Episode 4: The Power of “And” with Midwife Kelly Murphy
In this episode, I talk with midwife Kelly Murphy about intuition in the context of conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum and beyond. I also talk about my own birth with her as my midwife.
You can find more information on her work at
(Episodes come out on Mondays while in season.)
This transcript is unedited. Fully edited version coming soon.
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[0:00] Music.
[0:05] Welcome to the existing Taylor podcast I'm your host Sarah Fontaine and I'm a writer astrologer and facilitator.
[0:14] This podcast exists to build a culture of belonging to help us feel less isolated while living on planet Earth we're asking questions together about the complexities and confusions of being a person.
[0:27] We cover spirituality politics parenting astrology whiteness and especially the spaces where these overlap.
[0:35] Music.
[0:45] Hey y'all just wanted to give you a heads up the conversation that I'm sharing with you today with Kelly Murphy a midwife my Midwife is really rich.
[0:55] And beautiful and also we talked about pregnancy and birth and pregnancy loss and we also talk critically about the medical system.
Pertains to birth,
and pregnancy and postpartum so I just wanted to tell you that so you can decide if this is an episode that you want to listen to or not right now depending on whatever state you're in in relation to all of those things I hope you enjoy it if you do listen,
take good care either way nice hey,
we're here with Kelly Murphy who was my Midwife with my my three-year-old and is a friend and
yeah so many things to me thank you so much for being here yeah I wonder if you would say,
does describe what your work is even though maybe Midwife is an obvious word but yeah how would you describe it these days.
How do I describe my work I could be just like the whole the whole episode probably yeah I mean there's so many layers to it in terms of,
how to even enter that question yeah I suppose what I could say is that.
[2:15] Being a midwife feels and is for me.
[2:20] My life work which ultimately is also the way that I express my orientation to this life.
[2:31] Witch.
Holds many things of course but I feel like it is ultimately my true north and my North Star in terms of like what moves me every day to rise and show up and access.
My own way and path and Truth.
[2:50] And that is a very wordy description of the work which ultimately is,
on the day Leah sitting with women and families in their own processes of readying for.
[3:08] The ceremonies of their life and ultimately also integrating those ceremonies and most often and most of the work is sitting.
With women as they ready to give birth to their children,
and what the work is for each person is really varied and very different in terms of what she's showing up with and what's coming up for her as she prepares.
Two birds and I would specifically I guess also add in that all of these people are birthing outside of.
The medical system outside of a hospital and so there is a lot of confronting of norms in terms of what has happened to our relationship to birth.
That I feel very specifically in recent years has become sort of the focal point of.
[4:00] The work which is an undoing of these ideas that we have whether consciously or not.
Integrated into our bodies and beings about what birth is and therefore what life is what death is yeah,
and so that to me is that's like a never-ending body of work really and is there are so many layers brought forth always because each individual is coming forth with her in relationship to that
but I'm pretty specific about it even though I may not like lay that out of just like that is what I
hold in my body and so the people who are coming are also very interested in their own layers of that work and I feel like it is
our collective experience because yes it is her individual birth but
as we know that is connected to essentially everything that she touches and therefore the impact of this is so.
Ripley and varied and deep and ongoing and therefore incredibly inspiring to me in terms of showing.
Up for there's just so many things that I want to ask you from that for that beautiful description and how long has it been now 15 years wow.
[5:15] Yeah is there like a certain kind of anniversary that use that you celebrate with that or you like what like your first birth or well my first birth was a little bit before the state but September one is a is an anniversary for.
Me and the reason for that is because that was the
the educational program that I officially enrolled in began on that date and was like was always like that and there was a sort of a we had our own ceremony to initiate our time at this birth center and.
[5:47] It was it was just really significant to me and then actually when I took my.
First Apprentice we started on September 12 and so now she and I always acknowledge that date because.
