Speaker 0
Into the wild, I'm going into the wild, I am. It's been a wild freedom child, since I left my roots back home. Into the wild I'm good. Into the wild I am. It's been a while, freedom child, since I left my roots back home.
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Free Birth Society podcast. This is a radical space for women who are ready to celebrate their autonomous choices in birth, motherhood, and beyond. Together, we'll learn about wild birth through personal narrative, we'll explore the politics of birth, and we'll analyze everything that relates to our lives as women from a feminist perspective. Here's your host, Emilee Saldaya.
Speaker 0
It's been a wild freedom since I've left my rules back home.
Speaker 2
We have a really inspiring episode today as I welcome Zainab from Saudi Arabia, now living in Michigan. Zainab is a brilliant maiden who has blazed a path of autonomy, teaching fertility awareness method and body literacy to Arab women in her mother tongue of Arabic. Zainab grew up without proper initiation into her first bleed and didn't even have a word to use for her own vagina. She experienced intergenerational shame, passed down from her mother, and her culture at large. Her journey towards awakening began when she discovered FAM, fertility awareness method, along with a deep calling to share this knowledge with her sisters, particularly those in her home country where she found women hungry to tune into their bodies and claim their freedom. Zainab came to Matriarch Rising Festival and experienced it as a massive turning point in her life of what is possible when women gather in their power. She witnessed the deep centering of mothers, the normalization of free birth and embodied womanhood, and, of course, the pure and delicious magic that comes with women gathering in this way. She took these lessons home with her forever changed. This year, Zainab will be returning to MRF, and we are hyped to have her offering her workshop in the red tent, the Cycle Wisdom Map, an important exploration of body literacy through the lens of the natural cycles around us. Come and experience the uplevel that she did. Go to matriarch rising festival dot com to get your ticket today. Join us, sisters. It will be the highlight of your year, and it may just change your life. Okay. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3
Welcome. Hi.
Speaker 2
Happy to have you here and excited to just get to know you. You know, my my reference point for you is your smiling face at the festival, but we didn't get to hang. And then, you know, kind of having this very, very preliminary peripheral grasp of, of your work and and it growing and it being super interesting and important. So, yeah, just excited to dive in here.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Thank you for having me. I feel very honored, honestly, to be in your presence and to, yeah, to witness you and you witnessing me. It's it's such a privilege. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2
So just tell me everything. Who are you? What are you up to? What really has your focus of your of your work these days?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So my name is Zainab. I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. And, when I was eighteen, I moved to the US. I came to continue my education. I went to college here.
Speaker 2
Wait. With your parents or no?
Speaker 3
No. By myself. Yeah. So I made that, like, big move. I had the scholarship. I had the full ride scholarship from, the Saudi government. I was an excellent student in high school, so I got the scholarship and came to the US, got my degree in health sciences. My focus was or my concentration was environmental health and safety. I graduated with a sense of not knowing what to do with the degree and not feeling extremely passionate, about it. And there was also a sense of losing myself in the college years and in the academics and in the linear way of doing things, and that's when, I met with my partner. Be well, before I graduated, I met with my partner, Chris, who is now my husband. And before getting involved, we were very clear about not wanting to have children at the time and not wanting to use any hormonal contraception.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
And my values and his values when it comes to health was our focus at at the time be because we were making a lot of the healthy decisions and making our lives better, and it didn't make sense for me to make that decision of taking a hormonal conception that will just mess my body and and alter the the state of my body that was never altered before.
Speaker 2
You had never been on the pill before.
Speaker 3
Right. Right. So I've never been on the pill, and I didn't feel the the need to do that. And, I had that support from from my partner. And at the time, I wasn't ready for for anything related to exploring my body. I I was body illiterate in in the literal sense of the word. There was a lot of shame that I wasn't aware of. There was a lot of, like, unspoken unspoken truths and unspoken knowledge and unspoken wisdom about my body that wasn't told to me by anyone. You You know, my period was a surprise. There was no conversations to have with my mom or my sister or anyone, really. So I learned from an early age that talking about anything related to womanhood is not okay
Speaker 2
Uh-huh.
