Matriarchal Rituals at the Site of Rebirth: An Interview with Sankofa Ra
Hello BWB fam,
Today's contribution to the Matriarchy Project is an interview with womb priestess Sankofa Ra. Sankofa Ra is a born and raised New Yorker whose introduction to African spirituality and midwifery came early, through the rituals and self-care practices of her maternal great-grandmother Emma Mae Wright and her maternal grandmother, Marie Robinson. In this conversation, Sankofa Ra details the journeys of these two deeply spiritual women as they migrated from the rural South of Savannah Georgia to urban New York, bringing with them old ways of knowing and being that would over time play a significant role in guiding Sankofa Ra towards her calling. It should be noted that observing these older African traditions against the backdrop of Christian cultural dominance in the U.S. was not a simple feat - it was an act that came with risks, risks that for many African ancestral women were too great to withstand. Yet within Sankofa Ra's family, these beliefs stubbornly persisted. And even despite the dual constraints of the demands of wage labor and dearth of midwifery practitioners in the North, traditional birthing protocols continued to find expression in Sankofa Ra's family, eventually becoming the base on which she cultivated her vast knowledge of the body, the spirit, nature, and the revelation that is giving birth, in both in a physical and spiritual sense. I am immensely grateful to have gained the opportunity to speak with Sankofa Ra about her family and lineage, and am thrilled that I am now able to share her experiences and wisdom with the BWB family.
-Courtney Hunter, Associate Editor for Mamablack
Courtney Hunter:
Let me just say it’s so nice to finally speak to you face to face via Zoom. You told me a little about yourself already in our email exchanges, but for the readers, can you provide a little background on who you are and what you do?
Sankofa Ra:
We all as beings have a purpose, we’re all here for a reason, and my reason for being here on this earthly plain is to continue building upon and restoring the African tradition of midwifery. To go into the term itself, the way I identify with it is as a calling – so it’s not something that you could go to school for, it’s who you are and where you come from. Its part of my calling to continue this rich legacy that has been fragmented through the transatlantic slave trade, through slavery, through Jim Crow, colonization, and more. And there’s so much more to it than just catching babies – even though that’s a wonderful service to provide. But as African midwives we provide the connection to nature, herbs, and the whole cycle of life. We prepare your body for fertility, for getting ready to give birth, and I’m not gonna get too deep into it but the reason we’re dealing with these high infant and maternal mortality rates is because we’ve become so disconnected from the richness of our culture that sustained us through slavery and after slavery. In a very short span of time we became disconnected from our rituals of self-care, our alignments with our ancestors, and the vast rich medicine cabinet that we have out in nature. Because unfortunately, many of us no longer live on farms, we don’t grow our own food, we don’t even know if what we’re eating is real food or not. So the stress of being disconnected from the land and our culture causes all kinds of unseen anxieties spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and socially. We have to reclaim what is ours.
"You see these statistics today about the growing maternal mortality rate in this country, but that only became an issue once white male doctors started interfering and getting involved in birthing."
C:
I’m glad you said that because I do feel that the reason Black women tend to request Black midwives, beyond wanting to feel recognized and feel heard, is because we are cognizant of a spiritual shift that occurs in pregnancy that we need other Black women to help mediate.