It's just a continuation of a relationship to a period of time that yeah has marked me that's beautiful,
so I have been asking people about this this question of intuition and that yeah honestly the more that I do this the more I'm like what
it's an impossible question and I don't even know what the word means more like a through these observations and I don't even yeah I often ask questions that I realized later like in pot like a how would I even answer I don't know but it feels especially,
relevant to your work or to how I view it or two my relationship with your work and I've been thinking about it a lot in
in all the different phases and as I become more intimate with my own cycle and yeah like can't just all the different things of being having a cycle
and all that that includes and it feels really connected that for me so anyway,
because there's some things but I'm wondering if you would be willing to share what you think intuition is first of all your how do you engage with it yeah what I noticed first,
and foremost when you presented this invitation was that.
[7:11] Initially was like alright I actually surprisingly don't have a very strong relationship to that word
and it's not that I don't have a strong and Abiding and devotional relationship to what I think you're asking but it's just not particularly for me that word and I don't maybe it's what you're talking about which is like what exactly do we mean by
that word and so
if it's okay with you I would sort of use other words that share them with you just to say like this is how I get out what I think.
[7:46] You're talking about which has a way of knowing that comes from.
Inside of ourselves from potentially the language of our bodies or a sense that we have or.
[8:01] A desire that doesn't have a lot of justification.
That occurs to us that we feel and maybe even feel really strongly and particularly is not.
Necessarily supported by the intellect ran in fact particularly what I notice in working with women.
Around this whole body of knowledge which is as I feel it like our innate knowing or body-based knowing is is beyond our intellect and the intellect is in the way a lot of the time.
And so how do we start to access this way of knowing and relating to.
[8:44] Relating to knowing that asks us to settle and still this part that has been highly cultivated for many and has been.
Sort of described as or taught as a very trusted all way of knowing things Mmm Yeah,
so what is what is under that or beyond that that to me is often.
It requires confronting a lot of the ideas that we've been,
yeah infrastructure with it's just it's striking me right now as you were saying that like I wonder if.
[9:18] I haven't thought about this enough to know for myself but I wonder if.
It's almost like intuition is we understand it in contrast to that.
Kind of intellectual way of knowing or something or notice that maybe there's a presence of that went feels like it could be in conflict with this other.
Kind of like logical or like intellectual way of knowing
yeah and a conditioning that we can know something and then have to sort of search for an explanation for it versus like I said that's just what I know that's just what it is yeah that's what I desire that's what I want to do next that
kind of fluid spontaneous trustable way of moving has been.
We've been taught that we have to now like make double check it with ya something else yeah.
Again I just feel like I just got so many different directions so another huge question I guess is which is a part of this this question I'm asking myself and other people is just like what,
interferes with that which in some way you are already talking about and that could be for you personally and what you witness in your practice with other people,
yeah this is the part that I feel like is very relevant to an understanding that I'm been coming to and coming through in my own personal experience of life and also just in my witness of other people in there.
[10:42] Experiences and you know there's kind of two parts to it if I can yeah say which I do think that.
What we were ready been talking about is a major piece of it right which is that there's this.
There are so many constructs and ideas and stories and like it should be this way and rules yeah and Norms that have been established that.
Are not often in alignment with our wild intuitive senses or there don't even necessarily need to be wild but are intuitive.
Relationship to essentially our nature which I know is something you talked a lot about and our bodies and just inclination and desire that's so much of that has been.
Limited by these ideas of that you know based on like how we've been raised and.
[11:32] Cultural social norms and familial norms and things and so I think a lot of that has been has been learned to be suppressed and so it's hard to even,
access because individually and collectively were sort of like
punished and or reprimanded for some of those instinctual ways of knowing and being that then get kind of ironed out a lot of people and so I think that that contributes to a major injury of,
that way of knowing and being in moving that I see kind of on the regular that we're all continually working and working and working to just not have to like.
[12:12] Live within those confines of all of that.
