The Menstruality Podcast - 77. How to Reclaim the Soft Wisdom of our Bodies (Latham Thomas)

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

After giving birth to her son Fulano in 2003, Latham Thomas set out on a mission to help women reclaim birth. A graduate of Columbia University & The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Latham is a maternity lifestyle maven, world renown wellness leader and master birth doula on the vanguard of transforming the wellness movement. She has been named one of Oprah’s Super Soul 100.I experienced Latham as a weaver of profound threads of wisdom… we journeyed from her sacred menstrual practices, to exploring radical self care as a cultural act of resistance in a world that aims to turn us away from our bodies, to how she is supporting her doula students to reclaim their ancient, ancestral technologies and birth wisdom, and so much more. We explore:The multiple layers of Latham’s menstrual cycle awareness through constant dialogue with her body and how she ‘insources’ solutions when she bleeds.How Latham’s ancestors appeared at her birth and what facilitated this deeply sacred moment, including the safe space created by her midwife, partner and best friend. How Latham is bringing forth her ancestral birth wisdom and helping her doula trainees to recall and reclaim the memory of their African ancestral technologies that are lodged in their tissues, so they can become wisdom keepers.---Join us for our upcoming free, online Menstruality Leadership lab, March 7th - 10th: www.redschool.net/lab---Our final waves of applications will open soon for our 2023 Menstruality Leadership Programme. Find out more at: www.menstrualityleadership.com---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.schoolLatham Thomas: @glowmaven - https://www.instagram.com/glowmaven

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, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers 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 there, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome if this is your first time here and a really warm welcome if you're returning. It really is one of the great joys of my life being in this conversation with you and particularly today as I got to interview one of my heroes and it was everything I

dreamed of and more. After giving birth to her son Folano in 2003 Latham Thomas set out on a mission to help women reclaim birth. She's a graduate of Columbia University and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She's a maternity lifestyle maven, She's a world-renowned wellness leader, master birth doula, and she really is on the vanguard of transforming the whole wellness movement. And she's also been named one of Oprah's Super Soul 100. I experienced Latham as a weaver of profound threads of wisdom. We journeyed from her sacred menstrual practices to exploring self-care as a cultural act of resistance in a world that is actively

aiming to turn us away from our bodies and also how she's supporting her doula students to reclaim their ancient ancestral technologies and birth wisdom and so much more. It's a real joy to share this with you today, how to reclaim the soft wisdom of our bodies with the amazing Latham thank you so much for joining us on the menstruality podcast I would love to start as we always do with the menstrual cycle with menopause with our cyclical nature and I'd love to ask yeah where are you at in your cycling life and how is it influencing you today? You know, it's funny. I have like a sweatshirt that says I'm menstruating and I wish I wore three of my cycle. And this is a nice time for me, you know, by day three, generally also because I was like traveling as it was

about to start, which I had known. So I was able to anticipate my needs and plan for, you know, I usually just kind of make space for retreat for myself so that I'm not doing too much. And thinking about, you know, how I want to prepare food for myself when I'm traveling and on the go so that I could really honor what my body needs in this time. And so now I'm home and it's just been like a lot of warm foods and nourishing and grounding. And I love greens and garlic and stews. And also I love, you know, a pasta every now and again when I'm on my cycle too, which feels really hearty. And so that's what I had for lunch today was this, this vegan tortellini with pesto, which I made. And then also some sauteed winter greens and garlic. And so for me, that's like, what really helps me feel like I can really be in my body when I'm when I'm eating those foods that that ground me and it also keeps me from experiencing like painful

or symptomatic periods when I'm just having more um when I'm like eating whole foods and eating at home. Is it a visionary time for you your? Is that when you tend to get insights? I feel like I, I feel like it's, it's a couple of things that culminate, like, you know, we're in the new moon and Pisces. And so I feel like that watery energy brought about a lot of emotion. And there was, I think, a lot of tumult, right? Like for a lot of people, including myself in the past few weeks. And so, you know, just time to like reflect and like kind of look at what the movement of water is really mean for us and what we can learn from observance and also of reverence. And so I think that for me, I have along the entire cycle, a continuum where there's like a ebbing and flowing of creative edge, as well as, you know, introspection, a more intolerant time. There's a time that I have where probably towards last week and the end of the week before, as I was moving into, you know, the phase that, you know, my bleeding was imminent

