The Menstruality Podcast - 242. Your Womb is a Temple: African Matrilineal Womb Wisdom (Chanana McGarry)

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Today we’re continuing our journey into traditional and indigenous womb wisdom, by exploring African earth-based teachings about the womb as a temple. Our guest and guide is Chanana McGarry, who is a Medicine Woman as well as a certified Fertility Awareness & Sexual Health Educator. She’s been exploring how to bridge ancient wisdom and modern science for two decades, helping people to navigate their sexual health with clarity, sovereignty, and reverence for their body’s innate wisdom and power.Chanana is a direct descendant of South African Mujaji Rain Queens, and her ground-breaking work is also inspired by her paternal lineage of medicine women in Botswana. In our conversation she shares what she has learned from sitting with her elders, tracing her lineage back over hundreds of years to matrilineal communities who understood women’s bodies as holders of magic.The womb wisdom teachings that have long existed across the globe, transcending culture and location, including the traditional feminine wisdom technology of mothers giving their daughters river stones, when they came of age, so they could track their own fertility. We explore:How two unplanned pregnancies initiated Chanana into fertility awareness and connecting to ancestral womb wisdom. Cervical fluid as the secret language of your womb and the importance of learning your own patterns. The womb as a portal - the place where invisible things come into existence; ideas, desires, and visions; the place where we create everything, from babies, to businesses to the lives we dream of. ---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.hardyChanana McGarry: @wombliteracynow - https://www.instagram.com/wombliteracynow/

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 to the podcast, whether this is your first time listening or you've been with us for several years. I'm really excited about today's conversation. We're continuing our journey into traditional and indigenous

womb wisdom by exploring African earth-based teachings. about the womb as a temple. Our guest and our guide with this is Chanana McGarry, who is a medicine woman, as well as a certified fertility awareness and sexual health educator. She's been exploring how to bridge ancient wisdom and modern science for two decades,

helping people to navigate their sexual health with clarity and sovereignty and reverence for their body's innate wisdom and power, which is what menstrual cycle awareness is all about. Chanana is a direct descendant of South African Mujaji Rain Queens, and we talk about what that means for her in our conversation and also how her groundbreaking work is inspired by her paternal lineage of medicine women in Botswana. In our conversation, she shares what she's learned from sitting with her elders,

tracing her lineage back over hundreds of years to matrilineal communities who understood women's bodies as holders of magic. We also talk about the womb wisdom teachings that have long existed across the globe, transcending culture and location, including the traditional feminine wisdom technology of mothers giving their daughters river stones when they came of age so that they could track their own fertility. So let's get started with Your womb is a temple, African matrilineal womb wisdom with Chanana Magari. Chanana, I am really, really excited to get to meet you, to hear your story. And for you to really, no pressure, but for you to fire us up around claiming the power of our bodies and our own sovereignty around our wounds and our reproductive health. And I'm so excited for this. Thank you so much for joining us.

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and just be a part of all the beautiful. you're creating. Let's do our cycle check-in. That's how we start this game. Yeah, I'd love to hear. Where are you at in your cycle? How is it influencing you, your energy, your mood? Yeah, how are you doing? Yeah, so I'm on day 16 of my cycles, so still writing the energetic wave from ovulation. And so, you know, went out to a full moon drum circle last night and just enjoying that full moon ovulatory energy as I head into, you know, my luteal phase and kind of dropping off grid and going in, you know,

just reconnecting with nature and water in the cooler northern parts of my state. Yeah, you need to head up to those cool parts of Arizona, right? At this time of year. And do you enjoy your luteal phase? Do you have like a phase of your cycle that you enjoy the most or feel most at home in? I think each of them have their own strengths. So I can't say like I have a favorite part. I love like that juicy, really alive feeling of ovulation, of course.

But I also love the like winding down of the ludial phase. And I love, love, love menstruation because I always do my best to just really create space for myself whenever possible life happens. But whenever possible creating space to really allow myself to just be in darkness and be with myself and be nourished and catered to and things like that. So lots of beauty throughout the cycle, I'd say. Yes, I agree. Sounds delicious. So I'm with you. I think it's 17 or 18 today, but I'm not sure.

And I often lose track at this phase of my cycle. I'm like, I ovulated a bit ago when now I'm here. And often this is a really good phase for me, but I think because I've been working a lot for a long time, like I haven't really had a holiday for a proper holiday for about a year, like a proper break. And I'm about to have one. I'm going to go camping in France for three weeks with my men,

my husband and my five-year-old and our dog. So I'm feeling spent. And so this transition into the second half of the cycle, I think this is connected. I felt a bit foggy, like foggy-headed. It might be like hormone shifting as well because I'm 44. Like things might be starting to shift. But yeah, just kind of a general like foggy feeling and like not,

feeling so good in my body. So I'm listening, listening to like the call for bigger, deeper, deeper rest, which is coming. So, yeah, but I had a really lovely ovulation time and a really gorgeous inner spring that's often a challenging phase for me and it was good this time round. Yeah, I was at a festival with my friends, which helps very spring energy. Yeah, so I was wondering if we could start with your calling. What is it that compels you? to do this womb literacy work, this reproductive justice work. Yeah, tell us a bit about how that came about and what you feel your calling for this work is.

