Honestly, this is the kind of episode you can't write a description for.

Our beautiful friend Ixchel Prisma talked with us today about the depths and beauty of her second trimester loss with her spirit baby, River Nova.

This story goes back at least a decade to her initial connection with a baby spirit. Ixchel has spun lead into gold, experiencing death and grief in pregnancy as a profound portal to herself. To her own growth and connection to spirit. And to a greater understanding of the workings of spirit baby connection and soul contracts.

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You can find Ixchel -

Her beautiful song - Birthing Spiral

All of her music on Bandcamp

And Spotify

And her beautiful floral earrings!

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirtheducation for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When asked about their postpartum plan, so many women say "Well, my husband is taking 3 weeks off work...". While thats great (although we'd be more into all fathers being given paid paternity leave for at least a month), that alone should not be your postpartum support in an ideal situation.

We talk about:

• How we envision the ideal postpartum time to look and feel
• How sinking into this design can allow the blessing of a different time perception and brain wave state to come aboard. A delicious, relaxed, healing, state.
• Postpartum is designed to be slow - we need to have enough support to hold the energy of slow
• Partner needs slow as well! Mother can't fully relax if everyone around her is running around and feeling hectic.
• Fathers need also need time to integrate as well! This is a huge transition for the whole family.
• Father's can’t be doing constantly and expect to also have space to feel
• The theory of everyone in the postpartum time needing two layers of support
• Creating healthy fatherhood begins with the birth of the father!
• It's often more difficult, but extremely important for men to practice dropping from a space of doing to a space of being
• Sometimes new fathers experience a crash as way of slowing down. We need postpartum support to allow them to stay present.
• Your next tangible steps spelled out to creating sacred space for both parents postpartum

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Mentioned in the show:

Our Postpartum Planning Guide

Rachelle Garcia Seliga of Innate Traditions

Birthfit postpartum program

Wise Woman, Sacred Birth

A few of our relevant previous episodes:

Manifesting Your Ideal Postpartum Time

Your Motherhood is For You - with Nicole

The Vital Energies of Receiving in the Postpartum Time

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirtheducation for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Postpartum care provider and educator, mother to 4, this postpartum was probably perfect, right? Beautifully, postpartum is an ever deepening, ever challenging, ever incredible spiral into yourself. With the opportunity for new lessons, new messages, and new challenges each time. Sara and I had a lovely walk and talk about her fourth postpartum after the birth of her son, Akiva.

We talk about:

• She hosted her first nesting party at 36-ish weeks pregnant. (Highly recommend.)
• Boundary medicine in postpartum time!
• Yes, everyone wants to see the baby, but it’s so important for you to protect your energetic bubble.
• You are so sensitive and so vulnerable in this time, so while you need so much support and love and care, you also need to be discerning with who is in your space.
• How her husband, Z, and her three kids mentally prepared themselves for her to be resting and less available for many weeks.
• Sara’s top baby gear recommendation (vacuum snot sucker)
• Her baby, Akiva, made milk (curse of the midwife?)
• Sara’s relationship with her own body! This is so strongly passed down the matrilineal paths, often in a not so helpful way. Sara opens up about her own relationship with her body and body image, and how she is choosing to teach her kids to relate.
• Sara’s early menstrual cycle return
• And what she’s been doing starting at a few days, postpartum to care for her body, heal, and feel strong.
• How we can have an understanding of the ideals, while also flowing with the realities of life.

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Mentioned in the show:

Our Postpartum Planning Guide

Nicole's incredible offering - rooted

Our podcast episode with Adrian Dimatteo

Restore Your Core - postpartum movement

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirth for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Agreements:

- I am not obligated to do dishes

- I will avoid lifting heavy things

- I will be mindful of eye contact, and utilize tools of energetic protection

- I will avoid heated discussion - most things that I think NEED TO BE TALKED ABOUT RIGHT NOW actually don't...

- I give myself full permission to not cook if I don't feel like it

- I will keep my body, especially my feet, head, and womb, warm and out of the wind.

I also talk about:

-How I've begun very organically scheduling my life around my cycle. I don't think it would have made sense if I had just started off with a calendar or a plan because someone else told me to do it...

-How I'm feeling these energies of outer and inner spring. The challenges for an Aries and the beauty of it

-I finally understand what drawing a line in the sand is actually supposed to mean! But does it really make sense?

-The concept of creating an energetic red tent for myself

- Exploring the idea of marking the end of bleeding like a mikvah from the Jewish tradition

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Mentioned in the show:

Fertility Friday podcast

My favorite Indie Birth sweatshirt

My favorite fiction - Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Our curated fertility/cycling book list

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if SOUND HEALING (insert feathers and crystal bowls here) didn't have to be a big complicated thing, but was actually woven into your every day life? What if you could be constantly working with frequency and vibration as tools for health and balancing in your body, mind, and spirit?

Oh wait, YOU ALREADY DO!

I loved our talk with Adrian DiMatteo; musician, author, sound healer, and genuine, down to earth, hilarious, and insightful human. We explore some of the ways sound shows up in our every day lives, especially as pregnant women and mothers, and how we can very simply tap into that as a source of connection and healing.

This is so relevant to birth, and I am excited to see where this exploration leads us in the future.