is where I'm less tolerant, where I want to have retreat and be like away from people. I'm less patient. And so in that time, I usually also in source solutions for things on my own. So rather than like delegate or ask someone for support, I will retreat and then, you know, through my own internal resources, surface my solutions and then like, you know, do things that are like kind of tiny actions, right. That aren't exhausting, that helped me stay in flow. And then when I come on the other side where I feel more communal and more collaborative, then I'll invite people back in and I make space to invite them into the vision, invite them into the workflow. And so that's, I think how I say sustained and not like burnt out really, um, really just like modulating my time and managing like the, the, the energy flow, um, on a moment to moment basis, rather than like, oh, you know,

I've pushed and pushed and pushed all month and now I'm going to collapse. And as a result, I am being forced to take time for me. It's more like, you know, I don't get to an edge because I'm in constant dialogue with my body. Like, where do we need to slow down? Like right now, like, let's take a walk, you know, let's step away from the computer. Let's take a nap. Let's, you know, go and sit outside in some sunlight. Let's get our feet in some soil, like whatever is necessary. Right. Like just like honoring that on a moment to moment basis rather than like waiting and allocating a particular window of time to take care of oneself, which I think is, you know, a capitalist construct, which which keeps us from actually really intently listening and being obedient to like our, our own visceral needs and the needs of community. Right. So I find that this is a way for me to stay engaged is to, to be in constant inquiry, constant dialogue and, and in relationship to the body. For me, that helps with also recognizing where I am in cycle. And, and it's not just for me, like, counting of days, which like, you know, my cycle is like spot on, or I can anticipate it. I'm like, oh, it's going to be tonight or, you know, I always know. But it's not just like, because of, you know, how predictive it is. It's also just like, I'm so attuned with my behaviors, with my, the shift in consciousness, with the

types of dreams I'm having with the, you know, level of patience I have, the capacity I have physically to do things or not. Like I'm, I'm watching all that too, you know? So for me, it's like all of that, like kind of observance right throughout the month helps to inform when it shows up, then I can have time to dream. I can be in a space of, of, of retreat because I sort of prepare for that when I'm you know not bleeding I make I set up my life so that it's easeful for when I enter that period yes it's so beautiful to hear the way you speak about the intimacy and like the intricateness of that dialogue that you're in with your body and I heard you refer to the menstrual cycle I think as a map for life yeah and I feel like this is what you're pointing

to and everything we do at Red School points to is yep it's this constant pulse of where am I how am I how am I doing that keeps us awake keeps us alive keeps us engaged keeps us engaged with the world engaged with the world, engaged with ourselves. It's such a superpower. It's beautiful to hear the way you speak about it. It's exactly what you said, right? Like that's the vitality. And I think that's like such a gift. And I think also that, you know, in a culture that's turning us away from our bodies, that wants us to, you know, consume product, to, you know, denounce the physical manifestations of our greatness that come through our bleeding, that come through our capacity to carry life and feed the capacity, right, to also gain wisdom with a greater time horizon

on this planet and then be of service to the next generation, right, to pass down knowledge, like this knowledge transfer that happens through wisdom keeping, like is something that is available to us, but often like we miss the opportunity to be in relationship to that wisdom and relationship to our bodies. And, and, and so much, I feel like of, of the conflict internally that's experienced is because we don't have a, an astute relationship, right? A lot of us are just coming into relationship with our bodies, just getting to know like what pleasure feels like, or it looks like for us, just figuring out how to articulate that,

just figuring out what the names of some of our parts are even. Right. And so I think that the, the charge, right. Of, of having to connect and ask oneself, like, what do I need? And actually believe that you deserve to act upon that, to like grant yourself that thing that you believe that you need, right? Like that's such a powerful step forward. And I would love to see a focus, right? Where, and I know this is what you all are doing, you know, within the Red School, you know, for people to reclaim that softness and move away from what we've been taught through our more capitalist frameworks about productivity and our value being connected so deeply to our ability to produce something and how we, every single month, right? When we bleed, when we release, we actually also produce. And while we know that that's like a loss from the body physically, right? There is a mourning that happens physically. What we actually produce, what leaves our body is life force and it is full of stem cells. And it's like the fact

