Birth Mystics

Manifesting has become part of our everyday language and culture, but how does it really work? Does it actually work? What place does it have in the birth space? As doulas, Katie and Stephanie have seen manifesting used in both beautiful and counterproductive ways. When manifesting is used as another way to "control outcomes" it can become just one more road to dashed expectations and disappointment. But when manifesting is approac...

A closer look at the Genesis creation story helps us understand the spoken and unspoken precedents that underlay it. The way it has been interpreted and taught, over the centuries, inevitably leads us into the realm of Mind OVER Matter, where creation does not involve the flesh and blood but is solely a product of thought. In this sense, we are a technology of the gods; how does this show up in our modern birth culture? What does i...

Katie shares her very personal and stirring poem about the "uninhabitable house" that was her body. Together with Stephanie, they discuss the journey we undertake to inhabit ourselves, to live fully embodied, and how that directly affects our birthing experiences. They look at how our modern worship of clocks and mirrors, or in other words time and appearances, keep us living outside of our own homes and how this hugely affects our...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl is a powerful myth written by Scottish author George MacDonald and was published in 1880. Today, Stephanie peels back some of its many layers to reveal impactful insights around the integration of masculine and feminine, light and dark. So much of fear, in birth and life, stems from lack of familiarity and facing the unknown. How can we spend more time acquainting ourselves with the parts of ourselves...

In today's episode, Katie shares the Greek myth of Medusa, pulling in some key and lesser known backstory, shedding light on what up to her becoming the snake-haired terror that turns men to stone. She draws upon the imagery of Perseus' shield, what he used to defeat Medusa, to guide all of us as we heal from trauma. Drawing from Peter Levine's teachings, Katie brings this compassionate and important discussion into the world of bi...

Stephanie shares one of the greatest birth hacks of all time--understanding brainwaves and consciousness. Brainwaves are a Western empirical understanding of how thoughts emit certain frequencies, whereas consciousness is an Eastern spiritual understanding of how we experience oneness. When these traditions overlap, we discover astounding relevance for our birth experiences and our lives. By understanding where your brain is trying...

Katie masterfully brings together the Celtic mythology of Selkies and the journey of birth. Selkies are mythological creatures that shape shift from seal to human by removing or putting on their seal skin. What lessons do Selkies teach us? What symbolism can we draw upon to support spiritual and emotional transformation? Listen in as Katie and Stephanie plunge into the deep end with today's magical episode.

To follow Katie's work, ...

Stephanie leads a discussion on the powerful short story The Yellow Paper, a semi-autobiographical novella written at the turn of the century by Charlotte Perkins Gillman. This is a compelling, haunting story of a woman's rebirth that is tragically thwarted; she is prescribed the rest cure during her postpartum, separated from her baby and loved ones, and confined to an old nursery in a cottage house in the remote countryside. Step...

Our inner impulse to control birth (and life) is so deeply engrained that sometimes, if we use fancy new vocabulary words and dress it up in euphemisms, we think we have escaped it. But in this episode, Stephanie identifies covert tendencies for control found within three prominent worldviews. Call it whatever you'd like--divine favor, manifestation, evidence--it's still that sneaky friend we call control and it will wreak havoc, i...

What are the formative birth stories of your life? This is an important question to ask yourself as you prepare to give birth. You may think about the birth stories of your closest friends, family members, ancestors, and even media portrayals of birth. These stories influence and affect you, some in positive ways, some in not so positive ways. One kind of formative birth story that gets overlooked is the creation story. We are only...

Today we are diving into the land of fantasy. Katie was hugely influenced in her childhood by Avatar the Last Airbender. It's a story centered around the four elements: fire, water, wind, and earth. There is also a side world connected to it called the Spirit World full of entities that possess different powers or abilities. In the beginning of the creation of the physical realm many powerful spirits chose to give up their mortalit...

Kora, the Maiden, loved to explore the Earth and all its beauty. One day in her wanderings she encountered strange shadows that haunted her steps. In her wisdom, she knew she could help them and prepared for a journey into the underworld. She made her descent, causing the Earth to contract in grief, bringing death, decay, and winter. When Kora arrived, she met each shadow one by one, preparing them for rebirth in the physical realm...

You birth like you live. So how do you live? If you're really willing to ponder that simple question, you can go pretty deep. This is not meant to make you feel guilt, shame, or self-judgement. It's simply a reflection of who you are right now. Instead of just plunging into what society has told you is a good birth, this is about curating birth to your specific wants and needs, even if it doesn't look like anyone else's. Birth is a...

Stephanie and Katie engage in a composite dialogue that demonstrates the unrest and confusion women can feel when their Mama Bear ferocity wakes up during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Oftentimes these sweet, pleasant, docile women are deeply shaken by their rage and volatility, particularly when it's directed toward those they love most.

Where Katie's previous episode "Princess and the People Pleaser" addressed what it means t...

Katie reimagines the fairytale of the Princess and the Pea. A lonely prince is looking for his perfect bride to be his princess. When a disheveled looking woman shows up on their doorstep, the Queen comes up with a brilliant plan to determine if she is truly a princess or not. She stacks many mattresses on top of one another and places a single pea in between two of them. She concludes that if this woman is truly worthy of her son'...

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

     And he said:

     Your children are not your children.

     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

     They come through you but not from you,

     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

     For they have their own thoughts.

     You may house their bodi...

Katie guides us through a discussion about the power of presence and what that can do for your birth. Living in the present moment is one of the greatest gifts birth can give you. Mindfulness is the ability to be in this moment without allowing distractions to pull you out of that focus. You can imagine your thoughts as a river that can sometimes sweep us up into its current. Mindfulness teaches us to pull ourselves above the water...