Wombs Are Ungovernable
The key to empowerment lies within.
No man— a doctor, whomever lives at 1600 Penn, or any of the five supremely robed justices— no one can govern a womb.
We are being offered a moment to get really curious about where an idea came from. An idea that has penetrated the collective psyche: the erasure of women’s connections to their own bodies. An idea implanted that someone else has control. How perfect, really. How beautiful that this moment is here. What is being presented to us, handed to us, not just as women, men I'm including you here too— particularly if you're in a relationship with a woman, is an opportunity to remember we always have a choice to reclaim sovereignty. Our bodies know. The plants know. To go on a journey to reclaim and remember what it means for women to walk around with a portal of creation between their legs.
But what about…and about… and about? Folks continuing to stay attached to, and rooted in, victim consciousness? Not in this house. Harm and suffering will persist. As will opportunities for choice and liberation. The experiences women regularly have at the gynecologist would horrify even the bravest souls.
Pills for this.
Metal for that.
You’ll feel some pressure.
Side effects? You’ll be fine.
As the guard changes next month, nothing is in jeopardy expect for the illusion that safety and sovereignty can be found outside of oneself.
No need to stock up on pills.
Or memorize directions to every Planned Parenthood two states over.
Find someone who stewards this knowledge.
Listen to them.
Pay them.
The way knows the way. It always comes back around.
Feel the ego shutter? Feel it grip tighter, like a uterus around an IUD.
Choice—bodily sovereignty, contraception, termination— none of these are modern issues or inventions. Remember the witch trials? (Pending the ancestral altar that is your body, that may be very painful to remember…) They targeted herbalists and midwives. Anyone that threatened men’s desire to control something they didn’t want to understand or respect— all for capitalist gains. Through the early 16th century, “…women had been able to use various forms of contraceptives and had exercised an undisputed control over the birth process, from now on their wombs became public territory, controlled by men and the state, and procreation was directly placed at the service of capitalist accumulation.” “The criminalization of contraception expropriated women from this knowledge that had been transmitted from generation to generation, giving them some autonomy…”1 In Europe, this persecution of those in the herbal and birthing arts, this erasure of ancestral wisdom, launched hundreds of years of active, dedicated propaganda to convince a population that a womb can be governed. Holding onto this story as a way for endless terror to persist.
Access to pills and procedures is not empowerment. It is not reproductive freedom. Two topics that are shockingly, devastatingly left out of the national, or even global, discourse around whose life and whose body and whose choice and sovereignty are: our relationship to the female cycles and our relationship to herbs.
I had to educate myself accordingly, as a carrier of this Divine 3D Printer. To learn my cycles and remember the wisdom my grandmothers thought they had to forget. I had to accept the responsibility of this paradoxically common yet sacred gift that is holding the power of creation within myself. It was a long and winding road:
Prescription for the birth control pill from Planned Parenthood at 18 for the sole purpose of preventing pregnancy.
Stopped taking the pill at 23 because I had such severe, chronic, cystic acne covering my face and body, and the only course of action offered to me by the “best dermatologist in Chicagoland” was to begin a high dose of twice-daily antibiotics. She warned me this would affect the efficacy of the pill (even though this is maybe not even true?)
With the acne cleared, and antibiotics tapered off, I went back on the pill at 26. Again, just to prevent pregnancy.
Had a terrifying hormonal meltdown at 27 (turns out going on and off the pill is a terrible choice) which had a cascade of health issues, including the return of the acne, seemingly with a vengeance. So I sought an herbalist, it was the only thing I felt like I hadn’t tried. He recommended Toni Weschler’s “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” which was the most education I’d ever received about my own body. (From a book published in 1995.) I read this during a year-long herb journey to rebalance my utterly wrecked hormones.
I got a copper (non-hormonal) IUD at 30, because that was how I wanted to take charge of my fertility. I was convinced I didn’t want to have children, and was therefore wholly uninterested in my fertility being anything other than thwarted.
Got the IUD removed at 32 and for the last two years have gotten to a place where I am in such a close relationship with my womb, I experience my monthly bleeds as a sacred ritual that I look forward to. Free bleeding and all.
Basically, I wanted an easy button, and spent a lot of time and endured a lot of suffering and pain thinking that any pill or “medical device” was easy. Thinking that I had found a way to not have to “deal with” the responsibility I had been born with. When I got my IUD, which felt like the easiest and best choice because no hormones, it made my always-easy periods become debilitating and dreadful. The most painful cramping I have ever, or since, experienced. A bleed so heavy I could barely leave the house for longer than a few hours without lots and lots of backup. A common sentiment I encountered was that if one can survive — survive!!!— the first 6 months of an IUD, one can endure the full lifespan of it (for me that would have been 10 years.) Not because the pain lessens, but because the tolerance to the pain increases. The only reason I got through those first 6 months was because I got mine in February of 2020. I was living in Manhattan. There was no way I would have been able to live my normal, daily life, hadn’t that gotten completely upended by global events a month later. Was the pain I was experiencing because I had paid money for a rushed nurse to implant a piece of copper-wrapped plastic directly into the most sacred part of my body and once a month my uterus was squeeze it with a crushing force? Or was it the recurring reminders of the pain that one experiences when they place power, authority, safety, and autonomy outside of themselves?