Yeah, for sure. So from a young age, I've always been very connected, curious about ancestral wisdom, ancient wisdom. So, you know, I would just be going down rabbit holes constantly, learning, you know, the wisdom of indigenous people to this land and, you know, Africa, Asia. And one of the most fascinating things to me is like all the overlap you see on all of these completely opposite sides of the world and all of that. And through my own journey of, you know, having to unplanned pregnancies led to me,

led me down a path to really connect in with femininity, you know, connect in with. connect in with my womb and the wisdom they're in and then start to really explore that more deeply throughout these cultures that I had been exploring. And it's just such a beautiful and best, you know, place to just dive in. I know. It's like the world doesn't quite know it. It's like, really, you don't see the magic of like the womb and the vagina and the vulva and the cervix and the ovaries and like, there's so much going on inside the pelvic bowl. And they're like, Huh? Like the world's missing out on like the biggest. That's kept secret, right? So much, so much wisdom here. And how would you describe, if you can, it's hard to put these things into words, but how would you describe what you feel like you're here to bring or to serve or to share? So I feel like I'm here to help connect some of these old ways with like us today as women, you know? Really being that bridge between the ancient wisdom.

and the modern science for, you know, basically our empowerment as women, you know, for us to really be able to embody full sovereignty over ourselves and full understanding and being able to connect mind, body, and spirit with our wombs and then therefore with our larger nature as women. Oh, that is such a beautiful answer. Wow, yeah, combining ancient wisdom. and modern science for our sovereignty and our, yeah, yes, yes to that. I recently, I don't know what I was doing with my business coach, I think,

I was doing a process and I suddenly just landed on this sentence of, oh, I am here to protect women's power. And I've never said it that way before, but it just makes sense of everything I've done in my life so far. Sometimes the words just come, I'm here to protect women's power. So anyway, we're on the same page. That just gave me goosebumps. I'd love to hear more about your story.

And maybe first to hear about, like, I think the unplanned pregnancies piece of your story is really key, isn't it? Because that's how you were like awakened to this work. So could you tell us a bit about that? And then I'd love to hear about your lineage as well. Yeah. Yeah, of course. So the unplanned pregnancy was definitely the doorway for me. And I'm so grateful that I chose to walk through it.

So I had been from around, you know, my late teens, early 20s into a really super holistic lifestyle, like going deep into how much can I live an ancestral life in a modern city with my kids and, you know, the life that I've chosen. And what inspired that in you? Did your parents teach you about that? Or was that just an intuitive knowing that you knew you wanted to live that way? I mean, my mom did have those values within her. she was a single mom. So she was kind of in survival mode. So she didn't really have the space

to pass them on. So I think that there's definitely the more I learn about my lineage and, you know, and my mother's side of the family, I can see that it was just always there meant to emerge. So I went through the kind of general mainstream life during, you know, school and college and stuff. But by the time I was, like I say, around 19, I stopped taking all pharmaceuticals, stopped taking any fast food. And gratefully, that was before my first unplanned pregnancy. So I was in a place to really embrace, you know, a natural birth and breastfeeding and all of the beautiful things that are a potential for women who are on that more holistic path. Yes, yes. I was listening to an interview earlier and it's like you were kind of trying,

you didn't want to take hormone or contraception because of this holistic lifestyle. So tell us a bit about what you tried. And like so many listeners will be like with you in this because it's a quest for all of us, isn't it? Definitely. It's a journey. So when I was around 16, my mom took me in to get me put on birth control. You know, I think that's like a really common story. And sort of the offer that was put on the table for me was the depo shot.

And it's funny because the way that's, that they explained it to me. The only side effect that they mentioned was potential weight gain, and I'm just really grateful that I was in that vain portion of life 16 years old. And I'm like, oh, no, I don't want to gain weight. So fortunately, I dodged that bullet, and I never ended up going on, and I just kind of let time and nature take its course. But yeah, there's just not a lot of excellent options for natural contraception, you know. And given my values, I just knew that hormonal contraception wasn't an option for me at all. And so I, you know, went forward with condoms for years. And then I tried withdrawal for the first, you know, for the first, like,

phase of my life to try that. And that's, that failed me in a really interesting way, but it just highlighted and pinpointed the, it only takes one time aspect of with. You know, like there's no taking it back. So, um, so I had a beautiful and amazing daughter who's now 21. Um, and from, from that learning adventure. Um, and then I kind of drifted along for another long while, just kind of using condoms. And I experimented with like putting lemon juice in my vagina as a spermicide. And I'm like, I didn't like how that changed the pH. And, you know, like, like I say, I've experimented with a lot of things. And then by the time, I was, you know, a few years later, I came across a book on fertility awareness, just at like a bookstore or a library,

