Medicine Stories - 61. Revillaging: Maternal, Cultural, and Planetary Wellness are One - Rachelle Garcia Seliga

61. Revillaging: Maternal, Cultural, and Planetary Wellness are One - Rachelle Garcia Seliga

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01/03/20 • 79 min

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Medicine Stories

We cannot talk about collective health, planetary health, or the health of future generations, without talking about the health of mothers. As Rachelle says, “The dysfunction and disharmony within our human environments is manifesting through the vulnerable bodies of postpartum women. In fact it is through the bodies of mothers that humanity is being alerted to the urgency of our collective need for change.”

IN THE INTRO:

The reaction to my previous episode on parenting without a village

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Our culture is set up to fail new families/parents, and pathologizing the postpartum period overlooks the fact that it’s our social structures that are the cause of the immense emotional and psychological pain most postpartum mothers feel
Mama- it’s not your fault
New moms lose up to 700 hours of sleep during the first postpartum year
The baseline of normal is that human babies need care 24/7 (your baby is not “high needs”), what’s not normal is living in isolated nuclear families
Postpartum care cannot happen without community, and community is the one thing we are all lacking
Why it’s so hard, when it’s what we all deeply crave, to recreate the community living of our ancestors/how the colonial mindset keeps us mired in separation and distrust
The pelvis as the seat of trauma for most every woman, and how we can begin to heal that
How we feel in our pelvis is how we feel in our life- the connection between mental and pelvic health
Intergenerational trauma and clearing the “bad medicine” that was embedded in the bodies of our female ancestors and passed down to us
Anchoring in what we actually believe about ourselves, our bodies, this life
Women are, and deeply feel, unsafe in our culture
The incredible responsibility of raising girls (and boys tho!) in this culture, and how Rachelle and I navigate talking to them about the realities of patriarchy in an age appropriate way
Teaching our kids to respect their inner authority first and foremost
Reproductive and environmental justice are one and the same
It’s time to grow up and do the work- our primary responsibility as adults on this planet at this time is to caretake life
One simple way we can create community and support the parents of little ones
If we can’t be resourced horizontally (by the folks around us), we can be resourced vertically (by our well ancestors) and by the land
The sacrifices we make as mothers are a holy offering to life itself

LINKS:

The Innate Traditions website
Innate Traditions on Instagram
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
Related podcast episode- Without a Village: Isolation, Honesty, and the Paradoxes of Modern Motherhood
My website MythicMedicine.love
Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Mentioned in this episode:

Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf
I’m a 37-Year-Old Mom and I Spent Seven Days online as an 11-Year-Old Girl. Here’s What I Learned.
A mom’s response to a stranger insisting her daughter speak to him (seems the original post is no longer available, this is a summary)

IN THE INTRO:

The reaction to my previous episode on parenting without a village

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Our culture is set up to fail new families/parents, and pathologizing the postpartum period overlooks the fact that it’s our social structures that are the cause of the immense emotional and psychological pain most postpartum mothers feel
Mama- it’s not your fault
New moms lose up to 700 hours of sleep during the first postpartum year
The baseline of normal is that human babies need care 24/7 (your baby is not “high needs”), what’s not normal is living in isolated nuclear families
Postpartum care cannot happen without community, and community is the one thing we are all lacking
Why it’s so hard, when it’s what we all deeply crave, to recreate the community living of our ancestors/how the colonial mindset keeps us mired in separation and distrust
The pelvis as the seat of trauma for most every woman, and how we can begin to heal that
How we feel in our pelvis is how we feel in our life- the connection between mental and pelvic health
Intergenerational trauma and clearing the “bad medicine” that was embedded in the bodies of our female ancestors and passed down to us
Anchoring in what we actually believe about ourselves, our bodies, this life
Women are, and deeply feel, unsafe in our culture
The incredible responsibility of raising girls (and boys tho!) in this culture, and how Rachelle and I navigate talking to them about the realities of patriarchy in an age appropriate way
Teaching our kids to respect their inner authority first and foremost
Reproductive and environmental justice are one and the same
It’s time to grow up and do the work- our primary responsibility as adults on this planet at this time is to caretake life
One simple way we can create community and support the parents of little ones
If we can’t be resourced horizontally (by the folks around us), we can be resourced vertically (by our well ancestors) and by the land
The sacrifices we make as mothers are a holy offering to life itself

LINKS:

The Innate Traditions website
Innate Traditions on Instagram
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
Related podcast episode- Without a Village: Isolation, Honesty, and the Paradoxes of Modern Motherhood
My website MythicMedicine.love
Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Mentioned in this episode:

Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf
I’m a 37-Year-Old Mom and I Spent Seven Days online as an 11-Year-Old Girl. Here’s What I Learned.
A mom’s response to a stranger insisting her daughter speak to him (seems the original post is no longer available, this is a summary)

Previous Episode

60. The Boundaries of the Unthinkable are Wavering - Charles Eisenstein

The old stories that have guided our recent ancestors are falling apart, and we live in a time of great upheaval and division as we grope for a new guiding mythology. Yet enfolded into this chaos are the seeds of deep and revolutionary change. Charles Eisenstein has a knack for expressing the thoughts and feelings that many of us born to these times have had but never articulated, and a brilliant capacity for elucidating a way forward.

