Today, on the podcast, we have a powerful episode with Tatiana Berindei, author of Path to Puberty, the ultimate resource guide to moms of daughters. This is a rich and dynamic episode full of Tatiana’s experiences in the counter culture, her initiations into the womb mysteries, death, and birth, and her own birth stories. Tatiana seriously has the best stories. You’ll also hear some of the magical moments Tatiana has witnessed within her daughter as she has been initiated into womanhood in an intact and reverent way. This episode will make you both laugh and cry, which I think is the sign of any good story, really.

In this episode…

• “Post 40 is f-ing awesome”- Tatiana’s experience of moving closer to the Sorceress phase of life and loving yourself
• Knowing her first bleed was potent and powerful, but having nobody to join her in that space as a girl (despite having been sent to a moon lodge in the woods)
• The story of generational healing with Tatiana’s daughters first bleed and how important it is to model healthy self-image to girls (plus the incredibly healing moment of what Tatiana’s daughter wrote on her inner thigh that will bring you to tears)
• The scary birth control experience that was the beginning of Tatiana’s womb journey
• Chronicles of Tatiana’s experiences with the counter culture and the importance of seeking out new experiences in Maidenhood (even naive ones)
• When Tatiana left an abusive teacher/partner relationship, and was powerfully initiated into the womb mysteries by Pele on the Big Island of Hawaii
• Being responsible with your magnetism as women and not taking advantage of men
• Different ways we bring the feminine into our spirituality: womb wisdom, goddess initiations, yoni steaming, blood magic and more
• Our lives are not Disney movies: how healing is not what it was sold to us as, embracing life’s ups and downs and choosing your path
• When Tatiana returned home to Massachusetts, went into deep healing around her father wound, and met her husband who treats her like a Goddess
• Life is hard without elders, and why we should not be expected to know everything
• How the death of Tatiana’s father and brother within 3 months initiated her into birth, ceremony, and her life’s work
• Death does not equal failure
• Tatiana’s first pregnancy alongside her midwifery apprenticeship, and the interference that created a traumatic first birth experience for her
• Deciding that she would be the one to take responsibility for her choices in birth, and why the midwifery model does not allow for that
• The redemptive freebirth of Tatiana’s second daughter (as well as the one moment she ignored her intuition and the impact of that)
• What postpartum during peak lockdown was like and how Tatiana is “re-doing” those early years with her now 4 year old now
• Our rites of passage build on each other- from menarche to postpartum to menopause
• How Tatiana is feeling the transition into her 40s: everything is up for renegotiation, moving energy through her body, and normalizing lower energy

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have my sweet friend Sarah. Sarah’s story takes us on a journey from deep shame around her bleed and not telling anyone she got her period for the first three years of her womanhood, to her womb awakening at a ceremony in Costa Rica and living in a community where she felt honored as a bleeding woman (and wanted to tell everyone she knew about the menstrual cycle). You’ll hear more stories of how Sarah has deepened into her own womanhood, shared the wisdom she’s has gleaned with others and created a life in which she honors her cycle above all. This episode is imbued with Sarah’s grounded spiritual orientation to life, and you won’t want to miss it!

In this episode…

• Sarah shares the ways she has evolved from the dreamy 20 year old girl to the more grounded and responsible 31 woman she is today
• The story of how Sarah hid her first bleed from everyone in her life for three years and breaking down where this early shame even comes from
• How being on birth control made Sarah an atheist
• When Sarah quit her job, got off birth control, and moved to Costa Rica and the story of her magical, ceremonial womb awakening there
• How to integrate women’s cycles into community-care as well as self-advocacy for your bleeding needs
• Sarah’s full circle moment of returning to teach at the schools she attended as a more embodied woman, and the flack she got for teaching senior high school girls about their menstrual cycles
• The ceremony Sarah led for women in Guatemala and the ritual that has helped women get their missing bleeds back
• Sarah’s time living on a wooden tall ship, and how she learned to advocate for her cyclical needs and taught the younger girls to do it too
• What happens when your inner seasons don’t match the outer seasons
• How Sarah prioritizes her cycle as the center of her life now

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have my incredible mentor, Kristin Hauser. Kristin is a powerhouse of a woman, supporting both the women she works with towards hormonal resiliency as more, and her family of (soon to be) 6. Kristin shares how her own menstrual challenges led her to the work she is doing now, and how she views motherhood as a path to spiritual maturity. One of my favorite parts of this episode is how Kristin goes about her pregnancies and birth as she does the rest of her life- without medical interference, and in a totally normal, no fanfare type of way. This episode is steeped in Kristin’s wisdom and her stories that many women will be able to relate to and find common ground in.