that we don't look there for information, for research, for life sustaining energy that like menstrual blood is instead demonized and vilified and obviously seen as unsanitary, right? This is our compass, right? Like orienting towards the body being this, you know, dirty and, you know, flawed site instead of a sacred site. And that the blood is leaving, like if the body is sacred, then what emerges from the body is also holy. And so that orientation, I think helps us to sit inside of the experience differently. Right. And so when you do have sensations, when you do have cramping, if you have other informative experiences, that can help you find your way into the calm inside of the sea of life. And I think that that calm is really important to, you know, instead of normalizing the really intense sensations of pain that really trouble so many of us in the process.

Thinking about what it looks like to lift up this information that the body is speaking through us and find better ways to take care of ourselves so that we can move towards a pathway that is less painful or pain-free. And I found that through my cycle of never having pain. Then I had my son and then I had painful periods afterwards. And then it was like, oh, I have to find my way back to where I didn't have any sensation. And I found my way back. But it was like, it took a while. And now it's like, you know, every now and again, I might have a painful first day and I'm really attuned to like what it is. That's like linking me to that. Like I can almost like point to like, oh yeah, I did this differently. And I think that this, you know, influences like what I'm feeling right now,

or it could be like what's happening in the ether, the things that are happening in the world. I feel that in my body, right. Coming through, it could be like, oh, I had a bunch of sugar, you know, when I had dessert like out and then like my cycle come the next day and it's like pain. And so I can always tether it to like a, um, an event or what's going on. But I also can say, what are the things I'm going to do? And how am I going to design my life leading up to this moment to best support, um, healthy bleeding and sustained living, right? Because this is going to be, I don't know when I'm going to enter into perimenopause, but now I have really healthy bleeding. And so I think it's, I mean, it could be any time, as you know, but right now it's still happening. And so I need to take care of myself while I continue this path.

So I found that that mindfulness and also that recentering around the holiness of this moment and also the finiteness, the finite nature of this period also. It's a period, right? It's like this is a time in one's life and it marks your life in a certain way. And then you move through and you come on the other side with something different. And that rite of passage is also very important. So we should like really revere the body in that way that like we have this beautiful time

on a daily basis and monthly basis to like check in and affirm and support and and create a space that allow us to feel swaddled, you know, through the cycle. That's beautiful. That's such a beautiful image. And that's how I want to be when I bleed is that the same feeling that I had when I was swaddling my son when he was tiny is yeah and I do feel that when I am able to you spoke to this earlier to be with the softness to be with the vulnerability that is calling me when I bleed then I have that feeling of being swaddled by life and it's this ducking in and plugging in oh and I love the way you speak about well you sanctify this you

illuminate the sacredness of these cycles there's a thread that I sense is big in your work because I've heard you speak about it which is interconnectedness and as you were speaking then you were sort of moving towards this I think how the cycle it shows us that everything is constantly changing and it also shows us that everything is absolutely interconnected you you know that the sugar impacted this you know that what's happening in the collective and the collective is is tough um you know that the sugar impacted this you know that what's happening in the collective and the collective is is tough um you know that's impacting and I think I was listening to you speak to Mia on the emergent strategy podcast oh I love that yeah it was a great conversation I'm

going to link to it in the show notes it's gorgeous um you were speaking about how you grew up and where you grew up and the initiatives and the organizations that you grew up around and your mum grew up a few blocks from the main Black Panthers activities so you know this rich heritage and you spoke about your literary godparents Audre Lorde and I just I'd love to hear about, you know, this interconnection that you have always been in touch with and yeah, how it's, how it's influenced you really. Yeah. You know, I think that growing up in California and a place where we had very fertile and forgiving soil where anything almost could grow. I started to learn about life cycles first through plant systems and studying plants as well as botany and medicinal and wild grown

