The Menstruality Podcast - 238. The Spiritual Power of the Womb (Chantal Blake)

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

The spiritual power of the cycle and the womb is core to Red School’s teachings and offerings, and we’ve explored this topic on the podcast through the lens of many different faith, spiritual, traditional and indigenous traditions including; Maori womb wisdom with Hinewai Waitoa, Andean womb wisdom teachings with Dr Cynthia Ingar, Anishinabe cyclical wisdom with Asha Frost, and ancient African womb and birth technologies with Latham Thomas, as well as a conversation with Meggan Watterson about relevant mystical christian texts. Today we’re exploring how the Islamic faith reveres the womb, with Holistic Menstrual Health Educator, Womb Steaming Therapist, and author of ‘Peaceful Periods: Holistic Womb Care for Teens’, Chantal Blake.Chantal recently gave a learning session in Red School’s graduate community, The Hive, and at the start of this session, she asked a question which moved me deeply; “how does your womb impact your spiritual reality and practice?” Many of the community said that no one had ever asked them that before, and perhaps the same is true for you? So, as an extension of Chantal’s beautiful question, this conversation is an invitation to you and participants of all faith and cultural backgrounds to contemplate the wisdom of the womb as sacred. We explore: The ancient, worldwide history of womb steaming and how it can support womb and pelvic health. The Arabic word raḥim—meaning womb—shares its root with raḥma, or mercy, and in Islam, the womb is honored not only as a physical center of creation, but as a symbol of divine compassion and relationality and a vessel of divine mystery. How our wombs support us to gestate our creative ideas, and Chantal’s experience of working with her womb to birth her work projects, including her book. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyChantal Blake: @honouredwomb - https://www.instagram.com/honoredwomb

Welcome to the menstruality podcast where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexander and Sharnie, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, change makers and creatives to explore how you can, unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. So we've explored the spiritual power of the cycle and menopause and the womb many times on this podcast. It's a theme that's central to Red School's teachings. And we've looked at it

through the lens of lots of different faith and spiritual and indigenous traditions, including Maori womb wisdom with Hinawa, Waitoa, Andean womb wisdom with Dr. Cynthia Inga, Anisha Nabe, cyclical wisdom with Asher Frost, and ancient African womb and birth technologies with Latham Thomas, as well as a conversation with Megan Watterson about relevant mystical, Christian texts and cyclical and womb wisdom. And today we're exploring how the Islamic faith reveres the womb with holistic menstrual health educator, womb steaming therapist, and author of peaceful periods holistic womb care for teens, Shantau Blake. So Shantel recently gave a learning session in Red School's graduate community, The Hive. And at the start of this session, she asked a

question which moved me deeply, which was, how does your womb impact your spiritual, and practice. And many of the community said that no one had ever asked them that question before. And maybe that's true for you. So as an extension of Chantal's beautiful question, this conversation today is an invitation to you and people of all faith and cultural backgrounds and traditions to contemplate the wisdom of the womb as sacred. We actually recorded this conversation a few months back just before Ramadan and before Chantal had had her new baby. So congratulations, Chantel. And just a note, please bear with the audio for the first part of the interview. There's some background noise, which Chantel resolved about 20 minutes in. So let's get started

with the spiritual power of the womb with Chantel Blake. So Chantel, welcome to the menstruality podcast. Thank you so much for making the time for this. You know, you gave a really beautiful learning session in our graduate community at Red School in the Hive. And I was just watching it this morning and feeling so grateful that we get to share some of your wisdom with the wider Red School community. So thank you so much for being here with us today. Pleasure. Really, really honored to be invited. And we always do a cycle check-in at the beginning of this podcast, and you're in quite a special place, cyclically. So I wonder how you're feeling with that. I think. you could share a bit about how you're doing.

Sure. I'm in the final weeks of a very full pregnancy. I'll say this season feels very, it feels very autumn-like in its nature. And then I find that I'm very inward, I'm feeling very tender. I'm feeling a need to get things in order. and a little bit nesty. So yeah, definitely feel like I'm preparing to go into a really deep winter cocoon in postpartum. So that's where my attention has been.

I really do miss my cycle when I'm, you know, during pregnancies. But also, yeah, just feeling a lot of ripeness as well. a lot of fullness, a lot of ripeness, like definitely feels like harvest time. Wow, what a beautiful description. I'm curious how your mind is, because I'm looking back to when I was where you were out in pregnancy, and I felt like I couldn't find words and put them together into sentences. So I'm curious how you're doing with that. Yeah, my memory definitely feels like it's, my recall isn't feeling as strong.

still articulating but I just find I'm just feeling very tender you know a lot of things make me teary and I feel like I must be including a lot of oxytocin my youngest son is almost five and he's just always on me and always so connected around my belly on me in my bed and so yeah I guess there's There's something being communicated that's bringing in a lot of love. I'm feeling very loved and that that's coming in without me having to ask for it or articulate it. Like people just knowing that I need that connection right now. But yeah, I'm still here. I'm still here.