just a little thin book on it. So not like the taking charge of your fertility, like the Tony Weschler. Mm-hmm. Tony Weschler's book. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Tony. Right. So I came across this little book on fertility awareness. And I'm like, oh, this sounds like just what I've been looking for, you know? And, and, but I was just so unsupported because as much as I was deep in holistic healing and lifestyle and as many rabbit holes I had gone down, I had never come across

this specific piece in any type of community settings. Isn't that wild? Isn't that wild? We could have a whole conversation about contraception and possibly we should, like another time, but there's an important part of the story in that there is genuine freedom that happened for women because of the pill and contraception and it's just got so, so, so, so, so many downsides. And the fact that it wasn't even part of the conversation for me either, that you could actually get to know your body and read its signals and then use that to guide you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

totally. So I, at that time, I was like I say, just kind of dabbling. I was working night shifts at the time. And so I was like, oh, temperatures won't work for me. So I was like, I'll just pay attention to my cervical fluid, but I just was so misguided. Even though I was like 27, I was well educated. I was, you know, like pretty with it in most areas of my life, but I was just like not really sure what I was looking at or how to really track the patterns. And sometimes I would check when I was aroused. And, you know, it's actually hilarious looking back, but I actually had a pendulum. And I would use that as like a component of my fertility awareness practice. So obviously and predictably, failed me and led to my second unplanned pregnancy with my son.

Pendulums are useful for some things, but maybe not. I think there's too much on the line. Yeah, so another beautiful natural birth with my son. And then that led me down, you know, kind of a darker rabbit hole where I was like, I was celibate for the better part of 10 years. And the beginning part of that was really just physically like, I'm not willing to have any more kids, you know, at this time in my life. And so all of the natural stuff has failed me. So I guess I'm just going to do the only fully effective natural contraception and just have

abstinence, which, you know, is not a lifestyle for someone like me. I enjoy sex and the healing power of sex and all of that. So, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't ideal. But, you know, during that period is when I was like, wait, I need to revisit fertility awareness. because I had started to look into the research and read some of the anecdotal stories. And I'm like, this actually works, but I have to do it 100% like my life depended on it. And at the time, it really felt like my life did depend on it. So, you know, that was like I say, the doorway where I was like, okay, I was all in during this period of celibacy, which is a great time to learn to chart, you know, because I didn't have any distractions or any risk.

I got really intimate with my cycle, which led me deeper into the just, you know, divinity, sacredness of the womb and all of these deeper layers so that when towards the end of that, that, those long years of celibacy, it was more about, you know, protecting my womb temple and, you know, not just being open to, to share it willy-nilly. That's a very good term. I'm gorgeous. And at what point in this development of the intimacy with your womb and your body, did you start to explore more of your lineage and these incredible, this lineage of wise women that you are part of? That's a great question. So when my daughter was one year old, we made the leap to travel to Botswana for the first time in my life. and obviously the first time in my baby girl's life to meet my father and my family that side, who, you know, he had lost touch with over the years. I had never met my siblings or anything like that, so on that side. And so my daughter and I just set off on this three-month adventure

to go to Africa by way of Hong Kong and we landed there. And, you know, our family is so big and so beautiful and just so loving. And we were just immediately accepted and immediately it felt like home, you know? And so like I say, I was already on this path of like ancient wisdom and really loving to dig into that. So now it's like I have this place and I've got these roots and my father has land and, you know, he farms and the traditional ways and he ranches. And, you know, so it's just this beautiful experience that we've continued almost every year since she was one. And, you know, I would always be pestering my dad, like just picking his mind for memories, picking his mind for history. And, you know, like, oh, how was our village is called Ensozzi. So how was it set up when you were a kid?

And he'd talk about the silos and how they'd walk to the well that I got to actually visit to collect water and all of these things, which is amazing. And after years and years of kind of asking him and digging into things, he was able to come together with some of the elders in our community and really trace our lineage back hundreds of years to the Mujahji Rain Queen lineages of Southern Africa. And I say Southern Africa, because this was pre-Jadji, because this was pre-borders, so it's all the areas of, you know, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana,

like that little southern African tip, you know. So, you know, we got names and we got, you know, like just more insight into what our family and our lineage looked like. And that was really fun to explore with my kids too because I just, I think there's just so much value in that. So much. Wow. And did you say Mujaji rain queens? I need to know more to tell me about these women. Yes, I definitely went down a deep rabbit hole when it came to that.