Speaker 3
Without someone coming and telling me, you know, to not talk about it or that is shameful or whatever. It was the silence of it and the whispering of it that brought that messaging in my head. So fast forward. I'm right here writing the list with Chris, of what we want to have in this contraception. We don't know what it is, but we know what we want what what we want it to include or involve. And we said, okay. We want it to be with no hormonal, no synthetic hormones, no, no side effects, no long term, no short term side effects. We didn't want it to have, like, an environmental impact, and we were like, okay. And we wanted to have also a high efficacy rate and started looking. Started looking and started looking. I I found a lot of the videos and articles and research papers and all of that, that talks about cervical fluids and, basal body temperature, and all of it seemed extremely scientific and extremely body involved. And I was freaked out. Like, what are you talking about? I'm gonna be checking my cervical fluids, like, on a daily basis. I'm not familiar with this. Like, this is not my territory. So it was I wasn't ready then, and it wasn't until I was ready that I found the fertility awareness method as, you know, as that term. I was able to work with an amazing educator. I, you know, read Taken Charge of Your Fertility, and I started charting my cycles. And what started as a mission to look for and find this contraception method that would work for me and my partner left me with a sense of, this is so big. This is bigger than me. This is bigger than what I can contain within my body. Like, my nervous system was all over the place wanting to just shout it out of the roofs and telling everyone about it.
Speaker 2
Well, so real quick. When you say it, can you articulate what you mean by that?
Speaker 3
Right. So just getting to know my body, getting to know the names of my organs, my reproductive system, like, learning it and translating it from English to Arabic and hearing those words for the first time in my mother tongue, it was such an initiation into womanhood.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
It was like the initiation that I've never had. I was starting to explore my body in a non sexual way, in an actual, like, in a in a humane way, in a way that anyone can relate to and anyone deserve to have. So it was very, very interesting to me to be comfortable and feel safe in my body just by charting my cycles and having that sense of, oh, there's nothing wrong about this. There's nothing wrong about my desire to learn about what my body is telling me. Like, oh, my body is actually communicating with me every single day. Like, every moment, my body is communicating with me, and I never I never knew. I never knew about this constant communication, and it's not like it just started communicating. It has always has always communicated.
Speaker 2
You just started learning how to listen.
Speaker 3
Right. It's like learning a new language. Mhmm. And I remember at that time, which was in two thousand eighteen, that this is now a long long time ago. So, I remember feeling a similar sense of Zainab the child who was, like, six or seven years old going to this private school and learning English, which was her this new language and how excited she was for this, like, new adventure that she's getting into. And that's what I felt when I was learning about body literacy and the fertility awareness method. I felt like I was learning a new language and took my time Mhmm. Until it was like, this is too much just for me to handle. I wanna share it with the world. And at the time, many people were telling me, well, great. I understand, you know, how passionate you are and how exciting this is, but can you as, like, as an advice, how about you create your content in your courses and the company as a whole in English? Because Mhmm. The Arab world is not ready.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
Like, you will be Uh-huh. Attacked, and you will
Speaker 2
be Oh, you'll be attacked any any which way. Don't worry.
Speaker 3
And I was like,
Speaker 2
But it's your language. It's your people. Come on.
Speaker 3
Yes. Yeah. And I was thinking, well, I'm ready. I'm an Arab woman. If I'm ready and I'm an Arab woman, there would be other Arab women who are ready. Maybe they're not outspoken about it. Maybe they're not talking about it in public. But if I'm ready, other women are ready. I'm gonna just do it. So I did. So I started at at the time, like, within it was not long after I graduated. So I I started at, which is the name of my company. And it has grown amazingly from the time it launched until now. I can't describe to you the amount of supports that I have gotten, and there was little criticism that everyone was, like, warning me from. And women were ready, and they were so excited. And, yeah, I started teaching the fertility awareness methods, and, not not long after, started realizing that there are lots of patterns that are just reoccurring within the different clients and the different groups that I've been meeting with. And the overarching theme was shame. Right? Shame surrounding our bodies and around sexuality and around just just being. Right? Feeling safe within our bodies, just us, like, without needing to have a husband. And that's when I would say a lot of the women that I've worked with would feel, like, more at ease once they get married or once they have someone to share their bodies with. But when they're on their own, there is a sense of, like, maybe this is not mine. And I don't I I can't give myself permission to explore it and learn about it and and read its signs. So so that kind of was, like, a natural progression of where we started and where we were heading. So, yeah, that's I would say, I would stop now. I I'll hear your way out.
Speaker 2
I love it. So that was you started this in twenty eighteen, nineteen?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So the this was bought in nineteen. Yes.
Speaker 2
And so what does your life look like now with the work? Are you primarily coaching, or what do you do?