I don't feel like I'm floating just yet. Still here. I'm on day 20. And I just had an interaction with my. husband. This is a lot of my cycle awareness comes through in how I'm speaking to my husband. And I was like, ah, okay, there was some heat in that exchange, that wouldn't have been there a couple of days ago. So I can feel, yeah, like a delicious seriousness that comes in and a capacity to see where things are out of alignment and a capacity to express that quite,

yeah, quite loudly sometimes. And I, yeah, I love this place of my side. I'm just, it's my favorite. So yeah, yeah, I'm happy. I'm happy here today. And I'm just happy to be sitting with you having a conversation about the spiritual power of the womb because as I was preparing for our chat, I was thinking about how really this has been the quest of my life. It's to, well, firstly, to connect to my own womb as a place of sanctity and sacredness, having experienced some of what so many women experience, which is a kind of desecration of that part of my body, an abuse of that part of my body. And then to go, wow, well, if I can feel this connection, can I share it with others,

other women and people with wombs? And so this is like my favorite conversation to have. And I wonder if you could start by walking us into your entry point to this womb-honoring journey, which I think was through womb's Am I right? Around that time, definitely, definitely that season. I remember after giving birth to my first daughter, who's 15 now, and she overhears content. She's like, you're always talking about me. It's like, I only have one daughter and you're the firstborn, so you're a significant part of my journey, also being the other womb in the household. And so after, giving birth to my first daughter. I remember postpartum recovery being really challenging and trying to figure out how am I supposed to care for myself

without any guidance or support. We had just moved overseas, so we're living really far from home. My husband teaches English, and so we've traveled quite a bit. We've lived outside of the U.S. for a really long time. And I remember at some point, pivoting when we started to think about having another child conceiving just you know

didn't come very easily even with our first born and and then I had two back-to-back losses after my daughter was born and that caught my attention because I think I had just assumed like okay well pregnancy the first time worked you know all systems go another pregnancy should just happen. And I remember those losses really waking up my attention and getting me really curious as to wondering, well, what exactly does my body need to hold this pregnancy, to hold a pregnancy and to thrive? And I started to become more aware of my cycle, what was happening hormonal.

that was I think a big invitation for me was to consider that all of my adult life and pre-adult life probably I had this concept of what it looked like or felt like to be healthy and it never centered or accounted for my cycle yeah it never accounted for the fact that I'm a woman in a female body it was just the generic advice you would about how to eat and exercise and go, go, go, and this very static approach to health. And it never dawned on me that I was cyclical, that my bleed was more than you're pregnant or you're not pregnant. It actually was shaping me, shifting me, and moving me through not just different emotional

states but also different physiologic states. And so I started to really feel drawn to the work of Elisa Viti and Woman Code. And that was probably my initiation into cycle awareness. And then at some point, the cycle awareness kind of rooted deeper into womb awareness. I started to get curious about, like, what's actually the state of my womb and a conversation that I had with a teacher and friend and of mine, Angelica Lindsay, she's known as the Villageante Online. I remember her sharing an anecdote and she talked about having a tilted uterus, having uterine pain in an African dance class and a West African dance instructor. suggesting to her that perhaps your uterus is tilted and suggested that she bind her wound and takes her in herbs.

And it reminded me that the very first time I went to a gynecologist, the gynecologist mentioned similarly that my uterus was tilted. And she said some people are just like that. There was no discussion, you know, about what impact this could have on my cycle, my, my, my, my, my, My menstrual bleed, my fertility, it just was like, oh, some people are just like that. So it reminded me of that information, and I got really curious as to, well, what do you do when you have a tilted uterus? And so I became really curious about receiving bodywork, particularly womb work. So I started looking for a practitioner who was trained in Arvigo, Mayan, abdominal, sacral massage, etc. And I found a practitioner and the massage prior to the massage, you have a steam first.

And so even though I had heard about steaming, when I lived in Turkey, I had a friend who sold yoni steaming herbs. I had never tried it until I sat for this massage. And that's when I think the actual state of my womb started to really, like, grow in my consciousness. Like, okay, I should be, okay, so I should be massaging my womb. Okay. Steaming is supportive. And then that kind of led me on a path of having a room steaming practice for myself at home. And then eventually I trained as a practitioner.