It's a dynasty that began in Zimbabwe, migrated to the now South Africa. And it's been a matrilineal secession of women who served as rain queens for the village, who were said to have this sort of power over rainmaking. And a lot of their lives are shrouded in mystery. Most of them lived in seclusion and weren't, you know, like public figures. So a lot of like the ritual and magic is also shrouded in mystery. But what I love is, you know, just that connection between seeing the world. woman's body as the holder of the magic, you know, and with the metaphor of rain as, as the fertility

of the earth, you know, and water just in general when we look at women's bodies and the water connection. So that same water connection is, you know, and that's what kind of pulled a lot together for me because I see, okay, the rain queen lineage. And then I see my, my father's mother was a healer and a prophet, and she healed with water, you know. And then my, and her lineage of people, they were people who were appointed Hosanna dancers. So they would go to the mountains and pray and sing and dance for rain, you know, appealing directly to God for rain and fertility for the land. And then I always think it's a funny little tip of the iceberg, I guess, or carry on top, I should say, that my dad is a water engineer. So he spent his entire life from one angle of his own studying and interacting with and working with water too.

It's such a fascinating story when you think about calling and soul work on what's passed down from our ancestors. and obviously all many lineages have been broken because of colonization largely. But that these threads find their way through because also you're clearly, you know, you are with the waters of the womb and of the female body and of the ovulation fluid. And like, you know, so it's like coming through you too. And your dad is a water engineer. That is so great. Exactly.

I was listening to another conversation that you had. with Charlotte Puanto on the Wildflow podcast, which was beautiful. And there was a story about river stones, but I think it came from the Bantu, but also that there's this practice with the Cherokee as well. So coming back to what you said about how across the globe, women and people with wombs have been doing these practices forever, and we didn't even know about it on the opposite sides of the planet. But yeah, can you tell us a bit about these riverstones and how they helped with fertility?

Yeah, totally. So, yeah, like you were saying, Bantu women, Cherokee women. And my tribe is the Kalungaj tribe, which is actually a Bantu tribe. So it could have been part of my history, though I don't have like a direct, like, you know, story lineage, oral history, or anything like that. But basically, what we've seen in those cultures. And if it was in those cultures, like you say, on opposite sides of the world, then certainly it must have been, you know, known to other parts. of the world as this ancient feminine wisdom technology. You know, so basically, my understanding is that indigenous mothers would gift their daughters a river stone or a smooth stone around their coming of age. And it was used as a tool to always understand their fertility. So, you know, it's used to, yeah, understand your, cervical fluid patterns throughout the cycle, basically. And so the fluid is a different color on the stone depending on what stage of the cycle, right? Yeah. So from my experimentation, I've been working

with, I call it a fertility stone for some years now and with colleagues and clients. And so the ones, the smooth stones that I have found most effective are river stones, which is another beautiful connection to water and women and wombs and all of those things like you say and just, yeah, the rivers that flow, right? So the, you know, the river stones that are kind of like that dark, like dark gray, but then they get lighter gray when they're dry, but they're really smooth. So basically you would use that to, like you were saying, observe your cervical secretions. And it's really just an amazing technology because most people currently use toilet paper or maybe their fingers, both of which are very light in complexion. And cervical fluid just by its nature

in general is pretty light in complexion too. So when you're looking at white toilet paper with white cervical fluid or, you know, looking at your fingertips with white cervical fluid. You can't really see as much of the nuance, as much of the detail as you actually can on these river stones. So it's almost like black and white. Like the contrast is amazing. You catch every little secretion and then you can, you know, observe it on the stone and interact with it. And And it's just like a really, so even some of my clients who were really struggling with, you know, toilet paper checks and finger checks and things like that, once they were sort of experimenting with the fertility stones, everything shifted for them. And they were suddenly able to see what was kind of invisible to them previously. So for those of us, you might want to try riverstones.

I love this. This technology. Yes. What are we looking for? And I also, I imagine you've got resources that are like natural fertility awareness 101 kind of things that we could share in the show notes for those listening that are like, wow, I want to practice this, but I didn't even know you that you could, since it's not taught to everyone and it should be. Do you have a resource like that, Chinana, that we can link to? Yeah, not one that speaks specifically to the fertility stone, but I definitely have a nice intro to just like the practice on a whole type thing. Amazing, amazing. So we'll put that in the show notes for people who want. So, but if we've got the stone, what are we looking for to show that we're not in the fertile window and what are we looking

for to show that we are in the fertile window? Yeah. So a couple of things with that is just kind of to like where you were sort of initially or where my mind initially went is when you're looking for a stone, like even just if you're curious about this practice, if you feel drawn to it, you know, it's always great if you can go to a river. Sometimes you find them at the ocean, you know, and find your own really smooth, really beautiful stone that calls to you. And I just want to caution that if you purchase one maybe online or something, just make sure it's not polished. Because when I first started this, I had this stone and it said like, dream on it. And I was like, oh, this is so perfect and amazing. But then I realized with time, like, oh, crap, it's, you know, like,