Since I think that's a piece of it the second piece which is that this part that I and I'm sure there's more pieces but these are the two that I'm kind of with like that and then
this other piece which is a bigger it's bigger in a lot of ways and it has to do with the way that at like for example I route my relationship to.
Nature and innate knowing and the language of bodies.
And having to integrate experience of my own life and with other people when.
There is a relationship or an experience that deviates from like.
What we would anticipate nature is inclined to do or that brings us really far from.
What feels like a flow state for example a birth that really,
deviates yeah we're like wow that is not what Nature's inclination is that is not what births inclination is in by that I mean a birth that is given a huge breath and still ultimately deviates to a place where she needs.
[13:21] Significant intervention to birth her baby like to me that's a.
That is a place where intuition can be injured because there is a deep and Abiding Faith in a process that then does something.
[13:37] That doesn't integrate immediately into that belief system yeah
and then my own personal experience and integration of fertility and my body's inclination to get pregnant or not get pregnant and
losses of pregnancies that have brought me to places that I've been asked to confront like if this is Nature's inclination then what am I being shown by what appears to be
mmm difficulty in nature expressing itself in its most innate way and what I feel.
[14:17] And what is true for me.
And is part of like a deep healing for anyone brought to these places where you're like my my belief system in orientation to life is being completely,
challenged yeah and I have a choice as to whether I stand with my belief system and orientation to life and integrate also this.
Or decide to say oh no like I was I was wrong or something.
I was wrong and I don't think that's an immediate thing that anybody who's asked to be integrate like a major crack in there.
[14:56] Entire orientation to how they like perceive life and or
I want to believe which is ultimately that intuitive knowing that like I want to believe that I can do this I want to believe that this is possible I believe in a body I believe in nature yeah so then,
stand there and somehow continue to be in The Wonder of like how is all of this true and there isn't something wrong
with me or with these circumstances or with births expression in this way and I think that's a life work because we don't come to that understanding.
Immediately and in fact.
We're not supposed to and my relationship to it is that we turn that spiral over and over and over and over and over again and the only thing that.
Can no.
To return to is to keep turning it and keep wondering and to not get stuck in a place where like something went wrong or something is wrong but rather.
[15:57] The inquiry and question around like how is this also part of this.
[16:03] Innate belief system and it is like showing another dimension that is not otherwise.
Accessible and really doesn't make sense like there's a big riff in terms of like how do I get from here to that other.
[16:19] Place and.
[16:22] And I think that it's the ass you know I think that it's the expansion and I think it's like the body of our life work being shown to us and I know that it continues to,
expand intern and offer relief and perspective and self-compassion and also like there's more,
there's more which I feel like is a creative drive that I have always wanted to have a pulse on and with.
[16:47] And just as a anecdotal addendum to all of this I've been having a couple of conversations with people talking about like the heart of the earth hmm
the like the caverns like like The Valleys like the way that the Earth like drops into herself in like where does that even.
And right like what is that and that there are prayers to be offered in that space and that indigenous culture and particular demonstrates this to us that this is where everything,
is and always dumb is to be gleaned and that.
It's actually a really special life experience to be brought to the belly of the Earth in the darkness and just being like where where am I and what is the light and that.
If we treat it as such there yeah they're just like this ever expanding body of knowledge to know and so while I was sitting with here for you too.
Reboot your microphone yeah like I'm gonna pull an archetype card you know Kim Kranz has deck of cards okay she's it's amazing but I pulled the cave
of course like this is so so perfect and,
it just is basically everything that you know her own words and everything that I just.
Just said but at the very end she says Let The Cave teaching patients.
[18:17] And I just think that's like the ultimate.
Reckoning right over just like how do we have and give patients to our own.
I'm doings and cummings to understand what our own doings are are serving Us in for serving us for ya.
[18:38] That's beautiful thank you for all of that,
it's making me think about and I feel you were kind of addressing it but just for people who don't know Kelly has this beautiful reader that has many pieces in it and I was just looking at the reading that the Wop you article
again can you tell everybody that the person's full name I don't remember do you remember.