S:
Yes and I also just want to add some historical context – a lot of us are not familiar with the Sheppard Towner Act of 1921 in the United States. That was a very important act because It solidified the shift from birthing as a female responsibility to it being its own medical field dominated by white men. And so they put this act into motion to remove the Black and also European midwives. And with this campaign they promoted the idea that midwives were dirty, unhygienic, uneducated and all these other things. This was also an extension of the industrial revolution, and a mentality dictating that everything had to be sterile and operating like an assembly line. So you can see from looking at that and looking at how we’re treated in the medical field, especially in hospitals, how this mentality has manifested in the present day. But in the early 1920s there were over 43,000 Black midwives, that were documented and that we knew existed. So think about that – if you think about the over 43,000 traditional Black midwives that existed before they even started bringing aboard white nurses to tell these Black women who have been birthing them and their mothers and their mothers’ mothers, that they had to learn how to be clean, and how to operate with these standards that they formed – if that hadn’t occurred and the traditions were able to be passed on, that means that everybody today would know at least one or two people in their neighborhoods, who birthed you, or your uncle, or your father, or your mother. You see these statistics today about the growing maternal mortality rate in this country, but that only became an issue once white male doctors started interfering and getting involved in birthing. There’s actually a great book called “In the Way of Our Grandmothers” by Debra Susie – she goes into great detail about how step by step they got involved and removed traditional midwifery, completely disrespecting and annihilating the Black midwives, who were key to the survival of not just Black people but of white people too. We were helping to birth their babies as well, take care of them, and help them recover, so we were basically on the front lines of survival for everyone.
C:
We just raise everyone’s children.
S:
Yes, we’re the mother of everyone – literally since everyone comes from Black women. Nobody would be here if it were not for the womb of a Black woman.
C:
You possess so much knowledge on the history of your calling, but how were you first introduced to midwifery, and to African spiritualism? Did you seek it out on your own or did someone lead you to it?
S:
It’s interesting because my grandmother and my great-grandmother – they were both very spiritual. Even though they read the bible everyday they never went to church. They never went to Sunday service. And it took me a while to really understand and make the connections with what was happening. So for example my great-grandmother – and this is very common – she had a certain way she would do things, like she wouldn’t cross a tree a certain way. Like if you greet the tree the wrong way she would actually make you go back around and do it the proper way because there were just certain ways that you were supposed to approach it. You couldn’t cut the tree, you couldn’t sweep your feet with a broom – if you swept your feet with the broom you had to spit on the broom because to sweep your feet with it was to take away someone’s Asé, someone’s positive energy. And I would go through these things and find out that these were “superstitions” so to speak, that are here in the United States, but that also exist in certain parts of the Caribbean and in Africa. My husband, he’s from Ghana, and he’s said that they do the same thing with the broom, and have the same beliefs about how you approach certain things in nature. My great-grandmother and grandmother would do other things like go and visit these Yoruba priests, or go into these botanicas and get candles – my grandmother was always burning candles – she had candles for different purposes. I remember getting what we called the money tree and how that is used in the Ifa religion to remove bad energy and keep in good energy.
"Both my grandma and great-grandma had these spiritual connections that went beyond what people expected of African Americans during the time. They kept alive these older traditions of spirituality."
C:
So they carried over and passed on all these beliefs from Africa?
S:
Yes they carried it over. But it’s interesting because it wasn’t something they talked about it was just something they did. They didn’t say “I’m doing this because…” You were just exposed to it, they didn’t explain anything to you. Even with numbers. We all know about running numbers and back then you would go to the number man or the number man would come to your house. You would place a bet on numbers. They were also very adamant about dreams – I remember any time anything happened with dreams, my great- grandmother would get on the phone, and talk to others about her dreams. I remember she used to go down the street, go to the store, and in the store there was a room in back where they would have all these dream books. And for people that are old enough they’ll remember the big red book. It still exists, and you can buy it online now, and basically it had all these number combinations and explanations of what they meant. Running numbers back then was where a lot of Black people made money, illegally, but that was one of the only ways we could make money. But it was also our connections with our ancestors that were being preserved. My great Aunt too, she’s like 90 now and she always plays numbers, to this day - it was like a ritual for her. Any number that came up in their dreams, its like they had to act on it, they had to find out what it meant. So those were some of the introductions I had to African spirituality.
C:
So you’re grandmother and great-grandmother were really the ones who introduced you to everything.