It's polished and it's kind of like blaking off. So just putting that out there too. And then outside of that, yeah, our cervical fluid is really the secret language of our womb. So, you know, it's, you know, it forms clear patterns throughout your cycle. And a lot of it really is learning your own unique pattern. So typically there'll be a pattern of infertility right after your period. And then you'll notice things really start to get juicier and get wetter as ovulation approaches. And then typically they'll kind of die back down to that kind of pre-fertility, pre-fertile window consistency and texture up through your ludial phase and leading up to menstruation. I'm going to pause this conversation with Chinana to share an invitation with you. It's a special sale on at Red School

at the moment where you can save 33% on Alexander and Sharnie's most comprehensive menstrual cycle awareness course, which is called cycle power, using the code summer 26 at red school.net forward slash cycle power. This course is for you whether you've been tracking your menstrual cycle for years or you're brand new to the power of the cycle. It's also for you if you're heading towards menopause and your cycle is changing or you're on the other side of menopause and you want to explore and reclaim the wisdom of the cycle. It's a six-week journey to embrace the power of the menstrual cycle and to really get to know the inner seasons of the cycle

much more deeply and see how you can bring them alive in your life. You can save 33% using the code summer 26 until August the 12th at redschool.net forward slash cycle power. So we have a practice everyone. Yes. out in the Arm of a Stones, thank you so much for sharing that. Another piece I read or heard was the you've recently, or maybe it was last year, you went to sit with elder women, bushwomen in the Kalahari.

Yes. And can you share a bit about what you learned from them about the womb as temple and the wisdom of the womb? Yeah, definitely. It was an amazing experience that my son and I got. to, you know, go and stay with them on their lands in the Kalahari Desert and really learn from them. And this particular family of Bushmen that we were staying with is one that's very dedicated to preserving culture, preserving their heritage through teaching the children and, you know,

the songs and the dances and all of these things. And you definitely see the women as the matriarchs in a lot of ways there. Of course, you know, through colonization. and displacement, there's, you know, some fracturing that's happened there. But overall, you see this reverence for, you know, the women, especially the elders. So, yeah, just being able to, there were two primarily that I was working with, and both of them have been healers their whole life, have worked with women, have worked with the womb. And so, you know, one of the things we went into is, you know, talking about, um, the overlaps again, you know, like all of these practices that they practice here from, you know, smoking, uh, yoni smoking or yoni

steaming to, you know, the yoni, uh, to the womb massage and just all of these different things. And, um, I got to experience, uh, uh, oh, they do, they don't do so much, you know, like the RV go and that type of thing has like the abdominal massage. And that's, um, That's South American, right? The R-V-G, like Mayan abdominal therapy, yes. Yeah. And so with them, it's more like a holistic whole body approach that includes the womb. So they were able to.

And what struck me most about it was how deeply intuitive it was. Like this, you know, I've heard of the fingertips. I have a teacher who teaches breast massages. And just thinking of the fingertips as, you know, this ancient technology. too, like the way that there's sensory parts of our body and that we've, a lot of us in modern culture have lost that. But anyways, with the, the massage and that experience, they would, like, I would feel, they were both working on me at the same time. And I would feel like a finger just, like, go directly to a spot and, like, press it. And there would be, like, a little, like,

oh, there's like a sharp pain there that I never knew was there, you know? And so it's just very intuitive, very guided, like a womb-centric, like intuitive-based massage. So, yeah, I learned so much from them as far as, you know, different unique patterns to their society, as well as just getting to engage with them in those beautiful ways around campfires and in the deep in the desert. And I imagine steaming with like the herbs that they have been passed down from generation to generation as the healing herbs there. And that's one of the beautiful things. It's like I feel like a lot of women get caught up when it comes to like yoni's steaming and things like that. Like they have to have a professional give them.

And don't get me wrong, there is a lot of beautiful work that women are doing where, you know, if you have a certain specific condition, definitely, you know, certain herbs will approach that well. But I think there's also a lot of empowerment in looking towards the herbs from our lineage. Because every culture has like a mugwort type plant. Every culture has, you know, a motherwort type plant, you know. And they're all indigenous to their own. And sometimes your DNA and your cells might actually respond a little bit better to something that's been encoded in your genetic memory. Yeah, which is like the beauty of this earth. based path, particularly if we're working with the land of our ancestors, there's so much going on

that's above and below and beyond the mind, isn't it? It's, yeah, it's profound. Definitely. I'm just going to throw this question out because I'm really obsessed with it at the moment, but, you know, you spoke about how the Mujahji Rain Queen lineage was matrilineal, and you were calling these Bush women the matriarchs. And there's a lot of talk at the moment in the world about matriarchal leadership. I'm just curious if you could name, Chenana, anything that you've learned from all of these different kind of ancestral,

archaeological explorations about what matriarchal leadership means in our world today. Mm-hmm. I think that's a great question, and I think it's very nuanced because, you know, Even with the rain queens, there was that, there was an aspect of male advisors and things like that. So it wasn't, you know, it's hard to say what a purely matrilineal society would look like and could be.