herbs in Northern California and like Larkspur area. And this like kind of indigenous knowledge around plants, and then also the gardens and stuff that like where we live, their stuff was just growing. And so we learned how to tend to it and harvest it. And then having like a grandfather who was like really a green thumb and, and he actually grew from as long as I could remember, cannabis. And so, which he still smokes every day. He's like 87. Super healthy and low key and drinks a beer every day, smokes some weed and just like a chill. But so I knew that like, you know, I had a appreciation for like plants at an early age and sort of like how they, you know, move and their patterns and also their vibrational energy and kind of studying that and overlaying that with like the life sciences and looking at the life course of humans. I think that like all of these interesting things happened, you know, my mom's pregnancy with my sister when I was four,

foundation then for my understanding of human physiology and the anatomy of labor and birth, and then having a fascination there and also being taught body literacy at an early age, like all of these things kind of weave together so that my orientation in the world is like through this lens of spirituality rooted in land, rooted, African ancestral technologies, rooted in, you know, this really belief, but also a bowing and rever that's like kind of my religion. I mean, I grew up like in Christianity. And so I had that obviously as a sort of part of this incredible and innate matrix and is in constant creation vibration and is always something is always being born, something is always, you know, like emergent. And so that for me is sacred and holy. And so for me, the reverence and the connectedness, right, are like about really being thankful for the present, but also attuned to it, really seeing the patterns and the complexities and being able to kind of like embrace. I think that that's at the core of it. And then all of it to me is the same. Like, I think, you know, when we talk about life and

birth as a metaphor for life, I think birth is inherent in everything. I can, I can bring everything back to a metaphor that centers, you know, birthing and, and really the life course as a, as a, a way to root in that conversation. But I also believe that, you know, everything that you experience and that you carry with you, like bleeds into and weaves into everything else. And so it's like these life experiences, um, particularly when we look at rites of passage, where open because culturally, if you look at the West, it's like, we're not anchoring people and, you know, making sure they're like inside of ancestral tradition, inside of their own community interventions for these processes, right? And so when someone begins bleeding, when someone gets

pregnant, when someone has a baby, when someone loses a baby, when someone aborts, when someone, you know, you know, stops bleeding, we don't have like companionship built in along that course, right? At every juncture, instead we, you know, make people feel small and lesser versions of themselves, under supported. We build systems against them and against adequate care. And so people move through these stages in isolation. And so this is how we come to stigmatize, right? Because we don't understand, but also this is how we come to internalize beliefs about our bodies and the various points along the continuum where we have collective memory and individual recall around harm that we experience, around, you know, indignities we experience, that color, what it means to be women or femme

in these bodies, right? And so that makes it really, I think, challenging inside of the work because so much of what we have to do as facilitators and teachers and wisdom keepers is like help people unlock and release the shame that they're carrying, generational, deeply woven beliefs, and help people to sort of reclaim their bodies as sacred, unlodge some of these also psychic wounds, right, that people carry, that show up as what we would call in current discourse trauma. And so I think that it's a responsibility to integrate all of these pieces and see everything as interconnected also so that we can help people, but also because when we have a larger discourse, when we're looking at reproductive justice, this framework connects everything for us in an opportunity for us to kind of study and be in scholarship, but also to apply and be in, you know, be it policy or legislation, be it education, be it public health, right? There's so many pathways that now can be informed by this entire continuum and what we face at each juncture and how important it is to develop models of care that address the gaps that exist for people who, you know,

live in bodies like ours. And so I believe that we have to, for our own sake and for the survival, but also the advancement of movement, we need to expand we need to like expand like you know how we how we see and hold this thing i'm going to pause this conversation with latham for a moment to share about our scholarship for the menstruality leadership program it for black, indigenous and people of colour, for people in the LGBTQ plus community, for people who are living with a disability or who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, to support them to become menstruality leaders. We would love to invite you to apply or to share it with your communities and spread the word about this opportunity. We have several 50% scholarships remaining for this year. And if you'd like to

apply or spread the word, you can find out more at menstrualityleadership.com. And if you'd like to find out more about the program in general, come and join us for our free online menstruality leadership lab, which is four days of intimate teachings and conversations about undefended, visionary, rested leadership, and how our menstrual cycles and menopause can be our greatest allies on this quest. It's the 7th to 10th of March. It will serve as a really good introduction to the MLP, and you can register for free at redschool.net forward slash lab that's redschool.net forward slash lab how do you see your calling your your genius or in your book you call it your glow power