S:
Yes, my grandmother was truly my spiritual guide. I was raised by her and my great- grandmother in the same place. My grandmother, she was a Virgo, and she was very organize - you could set a timer by her. I grew up with her teaching me yoga. She would always look up these programs with these yogis, and she would follow them while they did their poses. And we’re talking about back in the early 80s, about a Black woman born in the 1930s when the Great Depression began. She was into Yoga, she was into vitamins – she had this beauty ritual where she would use Pond’s cream to clean her skin and she had this thing about going to the beauty salon, getting a manicure. She was an avid reader and had books on Elijah Muhammad, tantric sex, mysticism - any subject matter you could think of, she had a book about it. She's what made me the bookworm I am. This vast collection that she had, along with her rituals of yoga, vitamins, and beauty regimens, really taught me the freedom of mind, body, and spirit.
Both my grandma and great grandma had these spiritual connections that went beyond what people expected of African Americans during the time. They kept alive these older traditions of spirituality. And I’m not quite sure when it started. I’m assuming it started once it came to New York because I really don’t know what was going on when they were in the South – they were born in Savannah Georgia. They were born in a rural area and they were all farmers. They had midwives in the South, who helped birthed them – and when that cycle broke is probably when they migrated to the North, which is pretty much the story of most Black people during the migration from North to South – them having to suddenly go to hospitals because they no longer had the community midwife there to birth their babies, and having to adjust to this whole new dynamic of being in an urban society as opposed to the country way of life. But yes they were my introduction to African spirituality. And they always gave me a choice, they never forced anything on me – even when I started going to church, my grandmother just asked when I was around 5 or so, if I wanted to go with my godmother’s mother every Sunday. And I loved it because I could ask questions – I’m an avid questions - asker, I’m always asking questions about anything and everything, and I got the opportunity to do that in the church through Sunday school.
"Traditionally there was always someone there to take care of the new mother, take care of the household – the only concern the mother should have is resting, bonding with their baby, and breastfeeding, that’s it. These traditions aren’t too far off – we’re talking only about a couple generations, but it seems like it was a long time ago that people practiced them because they haven’t been maintained."
C:
You mentioned your godmother’s mother also playing a role in your spiritual upbringing just now – was everyone in your extended family involved, to a certain extent, in exposing you to different expressions of spirituality?
S:
I was fortunate in that my great-grandmother introduced me to and maintained connections with all of her siblings. She was one of eleven children – and that was typical back then for a woman to have eleven, ten, however many children. Because back then you lived on the farm so on the farm the more hands you have the more you’re at an advantage. But living an urban lifestyle where you have to go into a job to support yourself – it changed the dynamic, especially when your confined to an apartment.
C:
In that transition from the rural South to the urban North, how did the women in your life maintain a sense of community? What were the practices or strategies they used to make sure everyone stayed connected, and to make sure there was a social safety net in place?
S:
Well my great-grandmother – she was the glue, she was the connector. She was really the matriarch who maintained these connections. My grandmother was more introverted. Even though she could be very boisterous and she had no problem expressing herself, she was very much – you could say shy. She really kept to herself. And it took me a long time to understand that although she was deeply spiritual and had a whole other way of being and knowing, the majority of us as African Americans typically box ourselves in, in terms of who we are and especially with our spirituality coming out of slavery. So a lot of us associate ourselves with the church and Christianity, but with her and with others who felt something very different and who were experiencing different spiritual phenomena, being in the North allowed them the freedom to fully explore their spirituality, in a way that they would not have been able to do in the South.
