A new way forward
What a year, I feel like I’ve said that a million times this year, but sheesh, its been one for the books. I had no idea how deeply Meraki Mama Collective would be affected by the pandemic, yet here we are, utilizing our abundant creativity to forge new ways forward.
I’ve been quiet much of the year due to healing work I needed to do for myself, work that I desperately needed to do to be able to show up for my community the way I have always envisioned. Since March, I have again and again questioned who/what Meraki Mama Collective’s voice is. As a biracial woman, mother, and business owner, I’ve felt conflicted about fully using my voice in all of it’s expression to address the issues that so desperately need to be addressed in our village. I feared pushing away clients or any part of our audience. But that ends today. If you’ve ever met me in person, you know how incredibly passionate about changing the experience of reproducing people in America that I am. There is a very clear problem, rooted in white supremacy, patriarchal beliefs systems and capitalism. These three toxic paradigms have deeply affected how we as birthing people and families experience conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum and parenthood, and it’s time for a major change.
Welcome to the new Meraki Mama Collective. We are here to educated, inspire, validate, hold space, and support your childbearing experience from the Divine Feminine Energy, ushering in the Matriarchy. It might sound abstract, but here’s what it means:
acknowledgment, investigation, and replacement of toxic belief systems that are barriers to healing, safety, and support
we believe, protect, and value black women, BIPOC, trans and LGBTQ+ folx because these experiences inform and impact the bigger picture of birth culture in America
we don’t employ hierarchies as they apply to conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, or parenting. All experiences a valid, valued, and supported. There is not right birth, no right way to conceive, no right way to parent, there are only our human experiences. It is of utmost importance that each birthing person is heard, respected, protected, and supported for whatever they need or desire at any given time along the journey.
birthing people don’t need more advice, they need guidance to their own intuition, body wisdom, and ancestral wisdom. We believe that mindfulness practices including pranayama (breath work), meditation, asana practice, and energy healing practices are imperative to guide one inward to their own inner Divineness.
we value and work towards the balance of work + ease, strength + softness, vulnerability + boundaries, masculine + feminine, darkness + light, productivity + rest, healing + growing, nourishment + sacrifice.
birthing people + parents are worthy of community care and community support, and deserve a community with resources to adequately support them.
Meraki Mama Collective is so much more than fitness classes, we are a movement, we are the future, we are the work needed to change outcomes + heal generations of people who did not receive postpartum care, who didn’t have a place to go, or someone to tell them what a beautiful job they were doing. We are training more teachers, making our classes more accessible and here to build what we’ve always deserved, and we’re so grateful to have you here with us.
Aho!