But, you know, seeing just societies that are elevating women as, and seeing them as sacred, seeing them as these carriages. of their own unique medicine, which, like I say, like the intuition, and, you know, even our cycles when it comes to leadership is such a superpower as well, you know, so I would think just tuning into that, but I can't say specifically, you know, overall what that would look like. Yes. Yeah, it feels like a really interesting field of study to me. Yeah, it's because we're all seeing what patriarchy has done. Right. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

Like, hmm, okay, that's not worked there, has it? Let's try to be different. And I heard a definition of patriarchy centers men and matriarchy centers children. Because centers the earth, the future, the children. Yeah. There's so much beauty in the balance, too, you know. The strengths of men and the strengths of women and being able to play out together, you know. Yes.

matriarchy isn't like the absence of men it's yeah it's just not the full-on centering of white men yeah you speak about the womb as portal between the worlds and i'd love to just get into this um exploration of womb as temple and womb as portal and um one of the things that you wrote on instagram was um it's not just a metaphor it's a fact it's the place where invisible things come into existence even if you're not having children, that same creative power is still alive in you. Your womb brings ideas, desires, and visions into form. It's how we create everything from babies to businesses for lives we dream of. Yeah, 100%.

And that's been like that later part of my exploration and connection with my womb and just really seeing that as a reality. You know, like, yes, it's easy to see on the physical levels, but our bodies are very metaphorical, right? So if we see our womb as this organ that's literally pulling in souls or receiving souls from wherever one believes souls come from, whatever invisible place where they originate, and it's bringing that and forming it within itself, you know, into the physical that's then birthed, you know?

And of course, even that starts with water, like a seed in an egg or basically like a little cloudy drop of water, right? So just, you know, that physical idea and understanding translates directly to the spiritual, one of the spiritual purposes of the womb, one of the spiritual capacities of the womb, like, is to bring in these invisible things, these ideas, these dreams, these things that you're working towards, you're creating, right? It's our creative center. So, you know, through, you know, different practices. You know, a lot of, you know, the womb is obviously directly tied to sexuality and, like, sexual energy and, like, cultivating that.

And, you know, cultivating that leads directly to, you know, being able to tap in more to that creative power of the womb, that portal energy to help bring what you want for your life into the physical and see it in front of you. I'm really passionate about this. Something I've been playing within my own practice is, yeah, deliberately using the imaginal realm, like using imagination to call, and I'm spiraling as I say this,

like to cultivate, to build the sexual energy inside and let it infuse my body with vitality and then connect it up with the heart because I personally, feeling a really strong connection between that kind of like a seed of light in the center of my heart and a seed of light at my cervix and that there's something going on and like if if my culture hadn't been like taken over by spiritual past that were made by men for men maybe

this would have been passed down to me but because it hasn't been I feel like we have to unearth it through our bodies sometimes and I feel like my meditation practice is to sit with these seeds of light and see where they want to take me and what they want to show me. And it's, I mean, I'd love to hear about your, how what your practice looks like, how, what you're unearthing in your body. Yeah, I love all of that, the spiraling and the, the two seeds and the heart womb connection and all of that. And lately my biggest practices have been also tying in with the heart with breast

massage, but not like, you know, the breast massage we hear about in day-to-day life, like a really deep, more spiritual breast massage and an understanding and almost like a breast literacy. I talk about womb literacy, but there's a whole other chapter to be opened and read about breast literacy. So connecting with that and the heart opening and the womb and the cervix and the connection between the heart and the cervix. and the way that, you know, because when we think about and we hear about things like cervical orgasms and things like that, where our cervix is literally being activated, like we were just talking about, like, this is the portal, the cervix is the doorway, and we're activating

it when we reach some of those higher levels of sexuality. And then, like you say, really making sure that you're consistently breathing that energy through your body and through your life, you know. I saw a funny video with you where you were comparing a cervix to a pumpkin. But also holding a pumpkin being like, look how much this looks like a womb as well. Tell us about the connection between pumpkins and wombs and cervixes. Yeah. Well, I'm a big, I don't know if I'd say proponent of. I'm fascinated by the doctrine of signatures.

So I'm always looking at like wombs in nature, vulvas in nature's, penises in nature and all of these things that we see. And, you know, the curiosity of the medicine that it would hold. So with this particular pumpkin, I brought it back from a phenomenal wedding up in Oregon where the bride arrived on a zip line and it was all local. And this is just like a magical pumpkin that they grew themselves. And at the bottom, there was a, you know, the little dimple circle. thing with a larger ring around it. So it kind of looked like a donut and it just reminded me of the way our cervixes are dynamic throughout our cycle and they open and close as our, you know, menstruate to allow menstruation out, to allow sperm in potentially at ovulation and, you know,

and so then also just looking at the womb itself as this hollow, this hollow vessel full of seeds that are all womb shape and the color orange, which is, you know, the orange flesh within it, which is also connected with our sacral chakra and our sexual energy and our womb, you know. So just like there were a lot of layers. And so, yeah, it was just a really fun. And then looking at the known medicinal aspects of pumpkins and how they do, in fact, nourish the womb. And so, yeah, it's just really fun to look at some of those connections in our everyday life.

