Mother Mother Featured On The Lift By Knix!
Hello Radiant One! Welcome to Seed & Spark: Journal of the Fertility Abundance Garden. Thank you for being here and witnessing our labors to share our sacred stories. Our stories are our wealth and in the Garden we are discovering the bounty of our stories and how to apply that wealth to the cultivation of our abundance. The Fertility Abundance Garden is a congregation for creators, a sanctuary for mothers, and a dreamscape for sacred storytellers. To learn more about the Garden or to join as a creator, please visit the Fertility Abundance Garden Welcome Center. If someone forwarded this post to you and you want to receive your own, subscribe to Seed & Spark and receive the Fertile Friday love note every week that highlights new shares in the journal. So much life, labor, and love goes into creating and sustaining the Garden and everything we share. The Garden is sustained by the kindness and generosity of creators and supporters. If any part of our magical world touches your heart and nourishes your being as a creator, please do pour into our Giving Well or join a Sustainability Circle today. If you are already contributing to our bounty, THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE!
Mother Mother Featured On The Lift By Knix!
UNABRIDGED STORY + PHOTO ESSAY
Photography by Colin A. Danville
Read Mother Mother’s feature in The Lift by Knix, 4 Doulas Who Are Making a Difference.
By mother mother binahkaye joy
13 february 2022
When I got the email from the Lifestyle Editor at The Lift by Knix that as a facilitator working with the Black Women’s Health Imperative NOURISH Doula Program I had a chance to be featured on The Lift by Knix blog—modeling some of their amazing undergarments—I was ecstatic! I gave my enthusiastic YES, and started dreaming into the possibilities.
I modeled for artists and art classes in my pre-mommy life. I love being filmed and photographed. Show me a camera or a stage and I am ready! This unexpected invitation, after so many years of starring in home movies made in munchkinville, felt like such a gift. And I greeted it with all the love and celebration I could gather.
I began mapping out my responses to the written interview questions on my dream wall, the south-facing wall in my Mother Mother sanctuary where I dance through the layers of a dream, doodling, drawing, sketching, and drafting ideas for different projects and visions. I posted a fresh page for the Knix feature and let the questions breathe. Every day I would add my thoughts and feel for the narratives rising to the surface. Writing is very much an embodied process. I don’t sit down to draft sentences and paragraphs until the story is pouring out of my body, until I can feel it in every bone, every cell, waiting to be birthed on the page.
The next most important part of my feature after the words I would share—the photos! I knew I could send photos from my phone, but WHY? I had selected two outfits to model. I was like, let me be great and ask my longtime photographer-collaborator and dear friend Colin if he could capture this magical event for me. And he said Yes, so things were rolling.
Now this is where the story gets interesting. I didn’t ask the editor for details about the feature. I heard feature and RAN WITH IT, okay! I imagined a whole post just for me. As I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and as we took picture after picture I got more and more excited about this opportunity to engage a new audience with my work.
The other reason this occasion was so momentous—I’ve been off of social media almost 4 years now. Since reclaiming sovereignty over my brilliance, all of my words have lived exclusively on my own platforms. My writing, my videos, my recordings—I consciously maintain autonomy over my creations because Our Stories Are Our Wealth, and where we place our stories impacts our capacity to access that wealth. So it was A LOT for me to turn my precious words over to the editor, but I knew to grow beyond where we are we must be willing to expand. It felt like it was time to share more of me with the world, and that this was a gentle way to do so. I took a deep breath and pressed send.
So, you can already see where this is going, right? As it turns out, the feature was not going to just be about me and my story. Moment of transparency—I was a bit (okay, maybe slightly, very much more than a “bit”) disappointed when the editor wrote back to thank me for my submissions and to let me know that they in fact only needed ONE pic (I had sent 7, because…you know why!), and that they were only going to use a few quotes from my essay. Aaaaarrrgh! When you read on to the full essay below—complete with its own glossary—you’ll appreciate why my heart sank for a second (ok…maybe for a whole day) at the news.
