Why do I even write this blog?

The pain points - and the soothing balms and antidotes.

The most painful thing after our son was born wasn’t the fact I couldn’t sit on my tush, my poor nipples (tongue-tie - enough said), or the hormonal and psychological whiplash or the transition to mother from maiden.

It was fucking patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, racism and all of that oppressive - GAH! - shit. You’ll have to excuse my language. Swearing is good for the soul!

If you are all too familiar with the way these things can hit a new mother like a ton of bricks - you can skip to the good stuff.

Otherwise, ground yourself, check in with your guides, put on your psychic protection bubble and continue.

I know for some of us, the tentacles of kyriarachy (interlocking systems of oppression) manifested itself in some of these ways:

• Partners who betrayed us - didn’t support our nurturing relationship with our babies because of absorbing patriarchal parenting paradigms, or didn’t show up, or didn’t support - or at worst were abusive.

• Mothers or mothers-in-law who confused us and shocked us by being loving and also judgemental - who passed on the threads of authoritarian parenting plus trauma from previous generations. This is such a common issue.

• Collective energy or culture still in the main aligned with what some dudes in the last century decided they knew better than thousands of years of maternal knowledge, wisdom and instinct (eye roll). This can show up in ways such as the sleep training industrial complex, and touch our lives through pediatricians and other health professionals, and also peer pressure from parenting groups.

• The lack of the ‘village’, since we atomised the way we live in the industrial revolution, and deem this ‘wealth’. Sheer loneliness and isolation, and a pre-paved path to overgiving and burnout, and declining mental health because of a lack of support.

• Our own attachment woundings (hurts from emotional distance, anxiety or inconsistency in childhood), sometimes triggered by the above, and sometimes by our sweet babes and how much they need from us or what they need from us - or phases of biting or hitting - eeep!

• A veritable iceberg of grief and trauma from challenging fertility journeys, miscarriages and terminations for medical reasons (TFMR) - while our rights over our own bodies were actively been taken away from us, maternal health and women’s health has actively been deprioritised, and in some cases even miscarriages have been criminalised. This is an absolutely terrifying series of events, spoken as a women who cares about other women with love and compassion in my heart, and someone who chose to TFMR.

• The outrage that is parental leave in the US - but also in much of the industrialized world. The second outrage is all the frickin’ free maternal and caregiving labour that is hugely taken advantage of. With what we know of baby neurobiology now, we know babies need us (and/or family members or alloparents that they are bonded with) intensely for the first three years, and this is protective for their mental health, relationships etc. I think parental leave should be three years minimum and funded at the country level for parents that want this. And as Sarah-Ockwell Smith suggests, these three years should be paid as it is a caregiving job for the future of the country and society.

A shaman-mumma releasing the pain of the kyriarchy on the reg. This tree kindly offered to receive my song and alchemise the heavy energy.

If this wasn’t enough, this authoritarian and unresponsive, cold, form of parenting touted by Holt and Watson et al is only one slice of the oppression of mothers and childism (the oppression of intensely vulnerable babies children, usually by dehumanising them and their needs).

Other facets and intersections have been, and continue to be, racism and colonialism. There is a through-line between separating mothers and children through colonialism in the US, Canada and Australia, and during slavery. This is utterly heartbreaking.

• Birth with the spectre of preventably high maternal mortality rates - 3x worse for Black women in the US than white or hispanic women.

• A lack of resources to help support breastfeeding that disproportionately black impact mothers and children health outcomes.

• The fear of ‘social services’ taking away your children disproportionately affecting women of colour and indigenous women if White Western and authoritarian, oppressive, parenting ideal not adhered to.

• The recent forced separations from children - and even of children - and deportations focusing on people with brown skin by ICE.

Do you relate to any of these?

I know I’m not the first person to point out how all these forms of oppression are intertwined. In fact, Jen Lumanlan wrote a book called Parenting Beyond Power unpicking exactly that and how we can parent in more collaborative, respectful and kind ways. And many others have pointed these issues out on social media.

Now to the heart of my motivation.

I write about matriarchy and how we can gain personal, inner power and authority (rather than power over) as an antidote to all these insidious ways kyriarchy show up during birth and postpartum and, quite frankly, hurt us.

Deep in my heart I want women to be pleasantly surprised by how much love and support they are supported by in pregnancy, birth and postpartum - not just a few months but for the years while children are babies (up to age 3), and before they go to school. The best education system in the world has kids going to school at 7, in Finland.

