babies born in the U.S. suffer a birth injury—adding up to about 30,000 infants each year.

Over 80% of these injuries are considered moderate to severe, including brain damage, nerve injuries, and broken bones.

Obstetric malpractice claims are some of the most expensive in medicine, with nearly half involving brain injuries in newborns.

About 80% of OB-GYNs report being sued at some point in their careers.

The most common causes of malpractice during birth are clinical judgment errors (77%), poor communication among medical staff (36%), and technical mistakes (26%).

While hospitals are often seen as the safest place to give birth, medical error is a very real risk—even in highly controlled settings.

Nearly all births in the U.S.—about 98%—happen in our hospitals that hold one of the highest mortality rates among high-income nations.

The maternal death rate sits around 17.4 per 100,000 live births, and about 5 out of every 1,000 babies don’t make it to their first birthday.

The numbers get even more alarming when you look at racial disparities: black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, and black babies are more than twice as likely to die in their first year.

In the past, some hospitals didn’t let black women hold or care for their babies after birth because doctors believed that black mothers were biologically inferior or more prone to harm their babies based on pseudoscientific theories, such as the idea that black women had "less nurturing instincts" or were more prone to violence. This was supported by racist, unfounded theories like "racial hierarchy" and "biological determinism," which claimed certain races were naturally inferior.

This isn’t about biology—it’s about unequal care, systemic racism, and medical bias that still show up in hospitals today. So when people say hospital birth is “the safest,” it’s worth asking: safest for who? These are only a small representation of the REPORTED statistics. I'm not arguing that hospitals aren't needed in some circumstances, many people are alive because of modern medicine but it isn't a guaranteed route to safety or success.

For women like me who exclusively hear all the reasons NOT to even try to birth unassisted, it's valuable to pick through FBS for the bits that empower you to choose the right place for you to give birth. Of course leaving behind whatever doesn't align, the negligent advice, and the obvious crazy promise that FBS is everything you need to succeed.

Truthfully, your baby and body were planning a freebirth all along, it's a lot less frequent that assistance is NEEDED than it is given (at least where I live). I don't understand why someone would choose to go to a hospital in labor if they were feeling good and not in need of care but I understand how the industrial revolution normalized it, even if it wasn’t with our best intentions at heart.

While they aged into a cult, FBS's intentions—to advocate for our right to birth undisturbed—shouldn't be thrown away as a few prominent influencers hop on the trend of bashing freebirth.

Not all freebirth families are dangerously radical, not all of us claim that death is better than surgical birth, some people carry stories of the medical system saving their lives and even if you had a midwife you may still share the deeply inherent philosophy to protect the motherbaby-birth threshold.

It goes without saying that birth is full of nuance, it's like mama Ina May said: "There are as many variations of normal as there are women giving birth."

This quote comforted me during labor by affirming that every labor unfolds uniquely and shouldn't be forced into rigid medical timelines. It reduced my fear by helping me embrace the natural variations, fostering trust, autonomy, and the conditions I needed for physiological birth to unfold without disturbance.

I'm noting that Ina May Gaskin taught me this because while she was an absolute goddess at holding space for empowered natural birth, she worked alongside doctors when lives were at risk. This heavily distinguishes her from FBS because a lot of their messaging can come across as telling you to ignore risks in the name of sovereignty, to avoid a transfer at all costs—appealing for vulnerable women with hospital birth trauma but also an extremely dangerous ideology, dare I say... predatory??

While every freebirth is undisturbed, not every undisturbed birth is a freebirth–the difference comes down to how much external presence or authority is involved.

But what happens when someone in their space experiences a true birth emergency? Or when a mother, despite her deep trust in birth, wants a midwife there for support?

The idea that choosing any form of assistance is "indoctrination" makes freebirth feel like an edgy club with strict rules rather than a true movement of bodily sovereignty.

Regardless of where you stand, black-and-white messaging leaves little room for nuance, and that’s where many women feel alienated. It's the exclusivity factor—a strong, cult-like following often leads to anyone questioning their/your ideology to be dismissed or shamed. I see this with the people birthing in hospitals and the people radically against them, there doesn't need to be two camps when we all acknowledge that each one of us needs individualized support.

At its core, the freebirth philosophy transcends all that. It doesn’t need a leader or a society to validate it, although community is so needed. We aren't supposed to do it alone.

The best birth communities are the ones where everyone is sharing stories, holding space, and respecting each other’s journeys without judgment or hierarchy— genuine support regardless of where or how you bring your babies earthside. Free Birth Society doesn't always (or ever) fit the ticket.

I'm still searching for more supportive spaces, here's a list of a few I adore! If you have any resources to share that pertain to empowered birth, it may help a gal out to drop them in the comments!

Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark paint a picture of empowerment and radical self-trust but digging deeper, a more troubling pattern of misinformation, mismanagement, and cult-like dynamics emerges. This isn't a simple takedown, it's a reckoning. A reflection on how movements born from genuine need can become corrupted, and how vital it is for us all to stay anchored in our own discernment… 🌀

See you when part 2 is posted!

I use nothing but these everyday for skincare, I really can't have a good shower without them and almond oil is one of my two hair care products, I gave up buying my self care concoctions over 3 years ago.

Instead, I've made a healing ritual our of constantly refilling the jars from my enormous wholesale vats of organic oils, my dearly beloved liquid gold stash.

I swear by this enchantment that keeps me feeling my glowing goddess form (internally and externally) and I love using my hands to craft intentional remedies.

When I stay devoted to it, my hair, skin and energetic presence feel soft and vibrant–it's like I've embodied my most nourished self–a dream come true.

It's a practice I've put a lot of energy into, naturally it's evolved from skincare to a radiant wellbeing ritual infused with potent earth medicine.

My apothecary stash has become a beacon of healthful routines in my house, we take autonomy of our wellbeing here and practice radical sovereign wellness–knowing how to care for my body with plant medicine is key for preventative maintenance as well as addressing any dis-ease that may pop up.

This philosophy and practice is on steroids now that I have a family to maintain, I make the babies and their milk–outside of the medical industrial complex, I may add–I provide all of the vitality for myself and anyone I birth, this is a privilege I take so seriously.

Mama medicine woman?

The back of my kitchen cupboard holds my OTHER deeply loved liquid gold stash, several mason jars of homemade herbal infusions that have been in various stages of steeping or storage for well over a year. If one combination feels more energetically exciting than the others I add in a liberal pour, we call this measuring with our heart, right?

Then I give it a good, loving shake or stir, some spectacular intentions and move on with my life because the simplicity of this self care practice is extremely powerful for me.

Rituals that cultivate radiance and support my need for lots of free time, affordability and sustainability are greatly welcomed at my house!