Part of me was like, well I should have gotten the specifics before going all out. But then again, I hadn’t lost anything by giving my all either. I never regret doing that which opens up more of my sacred story majesties. After sitting with it, I realized I actually felt waves of gratitude that I hadn’t clarified the scope of the “feature” beforehand. I’m so glad I just assumed this moment was all about me and went in. These words are a long time coming. It’s fitting that I would bare them as a part of a women’s intimate apparel collaboration. Everything I do is about being naked with ourselves, revealing our hearts to the ones we love and who can hold us, being true to what we feel, and living each day with our creation labors at the center. I celebrate that even though this experience is playing out differently than I thought it would, I’ve cultivated more than enough space here, at my wonderfully spacious webhouse, to share my story in full, and in the way that I feel honors the vastness of my heart labors.
Throughout the adventure of preparing these sacred texts and images, I have thought of the lovely ones who might be touched by my tender shares and soul-awakening connections. I have imagined all the ones who once felt they had no language realizing there are words, and abundance of words, which they can grasp and hold onto as they feel into the depths and gifts of their sacred stories. I feel my offering—whether in its abbreviated form or in its entirety—is going to be a blessing to me and to many others. It already is a blessing. I am forever grateful for the invitation.
Thank you for witnessing me, a mother, in full. Whenever the mothers are sharing their hearts, their truths, it is important that we listen.
Have you recently or previously joined the Garden?
Welcome home, Beautiful Creator! If you feel the Yes in your heart and you’re ready to experience more engagement in the Garden, connect with other amazing creators, attend our live gatherings, and access the magic of the Creators Portal, please visit the Sanctuary to complete the process for joining the Creators Circle. In the Sanctuary you can confirm or reconfirm conscious participation. If you are joining the Garden for the first time, visit the Fertility Abundance Garden Welcome Center to begin your journey. Thank you for being here!
Invocation: Mother Mother sings Oh Freedom | This ancestral hymn is offered in praise and honor of my enslaved foremothers who, with their bodies, and with their wombs, and with their blood, and with their bones, and with their breaths, and with their love, dreamed forward the possibility of my existence, my fertility, and my freedom.
Oh, oh freedom/ Oh, oh freedom/ Oh, oh freedom over me/ Over me/ And before I’ll be a slave/ I’ll be buried in my grave/ And go home/ To my Lord/ And be free/ And be free
No more moanin’/ No more moanin’/ No more moanin’ over me/ Over me/ And before I’ll be a slave/ I’ll be buried in my grave/ And go home/ To my Lord/ And be free/ And be free
They’ll be singing/ They’ll be singing/ They’ll be singing over me/ Over me/ And before I’ll be a slave/ I’ll be buried in my grave/ And go home/ To my Lord/ And be free/ And be free
Oh, oh freedom/ Oh, oh freedom/ Oh, oh freedom over me/ Over me/ And before I’ll be a slave/ I’ll be buried in my grave/ And go home/ To my Lord/ And be free/ And be free
Knix sent me 5 prompts to respond to in writing. The article on The Lift by Knix blog features excerpts from the unabridged essays shared here in full. The italicized words throughout my essay are defined and expanded on in the Glossary.
To start, can you give us a brief overview of your work and day-to-day?
I imagine, design, and bring to life multisensory, immersive practice portals that support creators in activating generative realities for their wildest fertility dreams. I consciously create expansive, soft-structure, slow-paced spaces that feel safe and liberating for mothers. My creations, programs, and experiments span a multitude of artistic genres and engage diverse platforms.
I am a Mother Mother, black birthing mother, fertility priestess, spiritual midwife, dancing mother, afrofuturist bush mother, movement facilitator, sacred nourishment practitioner, writer, sacred storyteller, culture maker, emerging DJ, budding astronomer, and devoted caretaker of mothers in my glocal village. I have birthed 4 children that the world can see, ages 8, 6, 4, and 2, and more starseeds that transitioned early before they could be known beyond my womb. My birthing pathways have been through homebirth cesarean, homebirth, and supported free birthing at home. I am a full presence mother and I navigate life as a multitudinous mothering entity. I live in Washington, DC with my co-creator and our children.