And I just thought, oh, this is great. I can help women have, you know, more gentle periods, less painful periods, and ease after their births with womb steaming as this really gentle, loving, universal tool. And then you start working with women in the womb and you realize there's a whole, you know, womb universe there. There's really a lot that is held in our womb. And I'm a very practical person. I've always leaned more into a very scientific background, but it was just so impossible to ignore how much more is wrapped up. It's not just ligaments, tissues, hormones,

and the physiology of the cycle I was witnessing. you know, emotional releases and spiritual experiences through people's awareness of their womb and cultivating their relationship with their womb. So it was pretty hard to deny that the womb has a spiritual essence as well. And then eventually coming into contact with other Muslim women who have been studying and sharing the Islamic spiritual traditions around the womb was definitely like, okay, now it's starting to really come together in a more wholesome. I'm able to see it a lot clearer now. So I guess that was the journey.

I'm so excited to hear more about the Islamic tradition when it comes to the womb and honoring the womb and there are a couple of things you spoke to you there that I'd love to ask about too. For example, you mentioned that womb steaming is universal. And I wondered if you could share from your training and knowing like some of the history of womb steaming because it's a global phenomenon, isn't it? It is. It is. And so even though many people try to peg womb steaming as only belonging to one culture, or if any other culture, is using it, it's some kind of appropriation. But, you know, I trained with Kelly Garza of the, you know,

Steamy Chick Institute, Parisham Hydro Therapy Institute. I like that name, Steamy Chick. You know, it gets your attention, doesn't it? Yeah. And so Kelly has been collecting anecdotes about steaming, references to steaming, papers, research, and everything that she has gathered really points to a lineage of practice on every inhabited continent. The oldest textbooks in Europe, you know, in Africa, you know, the indigenous practices throughout the Americas and Asia, they all pay some kind of homage to or have some reference to women sitting,

over steam. The most universal use of steaming is definitely postpartum. And so especially where you have the lay midwifery tradition intact, you'll still see those medicine women, those midwives, those birthkeepers still holding the practice of steaming, very much alive in the Ayurvedic tradition in traditional Chinese medicine, in Mayan indigenous, you know, healing, Mexican indigenous healing. Sometimes those are the places we see it most prominently. Korea as well, it's a very regular practice. But yeah, everyone, I believe it's not a stretch of the imagination to say that we all have steaming in our lineage. It was our original women's medicine. It predates modern gynecology and it's an extension of herbalism because you know when you when

you benefit from plant medicine it has many applications right you have teas you have tinctures you have poultices and this is just another mode of administrating or administering the benefit of herbs so so yeah it really is for all of us and we keep finding more and more information about like, oh yeah, steaming is done here or there. Most of the time it has a very particular use. Like for some, in some culture, steaming is considered like a ritual practice. So it might be very safeguarded and ceremonial.

In some cultures, it's used in one particular way. So it feels foreign or strange to hear steaming talked about in other applications because it's like, no, this is, we do steaming in this one way. We do it before marriage, we do it after birth, or, you know, it just has this very particular application. So really grateful to Kelly because she's really been able to expand how we all see steaming, and now we see steaming being used in hospital settings and in clinics, and with really great results. we see steaming being used in a wider application and for many more people who in their own lineage might have been severed from the steaming that might have happened in the past.

Beautiful. It's beautiful to feel the world being woven back into this gorgeous ancestral practice from across the world. And amazingly, we haven't spoken about it yet on the podcast. I'm glad we're talking about it for then. Yeah. Yeah, it's really fascinating to see the collective intelligence of women in this way. And so every time I hear a lot of negative backlash about steaming, oh, it's a placebo effect or there's no evidence.

The fact that it has transcended culture, ideology, philosophy, continents, I think speaks to the collective intelligence of women. we know what serves us and it's not a practice that you have to kind of be coerced into a particular doctrine to make sense of it. Like women who have no connection to each other still found relief and refuge and steaming and I think that's really powerful. So powerful. One of the questions that you asked in the learning session for the graduate community was how does your womb impact your spiritual reality and practice if you have one?

And I was really struck by this question and I could see that others in the group were too and many of the community said, like they love that question and they'd never been asked it before. And I don't even necessarily have a question about this but I wanted to offer that question to our community of listeners now from you, Chantal. How does your womb impact your spiritual reality and practice? And maybe you could speak a bit about the importance of asking ourselves that question.

Yeah. In the Islamic tradition, the womb has a very special rank and regard. And so its name is derived from what we believe to be one of, God's divine names. So the womb in Arabic, in the Arabic language and how it's referenced in the Quran and Islamic literature, the womb is called Rahm. And it's very similar to the word Rahma, which is mercy in Arabic. And one of the divine attributes of God that we recognize is a name called Ar Rahman, which is the most merciful. So if you can kind of hear that Arrahman, they have the same three-letter root.

