Journeying Through Pregnancy and Birth

Recently featured on our newsletter for the Mama Health section, “Journeying through Pregnancy and Birth” is a powerful, gentle, and beautifully prepared birth & pregnancy CD that will help you relax deeply and create space for a sacred and peaceful pregnancy and birth.

Jennifer Houston has been a midwife for over twenty years, and is a mother and grandmother. She’s a certified Hypnotherapist and an experienced Neuro-Linguistic Programmer. She is aware of the interaction between body and mind, and the power of language. The desire to support natural birth and her witnessing to thousands of births, inspired her to create this new CD that we recently added to our collection of must-haves for pregnancy and birth.

“I want to undo negative cultural messages, help women reconceptualize their experience, gain strength, wisdom and peace of mind.”

Relaxation Advice from Jenna  (some excerpts & messages from the CD)

1) You are your best caretaker.  One of the greatest gifts pregnancy can offer is connecting and nurturing yourself through relaxation.

2) Lie down or sit in any way that is best for your body to relax.

3) Focus on your breath.  Place a hand below your ribcage and notice your belly rising and falling.  Watch your breath deepen with each inhalation and exhalation.  Exhale tension and all unnecessary things, letting go of anything you don’t need.  Inhale oxygen, relaxation, everything you need.

4) Scan your body.  Start from your face and head and work all the way down through all the parts of your body, releasing tension.

5) Connect with Mother Earth.  The way your body and your baby is created is exactly like how Earth is made.  Trust in the natural process.

6) Connect with your baby alive and moving within you.  Feel your baby feeling you – your beating heart, your breath, your love and care.  Imagine what it must feel like to be carried in the safe and cradling womb.

7) Connect with your partner if you have one, connect with your female allies and ancestors, visualizing and feeling their presence around you and their connection to you.

8) Reconnect with your body and your presence in the room by noticing your body touching your bed or couch, starting to move slowly.

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1000′s of women have used this CD in the past 11 years since Jenna first made this CD, with glowing reviews:

“With my busy schedule, this tape enabled me to spend time relaxing and nurturing my intention for a natural birth.” K.H., Mother

“This tape is an invaluable tool to help create the change in consciousness that supports a healthy pregnancy and birth.  I recommend it to all of the pregnant women I work with, especially useful for women with hypertension and postdates.” Larry Perl, MD OB/GYN
“In our homebirth practice, we gift every client with the ‘Journeying Through Pregnancy’ tape.” – Connie Coker & Martha Roth, Midwives

“After 25 years of attending births, and the growing fear in dominant culture around birth….I wanted to reframe fear and help women reclaim their power in birth through trust in nature and their bodies.”

Order your copy today to start your sacred daily ritual…

Shipped directly from the US

The Pros and… Pros… of Mesh Panties!

by Mayu, Mama Goddess USA

Okay, okay, a whole blog post about mesh panties, I know.  But if we were to choose a single item out of our entire store inventory to give a VIP award to -  it would be none other than these wonderfully stretchy, seamless, comfy pairs of disposable wonder.

For those of you who don’t know what disposable mesh panties are, they are exactly what they say they are.  They are mesh, and they are panties.  Disposable, yes, but also reusable (until they rip or lose their elasticity.  Just wash with mild soap and air dry).  They are mainly used for postpartum mamas and post-op patients.  The customers who buy them from our store include both, and often times they are in both categories, having had a cesarean birth, which is a birth and a surgery at the same time.

They hold maternity pads in and create no pressure anywhere so really, these are the only comfortable things you can wear after giving birth, vaginally or not.

And then there’s me.  Never had a child nor a surgery.  This has been a long time secret, and I wasn’t sure if I should publicly announce on our blog that I LOVE to wear mesh panties during my moon time – but once I tried them on (just curious how they felt – testing our products ya know), I couldn’t go back to my pre-MP life.  Now, I don’t rock them during the day (…yet) but they are so comfortable to sleep in, also during pre-moon time (I love using this phrase now instead of PMS – thanks to the authors of Moon Mysteries), when I’m feeling bloated and just want to be comfortable.  For those of you who may take offense to the fact that I’m enjoying these things when you may be in a situation where you have no other choice… I do apologize.  When I do use them for their real purpose, I’m sure my love for them will grow even deeper.

To honor these star athletes of the Mama Goddess team, we’ve created a new kit: The Perineal Healing Kit.  This kit has all the items for recovering perineum care, and includes mesh panties, peri bottles, a sitz bath, maternity pads and our Perineal Healing Wash.  As with any of our kits, you get a slight discount by purchasing the items together instead of individually.

To find the Perineal Healing Kit in Canada, click here.  The US/all other countries, click here.

Thanks for reading

Book Review: Moon Mysteries

What a much-needed piece of work!

Moon Mysteries: Reclaiming Women’s Menstrual Wisdom is delivered with the most soul-satisfying art, anecdotes, advice and ancient wisdom.