In this episode…

• Kristin shares how she experiences the cyclical archetypes within her pregnancy trimesters
• How pregnancy is just a normal part of Kristin’s life 
• Kristin’s excitement about menarche, and how intuitively she taught herself to track her cycle along with the moon
• Her parents divorce and the connection between the fracture between her and her mother and her period pain
• Kristin shares her wisdom on the Heart Womb channel (and how our traumas affect our wombs)
• The many things that led Kristin from not wanting kids to wanting to become a mother
• Kristin’s magical maiden to mother nude photoshoot
• Kristin’s first homebirth story and her warrior-like attitude towards it despite the birth being pretty easy
• Kristin’s intense and unexpected breastfeeding challenges and how being around other breastfeeding women is what she wished she’d had
• Wild pregnancy and freebirth as “the next step” on Kristin’s journey
• Kristin’s second birth that was just another day for her family
• The financial struggles that Kristin’s family experienced in her second postpartum, and how this became an opportunity to uplevel her relationship with money
• Kristin’s third pregnancy, her move across the country in her third trimester, and her first “land birth”
• Motherhood as a path to spiritual maturity
• Kristin’s wisdom on developing the capacity for self-trust

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have Emily Sims! Emily is a Menstruality Mystic whose story is characterized by doing things a little differently and learning to be okay with that. You’ll hear her stories of reclaiming her menstrual cycle, remembering God as both feminine and masculine, having a pain-free birth, and more. In each turn of the wheel, Emily has courageously chosen to question the narrative and step into her own truth, while holding space for others to do the same. Tune into this one for a deep, nourishing, and playful conversation between two devoted women of the womb.

In this episode…

• Emily shares how she embodies each phase of her cycle and how it is all just happening naturally
• Working with the luteal phase and the inner critic
• The difference in “alone time” in the maiden and mother life phases
• How Emily remembered her first bleed and found resolution in a Menarche Reclamation Ceremony 
• Working with the fear of tampons and how we can support young bleeding girls
• The experience of “having” to be on birth control to take the medication Acutane
• How Emily fell in love with tracking her cycle and realizing her sovereignty, but felt a bit lonely in the process
• Tribal visioning, the Red Tent, rituals to the Goddess and why women may want to bleed together
• From evangelical to heretic: Emily’s reclaiming of her God as both feminine and masculine
• Emily’s beautiful story of her easeful pregnancy and pain-free birth
• The difference between fitting in and belonging
• How Emily received her “intense initiation” in her postpartum, rather than her birth
• Emily’s experience of becoming who her son has called her to be
• Learning to be in “the void”

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have Houyem! Houyem is a mother who is changing up the cultural narrative of how we move through rites of passage and modeling the same for her children. Through Houyem’s stories of her first bleed, her time on birth control and learning to own her fertility to her pregnancies and sacred postpartums, and now as a mother to a coming of age girl looking towards perimenopause, she shares how she has come to normalize and sacred-ize each turn of the wheel (within her cycle and her larger life cycle). This is a sweet and deeply inspirational episode.

In this episode…

• Houyem shares why the Luteal/Sorceress phase is her favorite one despite its “bad rep”
• Why you shouldn’t be working out your “issues” during menstruation
• Houyem’s early menarche (first bleed) and how she pretended it was not real
• The lack of honoring and understanding menstruation that is so common with girls and how Houyem is changing this narrative with her daughter and her daughters friends
• Her journey from birth control to the mixed emotions she felt when finally learning about her fertility
• How it is a conscious outside effort to disconnect women from their bodies and how we must reclaim it
• Why you might not meet the right person while on birth control
• The importance of healing your relationship with your menstrual cycle before giving birth- how menstrual shame impacts birth outcomes
• Houyem’s first home birth, a beautiful initiation into motherhood
• How Houyem’s mother and mother-in-law cared for Houyem in her postpartum in the traditional Tunisian manner
• The importance of postpartum support
• Houyem’s path as a doula, seeing medical sabotage in the hospitals and her free birth story
• Her excitement when her menstrual cycle has come back after each of her babies, and for her impending perimenopause
• The importance of taking care of yourself before menopause
• Reclaiming ALL of your rites of passages from the medical system

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have Briana Girard, a woman who has chosen massive transformation for herself and her family. Briana shares her stories of being a young girl, not knowing her bodily anatomy, going on birth control because she thought she could get pregnant on any day, working as a nurse and having a csection to learning the Fertility Awareness Method and giving up birth control for good, speaking to her baby in the womb and intuitively knowing he was okay, honoring her womb and her cycles and free birthing her second boy in total peace and power. Her story has a true, beautiful arc of growth and personal responsibility, and you’ll love the way Briana passionately, openly, and honestly, tells her story.