And it's not just coincidental. You know, it's something that's expressed in our tradition that the womb's name is derived from one of God's divine names. And so that in of itself is, I think, such a beautiful reminder that in a way you could kind of derive that a, essence of God, one of God's attributes is really embedded in the female body in a very permanent way. And in our tradition, we don't have any other organs that take their names from, you know, a divine name, what we consider a divine attribute or a divine name. And so it's very unique.

It's a very unique honor in that way. And also very much a very visceral reminder of, embodying mercy and being merciful. We also have traditions that talk about, you know, the people who are merciful to one another, that God is merciful to them as well. So there's definitely a very visceral reminder that, you know, we are these bearers of mercy and that our wombs are really vessels of mercy. If you think about the way that they nurture and give and hold and protect, So there's a very real lesson in that reflection.

And also in our tradition, there's a conversation that happens between the womb and God. So there's a conversation. And so this is like a metaphysical conversation that after all of creation was made, that the womb spoke to the creator. and the creator speaks to the womb as well. So there's this dialogue and this conversation. And the conversation really revolves around God saying to the room, won't you be pleased with me that I will keep good ties

with the one who keeps good ties with you. And I will cut relations or sever relations or ties with the one who severes ties or relations with you. And the womb responds. It's like an affirmation of this, of this agreement, this arrangement. And some people interpret this conversation to mean the broader scope of family ties. So family ties, family connections, the one who keeps ties with their family, God keeps ties close to them, and the one who cuts off their family or sever's ties. there's a spiritual severing as well.

But also linguistically, it's a specific conversation that is just directed between the womb and God. And so I always really take from that, how am I keeping good ties with my womb? How am I keeping that relationship strong with my womb? Can we just pause for a moment to celebrate that there is this holy book, this holy literature, where there is a conversation between God and the womb. It's beautiful to hear. It makes my whole body celebrate. Yeah, it's a really, I remember the first time I heard a student of knowledge or a Islamic

teacher. I heard her say this and it just gave me chills too. It was just like, wow, I had never thought about my, you know, we talk about the uterus, but like thinking of the womb as this, this greater spiritual reality that has a spiritual identity, you know, it's not just an imagined, it's like a documented,

you know, at least in our tradition, it's a documented, you know, spiritual identity that's really powerful. So what I like to also take from this is how is my womb speaking to me? because, you know, maybe we can't fathom what this conversation was like, you know, where words used, where sounds, you're like, you know, imagining this metaphysical encounter

can really be beyond the scope of our imagination. But when we also pair that with the medical idea of the womb or the cycle being the fifth vital sign and signs talk to us, they communicate to us, I like to think of the womb speaking to us through our symptoms, our cycles, our sensations, and those subtleties that we notice between our emotional self and what's happening in our lives and how it shows up in our bleeds and our symptoms and what we experience. So I like to imagine that that's how the womb talks to us. And that's a conversation that we can access, you know, in a very real and ongoing way.

I love this so much. It's like a language that we need to learn. It really is our own unique language, which probably expresses in similar ways, but differently for each of us depending on our lives and what's happened so far. and yeah, but being able to, it's why I love menstrual cycle awareness as a way to facilitate that conversation. Okay, how is, how is my body? How am I feeling? What is my bleed showing me? What is my ovulation showing me? What is this pre-ovulation window? Which is actually my loudest voice at the moment because it's where a lot of anxiety is coming up, pre-ovulation in the inner

spring. And I'm really, it's beautiful to think of it this way, Chantal, that I'm in a diet. dialogue with my womb, my womb showing me something. Like earlier in my life, it showed me a lot in the premenstrual phase of my cycle about what I needed to say no to, really. And maybe, I don't know, maybe my inner spring, my womb and my inner spring is showing me what I need to say yes to. I don't know. But it's, I love framing that. I really appreciate this opportunity to frame that as a spiritual conversation that's unfolding between me and my womb. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do. too, you know, especially since I became a loomstein practitioner, I had worked with many women, and it was always so fascinating to me, especially, for example, it might be someone who said,

you know, my bleed is missing, and I've gone to doctors, and no one is listening, and no one knows why, and I'm just so tired, you know, and they, you know, and I just listen, I just hold the space and listen, and then they finally just release what's on their heart, you know. And then I'll get a text that night like, okay, my bleed came, I guess. You know, like, and, you know, and when you think about it again, I like to, and I think that's why people really appreciate my voice and my perspective, because I've gone through, and I used to think it was like something to be embarrassed about, but I've gone through many careers or I've had many different types of jobs in my life.