The birth of my youngest child seeded the momentum for what would become the Fertility Abundance Garden, a virtual congregation for creators, and sanctuary for mothers. I am currently evolving Dancing Mother, a spiral movement galaxy and digital archive installation portal sourced by the discovery, expansion, and celebration of dance and movement practices that nurture and sustain mothers.
I spend most of my days dancing by the light of the sun, bouncing around with the munchkins, nourishing babies from my body, nurturing my children’s brilliance and discoveries at Wildseed, our family learning lab practice, holding space for the mothers in my community, and dreaming up innovative ways that the world can be a softer, sweeter, and more lovingly vibrant place for mothers.
“I have birthed 4 children that the world can see, ages 8, 6, 4, and 2, and more starseeds that transitioned early before they could be known beyond my womb.”
What inspired you to become a doula?
When I first experienced the revelation of my motherself I was in an upside down relationship and felt very much like there weren’t many people in my circle to witness and celebrate my tender dreams of becoming a mother. For years, I lived as this invisible mother, dreaming, longing to be a mother. This calling I felt in my heart was my deepest secret.
I started to translate what I could of this dream into my dance creations, and began developing The Mother Project, a collection of choreopoems for the mothers in my family line. I also facilitated mother-daughter-sister dance workshops and researched the evolution of mothering practices through multiple generations in a family.
It was during this time that I had the honor of attending my first birth. I was in the waiting room because a dear friend had called and asked me to come to the hospital. I didn’t know she was going to invite me into her birthing room. I felt unprepared to be what I thought she needed, but just like that I was sitting with her face to face, holding her hand through the contractions. I was amazed at how much support my presence brought. I listened to myself as unrehearsed scripts of affirmations of her strength and beauty poured effortlessly from me. I just kept reminding her that she could do this, and how amazing a mother she already was.
It was a heart-warming, middle-of-the-night birthing moment. There was so much love to celebrate, and yet I was very troubled by the way my friend was being pressured to get an epidural even though she repeatedly said she didn’t want one. I was horrified at the rough manner in which a nurse handled her body just moments after giving birth, wrenching her belly to speed up the shrinking of her uterus. Joy, delight, exhaustion, bewilderment, confusion, concern, gratitude, wonder—all of these feelings and more swirled and collided on my first unexpected night as a doula. It was a lot to process, and I felt certain then, birth is sacred and holy. There has to be a softer, more gentle way for me to give birth when it’s my turn.
In the years to follow I began studying more about homebirth, doula work, and birthworker pathways. I attended more births, most of them my own protostar births. I didn’t have the space and support to unpack the complexities of my birthing journeys or be gentle with myself while healing through the intensity of what at the time felt like recurring loss and despair. In my darkest moments, the one thread of maternal intelligence I could always access was my movement practice. I danced whenever I could so as to not be consumed with sadness and anxiety over my fertility traumas. Dancing was how I stayed present with the possibility that one day I would meet my children.
In my seasons of invisible grief I also wished with all my heart to at least be seen as a mother. Instead I had become known in my village as the one who can help mothers when starseeds were returning to the light before they could be born as human. It was not how I ever imagined I would serve, but the loneliness, shame, and heartache I experienced in my unnamed protostar birthing moments led me to support other invisible mothers with love, compassion, and tenderness.
Mothers confided their hurts and hopes to me. They knew their tears were safe with me. They would not be rushed to get through their labors, to get on with the living before they had finished the dying. They knew I understood that birth is not linear or predictable. We have to feel it, to live it as it comes. None of these were wisdoms I prayed for, but this was how I was becoming a mother. This was how I recognized I could contribute to the ever-evolving spheres of maternal intelligence. We mothers all do our part to source and sustain this vital intelligence because our existence as a human family depends on it. However we labor as mothers, we each have some divine insight into creation majesties that can be a resource for ourselves and other mothers.