Yeah Waipio Diane Bartlett okay it's so beautiful it's just description of like the process of birth.
[19:07] And so many ways but there's this thing in it of like if the person is not programmed
or something that came over the language you know like then this thing happens you know and I was thinking about that kind of along the lines of what you're saying around intuition and like what gets in the way of like how how could I not be programmed.
Or like you know and just thinking about my own birth in that way I felt like I,
I process as much as I could on some level before my birth you know to like yes he threw that or something and then it's like oh yeah even in those moments in in it in my birth like I'm at this place and I don't know how to like.
Move through it or something and there's some sense of disconnection with my body or like getting it to do what I want it to or something like that so I don't even know if that's a question maybe it's just sort of like an or that's something I question I've been kind of sitting with like what is that,
yeah what would it look like because how would we imagine that we're outside of it,
you know what I mean like to me it feels like well I am programmed and I'm going to be programmed but then I'm also like,
I don't think that there's a resignation of like oh that's it or something like there's more to it but like that that's something that I'm always with and I think that also,
is been an interesting like process with this with this question of like what is intuition what gets in the way of it it's like I almost wouldn't phrase it that way anymore because it's not.
[20:22] They're so intertwined.
Or something more than like there's this thing and then there's this other thing yes if you have any thoughts yeah that's great and also I can ask you other things it's not really a question but I do I have a I have something around that and it's been a learning that,
has come and has changed the way that I.
Sit with people as they ready for their births and also I think it's a really important one because this idea of like oh I'm programmed and I need to be deprogrammed in order to do this and one of the things that I feel like I.
Do very consistently is.
[21:00] Remind people that they are also programmed with their ability to do this yeah you don't have to do some like heroic amount of work in order to be able to do this you actually already can and all you need to do is a remember,
that yeah and that is incredibly liberating actually because some idea that we need to deprogram like,
that is not a healthy
feet and like yes let's let's do program as the things come forth particularly as they might want to conflict with this very simple idea that you have everything you need and you already know how to do this and you just
I can remember and rely on that and and it comes so far as to even like I hardly encouraged.
[21:49] Birth education classes or these ideas that like you need to go sit in a 6-week thing to learn how to birth because I feel like that
actually just plugs into people's ideas that like I need to learn something that I don't know you and it's very great it stirs the opposite of what we're trying
trying to do and there's this great relief that comes across people's faces when I'm like you actually don't need to do,
any of that because you already do know how and so what is it like to remember that and B,
curious about that inside of yourself this is also something that I think is.
Really sincere and important which is doing everything that is within her like range and comfort to unplug from,
the obstetrical informational model.
[22:46] Of care which includes like searching that information or even going to those appointments because that actually reinforces the programming vs. allows for,
the space to make contact with I know how to do this I might actually know how to do this because that entire system is pretty plugged into over writing,
that part of one's self yeah this interesting moment the other day or somebody asked me like,
well I haven't sent the set in public but I guess I'm going to say it because we're going to talk about it I'm pregnant no and they just feels really relevant so they ask me,
like do people the do they let you eat whatever like eat do they let you eat something something when you're pregnant now you know because it's like they had been present a long time ago.
[23:36] And it was like.
That word let you know yeah like it's so it's so indicative of a certain sort of Consciousness that I think is Shifting in so many ways but like and I mean this was a much older person so but yeah just like that
that word the lastly yeah okay so
yeah one of the things that I've been curious about is thinking about how it maybe in some ways maybe it's not different but it feels like it's different in some ways I think about conception and intuition in that part of it versus conception or livers is like
intuition in pregnancy itself and in labor and and then with a baby.
Do I wonder if anything comes to mind for you about that like how the intuition are again that word might not work but sort of knowing you know shifts in those processes.
Yeah I mean I think a lot of it is just similar to at whatever point in the fertility Arc of.
[24:33] Life the Cycles Etc one is looking to plug into what they might know verses.