And I didn't realize until probably the last few years that it gives me so many different lenses to look at the world through. And it gives me so many more languages to communicate the same reality through. So for example, I went to a vocational high school in New York City. So I studied nursing while I was a high school student. student. And so my first career, real career, you know, I did some daycare assisting and a little bit of secretarial work from my stepfather when I was a teenager. But my first, like, big grown-up career was nursing. And then in college, I studied engineering. And so I worked as an engineer after I finished grad school. And then I taught English for a little bit to,

enable my husband and I to travel. And then I became a mom. And that was, you know, a huge pivot in my trajectory. And so while I was mothering and staying at home mothering, I really got into writing and did freelance writing and travel writing and health writing. And then somehow landed on loom steaming. And so I used to think, well, this is not a very neat resume. This is very unconventional, but I appreciate that my medical training gives me a lens of looking at the world. My engineering training gives me a lens at looking at the world. And eventually, and then writing, you know, so I've learned to be able to bring all of these different lenses, angles, perspectives together and how I articulate what I want to say.

and it's been a true gift. And so all that to say, when I think of someone having, you know, in traditional Chinese medicine, they'll say the womb is the second heart. So there's that heart-room connection and the emotions that the heart really struggles to process can descend, you know, emotions in traditional Chinese medicine move through the blood and it descends and releases from the womb. But then I also think about the safety that we feel when we're heard and when we're seen and when we're validated and witnessed and mirrored. And when we think about all of the tension that the pelvic bowl holds when we don't feel safe, then it makes sense that that invitation to safety where someone can finally say what they really feel without being gaslit, without being told but your labs are normal,

without being told but nothing is wrong. I'm just imagining literally that unwinding, that release and that expansion in the pelvic bowl, allowing for the bleed to descend. It just, to me, that makes sense. And I've had experiences myself where I was so tense or so focused on getting something done. And it wasn't until I actually really had a full body exhale,

then my bleed would come. Or I remember even in one of my postpartum, I was thinking about how, I don't know. I don't know why I felt this sense of like, it's taken my bleed so long to come after this postpartum. You know, my son is already two. What is going on? Like, what's wrong?

I was analyzing. I think I was being the practitioner of myself and trying to figure out what's going on. Is it blood deficiency? Am I not eating well enough? Is it stagnation? Like all of the things that I go through as a practitioner with my clients. And I remember I spoke at an event about the womb in Islam. And at some point, someone else asked about their bleed being missing after postpartum.

And I just, you know, just was very honest. that I miss my bleed, you know. I miss having my cycle and having that orientation. And either that night or the next day, my bleed came after two something years. So I feel very aware of this reality. And then also the mystery when you're trying to figure things out. And it's just, you know, whoa, okay. pregnancies that you don't plan for.

It's like case and point, you know, is one of those, you know, one of those mysteries where you're like, well, I thought I had this whole thing figured out. I had this whole fertility thing. And, and yeah, the womb is definitely a vessel that humbles you because, you know, we don't have full control. We don't control when the believe will descend, when it will end. And we don't control how long our pregnancies last if they do. You know, so I feel like I'm constantly humbled by the womb because, you know, it really holds a very sacred mystery in it of itself and then just so many signs and points of reflection

for us as well. Okay, I'm going to pause the conversation with Chantal. To share a couple of invitations with you, the first one is to a free event that's coming up with Alexander and Sharnie called How to Channel the Powers of Menstruality to Step into Your Leadership. It's happening on Tuesday the 30th of June. It's for you if you're curious about the menstruality leadership program and you'd like to see if it's for you. Alexander and Sharnie are going to explore how the menstrual cycle and menopause can guide you into stepping into your unique way of leading. So that's on Tuesday the 30th.

of June and you can register at menstrualityleadership.com. And next I have a really special invitation for you. So some members of the Red School community are gathering to produce a collective anthology of writing that explores menstruality through lived embodied experience. So they're offering an invitation to you to submit poems, stories, reflections and creative expressions that speak to what it means to live cyclically within a linear world. It's making space for tenderness, complexity, honesty and contradiction in all their forms and they invite you to email your submission to red thread voices at gmail.com. That's red thread voices at gmail.com by the 30th of June so by the end of this month. So profound what you're saying yeah a vessel that humbles us. That's definitely been my lived experience and I

imagine so many others listening were late too. Yeah, I didn't, I couldn't conceive for four years. And it was really, it's like my womb was schooling me in the fact that life isn't fair, actually. It's not about fairness, that there's a mystery that we can't ever understand when what governs the spark of life and what doesn't. And yeah, humility is what was carved in me for sure. And we have all of these stories around what age we want to be when we mother and how we mother and what age we don't want to be. And so what's really alive for me right now is this pregnancy in my 40s and in my mind. I was like, after 40, but I'm content to close this chapter, you know. And so it's been very, very humbling for me to acknowledge.

that even as someone who considers themselves a student of the cycle and a student of, you know, women's bodies and, you know, this practitioner, this awareness that I'm always teaching about, that I'm still very humbled by the mystery of it all. And also acknowledging the reality that life wants to be and it will find its way, you know, when you think about seeing a place. plants sprouting through concrete or growing in this mysterious place. It's like life has its own agenda and it wants to be and it's going to find its way, even if it's in unlikely places or spaces. And I'm also really grateful that I have the capacity to hold a pregnancy after having lost pregnancies. I have peers who, for different reasons, it's unsafe for them to be pregnant, though they really want to be. I know I have clients who've been wanting to be pregnant for a really long time.