But my great-grandmother was the people person. She was like big mama – she was always making sure people were being taken care of, not just in the family but in the whole building that we lived in. In that building the majority of our neighbors were from the South, so there was that continuation of community because they all talked to one another and looked out for each other. So if I wanted to go to Ms. Ida May’s - and almost everyone had “May” as their middle name for whatever reason I don’t know why – who lived on the first floor, I could easily go knock on her door or just come in. Some of us had those communities where you didn’t lock your door and if you’re in a community where you feel safe and loved, you know, you can just easily walk in the door and chat. There would be dishes being made, and everybody would be talking and conversing. My great- grandmother was an amazing cook, and she wasn’t looking at a recipe because everything was in her head. They didn’t follow no recipes. And she would make everything from scatch so there was no such thing as having left-overs for extended periods of time because everything was made fresh. And even though we may have had to get food stamps and other assistance I never felt poor. So my great-grandmother Emma May Wright was making sure everyone was nourished, and she would make sure to check up on people – she really was that caretaker for the extended family in the building, and she was the reason I got to meet and have connections with everyone in my extended family, who are pretty much everywhere – I have cousins just about everywhere you could think of. And through that I got to see how diverse and how gifted we were throughout the family.
They also had certain ways of taking care of one another when they gave birth. I don’t know how familiar you are with the 6-week postpartum tradition that is done not just in African culture but around the world. If you look around you’ll see that there’s a consistent postpartum recovery protocol when it comes to giving birth in much of the eastern world too. Basically you would either go to somebody who knew what to do and would take care of you for the full six weeks, or that person would come to you. In my family my grandmother went to her sister, and her sister took care of her for the six weeks and made sure that all her needs were taken care of. And that was real serious for Black midwives before the medical intervention with the Sheppard Towner Act and the health department. They would make sure that once you give birth you didn’t go outside the house. You didn’t just get up and start walking around. If you think about it, our uteri are the size of a pear, and its this amazing organ that’s expanding twenty times in size to nourish the growth of another human being. Your whole body transforms and makes this space for another human being that’s about to come into the world. So once you give birth you have this huge open space because your womb has expanded tremendously, and you’re releasing blood and all these body fluids, and you’re now completely open to the elements. It’s a major event so you need to have the belly binding, and different cultures have different techniques – but you’re basically trying to tie the womb down and get it to slowly grow smaller and smaller. The belly tying also helps to realign all your organs and your torso. You’re body also has to maintain it’s heat – so that means only warm foods because anything cold disturbs the temperature in your body, and anything that requires healing requires heat. Traditionally there was always someone there to take care of the new mother, take care of the household – the only concern the mother should have is resting, bonding with their baby, and breastfeeding, that’s it. These traditions aren’t too far off – we’re only talking about a couple generations, but it seems like it was a long time ago that people practiced them because they haven’t been maintained.
C:
A lot of Black families today may not know about these traditions at all. And when you’re in a typical medical establishment, doctors may tell you to take time off, but they really don’t explain everything that has happened to your body and what it is healing from.
S:
Yeah that’s not what they come from. They’re coming from a different state of mind. They’re coming from the tradition of J Marion Sims. He was the key figure who started the medical experiments that birthed what we now know as the OBGYN field as it exists today. There’s a great book called “Medical Apartheid” by Harriet Washington – phenomenal book. She goes into detail about how we were just seen as cattle – how they would take any Black woman, lay her out on the table, spread her legs open, and maybe he wanted to use anesthesia, but out of just cruel inhumanity, he wanted to see how we would react if we didn’t have any. So imagine being laid out on a table, wide open, your whole body’s exposed –
C:
And you feel everything.
S:
You feel everything. And this man is just cutting you and just examining your whole reproductive system, looking at you like this is just a regular dissection experiment. And that’s what he did to so many of our female ancestors.
"Everything was like a ritual for her, like a ritual of self-care. Everything from taking care of her skin, putting her wig on, putting her stockings on, it was like she was preparing for her audience. It was really like she was going out to do a performance."
C:
I want to pivot now to something you said earlier. You talked about the women in your life taking care of not just their own family but also the whole building. But given they were living in the North at this time, they still had to go out to work in order to support themselves. How did they balance their responsibilities towards their community as well as to themselves, with the demand on their labor from their employers?