These are typically plant medicine, mostly using intentional blends of loose leaf tea or mixing anointing oils (read on for recipes!) for moisturizing and massage–or abyhanga.

Don't be intimidated.

Not real traditional massage.

5 minute unruly abyhanga that's so simple there's no excuse not to do it even when life is relentlessly chaotic.

Slather yourself in a good handful of warm oil, you divine, untamed goddess—long strokes on your limbs, lazy circles on your joints, belly rubs for deep love, then let it soak in while you move on to whatever task is calling you (loudly).

You stimulate the nervous system, reduce stress, and support hormonal harmony by encouraging circulation and lymphatic detoxification.

Rhythmic strokes ground excess energy, ease tension, and promote deep relaxation, making it a priority for days when there's anxiety, burnout, or hormonal imbalances (like PMS and postpartum depletion).

The oil can be both a healer and a protector, seeping into the skin to lubricate joints, soften tissues, and enhance skin vitality.

Beyond its physical benefits, this is an act of devotion—a way to cultivate self-love, embodiment, and connection to the sacred temple of your body.

I keep it simple yet sacred, once or twice a day, it's been key in the ongoing physical nourishment and spiritual intention that I need to fill my cup.

The act of grounding in the present and allowing myself to honor the intricate wisdom of my body js a powerful reminder that healing isn’t always about doing more but rather about slowing down and allowing space for restoration.

During busy, chaotic times I love a quiet ritual that aligns my body with my soul–an intentional way of saying, “I honor you, thank you” to myself and my body.

Amidst everything that gets me frazzled we must stay connected, motherhood has been about reclaiming my body as a place of sacredness and power for me.

There’s an unmatched sense of connection and purpose that makes it all worthwhile, if I can remain grounded even the baby boogers and blowouts can be a delightful reminder of the raw beauty in this season of life.

I consider myself fully dedicated to the mother/baby symbiotic physiological dyad, a good day was one where my baby was mostly attached at the tit for all that lovely skin to skin co-regulation and bonding.

I mention this because the reality of my motherhood journey is as raw as it is gorgeous.

While profound and deeply fulfilling, it’s also physically and emotionally demanding in ways that aren’t always glamorous: I'm sticky, sweaty, milk-soaked, and frequently peed on in this new role.

The glory of bodily fluids, the constant closeness without boundaries, the sensory overload, the exhaustion and vulnerable weariness is the ultimate reminder that my body is a yucky, tender vessel for caregiving right now.

My own body no longer belongs to only me, I have to make a conscious effort at avoiding disconnection from myself–it's like a second puberty.

I have to take care of this new, stinky, mom body with the utmost reverence and love for all it does, it deserves to feel glorious and sexy.

It deserves to glow, and feel deeply appreciated, I get a shot at going through another puberty-like phase with much less self destruction and I'm giving it my all.

I don't always need to give it my all, l need to be in alignment constantly–or as close as I can get–to fall into the ease and flow that is being grounded.

Me after a hot morning shower and oil massage, embodying my inner goddess through nervous system regulation and divinity lol.

As a dedicated herbal remedy lover, kitchen witch, skincare product maker for many years now, I'm realigning my line of herbal infused topical products for mothers that I launched a little over a year ago.

I sold many and loooved the process, but it must grow alongside me!

Now, it's become centered in versatility, ease and flow, the things we need as mothers, the things that inspire us to embody the glowing goddess we are.

Now, my products are sorted by what is baby safe and what is not.

Everything is fair game to be used for butts, hair treatments, faces, scrapes and bruises, sunburn, sensual (or not) massages, baths, chapstick, anything you could possibly heal with a jar of herbal medicine.

It's luxurious but you don't have to commit to having your shit together, you can lose the lid without worrying that it'll go bad or dry out.

You can be mama earth medicine on the days where you feel your yuckiest.

May we all find healing and balance, thanks for reading how I found mine with potions and lotions!

Now, onto the good stuff.

Here are the recipes for each of my products, the medicinal properties of each ingredient.

Thank you for reading this far, want more? Visit me here! Or stay in the substack portal-

Blessings!💞🌱

I'm a sentimental person, I feel my growing pains with such a depth and i’ve been reflecting on my perception of time and change, wondering if I'm helping or hindering this relentless passage.

Am I resisting my own liberation?

Could I be in a better relationship with the fleeting moments that make up "my" life?

I've attended a women's wisdom circle for the last year, I can't say enough good things about it so I'll spare you the details of how transformative it was to be held in kind sisterhood like this throughout my pregnancy and postpartum–my daughter has literally been in a women's circle for every month of her life including the ones she spent gestating. (Mom win!)

We spent 10 months focused on The Mahāvidyās–a group of ten powerful goddesses in Hinduism, each of these deities represents a different aspect of the divine feminine and is considered to embody a wide range of spiritual, cosmic, and destructive energies, I fell in love with the depictions of fierce and intense feminine forms–their worship is meant to aid the devotee in gaining ultimate knowledge and liberation.

We started with Kali on a particularly sentimental night, a few days after officially confirming my pregnancy suspicions, a serendipitous and tender time.

I didn't share or engage when we entered our sacred circle but I've taken these teachings with me through every moment since that evening, they're coming to a head in my mind now. Spectacularly, one year later!

Maha Kali, the cosmic force that devours all things—our childhood, relationships, memories—reminds us that nothing is permanent. Sentimentality arises because we feel the weight of time’s passage, we know that someday everyone and everything we love will be gone, we know that we will die.

No matter how much or little you think about this heavy truth, time is ruthless.

The places and people we once knew shift, and we are left with fragments of what once was.

Our nostalgia and longing for the past are reactions to her work, a resistance against the inevitable transformation she brings.

This is Kali’s lesson in action—she destroys the ego to reveal truth, growing pains strip away the illusions of permanence.

The grief we feel in these transitions is not just about what we have lost, but about the realization that time does not wait, it's how we find our footing and learn to move with it.

I want to explore the other side of this ultimate hurt–this is a force that drives humanity to do so much and we may actually find it so rewarding, the reassurance that it isn't all for nothing.

The existential dread can be alchemized to gold, I do it frequently.

Kali is not just a destroyer—her love is unconditional—she fiercely protects and nurtures those who surrender to her because she is also a liberator, teaching us that true freedom comes from embracing the impermanence of life.

Rather than seeing nostalgia as a burden, we may view it as a recognition of time’s beauty.

The very fact that something is fleeting makes it precious.

We can go from "shit, we're all dying." to "we're dying!! Let's enjoy this beautiful life we have before we experience our beautiful deaths!" very quickly with Kali's wisdom.

In this light, sentimentality and growing pains are not just signs of loss, but proof that we are evolving.

Kali dances amidst destruction to create something new while we constantly reshape ourselves through the experiences that time consumes, we are one.