And so I'm just also acknowledging the gratitude that my body has the health and capacity to support a new life and support this expansion. And it's been one of the easiest I've had, which is humbly, you know, you get older, you think it's going to be so hard. And, you know, but, you know, I feel like there's also wisdom that comes with aging, too. And I know that I'm still relatively young. I joke with my son that I'm old. So when I told my 10-year-old son about this pregnancy, he was like, I didn't know you could still have kids. And the irony is that, like, the women in my family,

never really look their age. So no one never really thinks on my age. So it's a bit of an irony. I just I just keep telling him, I'm old. So I'm clearly not. And so it's so funny how he really believed that like, I didn't know you could still have children. So it's so funny. But at the same time, I'm also just really grateful that there's enough safety and support and loved. Like, I'm just so loved and I'm so supported in my life that that yeah, this pregnancy has, yeah, has been really easeful and gentle. And I think also because through my cycle, I've learned so much about myself, my limitations, my boundaries, my needs, that I don't have to perform the same way every day, that I don't have to feel the same way every day, that I don't have

to be the same way every day. And so, yeah, some days are slower. And some days, you know, the to-do list is is a lot shorter than others. And so I'm also grateful to, yeah, just what cycle awareness has taught me over the years that I can be a more embodied version of myself. And I can embrace whatever the mystery of the womb wants to teach me. Students of the womb, we are. come back to honoring the womb in the Islamic tradition this word mercy

that is connected to the name of the womb in your tradition is such a powerful word and it's not a word that I have a strong relationship with but it really intrigues me and I'm just curious how that womb mercy shows up in your life

like in your day-to-day life how you experience that. Even the idea of mercy, I think about it as this generosity of giving, the selflessness almost in a way, like this very abundant giving and extending of grace. I feel like for me and my life, I really appreciate the invitation. that my cycle gives me to be more self-aware and to be more caring to myself, to slow down,

especially, you know, as when I cycle and I have my bleeding time, there's just this unapologetic, like, yes, I'm going to pour into myself and give to myself. And I really appreciate that, reminder that I move through different states. And these states don't have to be outwardly productive. That they're, you know, we think a lot about productivity. And I hear a lot of women say, oh, I don't feel, I feel so lazy or I don't feel productive. And for me, the womb reminds me that I'm

always producing, right? There's lining and there's eggs and there's tissue and there's, There's a little bit of productivity happening inside of me, that there's a whole world of events happening inside of me that I don't have total knowledge of or control of, which I find humbling as well. But for me, it's, you know, the womb has been a reminder to, yeah, take care of the sacred treasure, you know, to to honor it, to hold it in esteem, to, be conscious of what it needs and not just override my own agenda, you know, to give it the warmth that it needs, to give it the nourishment that it needs, the rest, the space, the time, the honoring. So I think that's how I would say the mercy is showing up for me. Yeah, and now carrying a baby, another baby. it's yeah also just really still very wild and and full of awe that you know there's a whole person

growing without my direction and my directives and and it really does make you think of yourself at least it makes me think of myself as a vessel that there are things born through me that are greater than me, that are bigger than me, even if I didn't ask for them, you know, or even if I didn't plan for them, you know, that we can allow ourselves to be vessels for whatever is going to be born through us. You know, babies are otherwise. And that feels really humbling that we can be used in these ways that maybe they feel. really big, you know, that it closes my body and I'm giving my, you know, but there's like this, this generosity in knowing that what's being born through me could be something greater than me.

Could be, you know, something or someone that's going to, to have a greater impact, purpose or mission than I can really comprehend or fathom. Yeah. which brings us to the mystery of the bleed and what we can hear and receive about what is ours to do here on this beautiful earth and often those visions seem so huge like there's one that just won't let me go around

reforestation which has been a big part of my also very varied career path which has been like has seemed so random but I think there is a sense to it somewhere the womb has like woven throughout but it's like okay well you know I'm a full-time working mom I don't I don't know how I can do this reforestation work but it keeps coming again and again and so do you experience that that yes our wombs can birth humans but also when you're when you're birthing your creative work do you do you kind of sense that that's coming through your womb as well yeah for sure the real like gestation of those ideas

is coming together. And I remember very specifically before I was getting ready to launch my womb steaming practice as a business, having a pregnancy, which didn't complete, but I had a pregnancy at the same time. And I remember feeling like this grief of like, I can't hold the two at the same time. You know, like that way. I can only bring forth one, you know, one, only one could be birthed at a time. And I remember feeling a sense of loss and grief that, okay, I have to put this dream on hold. This project has to wait for me to honor this season that I'm in. And even though that pregnancy didn't continue, another one did come. And it totally blew my mind what was possible when, And it was during COVID. You're right.

