Albus Dumbledore has a bunch going on until, well, you know. But, before that, he used a neato thing called a pensieve.

Me and Albus, we tight, and we the same in that we have a bunch going on in the noodle at all times. ALL times. All TIMES. Feeling me on this one? And with all the crap that rolls around in my head, I can say what has helped me keep this head together is my journal.

I started when I was 15 years old, and a photographer that came and spoke to my El Paso High School English class said she always carried two things in her bag besides the normal pursy type stuff. Camera, and Journal. Duly noted. So, since I’ve been 15, I’ve been writing, glueing, markering and documenting whats in my head. Almost daily some years, only in times of complete fucking crisis in others. I’d say today it’s almost every other day. And today my perfect journal looks like this on the outside.

The quote says “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.” -anon Any other somewhat daily writers out there? How often are ya writing? tell me whats up in the comments. XO, Rowan

Shadowlands   Intense times, that’s what’s been going on over here.   I’ve been navigating the darker parts of my soul, looking for gold in the dark roots of my soul that I’m not always friends with. Feeling scared, anxious, upset, and moody as a mofo.   And I wanna say right here how much I thank my partner, my seeester, my family and the friends who love me like they are family. Cause we are. Thank you for your support during this intense time.

I don’t know if it’s a response to the changing times (2012!!) or if I just decided to really excavate my dark corners, looking for healing and ways to support others on the journey,  but challenge is what I have.   And I grace and compassion hasn’t always been by my side while I walk this path. Last Wednesday was a total fail in this regard.   The areas I’m working on most strongly are financial literacy and health (agh, money shame and releasing myself from the crappy belief that healers aren’t prosperous, um hello, not true.) Another area of focus is always coming at an issue with an open heart and no hidden agenda. (Thank you to marriage for helping me look at this with an unblinking eye.)   My friend Merilee (artist , future Punk Rock Hoop Instructor and famous person) says that she asks herself in times of conflict that if she was coming from a place of peace and love, what would her response be?

  Thats so good let’s hear that again; Merilee says that she asks herself in times of conflict that if she was coming from a place of peace and love, what would her response be? This mantra is a compass, guiding back to where ease and open hearts rule. A place I want to be.   And if you wanted to take it up a notch, my teacher Danielle used this space to advocate for a peaceful conflict resolution. I aspire.   So leave me a comment, tell me what you are working on, the deep parts of you. Be brave and name them. I got ya. We got ya. All in this together. xo, Rowan

Hey Loves~ I just returned from the Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference, and you know what kept me calm? Hooping and a bindi on my heart.

For me, when I have on a  bindi, (found on Amazon, of course!) on my heart, then I have this beautiful marker on a tender point. It serves as a reminder to listen with my heart, give the benefit of the doubt, and to not take things so personally.   If you need one when you come in, tell me and I’ll get you fixed right up.   Other exciting news is someone I greatly admire has joined up to Team Urban Curandera to help with some of the technical back end.   Hellooooooo Alejandra!

Bindi on heart!   Love for the win, Xo Rowan

18 Tricks & Tips to get Preggers (Besides the obvious! Can’t help you with that.) 25 years of notes from my grandmothers’, senior midwives and my own client successes, at your service to get a bun in your oven. Years, people, years of having an ear out for the quirky stuff, the old wives tales, the “hmmmm, that worked?” for folks struggling with fertility.

Prelude to Fertility, My Grandmothers’ Wisdom – $5

  • Hands Off  ~ Let’s take a look at common sense items like nutrition, and not so common ideas like what kind of knickers to sport to promote fertility.
  • Hands On ~ I’ll teach you places on your body to massage, reflex, and push that promote a healthy, fertile belly.
  • Body Influencing ~ Ways you probably never ever thought of to get your body primed and juicy. (My grandmothers, yowza, they are all about the doozies, the old school tried and true. Things we forget with our more modern medical world.)

You know what I want for you? A better relationship with your body, and lots of ways to promote a healthy, happy belly, including a daily belly mini massage routine! Best case scenario, you get a baby bump. Worst case scenario, you have learned a bunch about your body, your partner, and can be comforted that you’ve tried darn near everything that was crunchy and non medical. I’m voting for the bump.

My FaceBook post a couple of weeks ago.