We are alone in our bodies but still all doing the same dance together, in a harmonious, synchronized, all-encompassing waltz with life and death.

It's so very painful, yet still consciousness has an inherent drive to evolve—it seeks expansion, understanding, and growth.

We long for what once was, not because we want to return to it entirely, but because we recognize its significance in shaping who we are.

This deep emotional response is tied to the nature of time itself, which Kali personifies—unceasing, unstoppable, and indifferent to human attachments—the consumer of time is also a mother, she sets us straight by clearing out whatever form of self sabotage no longer serves us so there's room for endless, shimmering boons to manifest.

A paradox that reflects the striking reality of true transformation.

Getting teary as I scroll through my old photos with deep appreciation can easily turn into my feeble attempt to hold onto the ashes of what was, even as something new is already taking shape within me.

At its core, nostalgia is an act of remembrance, a way to honor the past. But if we dwell too long in what has been, we risk stagnation—clinging to an identity that we've outgrown.

Kali, in her fierce form, teaches the necessity of surrender, demanding that we release our grip on what no longer serves us so hopefully we get it in our heads that when we stop resisting time’s flow, all of our desires are already ours.

I get everything I want—I know that desire is my soul’s recognition of what it is meant to align with.

The universe operates in abundance, and the moment we imagine or long for something, it already exists as a possibility in the energetic field.

Manifestation happens when we clear resistance, believe we are worthy, and align our actions with our desires—allowing them to unfold in our reality.

This requires a shift in perception, from one of grasping and attachment to one of alignment and presence.

The nature of time–and mama Kali–is one of continual transformation.

To resist it is to suffer; to flow with it is to realize that all things exist within us at once.

Instead of seeing our desires as something to be gained or lost, we must recognize that they are already woven into the fabric of our being, simply waiting for the right moment to manifest.

The key lies in detachment without disinterest—wanting, but not clinging; creating, but not fearing loss.

When we accept that nothing is truly separate from us, that every possibility exists in the vastness of time, we begin to embody a state of effortless attraction.

You can trust the rushing, intense current of time to bring what is meant for us, even if we think we don't want it.

The paradox is that by surrendering the need to control time, we allow time to work in our favor.

How horrifying.

Practically, this means cultivating presence and alignment rather than stagnating by focusing on the past (depression) or future (anxiety).

If we live fully in each moment, we realize that we already possess what we seek—whether it be love, success, or fulfillment—because the version of ourselves that has (or had) it already exists in time’s unfolding.

This is the wisdom of Kali: to dance within destruction and creation simultaneously, knowing that nothing is ever truly lost, only transformed.

Recognizing this truth—that time is always shifting, that what we desire is already within us, and that nothing is truly permanent—is ridiculously painful because it challenges the way we have been conditioned to perceive reality.

We are taught to see life as linear, with clear beginnings and endings, gains and losses, rather than as an unfolding cycle where everything already exists in its potential form.

The ego, which craves stability and control, resists this understanding because it thrives on attachment, certainty, and identity—all of which are threatened by the fluid nature of time.

Pain arises when we try to hold onto something that is meant to change.

We get in that pesky fear, tension, pain cycle when we resist the surrender–and of course, what we resist must persist.

Whether it is a version of ourselves, a relationship, a dream, or a sense of security, we suffer because we mistake impermanence for loss rather than transformation.

In truth, what we grieve is not the thing itself, but our inability to possess it forever in the way we once thought we did. We fear that if we let go, we will be left with nothing—but Kali shows us the opposite: when we release, we become everything.

Divine feminine energy embodied to give us cosmic clarity > your yucky ego.

The recognition of time’s nature is sickening because it strips away illusions.

We are forced to confront the reality that the past cannot return, that some things will never be as they were, and that our identity is constantly being undone.

This can feel like a kind of death—the death of control, the death of certainty, the death of who we thought we were.

Ego death… notorious for holding a seed of freedom.

If we can sit with the discomfort, if we can surrender to the truth that we are always in motion, we come to see that nothing is ever truly lost—only transformed, waiting to be met again in a new form.

In this surrender, we become everything.

We become the creator and the destroyer, the seeker and the sought, the transient and the eternal.

Kali Ma does not ask us to fear her; she asks us to dance with her, to recognize that her destruction is not punishment but liberation.

When we stop clinging, when we allow ourselves to dissolve into the infinite, we do not disappear—we expand beyond limitation,

beyond fear,

beyond self.

We become the timeless,

the boundless.

We become her.

But alas, we're human.

So I'll cry with a passionate devotion to my fleeting human life anytime I think of first loves, my pets that have passed, the fact that I'll never be an ignorant child again or the inevitability of aging and death that follows us all around.

I love the human condition, may we all enjoy this experience as emotional animals that have the ability to deeply ponder.

May it bring us to reverent tears that no matter how closely we hold our babies, our parents or any version of ourselves, we cannot possess the past or future.

The matters of time lay in hands much more capable than ours, hands that possess the capacity to grant us boons better than ones we can imagine.

May we claim radical presence in our everyday lives and may we think of Kali when we stray too far from our connection to source.

Share Marley Gabrielle

A picture of our serene setup after the chaos of making it happen, this was a success.

It's that sacred right of passage–speed walking while carrying 3 or 4 stuffed tote bags, a drink, car keys, bonus points for a kid or multiple, a few bites of leftovers in a baggie because breakfast is always forgotten, and the eternal burden of the entire family's mental load piled on top.

Several of this month's women's circle participants embodied this energy, I was thrilled that we could all offer some grace to one another, I needed it badly that day. And mostly every other day too.

Sometimes I allow myself to drop the ball on a few things that hold lesser value to me, it's always an exercise in making sure that caring for myself doesn't fall on the list of balls that CAN be dropped, (the rubber ones) I have to remember to put it on the glass ball list with the ones that CANNOT be dropped.

If it slips we're all screwed, it has to go next to "feed the baby" otherwise I'm spending a day in bed recovering from the huge mistake of pouring from an empty cup.

Pouring = Lactating. an empty cup = an undernourished body. Ugh.

When I do eat a wholesome meal and I'm not stuck in the paralysis of sabotaging my greatest efforts with overthinking, I remember that this rite of passage means growth, learning and MASTERY.

I'm getting better at it, I'm expanding my capacity to stay playful in everything I do because it's probably not worth the stress to complete many things from a state of perfectionism or depletion.

Bonus points if you have a fear of failure, I hope (of everyone) YOU take the risk of showing up messy.

Messiness is a sign of being in motion, which is essential for mastery.

💫

Even with my many wholehearted attempts at sticking to an organized planning system, the often-invisible, ongoing cognitive and emotional effort required to manage household responsibilities, relationships, and daily life persists.

Like I said, I'm getting better at it.