What they're being told and for sure there are so much about our fertility and like.
[24:50] What when how we're at risk of losing it essentially over the duration of our lives and.
I wonder if that's actually.
[25:01] Like true in the way that they say that it is they I know it's not you know in terms of who I see,
in my own practice and you know I think that the call to presents to one's cycle the call to the intentionality around Desiring a pregnancy or not Desiring a pregnancy and how connected.
We are to that open portal of time and how that varies in the Arc of a life to just,
implications of birth control pills and things of the sort that have kind of distorted our way of knowing our cycles and I think that's a much that's like a whole other,
layer of the conversation but it certainly is is connected and,
some people have that experience it's or tuning into their cycle differently because they desire a pregnancy and a baby into they're paying attention in a new way or some have had many years of that and and others don't you know I'm come in and like.
Well I don't exactly know how this happened still surprisingly you know or like when or they're yeah you coming to their own relationship to like.
[26:07] I thought about it or if it was welcomed but not totally desire there's so many ways that pregnancies come to be and they're not always they were not always intended upon and they're not always even desired you know and that doesn't
and obviously we have Choice there but,
in terms of working with people who are confronting their own like this was not desired but I'm going to do the work of getting to this place because.
They are embracing that as part of the work of of their life I very much.
Feel like there's a Continuum you know and say so much that the way we come into pregnancies experience pregnancies absolutely and forms like.
[26:46] The way that.
We have access to birth and it's not to say like oh you have to do that there's any place where one has to but that we can see that thread run through for ourselves and start to make those connections and then certainly,
it is a deep and abiding belief that.
The way that that women birth the way that mothers experience themselves and birth has such an impact on how they experience their their mothering and their relationship to knowing how to mother there.
[27:16] Their baby and that they're certainly it with birth injury is just
a huge impact on so many women walking around trying to stay connected to that part or make contact with that part and because there was such a disruption in their birth space that that
that is hard and,
you know one of the ways that I know we sued birth injury is through the Continuum of being able to nurse a baby like a lot can get soothed in that space without ever needing to leg
talk about it I mean not to say that that's everybody's experience but I suppose what I'm trying to point to as the Continuum it which is like
how do we experience our Cycles how do we experience our fertility conception pregnancies births and then
immediate postpartum nursing experience and then ultimately the expression of mothering and relationship to it.
Those are not separate at all and I do feel like it's one of the most healing.
[28:19] Ways for for anybody to come into their relationship to Parenting to experience birth as a ceremony,
for partners for the babies themselves and for the people giving birth everyone is getting work done when we enter that space and and hold it as a ceremonial initiatory,
process hmm yeah I love that and I'm thinking about all the ways that I think that that still happens for me now,
you know or like the kind of healing process or shifting or like evolving is my child is 3 and
like even making myself postpartum meals
you know or something like things that I can do and and then even just like being with him like laying with him when he goes to sleep or you know like there's so many layers of like connection that offer repair yeah and I feel like.
You know I don't remember exactly maybe it was in the hospital because I ended up in having a my birth in the hospital and it was a cesarean and.
[29:24] You said something then or something you know just like.
Like about resilience and that that was a liberating for me because I was so aware of the problems,
with all of the things like I wanted to avoid all of those things and I didn't and it was really hard,
but also it was so liberating to be like yeah and here we are and like there's you know so it's like that that feels like such an important
yeah just and then the and then I think going back to Intuition or trying to trying to connect it yeah that again I think part of the interest to have for me with this question is like
again I don't even know if I really really hate that word but yeah the sense of knowing and then being like quote-unquote wrong or something about different things and then being like shaken by that like this idea I have yes about something and then I'm quote unquote wrong but it's like now part of it is I think.
