Hayley Wolfe

Science doesn’t leave much room for mystery or mysticism. We’ve grown so accustomed to needing something to be measured or “proven” before we let ourselves to believe the truth in it.

But what if our womb space is the portal through which we can begin to bridge modern medicine with ancient magic?

Modern medicine and research have so much to offer us, and recently science is revealing more and more about just how complex, intelligent and potent this space within us really is.

At the same time, there is a rich history of reverence and ritual surrounding the womb, v***a, menstrual blood, fertility and birth that should not be dismissed as superstition.

Perhaps our long-ago ancestors knew things instinctively that science is only beginning to find language for.

Perhaps some of what we now call myth or ritual came from generations of women paying very close attention to their bodies, their blood, the land, the moon, birth, death and one another.

I certainly don’t think abandoning modern medicine and making descions based entirely on intuition is the answer. But I also don’t think the only alternative is dismissing thousands of years of embodied observation, ritual and relationship because it cannot be neatly measured in a lab.

There is a space somewhere in the middle where we can become deeply educated about our physiology while remaining humble enough to admit that there is still so much we don’t understand.

Where we can know the names of our hormones and also know the texture of our own blood.

Where we can understand the nervous system and still speak to nature.

Where we can learn from research without losing our capacity for reverence.

In fact the more I learn about the female body the more I see a living ecosystem, constantly listening and responding and adapting, carrying traces of what came before us while holding the possibility of what might come after.

The most powerful medicine is not found in choosing between what we can prove and what we can feel, but in becoming women who are willing to know our bodies intimately enough to hold both.

To study them. To listen to them. To question. To remain curious. To remember. 🩸🌀🌱

I’m really excited to be offering EARTH BODY, an intimate one day women’s retreat in Procter on Sunday September 20th in celebration of the Autumn Equinox.

For most of human history, women have gathered together to mark the changing seasons, share food, tend to their bodies, witness one another and create ritual around the passages of time. In many ways we have lost connection to these kinds of rituals and rites of passage, and I can’t help but wonder how much this loss is reflected in the fractures we feel in our relationships with ourselves, with one another and with the living world around us.

Earth Body is a full day devoted to stepping outside of the pace of ordinary life and tending to these relationships in ways that feel tangible, embodied and possible to carry back into our everyday lives.

Throughout the day we will move through embodied movement and yin yoga, somatic practices, womb connection, women’s circle, and an Autumn Equinox ceremony to mark our transition into the quieter months.

There will also be plenty of space simply to be together. We’ll share a beautiful seasonal lunch, herbal teas and snacks, spend time outside, move, breathe, rest, talk and create ritual together.

You don’t need any previous experience with somatics, yoga, womb work or ritual to join us. This day is for any woman who feels a longing to slow down, come back into her body, experience deeper connection with other women and spend time with nature rather than simply in it.

EARTH BODY — One Day Women’s Retreat
Sunday September 20th
10am–6pm
Procter, BC
$225 (Early Bird of $190 until Aug. 31)
Lunch, snacks, herbal tea + all materials included

If you feel called to join us or have any questions, send me a message or email [email protected] to reserve your space. 🤍

Embodiment is not meant to be pretty or palatable.

In fact it can feel like crawling into the darkest caves and finding a shimmer of light only to have it snuffed out again and again.

It can feel isolating. It can also feel empowering.

It takes courage to wander in the dark, unsure of where we came from or where we’re going next. Wedging ourselves in deeper and deeper, until turning back becomes impossible, but that doesn’t mean we know what comes next.

What we know is where our feet are.

We feel the damp, cool earth beneath us.

We open up new senses, ones that were desensitised by the outside world.

We listen to the way the earth breathes from below our skin, and slowly, we begin to trust this new guidance.

This is the reclamation nobody warns you about. ⁠It doesn’t arrive polished and packaged in rituals for us to perform.

It arrives in the dark, on your knees, feeling your way forward. No turning back.