Not only because my efforts are paying off but becuse im still in the thick of it but I'm (sort of) having a good time– this means I'm learning healthily instead of at my own expense!! Yay!

Planning out a focused session to write and post this at panera a week ago then bailing because I didn't feel like it gave me the opportunity to write this in bed at 2am with my extra cute, snoring family as the spark of creativity hit me like a brick.

It presented a chance for me to embrace my imperfection and focus on real progress instead. What a gift to be in my flow.

I'mnot saying to ditch all your plans when you don't feel like it, only to give some merit to the internal voice that's making you show up late and unprepared–it has a deeper function.

When you're willing to be messy, you give yourself permission to experiment, make mistakes, and grow without fear of judgment. You foster your own authenticity, creativity, and resilience, creating a space where you can learn from both successes and failures.

Hopefully you have a lot of both!

“Mistakes became misinterpretations and giving myself grace has been easier than ever.” Quoting myself from my last publication because it fits and I find this a helpful mantra lately.

There's a deeper wisdom that's seemingly "sabotaging" your punctuality, when you force rigidity and disconnect from your needs or the flow of your life–you are a self saboteur!

It's not your fault, you were probably taught that this is what it means to be a productive member of society.

When punctuality is driven by external pressure rather than internal alignment, it can create unnecessary stress and prevent you from honoring the natural rhythm of your work. Instead of supporting productivity, it may undermine it by increasing burnout, guilt, or resentment.

This is particularly harmful in the context of women's work, we are blessed as the natural nurturers of the collective, in our society this often manifests as the mental load bearers. Our self inflicted duty because we CARE–and thats beautiful.

Burnout, guilt or resentment has no place in this role we share as women, no matter what you consider your "work" it will always seem like a burdensome chore if done without flexibility and self-compassion, effective skills for sustainable growth and success.

It actually works BETTER for me to post this a week later rhan I wanted, it'll even out as self fulfillment to nurture our community, but also pays off long term because I've taken the effort to learn as I live my life in an intrinsic, playful devotion to mastery.

This is a really fancy replica of the learning evironment that we desire for our children's best development, creating conditions where curiosity, freedom, and joy flourish.

Just as children learn by stacking blocks that topple or scribbling freely, adults are told they may not explore new ideas without fear of failure.

We lost the playful experimentation that encourages motion, which leads to growth—trying new tools, setting fun challenges, or simply enjoying the process is not what most view as productive—but human nature loves a safe space to learn, adapt, rediscover the wonder that makes progress enjoyable in the first place.

Our deeply wired subconscious minds are getting in our way because we've been taught to appeal to external authority, which has no place in the real, raw, playful learning experience of taking in the world around us.

Vision boards keeping our hands busy!⬆️

Playing (and failing) is propelling you forward and giving you real-world feedback to refine your skills, you gain experience, adjust, and improve over time.

Mastery isn’t about a perfect start; it’s about continuous growth and refinement.

Every messy action contributes to building skill, confidence, and expertise–what we all strive for.

Embracing messiness means you're embracing the process and enjoying every stumble on your way to more successes.

It's a blessing to curate a space where it doesn't matter how late you are, what you forgot, how little you ate, or how frazzled the week has made you because no true friend cares how well you perform, we're all here for true growth.

I invite you to treat yourself with care as you learn this world alongside the rest of us, give yourself the opportunity to act without fear of failure–even it means showing up late.

We are human BEings, not human DOings!

My last post-

Our last women's circle publication

If you're new here-

A calling to tend the magic that is having a yoni = divine feminine energy embodied = birthkeepers

My role as a birthkeeper reflects my desire to hold space for not only birth but for the reclamation of autonomy and intuition that has been stripped away from many modern birthing practices.

It’s about nurturing, protecting, and witnessing women and families as they step into their power.

When women are birthing babies in their true inherent power, we are tapped into nature's wisdom - an extremely important source of energy to base fresh, new motherhood around.

Intuition is at the heart of birthing, reconnecting women with their innate embodiment and the natural rhythm of the process. To give birth is a primal, instinctual experience that transcends logic and control - it requires trust in the body and its ability to do what it’s designed to do.

Radical autonomy is imperative if we expect our intuition to matter to the people surrounding us as we bring our babies forth. Unfortunately, our medical systems don't function around intuition or radical autonomy unless you're working with an independent or underground birthworker. Our medical staff are downright horrific tripsitters, they fundamentally disrupt ease and flow.

We need women serving mothers who can hold space with reverence for the transformative journey unfolding, who can act as a calm, grounding presence, deeply attuned to the sacred nature of the process. Balancing empathy, knowledge, and respect, as they guide us through moments of intensity, holding boundaries, honoring intentions, and ensuring the experience remains safe, supported, and profoundly meaningful.

Intuition bridges the gap between the mind and body, anchoring a mother into their inner knowing rather than external pressures or fear-based narratives.

A tripsitter knows how important this is in the grand scheme of transformative processes - ideally, so do our birthworkers.

Listening to your body instead of your brain? Easier than it sounds.

Your body communicates with your brain far more than your brain communicates with your body anyways, with about 75% of signals flowing upward and 25% flowing downward. It's quite impossible to think your way through some things - like pregnancy and birth, 2 of the most expanding and altering processes of the body!

It’s a key element of allowing the inner maiden's death to be the inner mother's empowerment, allowing birth to unfold as a sacred, embodied experience. That YOU are capable of!

I KNOW how to raise my baby, how to care for and nurture HER, and that I am exactly the one for the job, ALWAYS. Solely due to my rampant, exquisite intuition.

I found the whispers of my subconscious inner voice the only correct spectator during labor, when I gave them strength and volume a massive expansion flooded me and I vowed to never ignore my deep inner knowing.

Many women's stories have led them to the same conclusions or something similar, all of our journeys are wonderfully vastly differing so I love to hear as many as I can.

However, when I hear a woman speaking of her motherhood experience that totally rocked her, saturated her being with the essence of a whole new woman who is here to drench the world in luscious, divine feminine force - I am enthralled.

Please share in the comments if you have a birth/motherhood story you especially love!

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We almost inevitably share the same passions for woman/motherhood every single time.

Wise birthing sages with soul sister connections are one of ultimate greatest pleasures.

While we've ruled out obstetricians, I also would not call every doula or midwife a wise birthing sage unfortunately, the call to preserve the mystery of our innate juicy wisdom is not consistent with everyone working in the birth field.

I have no desire to ever interact with any system that takes my strength away. Period. And neither should you, we shouldn't need to choose our lives or God forbid, our children's lives to uphold that boundary

While medical advancements have undoubtedly saved lives, the system has very successfully alienated many strong women from their body’s capabilities. Fostering disconnection, fear, compliance, and disempowerment, instead of cultivating confidence in birth as a natural, sacred process.