[30:16] You know sometimes a sense of intuition about something just gives me to a different place,
you know and then it doesn't really matter about like whether the thing the detail or the circumstance was right or wrong or something but it's like it helped me go somewhere and but I think about that and maybe I'm just making this connection right now as we're talking like with
my child and parenting like the ways that intuition comes in or that I get to find a new freedom of doing it my own way or like
you know that that's another level of healing to
there was ways that I couldn't do certain things I wanted to in my birth and then like it just keeps going there this relationship with him,
that has been the case since conception you know or from some mystery before you know and then so I think it's like that that it feels so important in that.
[31:02] Thinking about intuition like that there's just,
endless opportunities to repair and to shift until like you know even after death or whatever you want to think about it but like a Continuum of being a part of the earth or something
yeah I love that and I feel like that's kind of like what I'm trying to wrap words around also which is that,
these places where we're confronting a major like like the canyon of like I thought it was like this and I'm being shown something else is not that those two things are in conflict with each other but that it's like and
and way and some of those expansions are just like
beyond what we can do and immediate period of time and that's right like come back to that spiral thing but I do feel like.
[31:53] Faith to me is that relationship to like there is an innate way.
Of knowing and it's not wrong like we're not wrong in terms of being wherever it brings us to even if we're like whoa that just was not what that's not the way I imagined it
if we can stand there and ask for integration in the expansion that it's actually showing us more about that way of knowing not that we shouldn't trust that way
yeah of knowing and it can be really painful I mean I think often times that's how it that how it is there is some kind of asked to integrate
like just a big a place where we can't see at that point the rest the rest of it you know and it was one of the things like often times you know around your a birth or something where it's like I
I wanted it to be this way like I wanted all of these things and it's like what are the parts that we can
that we can't see that then an experience within an intuitive framework then like shows us like there's so much more here to be,
looking at it's not doesn't end here with this idea that we have about how we thought it was going to be or how we even intended it to be.
[33:04] Yeah this is making me think of something that's come up a lot recently which is just a memory of first getting to the hospital at my birth and.
This feeling of like deep.
Oneness with all the people working there that I couldn't articulate our wasn't articulating much and that just seeing the humanity of everybody there even though I was like
just so frustrated with different things that were happening and like you know but in the kind of similarity between them and me and like what everybody was trying to do like whatever they thing they thought was going to be.
[33:36] The best thing you know in that moment as much as maybe that's you know a part of a history of confusion or like
whatever you know the problematic things about the way that sort of like modern hospital Zone like deals with yeah growth but yeah like I mean that was so many things but that one.
[33:56] You know underneath the kind of immediate sadness about it or something that one was that persists you know as part of the.
The beauty of the experience of my birth and I got to have because I got to go there you know yeah you felt that you felt that like the heart of the people yeah even though there's so much in between us or something it felt like yeah.
Okay so some of the stuff is relating to another question that I again it's like feels like such a hard one to talk about but hard in terms of knowing how to pin it down but it feels important to try which is thinking about whiteness and how that,
is at play in this conversation
around intuition was that play with everything I feel but yeah I wonder about that like how you see that show up as sort of maybe a blind spot or something that.
Are they like a way that it might distort Intuition or.
For yourself or other people that you are work with or yeah yeah I mean I suppose in short it's like.
Isn't that so much of where all the rules have come from yeah it's like colonization and like yeah that everything that,
has taken us from our connection to.
The Earth and to our own belonging and to the Oneness of of all like I know sort of where it all exists and begins and disrupts and distorts and injures and so yeah,
it's like not separate at all yeah yeah but also like how we talk about it and work it.
[35:24] Yeah can perpetuated and or and or liberate I know that thing around like centering it it's always this like how do you how do you not you know because it's it is that it's such a has been such a center on so many levels,
I mean I guess in some ways it's like,
everything that you've been talking about is like your work you know it's like dismantling that or or like not centering that but I find it so slippery sometimes because it feels like.
It can come in and all these different ways you know or like there can be resistance to a certain thing.
[35:57] That feels like associated with are coming from whiteness in some way but then also it can like.
[36:03] I don't know there's a certain there's a certainty that sometimes it comes up that I feel like.