Yeah, it's all there waiting to be discovered. If we paid to do it. I saw this beautiful short video. It was David Attenborough narrating, and he was saying, in his beautiful voice, have you ever just sat in a woodland for five minutes? Amazing things happen. And it's true, like, it's true, just sitting and watching nature. So we learn so much, don't we?

Right, but like you say not everyone is just like, sometimes you need that invitation, you know. Yes. Yes. Thank you, David Attenborough. Yes. Like we've been talking about womb literacy this whole time, but womb literacy as a birthright, like womb literacy as reproductive justice. Can you speak a bit about what, yeah, what you're serving here with your work and the world that you would like to see? Yeah, definitely.

So starting with just, yeah. just, you know, knowledge is power, knowledge of self as, you know, a lot of people in the, in the space of self growth and things like that. We're trying to get to know ourself, get to know our thoughts, get to know, you know, our energies and things like that. So, you know, and just seeing the value on literacy in society, it really gives us tools and allows us to get to places that otherwise would be much more difficult to get to when we have literacy in general.

So, you know, just translating it to the womb, like our wombs are talking to us every single day as women and being able to not just be numb to hearing her voice because we're not taught anything about a lot of this in, you know, modern sex ed. And so being able to get to a point where you can hear the voice of your womb, and you can, you know, physically end. obviously spiritually and all of that. But even just physically, what is she telling me? Like, you know, when you have this practice of awareness, you know exactly if anything is off

balance. You know, you know, you know, where you are in your cycle. So as far as, you know, birth control, it's just as effective as the hormonal options and, you know, all of these things. So you just, it's a level of empowerment that truly is our birthright. I think that we all deserve to know, to be able to understand our bodies and to use it as a tool for greater justice with our reproductive health and, you know, just our sexual health in general as women because, you know, the cycle has been dubbed the fifth vital sign by the American Society of Obstetrics and Gynecologists. And so what that means is that like alongside your pulse, your blood pressure, all of these things, your cycle gives you such a wealth of information about your underlying health as a human being,

you know? So you can see clearly your hormonal balance. If your thyroid is not functioning fully, you know, inflammation in the gut and the body, like adrenal health stuff, like it all shows up on your chart. I'm seeing it now. For example, like, okay, so on Monday 17, 18, normally I feel really strong and robust. But my cycle is showing me, hey, you're off, something's out of whack because I'm foggy, I'm bloated, I'm like, sluggish. So it's, yeah, that's a, like, prime example of, oh, cycle, fifth vital sign.

There's something, like my womb is, but I love the reframe of this, Chinana. My womb is speaking to me. Mm-hmm. It's not just like some random health symptom or, no, my womb is speaking to me clearly and loudly. definitely as something that needs to shift yeah yeah and sometimes that voice may be pain you know it's a louder call to get your attention you know and and a call to to lean in you know but so often we lean out when there's pain we might numb it with like a Tylenol or whatever you know which has been so normalized in society you know but when you're able to really tune in on those levels and connect the dots

you become less of just like a passive participant in your own sexual health, you know. So for those who do, you know, engage with, you know, the gynecology profession or things like that, you know, if you go in for a session like that, instead of just like, okay, I'm broken, just fix me. Like, you know, I don't know what's wrong. Something's wrong. Like, what can you do? And often, you know, they don't have true cures. You know, they'll cover up your symptoms.

often with like hormonal birth control or something that's actually going to make the matter a little bit worse, you know, but, you know, to be able to go in and say, look, I'm looking at my charts, you can bring it to the office with you. And I'm seeing right here in black and white that my progesterone is low, for example, right? So I'd like to have it tested during a time when my cycle actually has progesterone, like is the predominant hormone. And, you know, so it changes the conversation, you know, it makes you the active participant in your own health. And that's where, like, the reproductive justice piece really comes in for me. I just feel it's so important that this type of information, this type of knowledge, be almost like return to its roots,

right? Because there's a large percentage of the community that you see of fertility awareness educators and users of the fertility awareness method who tend to fit the same demographic, you know, well-educated, white, you know, fairly comfortable financially, things like that, you know. And so to me, to be able to through my work, bring this to women of color, communities of color, they're not hearing these things. And there's just this whole level of empowerment that hasn't even been put out there as an option for them, you know, because Because once you have this knowledge, it can't be taken away. And once you have this sense of empowerment, it just gave me goosebumps,

this sense of empowerment over your own life and your own sovereignty, it just changes your whole position in the world. Yeah, back to protecting women's power. Yes. That's what we're talking about here, because there's a power that lives within us that has been denied through a mission. Like, we just haven't been told. And so, yeah, the recovering of that and putting it in the hands.

of everyone. Because of course the medical racism that happens is real, very real, and the medical misogyny. And so, yeah, having the chart to say this is what I know about myself and being able to advocate for ourselves, whether it's heard or not, yeah. But anyway, we've got this hammer in our hands. Yeah, thank you so much. But even also for holistic healing, if you want to take it, which is the path that I tend to take. You see something's out of balance on your chart, you're like, okay, what do I need to do? Like, how do I need to physically, mentally, mind, body, spirit, you know, readjust this imbalance, you know? So it's also a great tool for that because as you make these changes and adjustments, your chart is that barometer.