Nine months before my first born was conceived, I had another protostar birth. At the time it was my shortest, and least painful birthing journey. I didn’t call a midwife. I didn’t go to the hospital. I didn’t need to see another ultrasound. I remember crying that first day, and then there were no more tears. Only quiet bleeding labors for the next few weeks while zoning in and out grief with the help of Netflix.
I had enthusiastically welcomed and then mournfully parted with so many almost-babies by that point. I was weary in my spirit from hoping, but also felt that something was shifting. For so long I had looked to external remedies to make my babies stay. Sensing new possibilities in my healing, I tuned more deeply into my power as a creator, and my intuition as the mother I felt myself to be, even if no one else could see. I had put more faith in supplements, hormone creams, and vitamins than I did in my own body, than in my own being. I knew I had to let go of the illusion that the way to my children existed outside of me. I had to feel my way into motherhood. Any children born of me would have to come through me, through my womb. I had to trust my body to show me the way.
Coming into this new frequency of relating to my fertility took time, and was full of turbulent reckonings and delicate awakenings. Part of what expanded my journey was feeling called to deepen in how I held space for mothers. I thought, if I can’t yet be a mother that the world can see, I can be as close to the labors of motherhood as possible. I can support mothers who are giving birth and discovering their new lives as mothers. I looked into doula trainings, assisted mothers in my circle as best I could, studied the intricate layers of mothering work that extended beyond the moment of giving birth, danced with mothers and women in prisons, shelters, and rehabilitation centers, and found creative ways to be present for mothers and their families. The more I learned, the more I understood that mothering happens in community, and that if we can cultivate strong communities of mothers, we can improve the lives of mothers everywhere. I continued to root myself in this motherwork, and embraced my calling to serve mothers in everything I did.
“Mothers confided their hurts and hopes to me. They knew their tears were safe with me. They would not be rushed to get through their labors, to get on with the living before they had finished the dying.”
What do you find most rewarding about the work that you do?
I love seeing people come into the luminous consciousness of their majesty as a creator. This happens when I’m sharing movement practices with those who never thought they could dance, and then they have that rapturous moment where suddenly they feel beautiful, whole and powerful in their body. This happens when a mother finally feels the baby latch on securely to her breast after so many attempts to position a squirming newborn, and she says with a newfound confidence, “Oh wow, I can do this!” This happens when a creator who has felt cut off from her life passions for so long experiences the dizzying revival of her heart, and the rush of inspiration for a new story, or dance, or song or poem. This happens when someone who felt broken, or lost, or forgotten re/members themselves, and revels in the miracle that they have indeed survived whatever it was that seemed at one point like the end. I celebrate them as they breathe into the reality that they are still here. I remind them that they get to continue living courageously into the possibilities of their bright, new now.
I love witnessing people give birth, in all the ways that can happen! I love giving birth myself! To my children, to my ideas, to my programs, to my language, to the communities I create, to my dreamscapes. I love making more space for people to dream, play, and experiment. I love being a source of softness and expansion for mothers. I love studying and remembering the majesty of my births, and creating space for mothers to witness and celebrate their own birthing journeys. I love talking, writing, and dialoguing about birth, creation, dance, mothering labors, and abundance consciousness. I love dancing and connecting the magic of star systems and the formations of galaxies to the innermost workings of fertility and our superpowers as creators.
All of my labors seed more love, joy, and discovery in the world. Possibility is abundant. If there are no adequate words for what I am experiencing, for what I need to share, then I create the language. If there is no space for my reality or my story, then I nurture that space until it is tangible. If the community is yet to be born, then I find that community within myself, within my own stories, and I affirm myself to myself for as long as it takes to reach others who are looking for such a communion.
I love living in alignment with the generous pulse of the universe, with the heartbeat of creation itself. Every moment is a gift, is another way to embody and participate in this miracle of being. I am grateful.
“Possibility is abundant. If there are no adequate words for what I am experiencing, for what I need to share, then I create the language. If there is no space for my reality or my story, then I nurture that space until it is tangible. If the community is yet to be born, then I find that community within myself, within my own stories, and I affirm myself to myself for as long as it takes to reach others who are looking for such a communion.”