how is this unfolding right now because I'm hearing so many threads you know you're training people in this companionship in such a profound way where are your edges right now in terms of how your calling is is calling you yeah I mean I think that today if I were to, you know, it's like when my son was born, he's going to be 20 in July. And I remember the moment where I said out loud to everyone in the room that I have to protect this experience for others because nobody told me it could be this. Because what I had was blissful and empowering and just like an overflow and abundance of love and capacity and the sense that I could do anything. And I was also met with this experience, right? That was really also life altering, which was that my ancestors

appeared at the birth and I felt this out of body, incredible experience as a, as a result of all of the incredible neurochemicals and hormones working together. And also because the experience was facilitated by safety, my need for safety and being held in community with those who were there, including my midwife and partner and best friend. And, and those three people really just helping me get through, right? I think that for me, what sort of feels like where I am now, and I'm in constant relationship to this question, right? What it is now, I think it once was to work as a doula. And I was out in the world doing that work. What it is now is as an educator.

And really, I feel so honored to teach everything I know. And so through the course, which is going to be five years since we launched Mama, within nine months, expanded that from New York to LA, Miami, and Paris. So it was international within that nine-month period. And then 2020 came. We were all in the house, right? In three weeks, we pivoted to online. And then the program expanded, like, five-fold. And it was just wonderful. And, and,

and so many people were able to come who may otherwise not have been able to join. And just, it was awesome what we were able to achieve. And so now there's over 2,500 of Mambo Lodula's globally, but now also something I'm really proud of is that the course is now embedded as um a two-part course at brown university wow yes and i'm a professor of of gender studies at the practice of gender studies at brown team. And this semester we have students enrolled in the program who are in public health, folks who are going to become OBGYNs, folks who are doing public administration, people who are doing medical anthropology. I mean, all different backgrounds, all with an interest in maternal and infant health inside the course who will be the next generation, who will lead the charge, right, to help change our current medical model.

And so what I see as critically important is two pronged. And this is where I see myself. One is like really pouring in education to the young people, like really pouring in with them. At Brown, we have like a multi-pronged approach to the partnership that includes like a doula club that's established there. There's federal work-study. So we have seven work-study fellows who work with us from Brown. And then we have career opportunities at the Montville Foundation where graduates work with us. And so we have a couple of people on staff and they come every year. And so this is like culminating years of relationship building and community work with them,

but then also of Brown scholars and administrators coming to take the Mama Glow program at Mama Glow. And so then now bringing it into the university is such an honor. And it's the first time that's ever happened. So we're so grateful to like, you know, bring, be a part of this history, especially in Black History Month. Yes. And then now, right, that's one piece, right? The other piece I see is critically important is that we often like really disappear our elders, right? This is something we see globally in sort of like more,

I would like westernized societies. And, you know, we would, I guess, acknowledge them as developed, right? Countries where we see this sort of very casual disregard and disappearing of elders. And I see the elders as a very powerful constituency and group of people that we can draw upon for wisdom, for support, and for collective connection and grounding in community. These are people who have helped anchor our communities for millennia. And so I think about when, you know, students emerge as doulas and the young people who we have in the program and people really of all ages in the program.

Then I think about elders who come and they finish their work and they're retired or they want a new start or they've been in nursing for 40 years or what they've been a school teacher for 50 years. And then they find doula work. And now all of the love that they pour into students, all of the love they poured into their children, all of the births they've attended or seen or been a part of themselves, they can bring that wisdom to people who are on their birthing journeys. And so instead of tucking them away, like bringing them into the fold, right? And now they have extra income. Now they also are able to like utilize that energy that surfaces of wanting to bust over something, right? You want to like keep your hands busy, but also you want to help. And so being needed, being useful, right, is so important. And we know that also, when we're engaging the brain, right, when we keep people active and engaged in community and activities, they also maintain their neuroplasticity. And so this is also how we can save off things like dementia and Alzheimer's, right? It's like having that activity as well. And so I see this as

powerful for us to utilize the resource of our elders and we can bridge these generational gaps, right? Where folks are in their crone phase and they're supporting folks in their maiden. And we can bring them back together like they were before because we were united and now we're like in these generational silos and it doesn't serve anyone because young people need the guidance of elders and elders need the support and energy that young people can bring to help sustain the movement that we're in so so that's another thing that i see is important in the work is like bridging that family gap that i see it as a family gap and and bringing us back together as a family in that way to do this work. It feels like a re-weaving of a tapestry that's come frayed.