My last pregnancy was during COVID. And I realized that, oh, well, everything is shifting, you know, that we're all finding ways to be of service to the world with being inside, like, from our homes and from Zoom. And, you know, it's so it was, I was limiting what was possible. And until, yeah, my womb taught me that you're limiting what could be born through you, you know, that you can still reach and connect and make an impact even in these non-traditional ways. Because I just thought, oh, if I have a newborn, I can't go out and do what I've been doing. Well, no one could for a period of time. So we all had to figure out this pivot. And then I would also say during that pregnancy was when I had a really clear vision about my book.

And its gestation went along with that gestation as well. It took a little longer to birth than a baby. But that was also something, you know, that was, yeah, that was also something that felt really clear in that, in the early seasons. pregnancy that I had a clear vision of like, yeah, this needs to be born too. So, so yeah, definitely the cycle can help us get clearer on our life's work for sure. Yeah, the multiple expressions of fertility in life. Two of the things that you spoke to earlier were how we can cultivate our ties to our womb and how we can communicate, like cultivate our you to communicate with our womb.

And I'm curious what you would say to someone listening who's thinking, I don't really know how to cultivate these ties, communicate. I mean, we've named Cycle Awareness, we've named Steaming. I'm just curious if, yeah, to hear your response to that question. Yeah, I think it really does begin with just the curiosity of how can I, you know, how can I cultivate this connection? for so many women, just the idea, it's interesting because, you know, for some people, it's very common to go to an OB and have speculums inserted and have other people telling you about

your womb, right? What a sonogram says, an ultrasound, what your cervix is looking like, but, you know, some people don't even place their hands on their womb to, you know, just to have a felt sense. Oftentimes when I talk about the warmth and, you know, the nature of the womb being cold or warm, which is a consistent theme throughout different traditional wellness systems, people say, oh, how do I know my womb is cold? It's like, have you touched your womb lately? You know, we think it's so, like, mysterious that you have to, you know, go inside, you know, only specialized people, but it's like, you know, have you ever tried just holding your womb space? And what is the sensation you feel on your skin? Does it feel cool? Does it feel warm? What would it

feel like to get a little bit of warm oil and rub that space and can actually feel your womb warming up? Can feel your blood circulating more freely. So I feel like it's an excellent question. and but the answer is so much closer than we think, you know, it could be the intentional choice of selecting an herbal tea that supports your room at a time where it would be really helpful. It could be, you know, like I said, a little warm oil or just a breathing, bringing your awareness to your room as you take a breath and just consideration. considering what would be supportive of your womb or not. And that could be really big and have a lot of far-reaching, you know, implications.

It could impact what you choose to eat or not eat, drink or not drink, do or not do, but even in relationships as well, you know, just understanding, having an understanding and a conversation. with like, well, what would feel nourishing to my womb and what doesn't feel nourishing to my womb, I think are really great places to start. And then, of course, there are practices like massage, like steaming, even wrapping the womb, you know, it's something that is easy to do

to just to bring your consciousness and your awareness because sometimes your womb is heavier, right? You know, we know that our womb expands in its volume leading up to our bleed before we shed. And so what would that feel like to know that my womb is carrying a heavier load? And I can support, I can just take a scarf or a wrap and just tie my womb space to give a little bit more support. So, yeah, I think the curiosity is a great starting point for sure and just demystifying, you know, like really, it's really, right here and I really love to do womb mapping, especially with youth, because, you know, it's so fascinating, like, oh, it's, it's just in this space. It's, you know, I think also when when people

have, unfortunately, difficult periods, they, their womb is like as big as their head in their minds. Like, it's just huge and it's disrupting me so much. But it's like, it's really, you know, it's so small for most of the time. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, And it's just right here. And you can even, you know, you can bring so much support to your own self without reaching for a drug or reaching for anything else to give you relief. Just what would that look like, you know, to just hold that space and breathe into that space and warm up that space with your own touch and your own hands.