How do doulas provide important support to birthing families? Why is this especially important for Black birthing families?
Mothers need loving support when navigating their birth journeys. Sometimes their families know how to give that support, and that is a blessing. For many mothers though, this built-in family support is not there, even when the mother is surrounded by loved ones or has access to the material wealth that supposedly can ensure she is well cared for. The truth is more complicated because in the Black community, across the economic spectrum, mothers are challenged with finding care providers who will listen to them, with accessing support systems that don’t compromise their sovereignty, and with being able to slow down and really be present with the majesty and magnitude of their birthing labors.
Doulas offer support to mothers who are being increasingly compressed and harmed by systemic policies and structures that center profit over people, and that see mothers as producers generating revenue rather than as people birthing new humans. To appreciate the role of the doula in today’s world, especially as it relates to activating more positive birthing experiences for families of African descent in America, we have to matter the violent, generational ruptures and legacies of slavery in Black birthing women’s bodies and the generational impact it has had on their fertility futures.
In the chattel slavery system, mothers were not able to practice choice over how they were treated, over who had access to their wombs, over what happened to the children they birthed. Any system that still relies on the perpetuation of these tactics is inherently dangerous to mothers. Mothers who seek alternative realities for their birth experiences and their children need radical, mother-centered, loving support.
It has been just a little over 150 years since the end of slavery. The lingering imprints of slavery, its myriad coercions, and forced separations still pulse and reach into the most intimate of Black family spaces today. This is evident in the fading familial memories of how to nourish our babies at the breast. This is evident in the forgotten practices of how to use plants, herbs, and natural remedies to support fertility labors. This is evident in the silenced oral histories that once passed from mother to daughter, and from sister to sister, creating webs of confidence that we do know how to birth our own babies. This is evident in the fear and anxiety mothers feels when having to defend their rights to make choices for their births, their bodies, and their babies.
Doulas represent the beginning of a vital reimagining. They perform fragments of a support system that has been intentionally fractured. Doulas help mothers and their families remember, bit by bit, how to love someone who is giving birth, who is carrying new life into the world. Doulas bring visibility to life-saving, care practices that every family needs to know. At this time when so many black mothers are living and birthing in various forms of isolation, doulas offer crucial, intimate support and caregiving expertise for mothers who are often invisible in their labors and unwitnessed by other care providers.
Doulas are not the remedy, rather they inspire an invitation for everyone in the community, for everyone who believes they have the wellness of mothers and children in the forefront, to take critical responsibility for how they can make the birthing ways more open, accessible, healthy, and nurturing for everyone. We have to be mindful to care for the doulas who are caring for the mothers. Doulas cannot and should not be hefting the load of the whole family, of the whole community. Doulas are connectors, initiators, and information gatherers. Doulas spark the formation of more sustainable family support networks. They help mothers take more time to birth, and heal and breathe. They help the people surrounding the mothers understand the necessity of mothers needing to slow down. Doulas offer practical ways that families can be more supportive so that mothers and babies can rest, nurse, bond, and acclimate to their new world together and do so in peace.
For many Black families, doulas are reintroducing sacred birthing knowledge and ancient technologies that would otherwise continue to be unremembered. In this way, not only are doulas serving mothers, they are seeding futures and regenerating cultural memory. As we continue to dream a new world forward where all mothers and babies can be well, doulas are laboring in the gap in the most essential of ways.
“Doulas represent the beginning of a vital reimagining. They perform fragments of a support system that has been intentionally fractured. Doulas help mothers and their families remember, bit by bit, how to love someone who is giving birth, who is carrying new life into the world.”
How does it feel to be guiding a new cohort of doulas?
It is an honor to be a part of the NOURISH doula program! I cherish every opportunity I have to witness the brilliance of those who feel called to serve mothers and their families. I love sharing my stories, and encouraging doulas to lean into the power of their stories when discovering their path into this work.