The burden of carrying this trauma into motherhood must be astronomical, my heart goes out to you if this resonates.

It isn't about the epidural I didn't want or my extreme fear of an episiotomy anymore, it's about reclaiming my very deep knowledge that my body knows exactly what it's doing when I give it the chance. (You can reclaim it without giving birth btw, but if you have the opportunity, it's pretty powerful.)

This is an aspect of radical autonomy that multiplies my motherly force 10x, to not engage in oppression we are free - to be our truest, highest selves and get the privilege to raise our kids by them.

I'd love for my baby to call the most powerful, blissed out version of me "mama."

The problem is that the oppressed do not know they are oppressed, they're living out the story that their own body is the one oppressing them - and I understand, there's a plethora of external voices affirming this idea. Aka, the oppressors, who also have no clue because they're living the story that you need to be saved from your body.

Nobody besides you can tell you what is happening in your own body, coincidentally (or not) this goes against most of what the industrial medical complex stands for.

I can't fully bash a system that has preserved many families, there's no nuance to the value of precious lives but that's one of the few things that lack nuance in this world.

These systems never tell you that you hold immense power through mom-brain and that you feel something much more complex than pain during childbirth. Your body is wired to communicate with you and if you're listening - it's amplified during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. If you're committed to learning how to tell apart your anxieties and intuition, you will KNOW when something wrong and when something is right. It's called a "full body yes!" and I'm only bitter that an OB neglects to tell you all this, instead instilling fear with arbitrary numbers.

Pregnancy activates the limbic system, the emotional and instinctual part of the brain. This enhances a woman’s ability to sense danger, emotional needs, or alignment with natural processes, fostering an intuitive connection with her baby. During labor, beta-endorphins (natural painkillers) are released, encouraging a trance-like, meditative state. This altered state heightens intuition, as women are less influenced by external distractions and more connected to their primal instincts. In childbirth, the neocortex (logical brain) often takes a backseat, allowing the primal brain to guide the process. This shift can heighten intuitive actions, like finding the most comfortable birthing position or sensing when labor progresses. During late labor (transition phase), a burst of stress hormones (like adrenaline) helps the mother push through the most intense sensations. This response enhances focus and determination, temporarily boosting endurance. The neocortex (logical brain) quiets during labor, allowing the primal brain to take over. This shift helps women disconnect from the usual intensity of pain and focus on instinctual coping mechanisms. Research indicates that pain thresholds in women during labor can be significantly higher than at baseline, sometimes comparable to those seen in athletes enduring extreme physical stress.

This was never meant to be an informative article, in this day and age hit up trusty google if you're curious about something. On that note, I encourage you to use critical thinking and read the articles that aren't published by the companies making the money off these practices, and not to take strangers opinions on the internet too seriously.

However, if a stranger on the internet empowers the wild woman in you to show her strength - especially through the privilege of birth, hooray!!

I've never met, spoken to or even heard of a woman who regretted trusting motherly intuition. It's frequent that I hear the opposite, actually.

I'm a living testimony and practice what I preach to the fullest extent which was a major trial in the enormous event of my first baby's birth, only 3 years before she came into this world wildly unassisted and only witnessed by her dad, I was a medically trained birth doula.

I consider myself a very calculated person, valuing facts and evidence is a key component to my skeptical nature, of course I was educated on the potential risks of birth in any setting and took/take them very seriously.

Neonatal resuscitation training, anyone?

I was present for my mother's vba2c birth of my little sister, I watched 3 midwives belittle her, force her into positions she didn't like and inject pitocin into her without consent in the name of "saving her life" but most importantly - none of us saw anything wrong with that. I went on to believe that midwives were the heroes of the universe and had long since dropped my trust for the medical system, which affirmed me heavily that midwifery was what would save the world. I'd found my true calling.

She then unexpectedly reclaimed (some of) her power with a freebirth 2 years later and it meant the world to me, it was the first time I’d ever heard of something like this, also the first time I had ever begun to dig into midwifery sabotage.

I didn’t start out my pregnancy with the notion that I'd be birthing this baby at home alone with my husband, I actually had an OB, only for bloodwork and 1 ultrasound which I'm pretty sure I'll never do again. She broke up with me (3 weeks after I had the baby) for missing too many appointments (especially that big appoimtment 3 weeks prior) but anytime one rolled around I felt entirely secure in gestating unsupervised; I was extremely connected to my baby.

I tried hiring a midwife, but she only inspired fear, (through legit lies, actually) and I never got around to hiring a more encouraging one although I have a few very good friends who are very well trained birthkeepers, who I could always call.

I intuitively knew when we were nearing the birth portal and spent these weeks and days trying to tap into as much meditation as I could, in between devouring birth stories and freebirth education.

An important detail, we were moving in the 90°f days with no AC and had only settled into our house for 3 days when my water broke, we had spent a week in a hotel prior. Not only did I have no midwife but no set place I'd be able to give birth, to my own surprise I felt so calm about this "I'm having this baby, I don't care where, I'm just gonna give birth and that's that."

My husband was on board 100% and my love for him is so much deeper after he cared for me during my three day labor, caught our baby and did the most fantastic job centering me throughout. Tripsitter??

It turns out, in a healthy pregnancy with little or no complications, all you really need is someone centering you.

Your body does the rest and there's truly no way to fight it.

I found solace in leaking light meconium-stained amniotic fluid for 3 days, her heart rate was strong, and I preserved my energy enough to feel my inner strength shining through. Some parts of her labor would've made a midwife emergency transfer me, none of them would've been necessary - she was born perfectly healthy, strong, and blissfully.

But only after I truly centered myself without any irreverent external voices influencing the flow I had to be in.

Irreverent is the key word in terms of birthworkers, there's a way to tactfully cultivate safe conditions and express real risk without disrupting someone else's experience.

Nuance.

In the coming weeks I was faced with all the new parent things, and anytime I had to make a decision for my family I'd tap into this same place of asking my body - it'd always respond.

Mistakes became misinterpretations and giving myself grace has been easier than ever.

I find this super important while growing as an individual, in my marriage, as the one in charge of a tiny person's growth and in my career.

I used to boast about my DONA trainings as the most expansive experience that would guide me to help so many women, these days I think vastly differently about DONA and can't stand the idea of taking a modern doula job when there is so much more to offer than simply working in the birth field. Or working for the birth field, rather. I hope to work for women, not at their expense.

I used to wish for some random pregnant woman to find my little website and ask to hire me, pay me several hundred dollars and do some monthly visits where I could help educate her on common yet dangerous interventions so that when we're in the hospital and she's at her most vulnerable, I can argue on her side with the midwives and doctors that are far more qualified than us and will save us all in the end. Can you feel my eye roll? This experience doesn’t seem to be in either of our best interest anymore, it feels like damage to recover from when you’re in this intimate, tired, sore, cloudy time as is.