Speaker 3
Right. So I I teach the fertility awareness method, and I work as a group. So we've I teach, a group of women the fertility awareness method, and then I I meet one on one with them. So we do the follow-up sessions in the learning phase. So they have the one on one coaching and one on one education with me as well. I also branched into doing multiple master classes and the ideas of coming back into the body with, releasing the ideas of shame and understanding where it actually is coming from and dissecting it, doing the yoni gazing and and other other practices, embodiment practices where women can have a a hands on experience with their bodies, again, in a very humane way. I'm also a cycle coach. I recently graduated, and, and I'm very passionate about this cyclical living and that remembrance of our cyclical nature. So I also created a course. It's an evergreen course, so anyone can take it whenever they they feel like it, on the inner seasons and how to care for ourselves and how those ebbs and flows change within our bodies. And so it's okay not to have a linear lifestyle. But, yeah, that's that's in a nutshell what, what NIST was offering right now. I host women's circles, which I have a I have an interesting story about the women's circles that I started this year in February, and it linked to matriarch rise in festivals. Right.
Speaker 2
Have you been back to Saudi Arabia since you've started all of this?
Speaker 3
Right. Yes. Yes. I did. It was during COVID. So I did. In early twenty twenty, I went back to visit my family. It was the first time for me and Chris to go visit together. It was his first time in Saudi Arabia. And I went to also attend my best friend's wedding, and it was amazing. And our plan was we're gonna stay for two months and come back to the US, but all of the COVID things happened. And lockdown happened, and we were there for fifteen months before we were able to come back. What? Yeah. Fifteen months. I know. I know.
Speaker 2
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 3
So two months turned into fifteen.
Speaker 2
Wait. Forgive my ignorance, but did what why? Did the did you did the US just say no?
Speaker 3
No. No. It was it was, because I was a Saudi citizen, I couldn't leave the country. I couldn't leave Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2
But Chris stayed with you?
Speaker 3
Of course. Yes.
Speaker 2
Okay. And, like, okay. This is, like, maybe not very interesting, but, like, you had, like you were, like, renting a home, and you had to, like, bring your money on it.
Speaker 3
We were Like Yeah. We were staying with my family. So But
Speaker 2
I mean, like, back home, like like, in where you live in the US.
Speaker 3
Right. We have no. We did your own home. Yes. We did. We we had that. Right. Yeah. It's a bit of also a sad story because we had two cats, and they were staying at my in laws. And one of them actually passed when we were in Saudi Arabia, which was, you know, a very traumatic experience for both of us, to be away while that happened. So yeah. Yeah. We have
Speaker 2
crazy. Yes. Wow. Okay. Mhmm. Well, talk about getting giving Chris a crash course in your culture. Like and you live here now. Oh my god.
Speaker 3
Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2
And did he work remotely? Was he able to make money while he was, like, stuck over there?
Speaker 3
Yeah. He he does a lot of investments, so he was able to do, a lot of his work from wherever. So That's wild. Good. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Oh my gosh. Okay. And so what's your what's your MRF story before I ask you my next question?
Speaker 3
Oh, absolutely. So, in February of this year, I started a virtual women's circle, which all my work is virtual. All of my work is online, given where I live and where my clients live. Mhmm. So I started the women's circle. It was very needed. I wanted a space for women to just share, not to receive knowledge, not to hear someone else talking, but actually just express themselves and hear themselves speaking and not really seek, advice or, recommendations or anything like that. Not not coaching, but just being. So that was a that was the intention behind the the circles, and I started it with just wanting to share the community that I dream about and what I what I really crave and what I what I wanted for myself, feeling so isolated and feeling like a stranger and feeling like no one is understanding me or I couldn't understand anyone. I couldn't blend in. And where are my people? Right? So I had that kind of, like, feeling living where I live. And
Speaker 2
Which is where, I guess, we haven't said that. Where do you live?
Speaker 3
In Michigan. I live in Michigan.
