Witches, Midwives, & Nurses (Second Edition): A History of Women Healers (Contemporary Classics)

ancient times menopausal women were the wise grandmothers of the tribe, their wise blood stored in the body like the wisdom stored in their psyches. In our culture women wear out, lose their value, are treated like throwaways.

To acknowledge this shift, there was a movement a few years ago in which doctors were encouraged to refer to patients as “clients.” This term, which psychotherapists often use, is meant to imply a respectful, collaborative relationship in which the medical professional doesn’t hold disproportionate power. But the term never caught on with physician

Frequently they are pregnant or giving birth. Stories behind the use of sacred medicinal herbs and plants that grow wild on the planet often include something relating to pregnancy and birth, leading me to think that the earliest uses of these plants might well have been for calming and relieving the pain of women in labor. Peyote, for example, was

Reclaiming the right to birth in our own instinctual way is a shamanic act of courage that has unfortunately become as remote to us as our ability to fly through the night in the form of an owl or heal the sick with the power of the drum. It wouldn’t hurt if we began to think of our birthing and child rearing as central parts of our shamanic work—a