In this episode…

• The postpartum period without a cycle as being in a tideless ocean and how Briana is prepping for her period to return
• How Briana doesn’t remember her Menarche despite having an incredibly strong memory, but she does remember trying to (unsuccessfully) put a tampon in for the first time
• Growing up without knowledge of female anatomy and thinking you can get pregnant any day of the cycle
• Briana’s 10 years on birth control and how it kept her from becoming herself
• Her journey from birth control pills to a copper IUD to finally learning the Fertility Awareness Method and developing a relationship with her womb for this first time
• Briana’s time as an RN, having an overly medicalized first pregnancy
• How Briana learned to talk to her baby in the womb and began to “wake up” 
• The story of Briana’s C-section and the criminal mistakes and lack of consent on the part of her medical providers in her initiation into motherhood
• When Briana fully woke up and began choosing what she actually wanted for herself and her children (after an abusive pediatrician visit)
• Briana’s second pregnancy, skipping all her OB appointments, hiring and then firing her midwife, and enjoying the last few weeks of her pregnancy as a retreat
• Briana’s free birth story and how it was the catalyst that changed her family’s lives for the better

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have Linda Ma sharing her transformative journey through life's twists and turns. Linda shares her early initiations, including her menarche and first sexual experience. You’ll hear about her profound ayahuasca journey in the Amazon, meeting her ex in Hawaii, and the courage it took to leave that abusive relationship with two young daughters. Linda reflects on her two hospital births, uncovering truths about medical consent, and her evolution from licensed midwife to sovereign practitioner. As she cares for her elderly mother, she shares a magical vision of familial spirits and the comforting wisdom she’s gained about death as a gift. Linda is a woman walking her life path with a lot of trust and an open heart. Join us for this episode steeped in reverence for the sacred dance of womanhood.

In this episode…

• How Linda has always felt compelled to rest on her period, even as a young girl
• Linda’s life phase and is perimenopause real?
• Two initiations within one year: Linda’s menarche and first sexual experience stories
• From the Amazon to the Hawaiian Islands: Linda’s ayahuasca initiation, and how she met her ex, the father of her children, on his way to anger management class
• The path to finally leaving her abusive relationship when her children were 3 and 1, and what that actually takes for women
• Linda’s two hospital births, and how she found out years later when she got her medical records that they gave her all sorts of medications and procedures without her consent
• How Linda became a midwife and then resigned her license and left the system to be a sovereign midwife
• The role reversal initiation Linda is experiencing while caring for her elderly mother and the magical vision Linda got of her grandmother telling her that her mother’s spirit is free
• Linda shares her wisdom on death as a gift and how she has always felt comfortable with it
• How Linda has normalized bleeding in a house with three teenagers and the sweet ritual they all participate in

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have the inspiring Amy Mackey! Amy has an incredibly interesting life-path that includes both an intellectual path of higher education and mythology and an embodied path of womb work, tantra, and motherhood. Amy takes us on a journey from her traumatic first bleed, and her first marriage at 21 to owning her sexuality, and becoming a living embodiment of each Wisdom Goddess (the Mahavidyas) that she has had the honor to pass through. Amy also graces us with her knowledge on each of the 10 Mahavidyas that characterize each phase of womanhood and our menstrual cycles (yes, you heard that right- 10 archetypes, not 4!). This conversation is incredibly dynamic, interesting and will make you laugh, cry, gasp, and smile from your heart.

In this episode…

• How Amy is turning to sisterhood to balance out raising three boys
• Amy speaks to her sister wound that was triggered by a deep ancestral mother wound
• Amy and I deep dive about women’s circles
• Amy’s experience of feeling safe with men, always honoring her body as a temple, and having intact, sacred sexual experiences
• How Amy went from a christian marriage at age 21 to goddess spirituality and tantra
• Amy and I laugh about our cervical mucous around ovulation (and the importance of sharing our cycles with the men in our lives)
• Amy speaks to the 10 Mahavidyas (wisdom goddesses) and how they correlate to each phase of womanhood and each phase of the menstrual cycle
• How Amy was never taught about menstruation, and so she thought she was dying when she got her first bleed
• Amy shares the two sides of the coin of maidenhood: the sensual lover and the raw creative force, and how women who are in between maiden and mother can find home here
• How Amy had to face her codependent tendencies in her first pregnancy by trusting herself even when an ultrasound told her that her baby had severe genetic abnormalities
• How the drama and interference of Amy’s second birth convinced her to freebirth her third
• The story of Amy’s conscious conception, her early miscarriage and the grief and healing it brought her
• Amy’s third birth that happened just as she wanted it to
• If you don’t become a mother- the Goddess of Sovereignty and holding her own
• Amy shares the last archetypes on the wheel of womanhood that characterize our later years of life (and how we meet them in our cycles each month)
• How the Goddess Kali (who is time itself and the center of the wheel) shows up when you are not honoring yourself and Tara (the outer wheel) reminds us that everything is sacred

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Today, on the podcast, we have Meghan Persephone Taylor. Meghan is a textile artist, specifically a weaver, and you will hear this in the way she weaves the threads of her story together into a tapestry of art. As a Mother of 2 who hasn’t bled since becoming a mother, Meghan shares the stories of her 2.5 year conscious conception of her first, her “subconscious” conception of her second (and not realizing she was pregnant until she started showing at 4 months!), and the creative projects birthed in between. Meghan’s story is a mythic one of going to the underworld to transmute trauma into art, and following the spiral threads of her life with deep trust.

