Tish’s journey into motherhood has been one of deep reclamation—of ancient wisdom, intuitive knowing, and the power of birth. From her own transformative experience to walking alongside others through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, she’s devoted to honouring the sacred cycles of life and supporting women in their own rites of passage.
Virgo Sun. Aries Rising. Aquarius Moon.
Being a Virgo sun, I often catch my perfection tendencies at play. It’s quite fun to practice letting go of perfection, and noticing that often everything works out perfectly anyway. Motherhood certainly helps with that! My North Node is inSagittarius. I feel my thirties in particular are a quest towards my North Node. I guess my whole life has been actually haha! But I have taken leaps, embracing the bigger picture and trusting my intuition more than ever before.
Ongoingness Note:
This is a very basic overview, but in Astrology, your sun represents your core essence, conscious identity, purpose, and what energises you. Your moon represents your emotional, inner world and how you seek comfort. Your rising/ascendant is your outward identity, how you meet the world. Your North Node is your soul’s evolutionary path and purpose— the qualities and life themes you are meant to embrace in this lifetime, often requiring you to step outside your comfort zone and move beyond past-life habits (represented by the South Node).
Well I guess it started when I was born. I was a homebirth, in my parents house across the road from Papamoa Beach. My mum walked the sand dunes through the waves, and eventually I was born at 8PM on a Thursday.
My whole life I’ve been curious about birth. Mum was an antenatal course educator. I spent time as a child folding her pamphlets and hoping I could come along to the next gathering of mothers and babies from each course.
Fast forward to falling pregnant in 2022, I of course had my heart set on a homebirth. What I discovered along the way, was that to have a ‘homebirth’ I needed a midwife to attend – now that was quite challenging as there were not many midwives around.
Interestingly*, around 30 weeks pregnant, just as I really started to explore freebirth, a midwife popped into my realms. So my homebirth plans could proceed without needing to step outside the system. My midwife arrived about 40 mins before Bodhi was born (by my design). I had a magical psychedelic experience. I had ceremony. Cacao. Put my feet in the ocean. And caught Bodhi myself.
*I say interestingly, as so much of life, it seems having a midwife was an important part of my journey for my first birth—an experience I needed to gain to really to really step into my power for any future births, as I realised that I didn’t need her. And she even validated this by telling me I didn’t need her. Love that and her.
And then, postpartum emerged.
It was hard. I felt alone. So much newness. I had support. But I was craving something more. I was craving wise women's wisdom. To truly be seen and witnessed. Someone who knew about herbs, healing foods, womb care, yoni care—not care that comes in a pharmaceutical bottle or from giving away my inner knowing.
I already had been wanting a career shift from marketing in the wellness world. Becoming a doula had been on my radar prior to conception. And my experience in postpartum was the catalyst for beginning my studies. I realised at that point, that while I had an amazing birth, there was more to this rite of passage to fully land in myself as a mother.
I was rediscovering myself in so many ways. I also experienced a concerning health alarm about 6 months postpartum and so my connection to my body heightened and I feel like I literally started shedding an old paradigm.
I stepped into my authentic self as a mama, as a woman. I held space to witness myself. I embraced my connection to nature, how I am in this world, and when I got my cycle back, we made it the centerpiece of our home—we have a huge blackboard in the kitchen with my moon/bleed calendar—and I can tell you, it has been such a process of undoing and coming home. It is an ongoing journey. And one I remember to have fun with. But the woman I am today, is one who has reclaimed her power, reclaimed ancient knowledge about wise women's ways and is still learning.
I believe in birth and that the frequency of birth and our entry into motherhood shapes the frequency of life. I believe that if we can heal birth, then we heal earth. And right now, I am in the process of calling in my next soul, and having fun with consciously creating.
I’m loving the flow with my little Bodhi boy in tow, and also enjoying the expansion of my creative energy. I’m in constant awe, marveling in manifestation and how the power to create comes from within, and trickles into every aspect of life.
It is an ongoing journey. And one I remember to have fun with. But the woman I am today, is a woman who has landed in the mothering season, who has reclaimed a lot of her power, reclaiming ancient knowledge about wise women's ways, reclaiming my voice and is still learning.
Strong, wild, passionate and free.
Oh I have many! But my favourite at the moment is a ceremony around my bleed. I don’t do anything in any particular order and each cycle it’s a little bit different but these are some things that usually happen:
Another practice that has been powerful for me over the last year has been activating my voice/playing with sound—singing, tuning, drumming.
In the realms of birth, comes the realm of death. I’ve been feeling into how I feel about death, on perhaps a deeper level than I ever had before. Being in the humanness and the spiritualness. The grief. The love. All of it. Just journeying with this more and more.
We choose the birth we experience. Wisdom from Yolande Norris-Clarke. It’s a confronting statement. The way I’ve been sitting with this, is that perhaps we aren’t consciously choosing in the moment. But perhaps the choices we make each step of the way, the energy field we are in, the collective choices around birth, the beliefs we have — it’s all so deeply rooted and influences our choices through the subconscious. It’s kind of a freeing thought to sit with it all as a choice. It opens up possibilities for how good could it be. Makes me excited to dance with this in my next birth. For anyone feeling confronted by reading this, I’d recommend reading Yolande’s book, she so eloquently speaks to this in a way that really honours all feelings around birth, all previous birth experiences and really emphasises that no birth experience was wrong.
Recently, Jenna Shaw, my friend, doula and colleague. I’ve loved dropping into women’s ways and ritual with her, learning from her and collaborating together. I feel blessed to have such a connected woman in my life.
I am based in Waihī, so a lot of my in-person offerings are based here. But some are Online, for anyone keen to connect on the realms of conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum or mothering you can find me and my offerings at my website.
I am running a Mother Medicine Day Retreat, 3 May 2025 in the Karangahake Gorge, is only 1.5 hours from Auckland.
Portal by Yolande Norris-Clarke
If you’re open to exploring all the possibilities of your power and magic in the birth space, it’s a must read.
Te Awa Atua by Ngahuia Murphey
Fascinating to read and reflect on how we have all been colonised. So beautiful to read and connect with my own reverence and honour of my sacred portal and blood.
The Road to Wisdom – Keshia and Chloe
They cover so many good topics across the realms of fertility, birth, postpartum, parenting, relationships, medicine, sex and more.
Freebirth Society – Emilee Saldaya
If you want to hear real stories of undisturbed physiological birth of women in their power all around the world.
Any podcast with Maryn Azoff
She’s a badass woman who helps people with vocal transformation – even if the interviewer is annoying to listen to, she is just so grounded and speaks from her body, and it makes so much sense!