IN THE INTRO:

Following your curiosity & finding lifelong teachers

IN THE INTERVIEW:

None of us fit in to the boxes our culture makes for us, and the story we’ve been handed down is no longer resonant
Transitioning between paradigms, as the boundaries of the unthinkable begin to waver
The initiation into love that is the environmental crisis
A radical reframing of the climate debate (I so needed to hear this)
Appreciating the complex physiology of the organs and tissues of the living earth, and realizing that we cannot reduce that complexity to the one metric of carbon emissions and offsets- “We can cut carbon emissions to zero, and the planet will still die of organ failure if we continue to degrade its organs”
What we lose when we look at herbs, ecosystems, and anything/everything through a reductionist lense
Bringing nuance and empathy back into our highly polarized culture, where folks are both sides (of any issue) are impervious to ever being wrong
Holding our enemies in reverence (just channel Mr. Rogers)
The legacy trauma of living in this culture, and how to minimize its impact on future generations
What the germ theory of disease gets wrong, and why our inner ecosystems often play a larger role in our illness than the outer pathogens that get all the blame
A new perspective on autoimmunity, self, and the story of separation
Shifting the war paradigm by which we often approach health
Sacred economics: living in The Gift paradigm within our capitalist culture, and why Charles’ online courses are donation based
The individual as a holographic map of the universe unfolding
When you hold a question long enough, it will always bear a result

IN THE OUTRO:

Human hubris and the unforeseen consequences of thinking we can outsmart the vital life force (nature/evolution)
How challenges to the immune system both initiate children into their next level of unfolding and prevent later chronic disease
The polarization in the vaccine conversation, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, and exploring what it would take for me to change my mind on the issue
A short exploration of and some resources for learning more about the harmful consequences of praise, rewards, and punishments when raising kids

LINKS:

CharlesEisenstein.org
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
My website MythicMedicine.love
Some of Charles’ related essays: Reuniting the Self: Autoimmunity, Obesity, and the Ecology of Health, We Are Unlimited Potential: A Talk with Joseph Chilton Pearce, In a Rhino, Everything
Video of me expanding on how we can’t outsmart nature and how modern medicine is pushing pathogens to evolve
Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies by Neil Z. Miller
Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness by Dr. Thomas Cowan
@EchoUnafraid’s vaccine cognitive dissonance Instagram post
Related past episode of this podcast: 57. Own Your Self: Radical Healing, Rooted Health w/ Dr. Kelly Brogan and 30. The Innate Intelligence of the Immune System w/ Cilla Whatcott
Alfie Kohn’s website
Article- Praise Not
Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz
Medic...

Next Episode

62. Called to the Plant Path: Herbal Myths, Healing Forward, & Human Ecology - Sajah Popham

These times call for potent healers. If you’re feeling the call of the plants, this episode is for you.

IN THE INTRO:

There is no right way to be an herbalist
Guidance for navigating your unique plant path

IN THE INTERVIEW:

The soul’s need to connect with nature
The most common mistake that newcomers to the plant path are likely to make
Why an herb will help one person but not another
The vital ecology of the human being
Seeing beyond symptoms (and the insufficient approach of merely managing them) to the root cause of illness
An overview of the four phases of herbalism: indigenous/folk, vitalist/energetic, molecular/biomedical, evolutionary/integrative
“I’m woo to the max, but I’m also scientific to the max”
Healing is open-ended and endless, and to know healing is to know life itself
The (in)significance of the past when trying to heal forward
The herbalist is first and foremost and forever a student of nature
Plants are the living, healing intelligence of the earth
The transference of healing intelligence from nature into the plant and then from the plant into the person
We can understand health and disease simply by understanding nature
Narrowing down possible herbal remedies to find the right remedy for the right person- what is the ecosystem behind the symptom?
Why some people get overwhelmed when they start walking the plant path
Perceiving with the heart v memorizing information (bodily understanding is superior to intellectual knowledge)
My favorite personal health reference library
Herbal medicine should be accessible to anyone and everyone
Helping others using medicinal plants, and crafting the most potent herbal remedies