In this episode…

• Meghan’s experience of being deep in the fullness of Motherhood and not having bled since early 2020
• Conscious conception and subconscious conception- how Meghan conceived her second in a dark time and didn’t realize she was pregnant until she was 4 months along
• How Meghan never even considered hiring medical support for her birth, her beautiful free birth and its invitation into her greatest art project yet
• The synchronistic timing of Meghan’s creative project coming to completion in the same month as her daughter being born
• Being pregnant with either children or projects for four years and how that has been expansive and she’s also “hanging on for dear life”
• How the creative force is so uniquely us and also beyond us
• Meghan’s story of reclaiming her life in the underworld and taking on the name Persephone
• Watching herself be born in an industrialized hospital setting and how Meghan chose to unweave each thread to heal and transmute the trauma into creativity and choice
• Meghan shares the story of Persephone as it relates to her own life and how we can all use myths to metabolize our personal experiences
• How we can find wisdom in the underworld as women and how that actually happens in the real world
• The magical story of Meghan’s conscious conception that began when she met her partner and has been the catalyst for everything that has conspired in her life since
• Cycles of fire and earth: changing and integration over and over again
• The threads that led Meghan to move to Costa Rica at 7 months pregnant, and why this is the perfect place for her right now
• Meghan shares about the places she’s lived in relation to astrocartography
• Following the threads of your life all the way through

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.

Meghan’s Information:

1. Website: https://thematriarchsreturn.squarespace.com/

2. Community landing page: https://the-matriarchs-return.mn.co/landing?space_id=12602718

3. Instagram profile for "a conception": https://www.instagram.com/a.conception_fieldnotes/?hl=en

4. Shop link to access "a conception": https://thematriarchsreturn.squarespace.com/shop

5. Insta: https://www.instagram.com/thematriarchsreturn/?next=%2F&hl=en

Today, on the podcast, we have my inspiring friend Laura. Laura is a shining example of what it means to live a radically authentic life, to take full ownership over your choices, and and to actually choose yourself. Laura’s story takes us from the her European upbringing and learning to navigate body-image in a family culture that was open-minded, but a Christian schooling system that was not, to the messiness and grief of the maiden to mother transformation, and finally to Laura’s fully outside of the system wild pregnancy, free birth and early motherhood years, with many interesting and transformational twists and turns in between. Laura’s energy and storytelling is absolutely magnetic, and her zest for life is infectious. I can’t wait for you to hear her story!

In this episode…

• Being in a totally different kind of cycle (neither 24 hour or 28 day) as a new mother
• The inherent grief of letting go of maidenhood
• The importance of honoring birth as a sacred rite-of-passage
• How the cascade of interventions to disconnect women from their bodies starts when we are born
• Laura shares that  grew up in an “out there” family, and how she became even more “out there.”
• The story of Laura’s first bleed after a 3 day road trip and how it left her feeling disconnected from her parents
• The disconnect between parents and kids who spend all day separated
• Laura’s story of tension between her open European parents and her Christian schooling that instilled body shame in her
• Laura’s journey to love, feel comfortable in and listen to her body and how she is teaching her daughter to do the same
• Letting go of Christianity, owning her sexuality, and rediscovering who she is and how this is still an ongoing process
• How Laura’s ungrounded Maiden confidence crashed and burned in 2020 and how this actually allowed her to love herself for real
• How pregnancy is an opportunity to trust yourself if you allow it to be and how Laura consciously made this choice by having a wild pregnancy and a free birth
• Why you may want to rethink getting that one ultrasound
• How Laura’s birth was the coolest day of her life, and not just because her baby was born
• Laura’s birth story of pain-free labor, deep trust of the process, intense fetal ejection reflex, fully surrendering, and bliss
• Interruptions in Laura’s immediate postpartum and a challenging start to her breastfeeding relationship
• Laura’s prolapse and her desire to rest for longer in her next postpartum
• Mother instincts: Why its biologically normal to honor not wanting anyone else to hold your baby, among other things
• Laura’s invitation to women to go within and find your own answers

A new woman’s story is released every Wednesday, so go ahead and subscribe for your new favorite ritual. And make sure to rate and review this podcast so that more women get their eyes and ears on it.