S:
By the time I came in on the scene, my great-grandmother was in her early seventies and I was blessed to see her work for an upper class Black family. They lived in New Rochelle, in that section that’s called Waykagyl, and they lived in that same area where Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee lived. It was a hotspot for well-known actors because it was the closest suburb outside of NYC. They were so sweet and they were very caring, so for me I wasn’t exposed to her working with white people and dealing with whatever that dynamic was. Plus she didn’t have that far to go since we also lived in New Rochelle and it was an easy commute for her. As for my grandmother she commuted to the city five days a week. But if you were to see her you would never know that this woman was going into these office buildings to clean. She didn’t have anyone looking over shoulder or have to face a white person constantly in her face looking at what she was doing. It was actually kind of freeing because she was doing this work with no one hovering over her and she didn’t really have to deal with too many people. I can see why she did it for like twenty years because when she moved up here from the South she did have to go into white people’s houses, clean their houses and do all these different things. But eventually she got into a unionized job as a maintenance worker and started working in the offices. And she always brought something back. At her work they would have these meetings and conferences and have this huge assortment of food that they didn’t eat, and she would bring all this stuff back home. She’d bring planners and organizers too and that really contributed to me having a business mindset. Really she was recycling long before that was even a major concept. She had me recycling every Saturday. This was when New York State was setting up these machines where if you give them your bottles and cans you’d get back 5 cents. So my grandma, being a Virgo, saw a way to get some extra money, started bring back all these bottles and cans. That was an easy extra $40 a week. She was really smart, especially when you think about the fact that we were surviving with a very small amount of money. When I think about all the lessons they taught me, it’s just amazing.
C:
Just now you were also talking about the women in your life being very stylish. It interests me because I’m just very into the evolution of Black fashion and Black beauty over time. In a previous email you sent to me you used the phrase “dressing for the world stage” to describe the women in your life, so I was wondering if you tell me in your own words, what it meant for them to “dress for the world stage.”
S:
So I was listening to the 1619 podcast series last night, and I realized that the era that they came up out of, they didn’t have any respect. They were always seen as dirty – even if you were blessed to get a college degree, you still were just reduced down to another N word. Or you might have been fortunate enough to, if you were light enough, get a job in certain places doing certain things that were considered more respectable. But with most of them coming from the South, they were seen and treated with high levels of disrespect. So for them the only thing that they could control was the way they looked, and their home. Home and appearance became major priorities for them. Because as much as they were talked about and disrespected on a public level, that was their way of reacting to a colonized society that was and is always terrorizing us. In the household we lived in, everything was always in perfect order. Dishes were clean, bedrooms clean, bathroom clean – the way we washed our clothes there were no spots – we had a very thorough protocol for cleanliness.
As far as the fashion went, my grandmother was the stylish one. She was very much about taking care of her skin and hair. She didn’t wear her hair out but she was very much into wigs. For her even if you were just going outside to take out the garbage, she would say make sure you look correct. Everything was like a ritual for her, like a ritual of self-care. Everything from taking care of her skin, putting her wig on, putting her stockings on, it was like she was preparing for her audience. It was really like she was going out to do a performance. She also loved the color red, and everything that she wore was pretty much red. I think that was also her way of just having fun expressing herself. It was her art, and it was also her way of rebelling against whatever that main concept of what a Black woman should look like.
"Just because something is 'healthy' doesn’t mean that you don’t need to know your body. For me, I know what I’m allergic to, but it took me a long time to figure it out, and ultimately I had to go back to the lessons of my great-grandmother who was very much about preparing food from scratch."
C:
For your great grandma, who was not as much into the fashion, what were her rituals of self – care? And finally, what are your rituals of self – care?
S:
My great grandma maintained that farm life culture where you rise up with the crowing of the rooster. So she would always wake up early before the sun rose, which is something I continue today. She would make banging grits and could throw down with some amazing corn bread. Food was a big thing – everything was made from scratch, and she was always going to the market to get the collard greens, string beans, anything she would need. She would put the food in her lap and start cleaning and preparing everything. She had this ongoing ritual of getting the food, preparing it, cooking it, and making plates for the neighbors. My great grandma was more laid-back and she was all about food and taking care of people. And also going to the numbers place, either everyday or every other day – that was another ritual for her.