They do know more of the science but gain little wisdom - wise guides aren't recognized as educated or legal birth companions. There's hardly room to balance these perspectives but I do try! It’s always a personal experience finding where we sit on this spectrum.

I now know that the call I was hearing was to compassionately hold space and advocate for women crossing this important threshold.

I wish for more from my births than just survival, I deserve safety and peace (emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually) - we all do, always. We deserve to integrate our experiences free of undue trauma.

The best birthkeepers are the ones that know you don’t need them, which derails a lot of modern doula/midwifery/obstetric practices, they'd all definitely take a pay cut if this news got out - I actually believe they already are, the internet has educated many women against certain practices.

I don't subscribe to a lot of the birth field's philosophy anymore because I found it harmful to my wellbeing as a mother, I'm very particular about the way I engage in conception, pregnancy, birth and postpartum as very important markers in my motherhood and womanhood journey.

It just so happens that I align and find balance outside the medical industrial complex, I can no longer promote and perpetuate (many) modern birth practices by working in their systems.

Either way, I hope someone has reminded you of your power if you have been too vulnerable to remember it yourself - especially if you've hired them to accompany you in the birth portal.

If you're a birthkeeper or birthworker remember why this calling offers so much purpose, think of it often.

To serve the mother as a symbol of creation, vitality, and transformation. Embodying a protector of not only the physical act of birth but also the spiritual and energetic power to bring life into being, nurture it, and connect deeply is a revolutionary act of reverence for the womb and its ability to create life - not just biologically, but creatively and spiritually - bringing healing and balance to the collective.

It’s a calling to honor the innate power and wisdom of women as keepers of life, to be their tripsitters through the portal.

I don’t work in the birth world, I AM the birth world.

I chose the sister wound as loose prompt for conversation and a place to start in our first gathering because I was hoping to inspire true connection through compassion, with a focus on what we feel like we need to foster a sense of wholeness. I see that it means much more to me upon reflection, I now wonder if it was ever possible to form a thriving community without having this conversation.

“Have compassion for everyone you meet,” Lucinda Williams sang, “for you do not know what wars are going on down there, where the spirit meets the bone.” But without the recognition that those wars are shared wars — that our suffering is always a part of the suffering, common to the human experience — compassion becomes an intellectual abstraction. Only through such recognition can we come to grasp what Martin Luther King so poetically termed our “inescapable network of mutuality,” in which “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (read the rest of this work by Maria Popova HERE)

The search for a community of aligned women to share our wisdom and medicine has left me unsettled by the way unity isn't as prevalent as it could be. Individuality is celebrated to the extent of separation, from each other and from source. I've been plagued by the fear that the election results and a well-meaning neo-feminist perspective will put a giant opinionated block in the middle of what could be an incredible space for becoming whole as women.

I read about the sister wound and resonate deeply, there are bits of this concept blaming the patriarchy, but I find common themes in an overly harsh desire for matriarchy as well. Blame is a potent source of dissonance, and a hallmark of the sister wound regardless of who causes it. I find myself tiptoeing a line, with careful consideration for my feminine peer’s struggles - a difficult process because I take no sides and don't wish to yuck anyone's yum.

The sister wound = A manifestation of the hurt inflicted upon women by a harsh (often patriarchal) conditioning telling us that we may not find acceptance as women without rivalry. The nuance here is, I see it perpetuated by well meaning, scared and passionate women.

Our relationship with femininity has been twisted, often early in our lives, the experience of initiation into disembodiment, disempowerment and shame has rooted unworthiness deeply within a lot of us.

The judging up-down glance from one woman to another, a coping mechanism for the internal misalignment that keeps us from deeply reverent feminine connection and from our own intrinsic worthiness.

Our self-respect being sold back to us as competition in any form with the women surrounding us is no doubt an unsettling symptom of an imbalanced hierarchy.

No matter which side you choose in any political discussion, your unconscious is feeling the stress of defending yourself, alienation and othering, all in the name of perceived superiority/inferiority of ways we choose to live our lives.

I'm sure everyone with a uterus has experienced or at least understands the immense discomfort of a lopsided patriarchy, we don’t need to dwell on it here although I never get sick of advocating for our femininity. Unfortunately, it deals the same blows when flipped on its head as a lopsided matriarchy. I'd love to say this with my hand resting on yours, offering true compassion for any justified rage you may feel - female supremacy is another fantastic way to inspire the sister wound.

Turning against our sisters in an act of besting them is as deeply harmful as turning against our brothers and will always create a lopsided effect somewhere.

Us vs them games have no place in a thriving ecosystem of femininity and masculinity, to be in right relationship with the world as women we must realize that group healing has always been core to our nature.

The medicine is in seeing each other without fear of judgment, shame, or competition and removing the masks that keep us far from genuine connection.

When we recognize our desire to return to the most embodied version of ourselves as women we are already halfway there. We commit to ourselves with deep knowing that this subsequently heals the women around us. And in turn, the entirety of humanity.

The women's work of building strong foundations for a flourishing new generation, including right relationship to femininity in both sexes starts right where we are - among sisters.

An empowering environment of several women supporting one another needs a balanced footing, roots sunken into the fertile soil of inner peace. The thoroughly necessary work we must do within ourselves to recognize the insecurities we may project is a key component to any relationship, but self-responsibility without blame can do wonders when we actually want to make change in our community.

The dysfunction of the sister wound puts a rut in the powerful force of a group of embodied women, the love and reverence that could be found is instead turned against us as apprehension to even show our true selves.

Your true self is inherently worthy of drawing in those you resonate with, it is your birth right to cultivate a safe, uplifting environment of mutual respect and kindness to share the wealth, wisdom and light of being human. To grow together requires devotion to humanity, to the balanced sways of femininity and masculinity within us all.

True feminine strength reflects power with not power over.

Acting in accordance with this natural law immediately puts us into a state where we can receive due reverence and tap into our connection to source. Imagine the mother archetype, with her subtle but immense force.

An ecosystem of maidens, mothers, crones and everyone falling in between is such a privilege, especially through pregnancy and motherhood I craved a space for connection among us all - last weekend a small local group came together for the first sister's circle of hopefully many.

We gathered with the opportunity to foster growth as women, to lift our sisters up and be held in return, to unravel the deepest part of ourselves in the presence of others, in an undivided circle - the symbol of unity.

And that we did! Without me even mentioning any of these thoughts we immediately poured out a collective sense of gratitude for unity, over voluptuous pomegranates and tea. Ohh it was divine.