“y’all, my grandmother died last night. The one who taught me through actions and words so many things, one of the biggest that it is totally possible to earn a living as a local wise woman/alternative health practitioner. If you have felt her love through me, could you give me a thumbs up, a hell yeah or hands in the air? She was awesome like that. Like me. Like You.”

I got a 133 likes, and over 50 comments. Wowzers. I’m thinking about all the things she taught me, either healing specific, “Those thongs, I don’t like them! How are you supposed to be free with that all up in there?” or about life, “Let your husband be the head of the household, so what?! Let him! You be the neck, what is he without the neck? Nothing.” And as I’ve been writing on Labor Whispering, MapBook for mamas, I kept FEELING her here with me, so strong, looking over my shoulder, “say more about that, no take that out” and then just had this over whelming sense of, “How can you teach them to get the baby out, its not even in there yet.” To which I say to the grandmother in my head, “UM, maybe they don’t need a lesbian to tell them how to get pregnant.” Her reply? “YA, well maybe some do.” So what I know is that the only way to guarantee you will get preganant is to be underage in the back seat of a car with someone you haven’t known all that long  in a parking lot after a rock concert. That’s pretty much a done deal. So I shoved the Labor Whispering Mapbook for Mamas onto a back burner, got looped up on allergy meds, went on a writing marathon, and finished the entire first draft of a redo of some notes I had from a past workshop. I shot it over to a friend for editing. 3300 words, 9 pages, Prelude to Fertility, My GrandMothers’ Wisdom. Boom. Next step? Story boarding for the PDF.

And the friend I shot it over to for editing? Yeah, she already shot it back, in less than 24 hours, she’s good like that. Alejandra Ortega, mucho smoocho to ya. So I’ll work it over some more, apply my fancy PDF class knowledge from Jewels Branch Creative, and get it out ASAP. And I think my work is focused on folks who want some natural support for fertility, maybe they are not getting pregnant as fast as they hoped, wanting to try some natural options before heading into the fertility specialists. Perfecto. Here are 15 plus tips that you may not have ever heard of that will help you get that bun in your oven. xo, Rowan * Bless Me, Ultima came out this week on film. I had the great fortune to have Ms. Gwendolyn Green as my high school English teacher in the ’80’s. She had us read the book as an assignment, and then invited Rudolfo Anaya to speak to our English classes. It was awesome, and he said that as he kept writing his book, he HEARD Ultima say from over his shoulder, “You’ll never be successful with this book until you put me in there.” Grandmothers, sheesh, they think they know everything.

Ever give a gift that you were totally  pumped about, and they were soooo not into it?Yeah, thats exactly what happened with these glasses. I was so EXCITED to give them to my honey, and were they well received? No. Not even a little. This doesn’t ever have to be your story. Best gift ever? Prenatal massage with Rowan

Want to be the best friend/in-law/sister ever? Whoa, I gotcha covered! Best Pregnancy Ever- $1600

  • 9 Prenatal Massage sessions
  • 1 Bring It, Baby! massage session (where we get mama’s muscles loose and juicy, energy blockages cleared, and the labor ball rolling)
  • 1 Postpartum Session to help reset mama’s body chemistry, check on her belly and take care of any sore new mommy muscles.

And because I’m pretty sure I’m going to be in love with you and your family at this point I’m going to come to  hospital or home and give an awesome FOOT MASSAGE and clap and cheer. ‘Cause Mama’s Rock.

Have someone in your life that you would super love love love to support, be there for?

But you can’t cause you are:

 far away,

have relationship tension (maybe a new MIL where the relationship is not always perfect, or the mother, or the …..)

deployed,

clueless, and would not be of help anyway.

Considering gifting. Seriously.

Read this over, imagining you are mama. Feel the love? Feel the support?

Best Massage Doula EVER  Package~ $1900

Includes one prenatal visit so we can get to know each other, your partner can meet me, and we review the birth plan, and then:

3 Prenatal Massage sessions

1 Labor Whisperer massage session (where we get your pelvis muscles loose and juicy, energy blockages cleared, and the labor ball rolling) 1 Postpartum Session to help reset your body chemistry, check on your belly and take care of any sore new mommy muscles. 1 in-home awesome postpartum FOOT MASSAGE with clapping and cheering for you cause you did such a great job birthing your baby. Unlimited hours of labor support, and massage massage massage during your labor. Let’s do our best to provide You and Your family the birth you desire. Please review the Doula Contract to learn more.