It's like, this needs to be pieced back together. I see it with my little guy who's two when he goes to visit his Nana, who's 92. And it's the circle completes, you know, she is overjoyed by him. He is overjoyed by her. It's right for them to be together. Yeah.

That's exactly right. Exactly. That exact thing. You're like, how come we didn't think of this sooner, right? enjoyed by her it's right for them to be together yeah that's exactly right exactly it's that exact thing you're like who how come we didn't think of this sooner right yeah right I saw this this really cool school I think it's in Portland Oregon or somewhere like this and they had a school adjacent to an elder care center and so the kids go there and, and it's just like everything, you just see them, they love each other. And it's like, that is the perfect way, right? To bridge that gap and make sure that they don't feel neglected. The kids get their energy out and they get to, you know, play with and be in community with folks who, yeah, like otherwise are like you know tucked away and not getting that love that

children just naturally give you so yes you spoke about seeing your ancestors at your birth and I wanted to ask you about something that you shared in a conversation with Elena Brower on her podcast about how the this African ancestral technology is alive through your work you spoke about um you know we've just passed the 400th year since the first African people were taken forcibly 2019 and you spoke in the podcast about how, you know, on that journey, many of those people were pregnant and gave birth and they midwifed for each other. And then they went on to midwife for each other and sometimes for slave masters,

birthing their children and the, this legacy of birth medicine and knowledge you speak about how you're reclaiming these ancestral tools ancestral technology can can you speak to that how that I mean I'm hearing it everything you're saying today but can you speak to that how that's how that's alive how you're reclaiming that you said it so beautifully thank you um know, I think it is part of it. I think it's just being right. Like, like being in this, in this moment, I heard someone say, ask someone, Oh, what are you doing for black history month? I said, just being just existing. And I said, oh, yes, the power of just being, not even doing, right? Being, emanating, you know, standing as a information is like more, I think about decentering it from like me, but more about like me as a vessel for helping people reclaim memory.

How I see it is that like, this is information that's like lodged in our tissues and in our memories and cellular ways and otherwise. And so the invitation when people come to the doula program, when they come to Mama Glow Doula Homeschool, which is the online program, the invitation is to soften. And there are attunement practices that we engage in that help us to ready ourselves to not only the information, but the transmission of energy and memory. And so what often happens when we're in a space and we access a memory, we access information, we access like a technology that we don't have necessarily the capacity to hold or process. that it's really hard to then express it, but figure out how to like, right, be engaged with it in the world. But, you know, we have to figure out how to hold it and keep it. And what I'm trying to help people with

is expanding their capacity to receive and to be able to hold these things that are coming back to us. Yes. And then when you have the capacity to hold it and be in relationship with that thing, then processing, right? You know, really, really getting into the memories of things lost and some of the experiences that have been challenging for all of us. But what I have found

is a lot of people start to surface memories and even stories about folks and family lines connected to like birth work, right? Or, oh, my grandmother was a medicine woman and this person was delivering all the babies and just never knew until they came inside of this coursework and then started to ask those questions. Right. I'm sure, you know, with people, when they start doing inquiry around, you know, the blood, right. Like what surfaces, right. A lot of stuff surfaces that you're, that they think like, I'm just going to learn how to like, you know, attune myself to my cycle, but you're not here for that, right? You're here for like really personal growth, right? You're really here. Like the cycle is like an entry point into this larger landscape of healing that is available to you. right? And so we have to learn how to pace ourselves

through this. I find that that's really the invitation, right? Is to ready ourselves for the opening and the awakening and the receiving. Because I am teaching, but I'm more like, I'm really helping people to remember, which is what I always remind them that you're here to recall. You're here to reclaim. You're here to remember. And also you're here to also be a wisdom keeper and healer and teacher, right? Like I'm facilitating and sharing everything I know. And this is a space for you to like learn from each other. And so that's how that is shaping up in terms of the work. It's like, it's more for me, like an invitation to recall. And, and as we do so we come more, we come into better relationship