In my vision, there is even more support in the case of a child with an intense temperament, neurodiversity, disability or other high nurture needs situations. Because the matriarchs get it.

I want their experience as mothers to be nourished, nurtured and held. For them to know what to expect so their days are as easeful as possible. For their experience to include tender ritual and ceremony. For them to experience the securities, freedoms and joys that a supportive community and society could allow. For her to be free to also delight in her child or children. For her to feel valued, revered, and respected, and that her contribution to community and society is more than reciprocated in services and or renumeration.

It’s also for the children; in my heart I wish that children, babies or ‘incoming souls’ are treated with the absolute tenderness they deserve. They deserve a warm, soft landing place.

They deserve a peaceful, harmonious, and kind local community, and global society. One where we they are held in loving arms, delighted in, and we come together to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, and heal other environmental issues, war and inter-gender and child violence and abuse. Where life on Earth is rooted in regenerative and harmonious systems.

I write it for my amazing son. He deserves this kind of world. Kinder, and more collaborative, respectful and using creative solutions. I write these words of healing for you, Luca.

The source of my most profound inspiration.

And for your children.

How in the heck?

We can become young matriarchs (h/t for this term frm Nergiz) when we are challenged by the lack of warm, loving wisdom, support and protection - and we grow in response to this.

We grow into our inner power, authority, security, and sovereignty. On the inside, and in our families, and lives.

We can be leaders supporting others in practical ways. Just yesterday, a friend helped connect me with a homeschooling support community that is run through Seattle Public School for free and they provide classes for kids of all ages to complement home learning. (I’m super lucky - Seattle has a richness of options for co-ops, private schools, public schools, hybrid homeschooling, and forest schools - and attendance in school is not mandated until age 8).

We can be thought leaders supporting others with our ability to link concepts and help birth an era of modern matriarchy.

We can be trailblazers.

We can make use of matriarchal structures to become alloparenting communities such as co-op preschools, homeschooling communities, childcare pods, or create our own perhaps.

And more broadly we can engage in meal trains, reuse, mutual aid, financial security community groups, CSAs, the wise use of herbs as healthcare etc.

We can live from matriarchal values of heart, interconnection, reciprocity, and regenerative growth, protecting the vulnerable, and the Earth as sacred.

We can hold the most empathetic and compassionate matriarchal wisdom about babies, toddlers and children and women and mothers that are in line with their neurobiology, nervous system and physical safety, and the architecture of our hearts.

Sweet bubba morning cuddles. Really, who would want to say no to that?

We can support and appreciate birth and postpartum doulas, lactation consultants, and those that work to help babies and mothers heal.

We can lead with our vibes. We can anchor in the codes of Earth healing, of a harmonious and egalitarian matriarchy, of vibrant and creative culture. Or, more simply, we can lead by showing the vibe of how we parent and behave in our communities - these are codes of divine maternal intelligence (more on this soon!).

We can heal and work to guide and support the healing of the many traumas the kyriarchy as left us to deal with: the mother wound, interrelational woundings with other men/patriarchy, father wounds, sisterhood/community woundings, collective/cultural woundings, racist and colonialist woundings. So much ancestral and karmic healing work. The pay-off is growing into an authoritative, warm, sovereign and secure young matriarch. To actually reveal your inner power as your energy blueprint as you transform through leaning into matrescence and beign triggered.

There are so many roles we need to build the regenerative, egalitarian, liberated matriarchy we yearn for and have been waiting for - and is coming.

We need the architects to design communal living.

We need educators.

We need healers.

We need organisers.

We need artists and musicians.

We need good politicians and diplomats.

We need mothers who are parenting in deep nurturing ways and becoming young matriarchs.

We need so much more.

We need you.

Offerings:

I hold a once monthly Earth Healers Coven with guided meditations. Next date TBD - let me know if you want in! It’s currently free to join.

I am inviting soulmate clients to do a mini (30 min) Transformational Matresence to Matriarch guided sesh. The idea is to root you into more of that juicy inner power and aliveness. Free for the next 4 peeps, in return for feedback. Are you in?

I’m so very excited to be creating a course and community for those in the process of becoming a matriarch! It will focus mainly on energy work for emotional processing to reveal your inner strengths as a matriarch. Wheeee! Register you interest with me and I will let you know more.