We talk about:

- Utilizing sound as neurolinguistic programming - this doesn't have to be complicated, start by using different words to describe your experiences
- The different levels of sound//thoughts moving through the mind into the body and the spirit
- How music, mantras, movement, dance, rhythm, are all expression of sound - "Sound Healing" isn't this isolated event that happens only on the full moon in a yoga studio.
- How we can utilize this in pregnancy and birth, to overcome fear and re-program our belief systems

- “Sonic massage” - how we can intuitively use our body's vibration for healing for our families
- Applying musicality and mantra healing to the rhythm of everyday life. Vibration, frequency, rhythm isn’t something we practice outside of motherhood/pregnancy, it is inherent in our bodies and ready to be activated at any moment
- Vibration and the vagus nerve! Carrying vibration, movement, and allowing more oxygen to the cells for healing and pain relief. (SO RELEVANT FOR BIRTH!)
- How the natural sounds of the body are essential in releasing emotions, like a dog shaking off the day, we can allow our sighs, yawns, and stretches to reset our systems.
- How we could utilize our understanding of frequencies and the human body to curate your birth environment for this sacred ceremony - I'd love to see Adrian and Nikko Kennedy (from episode #33) to design a labor and delivery unit and NICU!
- The future of birth support - sound healing? Bringing frequency medicine into the birth space doesn’t have to mean you bring your guitar and know a thousand mantras. It’s the vibration of being calm, present, and in your heart, regardless of what you are saying or not saying.
- “Silence is the mother of sound”
- Approaching ultrasound technology from the highest possible frequency
- Integrating sound healing in the simplest ways - this is so accessible and so simple!

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Mentioned in the show:

Adrian's new book - Elements of Sound: A Full-Spectrum Exploration of Sound and Consciousness

His organization, Sonic Institute

Sound Healer Trainings - (I'm going to do it one of these days!)

And his music - While You Are Awake is the background music for this episode and the perfect addition to a birth playlist!

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With all of the birthy support roles I am currently holding, it may be a surprise that I am not, and have no intention of being a birth doula.

But once, long long ago (or at least that's how it feels!), I was! I thought that being a birth doula was path through which I wanted to serve women... at least until I started doing it.

I talk about how:

- The sister wound has made it's presence known in my business aspirations. I couldn't really serve women in this way if I din't really even want to be friends with them!

- I balled my eyes out after the first 3 birth I went to - but convinced myself it was from the joy and beauty of birth

-Something deep down inside me knew - with no instruction, example, or experience that what I was witnessing wasn't really birth as some part of my ancestral being knew it to be. It was a gross manipulation/mutilation that we're all supposed to applaud and whisper about 'the miracle of childbirth'

- My one home birth experience as a doula opened my eyes to a brief moment of feeling the true power of a birthing woman, then swiftly shifted to an uncomfortable understanding of my own, and our collective cultural orientation towards 'medical professions' as authority, and therefor all the ways in which we give up our power.

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Mentioned in the show:

Indie Birth's Sacred Sisterhood Doula Training

Taking Back Birth Episode - When Doulas Become Cogs in the Wheel of Medicalized Birth

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Out lovely friends Ashke and Ian join us today from the end of their sacred window to tell us the story of their son, Cedar's birth.

It is such a joy to hear their story of conscious conception, Ashke's new adventure into studying birth education with Birthing From Within, how Ian's relationship with home birth interfaced with his job as an EMT (such a special crossover), culminating in a fast and healing birth.

We talk about the difference between bypassing fear and choosing to face it head on, dealing with external expectations and pressure with humor and grace, and postpartum cooking as community building.

It's been so beautiful to walk with Ashke as she enters the childbearing spiral, and grows into a beautiful mother. She has been one of the biggest champions of our work with Wise Woman, Sacred Birth, and we are so looking forward to what the future holds for their beautiful family.

You can find Ashke's work with herbal medicines - Maka Pejuta

and on Instagram

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Mentioned in the show:

Our podcast episode with Ixchel and Jerry on their beautiful conscious conception process

Birthing from Within

Ashke was one of the first women with access to Wise Woman, Sacred Birth and gave us amazing feedback.

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Check out our online, comprehensive birth education course Wise Woman, Sacred Birth to go deeper into self responsibility, trust and connection with your inner self, and knowledge and wisdom of the biological truths of the childbearing year, and connection with other beautiful mamas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aiste Gazdar (and her husband Joel) are wellbeing pioneers, community magnetizers, conscious entrepreneurs and full spectrum alchemists leading a movement of transforming humanity’s relationship with nature, food, and ultimately, themselves. They are authors of the innovative plant based and wellbeing book “WILD: Plant Based Recipes & Rituals to Nourish your Wild Essence”. We talk with Aiste today about what it means to slow down, and step into self responsibility and deep connection and care for our bodies.

This is WAY different than any "vegan pregnancy" advice you've ever heard. Aiste's work through her offering, Plant Empowered Woman is a transformative container and a personal and collective invitation to revolutionize the concept of a plant-empowered woman and mother, alchemising depletion into vibrancy in every cell of your being and every area of your life. We talk about minerals, developing relationships with wild plants, and inviting a sense of play, curiosity, and matriarchy into our kitchens.

You can find her upcoming cohort of Plant Empowered Woman (starting March 10th!) on their website, School of Paradise.

You can connect with Aiste on Instagram - @aisteisis

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Thanks for listening!

If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a review!

If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at maible@catskillsbirth.org. We welcome your feedback.

Follow us on Instagram @catskillsbirth for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.