Ever have a case of the hots so big it ENGULFS you? Body warm and tingly, all amped up and ready to GO GO GO? Perfect, cause that’s a great way to get your hormones going, and thats what this game is all about, right?

Or how about another brother from another mother?

This is the deal, YOUR orgasm gets the sex hormones flowing, and your cervix responding, so lets implement what i call the “Orgasm a Day Plan,” or ODP for short.   With the ODP its not super necessary that you are getting sperm by your cervix, although a little prostaglandins wouldn’t hurt (like sperm or evening primrose.) The real goal here is to have a massively awesome “OHHHHHHHHH,” and then reap the benefits of all that relaxing and cervical softening. So starting around 37 weeks, earlier if you’d like ( and really who wouldn’t?!!) start the OAD plan and lest see if we can get that cervix dilating, soft and ready so that when its GO GO Gadget Labor time, you have way less work to do. Whoot Whoot! xo, Rowan Dig this post? Signup for my newsletter to get more action, lol.

UPDATED! Read all the way to the end, you are not going to believe this sh!t.* Anybody else read “For Whom The Bell Tolls?” I sure didn’t, even when it was assigned in high school. Rumor had it that it was gonna suck, so I opted out. I kinda wonder about that choice now, cause I’m pretty sure that since then I’ve heard that big bell tolling for me. Many Many Times. “Rooowwwwwaaaaaaaaannnnnn, this shit is never gonna work out and its all sorts of fucked upppppppppppppp……” And I’m also pretty sure that I heard that bell tolling when I was HOTand HEAVY and in LOVE with this cutie that found me in the ashes of a crushing dramatic lesbian divorce. This cutie was awesome, stuck up for me, thought I was pretty, and you know, wanted me when I felt like old toenail clippings. Life was perfect. Except it wasn’t. Not even close. We were talking about future plans, and because I’m a chronic social entrepreneur and she was recovering from a motorcycle injury (so butch! so hawt!) I had one of my GREAT FUCKING IDEAS!!! The plan: My new girl loved snow cones, raspas, all the way down to the minute detail of how the ice should be shaved, apparently she had been doing “research” for years, or at least that’s how I saw it. Like there is a freaking CULT of snowcone lovers, who knew?! All I saw was low overhead (sugar, ice, a scooper, food coloring), I knew a dude selling a food truck on the cheap, I figured we could talk someone into letting us rent an empty lot on Westheimer, score a few picnic tables and we would be blazing great guns. Have our friends dress in their drag troupe alter egos, come out and socialize, do a photo booth, hoop, screw off, HAVE FUN!! See the Vision?

I priced it out, 3 grand and Bobbi’s Balls would have been in business. Except she didnt wanna. Nada. Nothing. No. Thats cool I said, its only for the first summer, we will work our assess of but we will be together, we’re so in love! After that first summer we hire someone to manage the books, manage the truck, we will just have fun with folks having fun. See the BIG PICTURE? No dice. Cue the bell. Its starts tolling here. Riiiinnnngggggg. See, she explained to me, she wanted an easy job in middle management, where she worked 9-5, went home, and didn’t much care about it the J O B till she hit the door the next day. I waited for the punch line. And waited. Still waiting. OH MY FREAKING JEEZIE CREEZIE ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? THAT SOUNDS LIKE HELL!!!!!!!!!!! I tried to play it off, “hey, its cool, we can be different.” Lies. If you are like me, an entrepreneur that sees what isn’t there, has some awesome drive, enthusiasm, and isn’t quite sure how to get your bizness out in front of the best customers, I have your answer. Come on over and let me stoke ya at Circumference  See, instead of giving all my info away for free, I’m only talking when  folks are listening. So listen up, cause I’m gonna help you make your bizness dream come true. If you are more of a nine to five gal, hey its cool. Somebody has to be the employee, right? It’s just not ever gonna be me. xo rowan   * Updated: Holy CRAP!!! Guess who just bought a taco truck and is all excited about getting into the food truck business. BOBBI!!! I should be getting a thank you note and free whatever she’s going to sell for life, right? Dude.