So you see improvements in real time on your chart and you're like, oh, it's working, you know. So it helps keep you motivated. Yes. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing, Chenna. I'm so grateful. or we've got a little bit more time. I just have a question that's pushing through me. Yeah, drawing on your lineage and all the wisdom that you have inside you because the womb is a mysterious place. And I'm thinking back to my, so four years of infertility

with all the tracking and all the everything and all the holistic support and everything I could throw at it. did some strange things, lots of like headstands after sex and all kinds of different healings and massages and all the things. And like I'm still unraveling and blessedly I was able to get pregnant with the help of modern medicine, but I'm still unraveling like what my womb was telling me then, what my womb's telling me now. And I feel like there's this intersection of the collective millennia of misogyny and the suppression of female power

and then the individual expression of how it's expressing individually in our bodies. And I just wonder how you understand that mysterious kind of unknowable landscape of the womb. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that bit of your story too. Because I work with a lot of women in that like a similar situation

where they're like doing all the things. and it's just not happening. And then that's when that, that mysterious aspect comes in. And, you know, like we were talking about before with, you know, the womb, not just being a physical organ. Like, you know, it's, it's in intimate communion

with the spiritual unseen world. And, you know, it's also a place where trauma and things like that, whether known or unknown, whether, you know, big or small are held, you know. So there's so much, space for these deeper, more spiritual explorations. And I love, you know, hearing people who are going there, you know, because it's not something that's really commonly held, you know, even with like period cramps, like I was saying, turning away from it instead of turning to

it. Like, what is this trying to teach me? What is this trying to show us? Because our wombs are so intelligent and so tuned in with sacred guidance and wisdom for us, that, that piece, that component is just, yeah, so important to bring to the table. Yeah, it's making me think of the darkness that you naturally move towards when you menstruate, and I think a lot of us do, and how really, if I could, from where I am now, and maybe if I get blessed to be like 80 or 90 years old, I'll have much more insight by then, but from where I am now, I can see that my womb was calling me to heal trauma and to build the bridge back with the masculine

because all of my trauma happened, you know, due to men. So my womb, I couldn't get away from it because I desperately wanted a child. So I just kept having to heal and heal and heal in everywhere I could that chasm that had opened up between me and the feeling of safety around the masculine. So, yeah, it's like it's not always joyous and easeful. quite often, like, there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of deep and dark and difficult

things to encounter. And it's also a privilege in, you know, when we like expand out to the more spiritual realms to, yeah, not to spiritually bypass the pain, but you know what I mean. Yeah, I definitely agree. It's not, it's not always pretty. It can be pretty intense. And it takes a lot of courage to face that, you know, and to go through it. And, you know, and there is a lot. also of pleasure and growth and magic on the other side waiting for us if you, for those who get the courage to look, look their womb in the eye. Yes, beautifully said. I'm getting some of that now, Shannana.

I'm getting some of that now. I'm enjoying my life. Yay. For those that are listening that would like to explore your work more, connect with you more, what's the best way that they can do that? Yeah. So if what we talked about today resonated, I have a great article on my website called Decolonize Your Birth Control,

which ties into this ancestral wisdom and the sacredness of the womb and just kind of the origins of hormonal birth control. And it's not a black and white, like, you know, hormonal birth control is the devil and, like, no one should use it ever, you know, in a perfect world, who knows. you know, the reality is much more nuanced and there's a lot of gray area. So I respect that. But it's a great article. There's no opt-in required. You can listen to me, read it to you. You can read it. And it's at womblituracy.com slash decolonize your birth control.

And we can, I'm sure, get that into the show notes. So that's a great sort of just deep dive if you wanted to go deeper and explore. And how can women and folks work with you if they want to? get into this womb sovereignty that we've been speaking to. Yeah, you can definitely reach out through the website or you can email me. I answer all of my emails personally. It's hello at womb literacy.com. Great.

And people can come one to one if they want to learn. Yeah, we've got one to one. We've got a whole six-week course to deepen your womb literacy, basically, your understanding of your womb, use it for natural contraception, but also as your fifth vital sign in this tool for empowerment. It's been such a joy to talk with you and I can somehow feel like my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grannies behind me and your great, great, great, great, grandmother's behind you. And they're like, yeah, well done. I love that.

Yeah, I love, as you said it, I was like envisioning it. So I love that. And I love the conversation. I love the space that you hold and it was just such an honor to be here with you today and share it. Thank you, love. Thanks for being with us today. If you know someone who would enjoy this conversation or benefit from this conversation, please forward it to them.

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