Speaker 2
Not quite. The same.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. So so, yeah, it I I started envisioning and I started envisioning and and sharing the sharing the vision of of this community that I and life that I that I crave. And I kid you not. If I had, like, a bingo, like, a bingo game and I had to scratch every every part of it, I would by just going to the matriarch rising festival because every single thing that I shared during that circle was what I experienced during matric rising. I I was thinking I wanna be around women that are feeling safe within their bodies, women that are intuitive, women that are birthing in in power, women that free birth, women that trust their bodies, women that honor the rite of passage of the maidens, women that, actually cherish their wise women, that there is no generational gap in knowledge and wisdom between the different generations. I wanted a community that would be in one with with nature, a community that would trust that they can birth and trust that they can feed their babies and that they are enough, a community that wouldn't doubt itself. And at that moment or before that moment, I thought that wasn't something that was impossible
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
For it to happen. And then I just gave myself permission to dream it, to just vocalize it and say out loud. And then few months later, on your land with three hundred women that embodied exactly what I envisioned, and it was five days of a dream that they were an expansion for me of realizing what was impossible now is possible for five days. Can it be possible for a month? Can it be possible for a year? Can it be possible for a lifetime? And I think it can. Why not? Yeah. So thank you for everything that you have created and for the space that held everyone. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2
Yeah. You're so welcome. It is a dream, But I'm with you. It's the same thing. Like, can I dream it? If I can dream it, am I willing to have it? You know? And and I've been thinking a lot about that lately that when you give yourself the space and the permission to dream and have a vision, it becomes harder to betray yourself. Yes. Right? Like, once you know what you want, obviously, a, you have a compass. You can move towards it. But, b, it just becomes harder to ignore it. Right? And that's that's, I think, one of the distinctions of women who really, like, claim their lives and and are embodied and and live in in a powerful way. It doesn't have to be, like, necessarily, like, this huge leadership way, but if you know what you want because most people don't even know what they want. Most of the time when I ask a woman, what do you you know, what's your dream birth? She'll say to not have a c section. Mhmm. It's like, no. No. No. No.
Speaker 3
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 2
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No yes, I'm so with you. And and the festival is intended to be this, like, touch point of what's possible, right, which it is
Speaker 3
Yes.
Speaker 2
So that anyone who feels the way you do can go out and bring that magic that lives within all of us, but it just you know, we need we need these, like, concentrated little women's summer camps
Speaker 3
Yes.
Speaker 2
To to jazz us up for the year. Yeah. I love it.
Speaker 3
And at the end of this month, I'm meeting with, I don't know, maybe eleven women in Michigan who are like minded, who Riley There
Speaker 2
you go.
Speaker 3
And who I Yeah. You know, drove to the festival with.
Speaker 2
Did you find her through the membership?
Speaker 3
I found her through the WhatsApp group for the carpooling.
Speaker 2
Oh, cute. Okay.
Speaker 3
I know. Adorable. I know. It was just yeah. It was amazing. And it was one of those also friendships, relationships that had come into my life so effortlessly, and it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the matriarchism festival. So, yeah, I I really enjoy this this friendship and how expansive it is. And for for me to witness Riley shine, I saw her before and after the matriarch rising, and she's a different woman.
Speaker 2
Amazing.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I'm very, very proud of her.
Speaker 2
What were you saying about the group of women in Michigan that
Speaker 3
that We're meeting we're meeting at the end of this, month. Riley has organized, like, a gathering, and we're going to be meeting together. The the ones with the kids are gonna bring their kids, and we have two women that are pregnant. So we're we're just gonna get to know each other, and, yeah, it will be amazing.
Speaker 2
You just start. Yes. Love it. So do you exclusively work with Arab women?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I teach in Arabic Right. Which Oh. I would say, I've worked with Arabs and Kurdish women who speak Arabic. But, yeah, that's that's the majority of of Mhmm. The work that I'm doing. Yeah.
Speaker 2
And this is like a giant question, but I feel curious about your observations of how you see like, what are you seeing change in the women that you're tracking? And, you know, the there's there's so there's so much in that culture and all cultures, but there's so much in that culture that, from the outside, I would not pretend to understand it, but from the outside seems like it goes completely against everything that you are, offering. Yeah. And so, like, what is that like? And and what is it like to work with Arab women in this specific context? And what do you yeah. What do you see change in their lives? What are they doing differently? How does it affect their marriages and all of that?
Speaker 3
Absolutely. My favorite clients are the ones who are not married yet, who are not engaged yet, who are not in a relationship yet because they get to know themselves, and they get to know what's possible, and they get to choose accordingly, when it comes time to choosing a partner, a future partner. That's it's really, really rewarding because I could see it. I could see how the the choices are elevated. The like you said earlier, like, dream big. Why are we just dreaming about not having this? But I see that the the sky is really higher now with with the women that are that are learning, whether it's fertility awareness or menstrual cycle awareness. They're learning about their bodies, and they're learning about it's not that their worth has changed, but they're recognizing it now. They're recognizing that we're worthy and that we're whole and that we don't need someone to complete us, and we don't need someone to actually, like, make us better or make us whole, but we actually whole. And wouldn't it be amazing to partner with someone who will just make my life more exciting, more fun, more better even better, that I wouldn't lose anything by not having this person, but actually feeling centered and and and whole within my body. So that's something I'm I'm noticing, with the maidens. Right? And even with the with the married couples, I've had amazing stories and amazing successes, especially with those married women who were on the pill for a very long time, who were on, other hormonal contraception for, a very long time, and now all of a sudden, they are experiencing their bodies for what is they're experiencing the natural rhythms of their hormones. They're experiencing libido, you know, for the first time in so many years, and they're giving themselves that permission to experience it and explore it. And there is also a space for the men to participate. Yeah. What's that like? When it comes to, like, fertility awareness. Like, it's not about just the woman. The man needs to be involved, and some men will attend, like, will watch the lessons, the prerecorded lessons with their, partners, and some would attend the, coaching sessions with me, maybe have their own questions. And for the majority of the cases, I would say men are extremely excited about it. They're excited about learning about our bodies just as much as we are. And, yeah, it's been very positive experience, so far, I would say.