Want to know what I have found to be much, much easier? To listen to my body. To remember and relearn. I know when I’m fertile (only a handful of days a month.) I know when I'm ovulating. There are very distinct signs. Dense, physical signs, and subtle, energetic signs. It's not a secret. I just had to be reminded of the signs. I’m writing this from my early luteal phase— in bed. I tend to bleed right before the full moon. If you are beginning to remember your cycles, as cliche as you may assume, the moon is an incredible ally, mirror, and mentor.
The other allies and mentors we must discuss are the plants. Even when in the deepest connection and devotion to natural cycles, there are still times and moments when one might choose for things to be a different way. Enter plant kin. The ancestral partnership of the plants. There are particular plants that can assist with everything that you would go to a doctor for, from contraception to termination, and everything in between. (And also literally anything, ever.)
Now, I’m not suggesting to go out into a field and meditate about which plants can maybe assist with whatever choice you would like to make with your body. Though, you can absolutely do that. Rather, I am offering again, this deeper responsibility into the power that we actually carry, or to the power that maybe your partner or lover carries. This can be a beautiful thing for for couples to hold together, to explore together, to remember together. There are herbalists that carry this knowledge. Just please do not confuse all herbalists with herbalists that specialize in cycle herbs.
I was recently talking with a friend about the corners of the internet that we find ourselves in and what echo chambers they can be. Because of what my interests are, I follow a lot of herbalists. I'm on a lot of email lists of herbalists. I know herbalists personally. I dabble in herbalism myself. Since 2017, when I first sought out herbal support directly, I have been a part of a community of people that pass this knowledge around just about every week. Yet my friend had never heard of such a thing, especially not delivered in the vehicle of a free one-hour Zoom.
The wildest part? Some of the most helpful plant allies are very common. So common that you probably don’t even notice them because you see them so often. Hiding in plain sight. They aren’t buried a two-hour hike deep into the rainforest. Or on some alpine peak and only bloom once a year. They’re in your backyard, they’re along the highway. (Well, maybe not in December…) They’re right here to help.
All of this to say, this moment is here to invite you into a place of empowerment. To reclaim, relearn, and remember the knowledge that many, many generations of women had to repress, forget, erase, delete, hide, or confuse. To invite you into right relationship with reality.
This information is catalytic. At all of the retreats Samara and I have hosted, and in containers I have led, women have returned to this sacred relationship with their bodies. In some cases, it was something they had been planning on and moving towards for a while. Other times, simply hearing there was another way besides the pill or an IUD prompted an immediate change. During one retreat, a woman actually left the retreat during an afternoon break to go get her IUD removed. Here are some words from some of my close women who shifted off of birth control earlier this year.
“i am obsessed with my bleed… after 3 years without a period due to my IUD, my body was so ready to release and i got a period immediately after removal. i’ve been on hormonal birth control for 10 years, the pill for 6 and an IUD for 4. my cramps used to be so horrible and i’d resent my body. now, 11 months simply tracking my cycle, I’m so in tune with my body’s rhythm. menstrual, follicular, ovulation, luteal - i can FEEL what my body is going through and can treat her accordingly. my bleeds have been pretty regular and it’s so beautiful. i’ve used vitex berry for my cramps and other plant medicines for deeper embodiment. my periods are so glorious, i love the juiciness i feel. something so primal and feral about listening to my body. my womb is ripe and dynamic and i thank spirit everyday for the connection i have to her. grateful for my moon blood. i’ll simply never regret my IUD removal.” - G.R., Syracuse, NY
“Since answering the call of my body to have my IUD removed, I’ve reconvened with my period and my body’s cyclical nature. I’ve also felt more connected and nurturing towards my womb as I’m preparing for childbirth & motherhood in all the ways. I love that I can much more easily track my phases of my cycle now, which helps me navigate changes in mood, drive, and thinking. Overall, I feel much more empowered in my womanhood & embrace my womb shedding now. 🫶🏼” - J.R., Indianapolis, IN
If any of this is uncomfortable…
Let this discomfort ignite you. Let it sink into your bones and radicalize you.
Need more resources? Have questions? Be in touch. ❤️🔥
Silvia Federici Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (2004) pgs. 89, 92