It makes me wonder a question intuition my intuition around like what sometimes does that certainty come from this place that's like this sort of.
Assumption of being the default or being white or it like coming from whiteness and sometimes it feels like the certainties from a deeper place and it just gets confusing sometimes I wonder if you ever experienced that.
Or see that what I can say is that.
[36:34] I had a little hard time tracking that question sorry I know it's okay but I think that it's significant because part of the way that I relate.
To our our work like the Revolutionary anus of our work is that we can get really lost in.
[36:53] Like a heady mmm talk about it.
[36:59] Theory yeah thing that is really that to me feels very connected and as a way to like pull people right back into the Indulgence of and the swirl of it where you're just like.
Versus,
work in our bodies and working the way that our bodies relate to how we exist in our bodies and how we exist in relationship to others to the work of our own lives to the Earth and that it kind of comes back to the centering of One's Own.
Body of.
Work not as separate from this but as like the orientation to like this is the work that you can do and.
Yeah the the liberating of One's Own body from that system of believing and orienting and making decisions and moving through the world.
Is the way that we.
[37:53] Get free from that and that is what that is what I think any individual can do and that's not.
[38:02] Theoretical hmm and in fact if we spend too much time in the theoretical I think that's like.
[38:09] That's just getting right back into yeah totally I just the body it's always the body body is like the way I feel yeah,
yeah and as somebody who has I can definitely like intellectualize things off you know that's like a oh yeah place that I go and I think I get it feels a little bit confusing sometimes to go from like the naming feel so important.
And that is a that is a mental exercise in some way you know like just the naming of whiteness like and its presence or
even though it's so obvious or so pervasive is yeah but then it does really feel like the body is is the way
because it doesn't lie or you know yeah I was just gonna go off on industrialize medicine we don't do that but I really.
I feel like that is underneath so much of what we then Express as,
whiteness and races in the handle and the complete annihilation of relationship to an indigenous way of knowing what is at the root of anybody's.
Relationship to being here like the lineage of that and you know maybe it's just my orientation,
which is so deeply informed by the way that.
Historically and presently that is so destructive in terms of our relationship to it and in any way of knowing because I'm so.
[39:34] You know birth is so Center Central to how I see things and therefore both look at present time and also have just traced so many times like.
[39:44] The ancient way of this disruption and I just feel like it's yes it's my lens and I know that there are many other lenses but I see it as this way.
As everything as the reason for how everything has become distorted including all the systems.
[40:04] Oppression she'll yeah yeah like branches of that to me yeah it feels like there's just different
ways of seeing that are like I said when I was doing prison work it was like that just felt like everything or just felt like that's everything or and it's these different systems like you're saying it's like it's just that being saturated in this one and being like this is
but it's like you can see it in all the different places right and then if you do kind of like do that thing where you doing bags like of course anybody working any of these can like you can see how the web is
yeah there's something that I it's one of those questions I don't know exactly how to ask what I'm thinking about like just witnessing so many people in this birth space there's two parts of the question I guess one is just.
Maybe it's such a big part of your life how do you even know but like is there things that you,
benefit from like wisdom that you get from seeing so many people in that space because it's been so so long
and I forgot the other one and also you I guess we've been talking about the benefits of that this whole time but there's something's just I wanted to ask specifically about that,
yeah I mean I so appreciate the opportunity to so like specifically and clearly
identify and acknowledge the unending reciprocity of these relationships and experiences that essentially everything that.
[41:24] No practice devote 2 comes through.
The people that I am invited to sit with and I don't feel like those are chance encounters I think that are incredibly.
Synchronistic and on purpose and they change depending on you know and evolve and as my own life and work.
Do in terms of not even so much like how I'm expressing the practice though of course on The Daily how I express it like how I sit with it and then I watch.
My my the circle of people who come to me changes but oh it's.
It is everything and it certainly is incredibly alive and.