Speaker 2
K. Well, I love hearing that. One of my first Yeah. Virtual I mean, yeah, a virtual birth client that was, like, for free birthing in the first year. So the podcast was a Saudi Arabian woman, who what she lived some she lived in the Maldives or Maldives, however you say it. And, anyway, she, had had a horrific first birth and lived a very like, her husband decided everything. Her husband decided everything, and, you know, I caught little glimpses of it just through us, you know, talking. He was never there. He didn't know that she was doing sessions with me. Mhmm. Actually, I've had I've had a handful of, Arab women work with me in this, like, anonymous way where they, actually, all of them, now that I'm thinking of it, all of them, their husbands don't know that, we're meeting. They don't have their own, finances, so they, like, have borrowed from their parents or found other ways to pay for working with me. And, anyway, this first woman, I'm just remembering her because it was so amazing because, yeah, her husband knew nothing, and she she basically I never even saw her face. She wore, a full cover. And, anyway, she was so determined to not go back to the hospital, and she, I don't even think she gave me her real name, to be honest, would be my guess. And, anyway and so the story goes, it was, like, one of my first clients, when I had first started, like, opening this up after the podcast, and she yeah. It was like, if I have to go through that again, because they were telling her she needed another c section. She said, I'll I'll die. You know, I'm I'm I can't do it. And so she went into labor and hid it from her husband, and her toddler was at home with her and sent him on his way to work and, you know, stayed at home, had her baby alone with her toddler, which there's also a lot of sadness to that story for me. You know? It's like that don't it's not like that was the best situation. Right? But then had a woman in her community come afterwards and helped her clean up, and her husband came home to a detached baby nursing, and she just lied, you know, and said, I don't know what happened. It just happened so fast, and, you know, don't spend the money on going, and I don't wanna go and talked him into not going to the hospital for, I think, two days. But I guess I'm bringing that up because this is true across the planet. I've worked with women in pretty intense oppressive dynamics in all different countries, and I have found that all of the small collection of Arab women that I've worked with so far have been in, like, pretty, pretty significant ones, I guess you could say, like, going to the hospital and the like, the staff only deferring to the to the husband, not the woman, like, not even
Speaker 3
Right.
Speaker 2
Listening to her. Mhmm. Yeah. And anyway. So I just have a little, little, little, little, little, little piece of context of kind of the yeah, what you're doing and the work you're bringing, and and it's heavy.
Speaker 3
I think it's all true. I think the examples that you're bringing up, they're it's very, very true, and those are true stories that exist, like you said, all over the world, but especially in, in Arab societies. And the reason why in like, while I was thinking, like, why why am I not working with those women? I think because of the nature of my courses when it comes to fertility awareness in particular, it's very clear in the way I create the content and in the website page and before you book that your husband's or your partner's participation is necessary. So if you think that your partner is not going to be supportive, I think that will get some woman to say, okay. This is not for me. That's might be one of the reasons why those stories, especially, like, with husbands or with partners, are not showing up as much in my environment or in my in my realm because
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
It's very clear that if your if your husband is not interested, this is not gonna work for you.
Speaker 2
Right. And if you have, like, a super misogynistic, oppressive husband, he's not, like, interested in your cycle.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Exactly. Funny. It's really sad.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
Speaker 3
And it's also interesting that you're bringing up this woman who is from Saudi Arabia, you know, wants to have home births, or, you know, at least not have a c section and needing to go to the hospital. And my mom had six children, and she had them all in the hospital, while my grandma had ten children all at home.
Speaker 2
So fast.
Speaker 3
So it's just within one generation
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
All of this just changed.
Speaker 2
Nonsense. So how do you imagine that you will birth? I because and and are you are you entering that season of your of your life soon?