with our ancestral lineages, our practices, our traditions for healing, for, for fortification, like all of these things, I feel like, you know, for cleansing, like everything that we do, like you start to think like, oh, wow, like I didn't realize that like after a birth, I have like a closing ritual. And that reminds me of this thing. My grandmother, like you start connecting the dots around things that you do sort of mindlessly, but also you start to intentionally invite in some of the technologies that were used by like our ancestors. And then also folks who are still

living. Like I can reflect on to some things that like my grandmother has passed on, but like things that my mother taught, right. Or aunts. And I think that having that tether to lineage is really important. And also looking to see where we can look at the harms the shame like these kinds of things that did surface in our lives and that have colored how we see the world and our bodies as a way to to like also get in step inside of an interrogation process with that information, right? And be in a dialogue around release and reclamation of values and surfacing of information that does feel congruent. And I think that that happens for people. And it's like you watch it happen, which I'm sure you have people do these breakthroughs and you're like, you know, watching them have this moment, right?

It's so powerful. And that's, what's the transformation. That's the transformative nature. I think of this work is that like, we get to bear witness, we get to, you know, we have the gift of supporting others, but the real gift in the work, honestly, is like the journey you take on your own, the journey you take as a self inside of engage with the outside world to moving through this sort of liminal space that's expansive and that dissolves ego and reorganizes us. And then we emerge onto the other side, this new version of ourselves. And we come out of there with something we didn't have when we started. And we have the ability, by the way, as women and femmes to experience this all the time,

right? This is available to us monthly. This is available to us on the life time, right? This is available to us monthly. This is available to us on the life course, right? This is available to us through every creative venture we engage in, right? And it's cyclical and it's spiral in nature. And so we can always step inside of this relationship to the divine, to the body, to life and death, to, you know, effort and surrender. Right. Like to we can always step inside of this. So I I think that that's like the gift. Right. Being able to also then see in the world outside, too. Oh, yeah. This is a reflection of like what's happening inside. This looks like this pattern, this looks like these systems, like, and be able to kind of

simplify and also make easier the journey that we have to take navigating the complexity of the world we live in by deciding like that I want to like layer this template over it, right? This is a template of thinking I'm sort of engaged in, and that's kind of how I approach it, right? Like this is how I'm orienting in the world. And so that also shapes like my interactions and how I show up as a mother and how I show up as a caregiver or a partner. And so, and that's a choice also, right? Like I have to, that's a choice that, you know, I live into that as a model, but it also is really deeply connected to,

I think how I approach teaching and or facilitating as well. Well, I need to listen back to this because it feels like you're like a prism and there are 8,000 colors coming out of you. I need to listen back to this because it feels like you're like a prism and there are 8 000 colors coming out of you I need to listen to all of it again I know I never answer your questions but I feel like I'm like encircling them oh yeah you're right there inside them you're exploding them open um there was just one thing I wanted to share before we wrap up

Latham which is you were speaking really powerfully about birth equity and the black maternal health crisis and I'm going to link in the show notes to a podcast where you really educate very powerfully about it so that our listeners can go back to listen to that and one thing you named is alongside our anti-racism work I'll speak for myself as a white woman alongside my anti-racism work, I'll speak for myself as a white woman, alongside my anti-racism work, the importance of divesting from systems that are doing harm. And one example you gave is by investing in Black birth workers, sponsoring Black doulas, for example,

as a way to... For restitution or reparation for reparation for reparation thank you and i think there's a link on your site where people can come and contribute to the sponsorship fund for your doula program yes absolutely i first of all, thank you for speaking into that piece, which is that inside of this current design, it's really challenging to navigate maternal health. I think there are a lot of people who are inside the space to help solve a problem, there's also equally as many people here to exploit the problem. And so it's so important, right, for, you know, discerning people who want to be part of solution building to look to the communities that have always been doing the work. And instead of interrogating or trying to figure out like why they're not further along, understand that philanthropy is structured in a way that keeps Black and Brown folks from accessing the capital and resources necessary to sustain the

work they're doing in community. And so they're constantly being funded. So allocating funds and resources to organizations in your community, supporting orgs that like may not have a name on the national stage, you know, ensuring that if you're supporting larger organizations, that they do have people of color inside of their leadership, not answering the phones, right? Making sure also that you invest in the shift that we need to see in the United States particularly is that we need more midwives. We have about 37,000 OBGYNs in the country and about 14,000 midwives. So we have a huge disparity in that ratio. And unlike Europe, where you have a higher midwifery to obstetrician ratio and better birth outcomes, we have a higher obstetrician to midwifery ratio, and we have poor birth outcomes.