So it's so accessible. You know, we don't have to make it complicated. Yeah, that's so beautiful, so true. And of course, as you offer to your clients, I imagine, and one of the core practices at Red School to honor the bleed, when menstruation does come, we've spoken about it already today, to give yourself the time and the rest and the space that you need as much as you can within, you know, whatever's cooking in your life. Yeah, to journal, right, to really lean into the vividness that can come through in your dreams and your daydreams and, yeah, to spend some time journaling.

and, you know, writing a letter to your womb, you know, imagining what your womb is saying to you. And there's a lot there. We just have to, it's just the awareness and the curiosity. So just in closing, final question, although I also would love to ask how people can get in touch with you if they want to explore your work more. But just before we get there, I'm curious what your postpartum is going to look like. And I'm also aware that we're on our way towards Ramadan, right? And what that means for you to be in postpartum and Ramadan at the same time if that does happen. And yeah, I'm just curious about that.

Sure. So progressively over the postpartum's, my awareness about the importance of the fourth trimester and the impact it has on my health and my recovery and my bonding and my well-being has grown a lot. So with each postpartum, there's been like up-leveling of my postpartum care. I feel like with my last postpartum, which was close to five years ago, I knew so much more and I was so very committed to by any means necessary, like making sure I got the care that I needed. And I no longer had apologies about asking for help.

and asking for meals, asking for people to take my children. It just was so evident that I needed to call people in. I wasn't around extended family. And so for this postpartum definitely feels like building on the same. I am in a country where I don't have as deep friendships. And so it does feel a little bit vulnerable asking people who are really colleagues. like do you mind bringing meals but that's what I'm prepared to do. It's also great that I have children that are already so committed and even my

five, my almost five year old, he told me the other night before bed, he said, okay, so me and my brother were going to bring you soups and teas. And so, you know, I basically have since the last postpartum have just had to make sure the expectations were very clear that I'm going to be in bed and you all have to figure out how to care for me and care for yourselves. I love this. And so they're already aware that, you know, that, yeah, this is critical. We all thrive.

If I'm thriving, we're all thriving. And the quality of my recovery impacts, you know, everything. and everyone in the household. So everybody's on deck. So my children are almost five, a 10-year-old and 15-year-old. And they're all on deck to help each other and to be in service to me and to help their dad and receive the meals that will come. I have two really dear girlfriends who are in a neighboring city who's volunteered to come and help out as well,

which I'm really grateful for. and yeah, Ramadan is going to be different. I've had one of my other children. He was born just before Ramadan. I think this birth may happen in Ramadan this year, which is the month of fasting. I'm exempt from fasting because of my pregnancy and then the postpartum as well. And so I usually enjoy being a part of the pre-fasting meal preparation. So we usually take an early meal before the fast begins.

And that's the time that I've always really enjoyed with my children. And I just have to let it go that them and their dad are going to figure it out. And I'm going to be in bed with a little one. And they're all going to be okay. You know, I'm just allowing, giving myself space to unravel and be undone, to not have all the answers, to not be the skisket. ruler, the project manager that I usually am, and just trust that they're going to figure out how to help each other along and how to help me as well. And yeah, that's something that I'm

looking forward to. I like the stillness of Ramadan. There's a quietude, so it does feel like a really a good time to be in a cocoon. There's not as much kind of social. I mean, people will gather for meals generally, but because most people are fasting, then there's not as much going on socially throughout the day. The highlight of the day is breaking fast together. And so, yeah, I think it'll be a sweet time, a quiet time.

a quiet time and very appropriate restful hopefully for everyone too. Go, Mama. I think this is amazing. All the ways that you're claiming that and knowing that it's exactly right and what needs to happen. It's really inspiring. Yeah. Good luck.

Thank you. Beautifully. And for those listening who would like to connect with your work, what would be the best way to do that? So most of what I have going on is on Instagram. and on my website. So both for my Instagram, my handle is honored womb. So it's the American spelling, no you, H-O-N-O-R-E-D-W-O-M-B,

and that's also my website, honored womb.com. And I have my book, Peaceful Periods, Holistic Woon Care for Teens, which is available at any online book retailer. And that's a really great introduction. into how we can really shift the culture to bring this womb awareness, this cyclical living, these peaceful period tools to younger menstruators, not just waiting till, you know, they finally dawns on them that there was another way. I just, let's just bypass all of that.

And from the start, it's at the foundation that the womb is worthy of honor, that periods can be peaceful and introducing them to these tools like massage, like wrapping, like steaming. We don't have to gatekeep that until there's 30 or 40. So beautifully said, okay, I'm going to go and get a copy of that for both of my nieces right now. I mean, they're only like one and four, but when it's time. In a decade, when it's time. Yeah, wow, beautiful work. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you shared. And yeah, blessings and love for your new little one's arrival. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being with us today. I feel very softened by that conversation. It was such a joy to be with Chantal. I hope you enjoyed it too. And if you know someone who you think would enjoy this conversation or would be inspired by this conversation or the podcast, please do forward it to them. It really helps us to spread the reach of this important and deeply needed work in the world. Okay, that's it for this week. week. I'll be with you again in a couple of weeks time and until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.