I learn so much holding space for doulas, and gently modeling the support and care methodologies that can help them develop a thriving and sustainable doula practice. I appreciate the invitation to center self-care and the necessity of mattering and healing through our own fertility labors as we consider all it really takes to show up as our best selves when serving families. When I was an invisible mother, and finding my own way, I often suppressed my needs in the name of being present for others. There were times when I ignored agonizing migraines, didn’t eat enough food, denied myself the need to cry—all because I was supposedly being a good doula.
Now that I get to be a part of supporting new doulas, it is also healing for me to retroactively honor my invisible mothering labors and griefs by bringing my stories to the center as discovery portals to reimagine how I might have better cared for myself in those long ago moments. This fertile process of remembering and reimagining is what gives emerging birthworkers the necessary space to feel safe to bring their whole selves to the work. It helps them trust themselves, examine the challenges they come across with compassion, and embrace the difficult moments as opportunities for growth and deeper knowledge.
As we cultivate more learning spaces for doulas, we are also emphasizing the importance of everyone’s wellness, care, and respect. When designing our birthing support networks and systems we get to be intentional about building a better practice for this generation of birthworkers and those to come. Being a member of the Nourish team is a beautiful synthesis of years and years of finding my own way as a mother. I celebrate this labor that continues to light my way. I am so grateful for the space to create, dream, share, witness, and support.
“This fertile process of remembering and reimagining is what gives emerging birthworkers the necessary space to feel safe to bring their whole selves to the work. It helps them trust themselves, examine the challenges they come across with compassion, and embrace the difficult moments as opportunities for growth and deeper knowledge.”
GLOSSARY | Expansions on Language
Afrofuturist bush mother
A mother living in the wilderness of possibility; a mother raising her children in the “wild,” away from the formatted learning system; a mother living in the messy, fluid, organic, raw majesties of life and creation; a mother birthing and creating in the intentional vibrations of Black Joy and expansion; a mother dreaming forward in all ways; a mother seeding and preserving the possibility of her fertility futures, and the futures of her children and her children’s children, and on and on.
Binahkaye
Pronounced bee-nah-kye-yaaaay; means “mother of mothers” and “dancing mother.”
Black birthing mother
A black mother who courageously births beautiful black children into a world that is at times confused about or at odds with how to love her and her children; a black mother, descended of ancestors who were enslaved, and who consciously births in liberated ways to honor the long-seeded dreams of her foremothers who held space in their own confiscated wombs that one day their daughters would have sovereignty over their fertility futures.
Choreopoem
A creative work that engages multiple expressions of movement, poetry, music, and other dramatic arts. The term choreopoem was first created in 1975 by creator foremother Ntozake Shange for her work, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf.
Co-creator
My preferred language for father of my children/husband/life partner/spouse.
Creator
Someone who translates the fertility abundance of the eggs in her ovaries and the radiant power of her regenerative life portals into creations for herself, her family, and the world; someone who births, initiates, and creates; a mother.
Dancing mother
A mother who dances to access the bounty of her body brilliance, commune with her fertility superpowers, ancestral mothers, and starseeds, and cultivate expansions of maternal intelligence; see also Dancing Mother.
Family learning lab
My preferred language for our “homeschool” practice that centers all members of the family as learners.
Full presence mother
A mother who is with her children, and caring for her children, all the time.
Homebirth cesarean
A planned homebirth that transfers during labor time to the hospital, and then also unexpectedly leads to a cesarean/belly birth.
Invisible mother
A mother who is not seen, witnessed, honored, or celebrated in the world; someone who labors invisibly as a mother or engages in vital mothering spheres without any acknowledgement; mothers who are laboring from preconception journeys through the early seasons of sitting with possibilities.
Maternal intelligence
Intricate, specific, ancient, organic, evolving systems of knowing that mothers cultivate, share, and pass from generation to generation.
Matter
Also “mattering,” a word reimagined and initiated by creator Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur; to witness, name, and acknowledge the significance of a moment, memory, or thing; to bring into knowing; to unbury a truth or correlation; to recognize as a vital element in the creation or evolution of something.