Speaker 3
Probably soon. Fun? I'm I'm more I'm dreaming about it. I'm I'm having, like, visits in my dream and things like that and having the desire ignite. I, yeah, I would say so. I would say that it would be soon, and for sure, it will be a home birth. It will be a free birth. It will be uninterrupted. Me and Chris, for sure, will be there, and I don't I don't see or envision anyone else, honestly, to be in that, in that environment. So in my home, feeling safe Yeah. Doing it Doing it just like my grandma did.
Speaker 2
Right. And her mom and her mom and her mom and her mom and her mom into forever. Absolutely. Our little our our our little amnesia, like, our little blip in, you know, history is so tiny in the grand scheme of things, and really, we all came from sovereign birthing women. Right?
Speaker 3
Like Yes.
Speaker 2
Many times over. So, you know, women walk around, you know, being like, oh, I just don't know anyone. It's not in my lineage and my mom. It's like, yeah. But zoom out. Yes. You do. You really do. You're just gonna repair that little that little glitch.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2
What was the story was the story of your first blood I was gonna say significant. Like, all of our stories are significant regardless of how they go, but but was it, like, a big pivotal thing for you? Like, how was the story of your first blood?
Speaker 3
How did
Speaker 2
it go?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I remember I was in school, and, I was eleven years old, and none of my friends have started their their periods.
Speaker 2
You were the first?
Speaker 3
So I was the first. And at that that school year, I didn't have many friends. But just looking back at, like, my class even my classmates at the time, I don't think any of them had started. Maybe one or two, but they were not close to me. But it was such a surprise to me. I never had any talks with my mom about it, so I wasn't prepared. I didn't know what it was. And, like, the the health class about periods, we didn't take it yet. So I didn't know what what it was.
Speaker 2
Wait. So you see blood in your underwear, and you don't know what it is.
Speaker 3
Right. So I'm I'm thinking this is a punishment. Like, I've done something wrong. What's going on? Have I sinned? Like, what's going on? So I feel shame. I internalize it. I feel shame, and I don't tell anyone. And I I didn't tell anyone. Not not my mom, not my older sister, no one. Not my husband.
Speaker 2
If if you have no idea what it is, maybe there'd be this innocent, like, did I get cut? You know? Like, like, where is
Speaker 3
the blood coming from?
Speaker 2
Oh gosh.
Speaker 3
I think I think it has to do with where it was coming from
Speaker 2
and Totally.
Speaker 3
For me, like, not to even have a name to refer to this part of my body. So it's extremely dehumanized, like, part of me. So if this is an eye and this is a nose, my vulva or my vagina didn't have a name. Right? So it's truly dehumanized, and it's not mine. It's not it's shameful. So because I think it is because of that, like, scenario, that I couldn't speak of it to anyone. And, of course, I was caught. Like, my mom discovered it very soon after. And, I don't remember her exact words, but she implied that she knew that I started my period and, that I need to use, pads now. She showed me the, like, the pads where they were in the storage in the house, and, she told me about, like, a ritual or a way of purifying after, I'm done with my period. So it's like a washing ritual just with water, just like a shower, but in a in a specific sequence that's just an Islamic or religious, way of kind of saying the period is ending, it's done, and now I'm entering a new season in my cycle. So her her reaction and the the things that she shared with me were religious in nature, and I think she thought probably that that was her duty to say that, but nothing else. And I did feel also the shame in her voice because she was whispering to me all of that, not in her normal voice. And even now, just recalling it, I can feel the shame that she felt and maybe the shame that grandma felt. And it's it didn't start with my mom is what I feel right now. It didn't it didn't start with her. So, yeah, so information that was that was received with religious in nature, I didn't understand what it was. I didn't know that it was coming back, like, next month. Oh, I know. Didn't know, like, what the purpose of it or, you know, what is until we had the, like, the health lesson or I think it was even a religion lesson, about periods, and I was like, oh, oh, it's not just me. Like, all of these swim all of these girls in my class.
Speaker 2
It's so it's so hard for me to wrap my head around the cocktail of shame and repression and, you know, all of the stuff that that would make it be that a mother wouldn't not even want, like, past want, just, like, understand to give your daughter some basic tools about her body. Like, so many women have this story. You know, the the story that you're sharing, I've been running, you know, like, men are circles forever, and it's a common, you know, part of the ceremony as everyone speaks their first blood story. And, you know, I've probably heard over a thousand first blood stories, and the majority of them are similar to what you just shared. Right? And, anyway, I mean, it's just wild. And and thank god I can't relate to it in this moment. Right? I can't, like, imagine what it is like for for how many women on this planet carry that level of, like, like, being gagged, like, being bound. Like, I don't even know the right words for you get what I'm saying? That that that that that would override just the the obviousness of explaining what's going on, how to prepare for it, just the basics.
