Wild and the Moon

When I came to Norway from living and working in Iraq, I didn't know the herbs that were growing here. I'd just become a new mom, in a new country, without my safety networks to take care of me. I set out to learn the plants by sitting with one-two plants each year and cooking with them, making tea, herbal infused oils, tincture, exploring their medicine for body, mind and soul.

That's when I started to see patterns, first signs of Spring: daphne mezereum, lady's mantle, shepherd's purse, lemon balm, nettle, then dandelion, oregano and raspberry. In late summer: mugwort and yarrow and slowly, but surely I developed a relationship with the spring, and summer for harvesting, and to the fall, for medicine making.

Working with plants has also expanded my relationship with time to a more cyclical way of understanding cycles within and cycles without. The cycles of body, of life, of the seasons.

I realized that learning plants is about building your unique relationship with them, more than learning what they are and what they do from a book.

If you are looking to explore the world of herbs in an easy, embodied, and fun way, I invite you to 🌿Herbs for Hormone Health: From Menstruation to Menopause 🌿

🌿🌿Think about this as a mini retreat. We'll work with different local plants, learn to make some of the most common herbal preparations, like herbal infusions (tea), herbal baths, and infused oils, explore herbal practices to ground your nervous system and balance your physiology and focus on nutritives, adaptogens, uterotonic and nervine herbs that grow locally. 🌿🌿

🌿REGISTER HERE: https://forms.gle/boVh51sBYAjM4vTr9

🌿Date: Sunday, October 20th, 2024

🌿Time: 13-16

🌿Cost: 1200 NOK

Location: Ellingsrud, Oslo

🌸 BONUS - at the workshop you will be gifted with a gift bag including a herbal tea blend, an herbal infused oil and herbal tincture.

Looking forward to meeting in person and sharing herbal wisdom in circle.

Autumn Hugs, Johanna

Hey there, have listen to this podcast episode. A vulnerable conversation on motherhood, activism, women's health and much more!

Honoring international woman day with Johanna L. Rivera | Måne Get more from Måne on Patreon

Dear woman,
As we are honoring women world wide the 8th of March, I share my conversation with Line S. Efraidsen for her podcast Måne.

Johanna is a mother, entrepreneur, creative, intuitive, women health activist and educator weaving the scientific with the traditional. Her background is in Public Health, Chemical Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Sciences and also in traditional modalities like herbalism and sound medicine.
She had a medicalized birth experience which got her to question the way we approach women’s bodies and health. Johanna is currently the vice-president of PCOS Norge and her mission is to educate women to address the root causes of hormonal imbalances holistically and bring their whole physiology back in balance.

Thank you Johanna for sharing your voice and wisdom with us!
To find our more about Johanna and her work:
Insta: wild.and.the.moon
Music: Premium Beat

Honoring international woman day with Johanna L. Rivera | Måne Get more from Måne on Patreon

I’ve been having some interesting conversations with women about menopause. What I see and hear is that women are concerned about being more tired, not being so sharp, forgetting things or having lower libido. We are in a society that values productivity, and does not give much space for transitions. But menopause is not like that, its a process that takes up to 10 years in total where women experience physical, hormonal and nervous system changes.

Menopause is not a medical condition, it is a life transition. And, like any transition, it takes time to adjust, and is important to have more conversations about what does it mean to be a woman turning into the wise women years. We need more stories that restore the value of cronehood as a time of reclaiming personal power, and the important role of wise women in the community. We also need more intergenerational settings, where crone women can share their life experiences with younger women.

Our culture and beliefs influence our experiences
In our Western culture all aspects of a woman’s life are medicalized and menopause is not the exception. Reframing menopause is necessary to address the physical and emotional changes that we deal with. In other cultural traditions, menopause is not seen as a medical condition, but a time of increased responsibility where women have to take care of grandchildren and older parents. In these cultures, the symptoms of menopause are different and fewer than what western women experience.

Did you know about the grandmother hypothesis? Researchers have studied the role of post-menopausal women in hunter-gatherer cultures and now show that postmenopausal women were key to the health of their communities and grandchildren and that they provided a survival advantage to the society. They found that the most active members of the Hadza community are women in their 50,60, 70’s.

The way says: «The older woman knows the land, and its water, the seasons, the movement of the game, and the time to harvest each plant, she is not a sentiment, she is a requirement.»

What story about do you choose to believe?

Two weeks ago, I shared an empowering story of how we can make informed decisions about our bodies and health. This time, I will share a completely different story about what happens when there is no informed consent in the decisions we make when seeking pelvic care. I went for a routine HPV test yesterday, and as I was sitting on the examination chair, I saw that she was having trouble finding my cervix. So, I said, perhaps it is because my womb is reverted. And she was, how do you know that? I said I had learned about it in a previous ultrasound. Then, as she was taking the sample, I felt a lot of pain and saw some blood coming out. She said, I will explain later. After she was done, she explained that since my uterus was reverted, she had to pull it wit the speculum in order to take the sample, hence the blood and that I didn’t need to worry about it. I left home, a bit mixed up, and as I reflected, I was like s**t, why she didnt tell me?

I was feeling completely disempowered, and asking myself why I didn't say anything, (except that it hurt). The trust I built a few weeks ago had collapsed again.

How does informed consent looks like?
In my case, it would have looked like, she telling me, I can’t seem to find your cervix, since your uterus is reverted, I have to push it a bit, to be able to access your cervix, and that might cause some discomfort. Are you ok with that? Yes or no.

My story is not rare, it happens all the time, within the context of pregnancy, birth and gynecological care.

That doesnt mean it’s ok.

It is a structural issue that has to do with power, and not women’s fault. The weight of the responsibility is in the provider giving you all the information you need to consent or Refuse an examination or treatment.

Scroll to learn:
*What is informed consent and why it is important?
*Why do violations in informed consent happen?
*How does informed consent really look like?
*a recipe for a pelvic steam blend to heal pelvic tissues.

Have you had a similar experience? I read you in the comments.