Mother
Someone who gives birth; someone who feels they are a mother; someone who labors as a mother; someone who lives and creates within the frequencies of maternal intelligence; a creator.
Mother Mother
A mother who centers her mothering labors and actively devotes her life to the care of the mothers in her community.
Multitudinous mothering entity
A mother who moves through the world and navigates spaces while attached to or in close, physical proximity of her children.
Protostar birth
A protostar is a star on its way to becoming. Our sun, now a main sequence star, was once a protostar. A protostar birth is when a mother gives birth early, before having the opportunity to give birth to the miracle of human expansion, because that newly evolving life has transitioned inside her womb.
Revelation of one’s motherself
The moment a mother realizes her spiritual, emotional, and biological calling to be a mother.
Sacred nourishment
The labor of nourishing one or more babies from the breast; a celebration and mattering of the full-body intelligence and labors it takes to create and sustain the creation of mother’s milk; and the performance of sacred nourishment labors for the growth and well-being of new humans.
Sacred storyteller
A storyteller who gathers the brilliance and majesty of her creation labors and translates them into stories.
Sitting with possibilities
My softer, preferred language for “pregnancy”; a terminology that matters the delicate diversity of outcomes when being present with the many ways a life seeded in the womb might evolve.
Spiral movement galaxy
An emerging movement practice, virtual dreamscape for choreographic and autobiographical creation, interactive movement space, and community of dancing mothers radiating the light of their own stars, and discovering the possibilities of their collaborations along a spiral pathway of expansion.
Starseed
The physical and energetic matter of a future human being; the life energy within each egg that is preserved in a mother’s ovary and from which all human life originates; a newly forming being on its way to becoming human.
Supported free birth
A birthing moment at home where a mother feels freely into her vast maternal intelligence, labors and intuitive practices for bringing her baby into the world, while being lovingly witnessed and supported by her chosen circle of people.
Benediction: Mother Mother sings This Joy That I Have | This ancestral hymn is offered in celebration of the miracle and majesty that as black birthing mothers our fertility futures continue to evolve and expand. Through it all, we are here. The mothers rejoice!
This joy that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this joy that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ No, the world didn’t give it/ The world can’t take it away.
This love that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this love that I have, the world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this love that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ No, the world didn’t give it/ The world can’t take it away.
This peace that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this peace that I have, the world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this peace that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ No, the world didn’t give it/ The world can’t take it away.
This joy that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me/ Oh, this joy that I have/ The world didn’t give it to me/ No, the world didn’t give it/ The world can’t take it away.
GRATITUDE SEEDS MORE ABUNDANCE
I give thanks for all the beautiful ones who participated in making this moment a reality for me. Thank you to Colin A. Danville for being so amazing and wonderful to share his camera, time, and support all these years of my becoming. Thank you to the awesome munchkins for being Mommy’s constant hype team. Thank you to the co-creator for celebrating me and encouraging me to be me, always. Thank you to my mother for bringing food and bouncing around with munchkins so that I could get deeper into my writing. Thank you to Victoria Bouthillier for inviting me to share my work with the Knix community. Thank you to Dr. Kanika Harris, the wonderful ones at the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the awesome doulas in the NOURISH program for being so welcoming and sharing your brilliance with me! Thank you to the super creators in the Fertility Abundance Garden who witness, celebrate, and love up on me every day. Thank you to the courageous, beautiful ones who share your hearts and sacred stories with me. Our stories are our wealth. HERE WE GROW!!!
where do you share your stories?
Ask a question + share your story with us. The Fertility Abundance Garden is a congregation for creators, a sanctuary for mothers, a dreamscape for sacred storytellers. To learn more and to join the Garden, visit the Fertility Abundance Garden Welcome Center.
Are you feeling inspired to share the love?
Thank you for witnessing our sacred labors in the Garden. If any part of this love nourished your being as a creator, please pour into our Giving Well. If there is someone you think would appreciate communing with this post or other shares inside Seed & Spark, please share and post this link with your lovelies and wherever else your spirit moves you. Thank you for being here!