I have rewritten my story more times than I can count. Sunk my teeth, my time, my money into something only to learn it’s not for me. They say life favours the bold and I believe that to be true. In a world full of critics and so many people afraid to take the leap and own their gifts, you have to be bold, you have to believe if you want to make waves. And at the same time if there is one thing this life has made me so certain of it’s that we can never know in absolutes. We can know in our bones and feel it fully in our hearts and we can believe something so strongly, but always, always hold space for the possibility of being wrong. Believe with everything you’ve got and at the same time bow down to the mystery that we are living in. We are all fumbling around, feet in the dirt, digging deeper and deeper to find what’s true. And maybe there’s no single truth to be found. Just life. A million different truths all living in the same soil.

Matt just got home from walking Nya out to secret secret beach and brings me a glass of red wine in the hammock. As I sway beneath the ripening plums and cherries I’m finishing my charts from the day, so many new clients and work that is filling me with devotion and curiosity. It always amazes me how simple and also how complex it all is. The poppies I planted are finally starting to bloom amidst the war of couch grass that is determined to take over and maybe that’s how it all plays out. In life and in dirt. No matter how much time we spend trying to tame the wild and weird and sometimes unwanted parts of ourselves there will always be roots deep enough to resurface again and again. Befriend them but not in sacrifice of blooming. Make space in your heart to hold what’s beautiful right now even if you’re still waiting for other things to grow. There’s room for it all. To both be and to still become.

To a month that stretched me thin but also filled me up. ❤️

Reflecting back on this magical week on retreat in Greece .yoga and feeling in awe of humans and what is possible.

In meditation one morning I shared this quote from Maya Angelou: “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.”

It is places and people like this that make me feel like it is possible to create a world we have not yet seen before, or maybe one we have simply long forgotten.

Despite coming from different countries and backgrounds and walks of life, underneath it all we are all searching for the same simple things.

Connection
Beauty
Meaning
Love

The chance to feel truly seen and understood.

The chance to know that everything we find beautiful in this world is a reflection of what is beautiful within us.

May all beings everywhere know peace and liberation and may my own thoughts, words and actions contribute to that freedom and beauty for all.

Thank you to my co-facilitator and to all the beautiful humans who made the week what it was ❤️

For far too long, women have been living within systems that are not built for our bodies. Systems that disrespect our cyclical nature, dismiss our pain, and teach us to mistrust the intelligence of our own bodies. It’s no wonder so many women have learned to override, push through and disconnect. But the body will keep finding ways to communicate. Integrative Womb Care is about remembering how to speak this language of the body once again.

It is a practice of listening beneath the surface, of tending to the layers beneath the layers, and of gently restoring flow, ease, and vitality to the places that have been holding too much for too long.

We are in an epidemic of female reproductive health disorders, and our current systems are failing women.

Women make up 80 to 85 percent of those living with autoimmune disease, a body that has lost the ability to distinguish self from threat. PCOS and endometriosis each affect around 10 percent of women worldwide, though the true numbers are likely far higher, with diagnosis often taking 7 to 10 years. Infertility now impacts roughly 1 in 6 couples in Canada.

And these conditions are not simply an inherent part of being female. They are not something our bodies are designed to endure. They are signals, responses, ways the body is trying to communicate. They are signs of a body doing its best to survive within conditions that are not truly supporting it.

Integrative Womb Care is a weaving together of over a decade of study in somatics, womb hats massage, women’s health, the female nervous system, TCM, sound therapy, and feminine wisdom practices. This sacred ceremony blends hands on bodywork with a range of modalities designed to support the fullness of your female body, muscular, emotional, energetic, and ancestral.

In person sessions offered in West Kootenays, BC. Follow link in bio to book 🌀

Homecoming things. Feeling myself slowly softening, ripening, like the ground beneath my barefeet each morning as I stand to greet the sun. Finding comfort in all the corners of this home. These walls, these forests, these bones, they hold stories that are sung with the morning birds. Again and again she sings and she shows me. Everything dying is paving the way for new life to emerge. The afternoon light spills in through dirty windows that still hold memory of yesterday’s snow. But there is space here for all of it. Space to be shedding and growing all at once. That’s the beauty of a home. It holds you right where you are not where you think you need to be.