Speaker 3
Yep.
Speaker 2
I'm guessing no one told you about sex. No. Let me just guess.
Speaker 3
We're just going overboard here. No. Of course not. Of course not.
Speaker 2
But so
Speaker 3
cool. Why I'm here. Right? Right.
Speaker 2
I was just gonna say
Speaker 3
like, moving me to say, this is just not acceptable for
Speaker 2
us not to talk
Speaker 3
about it and not to
Speaker 2
And you doing this you getting this out to Arab women in your language from across the freaking ocean. I mean, talk about a cool use of what we've got available to us today because, obviously, you know this, but teaching women, mothers are not, body literacy at whatever age is going to increase the likelihood by a landslide that you will help tip the scales into back to that same scenario, this woman that you're coaching, her daughter comes of age, her daughter begins to bleed, and it's just so much more likely that there will be a conversation, that there will be multiple conversations. It's I mean, god. We're starting at such a bizarre deficit with this. It's bizarre. You know? I know it's, like, the norm, but I'm so far out of it now. It's like you really gotta drop back in and remember. People don't even tell their daughters that they're gonna bleed again.
Speaker 3
Right. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. And this is another another theme that I that I see with all of the women that say, the majority of the women that I worked with is I wished I learned this before. I learned that I I wish I learned this when, you know, with my first bleed before my my first bleed. And there is this desire within my heart. It started within the last year, and it's still igniting, of not only, like, remedying the what the damage that has been done, but actually just going to the root of it and breaking the cycle before it actually, you know, blooms. And how can we do that is working with the maidens, is working with the tweens, and is working with the younger girls and their mothers. And, of course
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's just it's there's no one origin point. Right? It's Right. All females.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Get the woman. Get the mothers. Get the sisters. Get the aunts. Get the get the women that are in the communities that that have that that have this connection with the younger girls. And once they are comfortable within their bodies, then the younger girls will see it and embody it and model it because that's what was happening in matriarch horizon festival. We didn't need to say anything or to lecture, you know, the maidens about the fullness of the womanhood, you know, experience. They were witnessing it. Right? And that's something I'm I've been wanting to, like, create something around it, and it's gonna be very soon, I believe. For a very long time, I had, I would say, like, hesitation about working in this realm because I am not a mother.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
And I was thinking, why would a mother trust me with telling her, you know, what, or guiding her, showing her what her daughter needs. But there was words of wisdom by my mentor that I worked with, Nof Hakim. She said, you're not a mother, but, Zainab, you have always been the daughter. And I thought, of course, I know what the daughter needs because I am the daughter. So, I'm really excited then just, you know, coming from the festival. I think I I'm still, like, not fully I'm still integrating what happened few months ago. I'm still integrating it. I feel like I'm still hovering in, like, the rounds in between rounds and
Speaker 2
seeing This is great this is a great promo for the festival.
Speaker 3
It is. Away. You should come. Yeah. You should come next year. Let let's see you.
Speaker 2
I know.
Speaker 3
It's so cool. Amazing. And I loved seeing the maidens, and they were very, very inspiring to me and their courage and their presence. And, yeah, I I wanna create that.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, that's how I arrived at the work that I do. You know? I was so young. I left high school when I was a fresh sixteen year old. And for the nights leading up to when I officially withdrew, I had told my parents I was gonna withdraw. And they were pretty cool about it, but they were like, you should have a plan. Like, have some idea of what you're gonna do. And I was like, that's totally fair. And I really took it seriously, and I remember just going through this loop in my mind of just going what matters? What matters? What matters? What matters? And kind of seeing what popped up, you know. And there were a couple of things, and I would track them. And I would be like, okay. Well, how does, like, a a a woman a a girl in my, class had been raped that I knew I had become aware of it through our social group. And I was thinking about her, and it was a multi male rape, a gang rape, I guess, is what they're called, at a party. I wasn't at the party. And, anyways, I was thinking a lot about her and was like, how does that not happen? Like, what's the track there backwards? Okay. So okay. So what what happens for boys to not do that? Okay. So okay. Household. Okay. Parents. Okay. And I just, like, kept tracking and tracking and tracking it. And all these issues that I would, you know, come up with, track, track, track, track. Okay. Household, parents, infancy, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother. Like, everything comes back to mother. Right? But it does happen on a continuum, and it's not only the mother. Right? It's it's not really like that, but but she's the eye of the world. I mean, it's it's she's the center. She's the center whether we want to acknowledge it or not. And the harm of not acknowledging it is is abundant. Right? It's quite obvious. And so, anyway, that that's kind of how I arrived at birth being not the only it's, like, not the only point, but it's one of the biggest points in these rites of passage of the blood mysteries that we're talking about. And properly initiating women into motherhood is everything, and properly initiating girls into their blood is everything, you know, and on and on it goes. Yeah. And it's it's just such potent potent work, and it has such big impact when when women are devoted to it. It's, like, right there. You know? Like, women are ready. Like you said, I'm not surprised at all that that your page popped off, that your stuff is successful. I'm not surprised at all because women are hungry and they're fucking smart. You know? Like, they're just there's there's just all these fractures. And there are women like you, there are women like me who are, like, blazing through these fractures and just, like, carving it out. You know? I wish I had better words to to kind of describe it, but I've just seen that too with the Freebird stuff. Like, women are just so ready, and they just need the language. They need the stories. They need the sisterhood. And when that's all provided, they're just there. They're there for it.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like we're remembering what was forgotten so fast so fast within, like, one generation, all of it gone. So now it's just a it's a remembrance for what always has been.