And so what we need to see is more investment also in having access to midwives of color, Black midwives, Indigenous midwives, Latinx midwives, Asian midwives. we need to see more LGBTQ plus midwives, like we need folks who can provide, you know, quality, and, you know, culturally appropriate care. And so like investing in that, right, in scholarship, because it is cost prohibitive for many people to practice, investing in local birth centers, investing in birth center funds whereby families get support to facilitate their birth if they are underinsured. And then, like you said, which I thought is such a great and very easy way to plug in, which is sponsor doulas. And you can also like yourself get this education to be able to bring into community, bring into policy space, bring into spaces that you're in where you can be of influence. We have, if you go to mamaglowfoundation.org, you can make a donation there that's tax deductible.

But there are, if you go to mamaglow.com, there are trainings that we have pretty frequently that people can join. The next one is March 26. There's one happening now and one happening at Brown, as you know, university. feel called to this work, I would invite you to come do this work. But if you're someone who's like, I know someone who would really resonate with this or whose dream it is to do this work, you should send them or invest in them and their education so that they can then make a ripple impact on their community. Because that's what literally happens, right? Is that one person impacts many. And so it doesn't, you don't need to be a millionaire. You don't need to be someone who has a ton of money. You could literally donate, you know, like 50, a hundred, 200, 500. It's like, it can be small amounts that make impact. So, so please don't forget the power of, of your own voice and also your determination to be engaged in community.

Also other resources that are needed by community, right? Like a lot of people need communication support or grant writing or donations. And so just taking a stance of like, I'm here to help and asking what organizations might need. And more often than not, like they're able to articulate like what, what sort of like on their list of like needs. And, and then you can engage in ways that you can, right. Whether that's through the skill sets you bring, or if that's helping with fundraising, but I'm telling you, there's so many under-resourced organizations that would really, really use the help. And so part of how you can be active is to uplift people inside of community. That would be such a huge, make such a huge impact as we all work, right, to chip away at the crisis that we see, you know, in the United States, particularly in Black maternal health, where Black and Indigenous women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth or due to childbirth related causes than their white counterparts. Right. And we see similar numbers in the UK. Right. And so we know anti-Blackness is global.

So there is work to be done. And we just appreciate you. And I just want to honor and thank you for holding space and having me in such reflective conversation. These are such beautiful questions and the opportunity to really be in a space where I can not talk about the nuts and bolts, but really get into like, you know, the spirituality of all of it, because it means so much.

And I never talk about my period. So this is amazing. Yeah, here we are thank you Latham I'm going to do some research and put a list of places that people could begin for their investing so that people can look in the show notes for that yes and yeah thank you this has been such a delight I am going to listen back and enjoy it and thank you so much for your brilliant brilliant work in the world thank you L it. And thank you so much for your brilliant, brilliant work in the world. Thank you, Latham. No, thank you so much too. Thank you so much for listening

to the conversation today. I enjoyed that immensely. I hope you did too. If you would like to find out more about our menstruality leadership program head on over to menstrualityleadership.com and that's also where you'll find information underneath the book now area about the scholarship program for black indigenous and people of color, for the lgbtq plus community, for people living with a disability or people who are socioeconomically

disadvantaged please come and apply for the scholarship we have several 50 scholarships left or spread the word amongst your community so that we can help to spread the reach of this work where it's really needed and please do join us for our menstruality leadership lab. It's coming up on the 7th to the 10th of March. It's totally free. We're going to be exploring undefended leadership, visionary leadership, rested leadership through the lens of the menstrual cycle and menopause, and we can't wait. We've got some amazing special guests. So excited to share it with you. You can come and register for free at redschool.net forward slash lab. Okay, that's it for today.

Thank you for joining me and I'll see you next time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.