And when we talk about webs you know I so much prefer to think about that one not at the like oh I'm going to not look at the others we were just referring to but like there are these really
positive and healing connections of webs of people also and you know the finding of each other and they're sitting together and watching how that,
ripples but yeah yes everything that I that I come to know and learn is informed by.
[42:36] The sitting with you all and what you are telling me and asking me and asking of me and sharing and,
the prayerfulness and the birth ceremonies and Integrations afterwards entering the babies like all of it is.
[42:52] Yeah it's all of my,
creative inspiration yeah well maybe not all of it I have some of my own that comes feels a little sometimes script than always connected back in but I tried to sit and access places that aren't so specific to birth just resting
connected to the dynamic has yeah that was actually one other question I have I mean I have so many but
just like is it hard to go back and forth because I mean damn that space I mean you're so I think well suited for it the intensity of that but
yeah like I was at my grandfather's death and I I think about like
I felt so similar to my birthday I mean yeah I just like that space is really similar and so it's like to me just yeah that going back and forth like you're doing that all the time like
is that challenging ever I mean it's not challenging per se as you said I think I don't know what else I could do with this particular Constitution volume Spirit combo that I happen this time around like this is it
for me and I actually feel like it's really important and I enjoy traversing
the trains in terms of like no ordinary reality and ceremonial space and I think I have grown in my facility to be able to move in and out of those
those places but also and truthfully what that means is that.
[44:18] I actually at this point stay more connected to the ceremonial and the birth space even in my
I'm not at a birth moment meaning like I really my life has become pretty simplified on purpose and I don't
do a lot of trying to it and engage the things that don't keep me really close to that Spades we're close.
The Stillness that allows me to integrate the most.
Recent of births or or the particular circle of
people who I know are going to birth in the next period of time you know there's like the way that I hold like the Ark of okay early or like very close to being complete and then the people who are sort of at the peak of like going to birth in the next week or so or just have their babies like.
[45:07] There's a lot that I that I do on a daily van just like when I'm sitting that I want space for that I don't want clouded thing and so.
It feels less like like I'm existing in different spaces than Maybe.
[45:23] Maybe it might seem to be like for people who don't go to births or don't attend deaths very frequently yeah yeah it's closer and more familiar.
Even when I'm at home in the kitchen or even when I'm working something else out.
Yeah it seems like it's such a orientation that is so conducive to
being a midwife or like yeah they go like you and it go together something so it's good that you found your spot yeah well there's so much more but I think they week and I'm wondering if you have anything that you want to say
I just a few moments ago is thinking that I feel incredibly grateful to you that you.
Asked me to come and speak to some of these things that I don't necessarily publicly speak to you know they it's such a part of this like intimate expression of my life in the is.
You know at the root or in people's homes and.
I feel protective of it in these ways of that choosing to publicly speak is always something that would kind of create like a I don't I don't know but.
But I feel really positively about.
Doing this particularly with you and the way that you asked questions and and also just who you are in the world and how you have a ways.
[46:51] Witnessed me and seeing me and that creates a space too,
do something outside of my own comfort zone so I just yeah I really appreciate.
Whatever risks you're taking over there to do something like this and say hey let's let's have this conversation and you know yeah whatever edges you're with our adult and in that way,
reciprocated thank you yeah I finding it so exposing.
In this way that I wasn't a silly surprising because I say you know I feel like I say things in public frequently but different and so yeah I totally understand that.
And I appreciate it and I think especially so because,
I know that you don't speak publicly whatever that means you know in some way very often I think that that's why I was so excited because I just feel like
all these things that you're say speaking to are based on a certain kind of wisdom that so many of us just never would have access to because of our doing different things you know
so anyway thank you for your time yeah thank you see you soon see you soon.
[48:00] Yeah thanks for listening to existing together.
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[48:33] If you're interested in exploring the themes of this podcast more deeply with me you can learn about the astrology readings and group circles I offer at existing together.com.
[48:43] Thanks for existing here together on the planet with me.