Speaker 2
Pretty wild.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 2
My mom picked me up from school when I had my first blood. I was fourteen, though, so I was, like, waiting for it. You know? Eleven is so little. Oh, that's such a big difference, eleven or fourteen. Right? Anyway, she picked me up from school. I and I was excited, and she was excited. And that was kind of it. Like, she she took me out to lunch. I got some clean underwear. I got some, like, new cute, kinda, like, more sexy underwear than I was ever allowed to have, you know. And there was a air of celebration to it. But it wasn't like there was some workshop on it. Yeah. You know? This is such a trip.
Speaker 3
That was beautiful. Yeah. For you to feel it. For you to feel that, like, appreciation or, you know, you're waiting for it, and now there is the sense of arrival.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. Yeah. It's fun to dream about. I mean, you know, it's also just it's just a normal aspect of my life and therefore my daughter's life. Right? Like, it's not it's not a big deal. Mhmm. It's not like I'm overly, you know, shoving it down her throat or, like it's just a normal you know, if you're embodied, all of this is just it's a totally new consciousness. It's so, what's the right word? Kinda yeah. Like normal, like not extraordinary. Right? It feels so like free birth and all this stuff feels so insane because we're ripping through these new layers of consciousness, but when you just live in the consciousness like what my children will know, it's like it's not even that interesting.
Speaker 3
Yeah. It's just normal. Yeah.
Speaker 2
It is normal. Well, anything else you wanna share before we wrap?
Speaker 3
I really enjoyed this a lot, so thank you so much. I would like to thank you.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to get to know you. I knew I knew you were special, but I didn't I didn't know anything about you.
Speaker 3
Thank you so
Speaker 2
much. I'm glad to know. And how can women find you to follow your work?
Speaker 3
You can find me on Instagram. It's NISWA org, at NISWA org, or on the website, w w w dot NISWA dot org. That's mainly where you can find me. And, yeah, I would love to have a chat. Maybe you won't understand the language, but you would be able to have a chat with me on a DM or email.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. Beautiful. Alright. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3
You're welcome. You're welcome, Emilee.
Speaker 2
I hope you enjoyed the show today. You can support this podcast by donating to it on free birth society dot com and leaving an awesome review on whatever platform you listen on. The more reviews, the more visibility the show gets, so let's spread the word of Sovereign Birth. We've always got a lot going on at Free Birth Society, and you can find out about all of it at free birth society dot com, at free birth society on Instagram, and opt in to my newsletter below in the show notes. We offer courses on free birth, authentic midwifery, and the blood mysteries, as well as one on one coaching, in person retreats, and, of course, our annual women's festival. Our exclusive vetted private membership is definitely something to check out if you're looking for a community of wise sisters. Together, we rise. We must speak our stories, claim our lives, and support one another. This is the living revolution, and I am so grateful to be in it with all of you. I'll leave you with our epic Free Birth Society theme song, Wild Woman by Aruba Red.
Speaker 4
I honor you for the wisdom you held, the ancient traditions of plant medicine and womb magic. I feel the spirit of the ancestors as I place my hands upon my belly. This sacred portal will be honored. Eons upon light beams of of survival, withstanding the eradication of our power by design. I will not allow the separation of our young to be forced upon me. My sisters will no longer birth in captivity. The picket line we define from burning our wild women to paralyzing us and drugging our babes. Strapped down in a clinical white bed, drying up the milk from our breasts, keep your needles. My family will never again be doomed to chase those dragons, all your poison. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention, death, ascension.