Separated into 13 chapters, reflecting the 13 lunar months in a year, Nao Sims and Nikiah Seeds’ honest and profound words interweave eloquently with Eyan Myers’ flowing, powerful paintings and drawings that remind us of divine feminine energy.

Here are some of our favorite excerpts and summaries of the thirteen chapters:

Chapter 1: Cycling moon ~The Moon & Menstruation

This chapter starts out with exploring the etymology of the “menstruation” and the history of the lunar/menstrual cycle going from being honored as sacred to being buried by patriarchal oppression.  It is about reclaiming and realizing the power of the cycle that is our birth right.  There is detailed suggestions on how to chart your own moon cycle chart (the charts also come in the book – 13 for the whole year).

Chapter 2: Earth Moon ~Woman’s Connection to the Earth

This chapter reminds us of how deeply connected we are with the rhythm of nature: “The Great Mother was celebrated and respected throughout the ancient world, as were women, because of the shared qualities between the female body and that of the Earth.”

Chapter 3: Wolf Moon ~Reclaiming the Wild Soul

This chapter explores the untamed, instinctive spirit of the wild woman.  This is about celebrating the wildness of the divine feminine.  We love the part where the authors re-name PMS to PMT = pre-moon time! Instead of the stifling and negative connotations that pre-menstrual syndrome have.  “Our pre-menstrual rage can actually be a healthy way for the body and soul to clear out what is no longer serving us.”

Chapter 4: Blood Moon ~The Sacredness of Menstrual Blood – a History

The power of the menstrual blood was honored in many ancient cultures as the blood of life.  Menstruation provided women to connected to other women to create a support network.  It is a sacred event that even men recognized, as in the Navaho tribe of men inventing sweat lodges to purify themselves because they did not have the ability to bleed like women.

Chapter 5: Ritual Moon ~Creating Our Own Menstrual Customs

This chapter introduces ideas for having a ritual during our menses, along with Nao’s personal story of her first moon, as well as choosing healthy menstrual products.

Chapter 6: Dreaming Moon ~The Dream World and the Blood Cycle

How are dreams and our menstrual cycles connected? This chapter encourages the practice of observing dreams in relation to the cycle of the body.  Nao’s personal dream work reveals the deep connection between dreams and our bodies.

Chapter 7: Green Witch Moon ~Healing Our Bodies with Women’s Wisdom

This is a chapter dedicated to midwives, witches and herbalists, the healers of the world.  It contains several healthy & delicious recipes that use herbs and vegetables (even a dark chocolate cake!).

Chapter 8: Lovers Moon ~The Moon of Sacred Sexuality

We cannot talk about our cycles without recognizing our sexuality.  This chapter delves into the varying sexual desires and changes that occur throughout our cycle, and even about love making during menstruation, which is something that is not openly talked about by most.  Nikiah’s personal story about learning to be a sexual adult concludes this chapter with great insight and self-awareness.

Chapter 9: Fertile Moon ~Reclaiming Our Fertility

This chapter talks about ovulation, about knowing when you are fertile, about the pill, and becoming fertile again after giving birth to a child.  Fertility is not just physical, but affects us in emotional, spiritual and mental ways.  A beautiful chapter, full of personal stories that make the reader think about her own relationship with fertility.

Chapter 10: Mother Moon ~Women as Mothers

What is Motherhood? From Nao’s exploration of making a choice to be a parent or not, to Nikiah’s look at motherhood as a spiritual practice, this chapter shows us the incredible initiation that is a part of becoming a mother.  The end of the chapter talks about our own mothers, and about making space and taking care of ourselves.

Chapter 11: Shadow Moon ~The Shadow Side of Our Blood Cycles

This chapter reveals the sadness and hurt that we can experience during our cycles.  Inanna (also known as Ishtar, Astarte and Enheduanna), a goddess who descends into the underworld, appears in this chapter to challenge us to look at our own dark sides, to empower ourselves to claim all aspects of who we are as a woman, as a mother, as a being.

Chapter 12: Temple Moon ~The Inner Temple of Woman

Our wombs, the sacred temple of our bodies.  This chapter shows us that our inner temple and physical temple reflect each other, that we need boundaries around out temples in order to give, that it is important to look at the state of our inner temples as well as our outer temples.

Chapter 13: Serpent Moon ~The Feminine Cycle of Death and Rebirth

The last moon of the year, the thirteenth one, represents the end of a cycle, which is also the beginning.  The book ends with the voice of a wise gypsy grandmother, who is the vessel for the poetic, potent words that the authors deliver to us throughout the journey of Moon Mysteries.

Reading this book is like waking up to a whole new level of awareness about your own body, psyche and spirit.  It is an enjoyable read as much as it is practical, full of personal as well as historical background information and insight, including an immensely helpful resources guide.

All around, this is an important, valuable book, and it is with great honor and confidence that we recommend it to all women, no matter where she is in her cycle of life.

Click here to purchase the book in Canada

Click here to purchase the book in the US/all other countries

For a preview of the book, visit:

http://www.moonmysteries.com/inside-the-book