Weaving Our Medicines – Ancestral Somatics and Perinatal Mental Health as a Pathway to Collective Liberation

This workshop introduces the Weaving Our Medicines resource, an offering that centers the lived experiences, stories, and ancestral wisdom of Black, Indigenous, and birth workers of color. We view birth workers expansively, including all people and practitioners who directly and indirectly support the ceremony of birth. We will explore a primer in perinatal mental health and a framework for reconnecting with ancestral somatic practices during pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond.

This workshop will also introduce the “Codices in Our Bones” conceptual framework, a clinical framework for unearthing culturally specific somatic practices for reconnecting with ancestral pathways for healing and liberation during the perinatal period. This framework will inspire participants to reconnect with the unique, embodied wisdom and technologies from their personal and professional lineages. By weaving ancestral and somatic practices with perinatal mental health modalities, we create pathways toward collective liberation at the level of the body, dyad, and collective.