Much sorrow for the election was shared and sadness for the division of our country, no doubt. This is where I start to reflect heavily -

A dear (quite politically involved) friend of mine spoke on the power of fighting for what we believe is right with power and courage, to stand up for our moral principles against the opposition. The next part sat very heavily with me - she said, “people are horrible, they can be good, but they are often terrible” and followed this statement with a reminder of the holocaust. I recognize the sentiments but had to really reconsider what I thought was important for restoring peace to our communities - am I wrong for not being a raging activist when there is so much pain in the world?! Are humans really MORE bad than good?! I brought it up to my husband and in his crass supportive nature he reminded me that this particular war was only in the name of othering individuals in the first place - an "us vs them game" taken to extremes. Dehumanization is a horrible symptom of blame.

My heart goes out to anyone suffering at the hands of another human, truly. To cast blame is human nature, but so is our ability to respect nuance even in the most painful of scenarios. I don’t ask anyone, ever, to reject their values in the name of nuance - there are no ‘two sides’ to valuing precious lives. Do not confuse what I'm saying as a justification to oppression because of complexity.

Respecting nuance in this situation was to recognize that the election results are considered a threat to American women but 55% of white women voted for the republican candidate. I don’t much care for politics but in the instance that I did not vote for the democratic party I feel that I would've been cast out, blamed, shamed and very chewed for my views.

“Sagan notes that all of us are deeply attached to and even defined by our beliefs, for they define our reality and are thus elemental to our very selves, so any challenge to our core beliefs tends to feel like a personal attack. This is equally true of ourselves as it is of those who hold opposing beliefs — such is the human condition.” - Maria Popova on Carl Sagan’s compassion as our only mechanism for moving beyond “us vs. them,”

In the act of standing up for what we believe (which I encourage BTW) we are subject to disagreement, but we are capable of compassion.

As a regulated adult we are always capable of fostering acceptance, meeting everyone at whatever season they're in. It's our job as the people raising the small people who will inherit our values and politics to instill emotional intelligence in them. It's important to me to raise a woman who will be taught the vast difference between sympathy, empathy and compassion, as well as how we may use these to navigate complexity and nuance. Even in moral misalignments.

Sympathy: "I see you're going through something, that sucks!"

Empathy: "ugh I feel sooo bad you're going through something"

Compassion: "you're dealing with something, let’s deal with it together. We'll find the root cause and a solution."

You can read a better written, lengthier article about these words pertaining to emotional regulation HERE!

These words vary in depth, but all concern our kindness, and balancing compassion with a need to protect can certainly be complex - obviously we don't always (or ever) want to be kind to those we believe are harming us. Frankly, it’s often a horrible idea to be kind to people harming us. The exercise is to look deeper into the reasoning behind their actions and using the incredible opportunity to confront our shadow, to unravel the good/evil ideology that puts us into competition. Although we will never transcend it all, I'd like to teach my daughter the lesson of acting for the good of all and the harm of none - or wishing anyone opposing our perspective to be free of any suffering.

I don’t even believe that I’m better than thou for stating this, I truly think it just leads to a happier life with a nicer, functional response to negative stimuli. To not view anyone as EVIL makes it a lot easier to not feel victimized by them.

I worried during our women's circle that if I expressed compassion for the "wrong" side of the election that I would be instantly shut down by a group of women who care very deeply about their moral principles, leading to dehumanizing anyone rejecting them - maybe myself or maybe 55% of the participants.

The hard part is - it’s not their fault.

The harder part is - it IS their (our) responsibility.

In the end, it is our responsibility to come into our own as functional, reasonably content, somewhat healthy individuals regardless of who has harmed us before or how shitty life can be.

For women, I know from experience that it is an immense challenge to take on entirely alone - often with close peers carrying opposing beliefs coming after you, it may seem impossible. It takes a village and I’m so thrilled to build mine!

Inner peace and self-love are privileges we get to experience - and the foundation of powerful womanhood. To have compassion for ourselves, then to expand that circle outwards until unity becomes a sensation instead of a woowoo concept is a lifechanging way to mother the masses.

Embody the change and your presence will demand reverence.

Embody it well and make it an absolute priority to be surrounded by sisters, mothers, daughters, grandmamas, aunties and nieces (no matter who they vote for) - particularly in the shape of a circle! The sister wound compromises the guidance and embodiment we could be cultivating, inwards and outwards - this is a major setback for anyone who wants to see real change for the good of all and the harm of none.

We were much too present at our previous circle so of course we didn’t even touch on this list of loose guidelines for how to swap out the sister wound for thriving sisterhood - The Healing Sister practices:

“Acknowledgment

• Recognize the existence of the sister wound and its impact on your relationship.

• Admitting that there is an issue is the first step toward healing. It's essential to validate each other's feelings and experiences, understanding that the pain is real and significant.

• This acknowledgment helps create a foundation for the healing process, allowing both sisters to move forward with a shared understanding of the problem.

Communication

• Emphasize the importance of open, honest conversations. Discussing feelings and past hurts can help clear misunderstandings and pave the way for reconciliation.

• Communication should be respectful and non-confrontational, focusing on expressing personal feelings rather than blaming.

• Setting a dedicated time to talk without distractions can significantly improve the quality of these conversations, leading to deeper connections and mutual understanding

Empathy and Understanding

• Foster mutual empathy and understanding.

• Try to see things from each other's perspectives, which can strengthen your emotional connection. This step involves actively listening to each other's experiences and feelings without judgment.

• By empathizing with each other's pain and struggles, sisters can develop a more compassionate view, which is crucial for healing the sister wound and building a supportive relationship.

Forgiveness

• Discuss the role of forgiveness in healing. Letting go of resentment and past grievances is essential for moving forward.

• Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting or excusing past behavior but instead releasing the hold of these negative emotions on your present and future.

• This process can be challenging and require time, but it's critical to healing and rebuilding trust. Forgiveness opens the door to a renewed relationship, free from the burdens of past conflicts.

Professional Help

• Mention the benefits of seeking therapy or counseling if needed. Professional guidance can provide a safe space to navigate deep-seated issues and facilitate healing.

• Therapists can offer tools and techniques for effective communication, conflict resolution, and emotional regulation. Seeking help shows a commitment to healing and can provide the necessary support to overcome significant obstacles.

• Professional intervention can make a substantial difference in transforming a strained relationship into a healthy and supportive one.”

I found this list HERE in my research and frankly, I think it’s perfect the way it is. I’m too tired to write my own at this point.

Our next circle takes place January 5th, 2025. We elected no specific prompt for this gathering and I’m glad as we’ll all have enough to share after the holidays! Our official website for the local community can be found HERE! A sort of virtual circle can be started by commenting below!

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Expressing this feeling in words frees such a joy I've held within me the past few months, I planned to post this yesterday but serendipitously I came across another woman expressing this concept and had to meditate on/rework a few sentences. As well as adding this next segment by her that pulled everything together for me and validated my deep delight!

"FEEDING = COOPERATION WITH THIS MOMENT

To be in cooperation with the moment is to be acutely present with what is presenting itself, and choosing to be in relationship with it. There is no denial, resistance, or running away. It is being with, tenderly holding what is — whether you chose it or it chose you. This sort of loving participation with what life wants to offer you is the hallmark of the Mother archetype, the feeding feminine that chooses “power with” rather than “power over”.

The work of the Mother is to allow herself to be fed by the fruits of the spirit, and then share the bounty. It is this heartful presence that propels one to participate in the edifying of another, noticing and adapting to what is — a positive feedback loop that allows for mutual increase.

Just like the Mother Tree, the feeding feminine learns and remembers. She holds the codes and disseminates wisdom — the life experiences that provide supply for the household and the community. Rather than demand reverence, the spiritual purity of her contribution signals others to regard her in her rightful place: the source."

- Vashti Venari

Every few hours I get the opportunity to cultivate a space for my family and I to practice contentment.

Sometimes it isn't a wonderful moment so the opportunity gets left behind, when life is lifeing.

Nonetheless the beautiful exercise in savoring, presence and solitude that follows us around throughout our lives, has become especially abundant to me in motherhood through breastfeeding. The unwavering necessity it is to nurse my baby keeps me consistent, she is the devotion I needed to form a true practice - not solely out of her hunger but out of the bonding ritual we've created.

Meditation feels accessible to the doer in me now, it took being forced to slow down because I'll never view breastfeeding as lazy or a waste of time. We joke that I've been "boobie trapped" when I'm stuck to the couch or bed for 45 minutes with our very comfy nursed-to-sleep girl but this has been essential to quieting the version of me that bases my worth off my productivity. 

Physiologically feeding my child is a spectacular modality for deprogramming toxic hustle culture.

It's such a great opportunity to check texts, scroll social media or read (which I do frequently) but it's an even better opportunity to engage with my baby and thoughts. 

To hear my thoughts and be present with my body - creating a clarity my body and mind don't typically feel.

Since she was born it's been our consistent routine to sleep next to eachother and take several moments of rest together throughout the day, side lying position is our favorite, specifically skin to skin. I love to cozy her up in a little curled bundle beside me and she loves to touch me with her uncoordinated, curious little hands. 

I never thought I would be grateful that my husband can't feed her but here we are, I'm not partial to the idea of pumping anyways so at least for now I enjoy my purpose as sole source of growth and nourishment. I'm beyond appreciative of my circumstances allowing me to have this experience and aware that it's subject to change at any point but I've found this routine to be such a pleasure since her birth, as well as key component in integrating the almost jarring magic of fresh motherhood.

In the moments after the smooth motion of her emerging with her dad's hand on her head and him catching the other slippery half of her, passing her through my legs and into my hands, pulling her to my chest, she was immediately searching for the breast.

Even before her first breaths she had this immense newborn strength and attempted to crawl up me to eat.

An anchor throughout pregnancy and labor was "my proof that I've got everything I wanted from this birth" which was a visualization that I played with a lot, holding my perfect squishy baby to my chest and having the golden hour moments alone with my husband and baby to watch and nurse her - pure birth bliss. 

I wanted more than just a healthy baby and healthy mama experience, I wanted the opportunity to bond through the physically, emotionally and spiritually nourishing symbiosis of nursing the baby I just birthed. 

And I got it! 

It was special beyond comprehension to have this wish fulfilled, although it seems second nature now. To solidify this new reality where she and I are still part of one another but inhabiting our own bodies, that I am still and always her mother as she is still and always my daughter.

Learning to pour into both of us and adapting to the mental, emotional, spiritual and of course physical changes of postpartum is a very steep learning curve that I'm still embracing. Actually, I could say this is the hardest change I've ever yielded to.

We downplay how much it means to grow and carry life, internally then externally. 

I could (and will) write about the monumental significance of the shift from internal to external (birth) for days but lately I'm particularly in love with our nursing journey. 

To not only sustain life but cultivate it to thrive is so spectacular.

How much of an act of devotion it is and how it's truly a feat to endure some days, but it is meaningful and impactful to say the least.

If we were to acknowledge the importance of devoted and passionate endurance in terms of our personal development, I think we would all find that we are better for it.

The exercise it is to receive a crying, hungry baby with open arms, a soft voice and all the care she needs to be properly nourished is a potent expression of love - for her of course but also for any part of me that needs mothering.

When we settle into our nursing moments, we are not just breastfeeding because she's hungry but also for the true physical connection of seeking regulation and peace. 

It's a given that while I carried her in my womb she would be taken care of, warm and held by somebody she's known her whole life, my body would do the work (no matter how uncomfortable) whether I liked it or not. Upon birth, the same care requires serious effort. It's an entirely new skill to learn with this new body and there's little to no encouragement for most of us, besides a fed baby. There's frequently discouragement, at least for me there's been times when simply being in this sore, sticky, overstimulated, tired, utterly newfangled body requires immense fortitude.

I see becoming attuned to our physical/emotional/mental/spiritual states as such a valuable routine to implement in this season of life, but in this season everything must be done with as much simplicity as possible.

Wiping out the hustle culture programming from these intimate moments is important to me, I want to savor this fleeting phase. 

If I pause for a moment of intentional appreciation for this idle moment on the couch, my cup starts filling and the overflow is pouring into my baby. She gets a full belly and feels my love but instead of draining myself in the process of selfless giving, I get to revel in the privilege it is to care for another - I am internally resourced. I'm no longer feeling a victim to being boobie trapped. This is an act of devotion and connection, this gives us the possibility of leaning into the present moment, breathing and seeing what is offered to us.

Maybe you learn something, maybe not. You'll probably still be tired and hungry afterwards but at least now you rest or eat with some reverence for the process.

We get this chance to tap into a grand amount of oxytocin and relax into ourselves, as a mother I don't have time to be an overachiever. I have time to gather my clarity, calm my nervous system and pour out nourishment in these sweet moments I have before returning to being a singular person again.

I love mothering, intentionally and physiologically - if I can look into the beautiful blue eyes of my baby (I made those!!) and find myself a little more whole as a woman afterwards, I have won.

I become an eternally grateful, serene puddle of a milky woman at the first signs of her hunger, an experience that leaves me in awe of both of our existences.

Ohh how I love to be a human blessed enough to create and feed another.

"True to feminine form, this feeding element has two faces: the static and the dynamic. The static feminine feeds to sustain [the conduit of supply: MOTHER]. This type of feeding protects, advises, causes stability. The dynamic feminine feeds to transform [initiating gradual and steady movement: MUSE]. This type of feeding promotes change, sends a message, causes an awakening." -Vashti Venari 

Sending love from a booth at panera, drinking tea and feeding my sleepy baby!