For myself, I make sure when I wake up in the morning, to take a shower, because I have an ancestor altar. For me it’s like – you don’t go to your people funky, so I make sure I take a shower, I brush my teeth, and then I go to them and talk to them everyday so I can maintain my relationship with them. I pray to them, I tell them what’s on my mind and what I’m going through. I also have a tall glass of very warm water with apple cider vinegar, and that was something I probably learned from both my great-grandmother and my grandmother. Apple cider vinegar helps to clean the blood and alkalize your body. So before I do anything I always have a tall glass of warm water to drink and flush out my system. After that I’ll have a smoothie, and in there I put my vitamix, acai berries, blueberries, raspberries, a banana, Irish moss, concentrated powdered super greens, one quarter of a teaspoon of bladderwrack, and sometimes I’ll put some steel cut oatmeal in there as well – and that’s my multivitamin intake for the day. It’s live, it’s rich, it’s full of so many nutrients and you can see a major change in how you feel – it’s like your plugged into this circuit of energy. I also try to prepare my food at home as much as possible. Energy is such a major thing for me, and you just don’t know what you’re getting until you eat it. And I find that even in the health food stores they put in a lot of things that don’t need to be there like soy or wheat. Just because something is “healthy” doesn’t mean that you don’t need to know your body. For me, I know what I’m allergic to, but it took me a long time to figure it out, and ultimately I had to go back to the lessons of my great-grandmother who was very much about preparing food from scratch. I had to go back to doing that, so I could figure out what to put in my food and what would or would not work for me.
C:
I’d like to talk now about the current crisis, COVID-19, and if the responses to it, specifically the social distancing mandate, have affected your practice at all?
S:
Actually, even though it’s putting a big pause on things that I had planned for the past six months, this crisis was actually like a blessing to me, because it got me to start doing Instagram videos where I can show people how to heal themselves with herbs. For me it’s more so about helping women and men to birth themselves in their purpose. It first starts with knowing who you are and why you’re here. Once you know that, then everything that you do is purposeful, and you are intentionally bringing into the world purposeful children who will be able to, generation by generation, reverse the disfunctionality that we have suffered from as a people that is the result of slavery and being exposed to white supremacy. So now I’m really focusing on the spiritual birthing of people and getting back to reclaiming our culture because that’s really the root of the trauma that we deal with on an every day level. In my videos I talk about different herbs - mugwort for example is an herb you can steam. One of the sisters I spoke to has a mother that was dealing with very uncomfortable respiratory issues for like two years and it was progressively becoming worse. She sent mugwort to her mother and her mother streamed it and basically started ingesting it through the air – she was using it in a diffuser. And she said that within days she noticed some major improvements in her breathing, and that was just from using the mugwort. I didn’t even know mugwort could act like that, and it’s amazing how many uses people are finding for herbs - you’re always discovering something new. Mugwort is also heavily used in what we call vaginal steaming – I call it sacral steaming because you’re streaming the sacral seed of your body. It’s also called the dream herb because it helps you have more vivid and restful dreams. I also wanna give a shoutout to steamychick.com and Keli Garza, who is doing some profound work when it comes to reclaiming the ancestral healing modality of steaming. So if you want to learn more about how to utilize this healing modality, I would say check SteamyChick out.
"Black women have been in power a very long time, but we’re dealing with a dynamic of being prisoners in a white supremacist, patriarchal society, so of course it’s going to be hard to comprehend a Black female matriarch - that is the polar opposite of what this society is. This is a society that is ruled with the mindset of a white male."
C:
So you’ve been educating people, and as you said before which I really liked, helped people birth themselves into the world.
S:
Yes, and I also utilize the numerology system passed down to me from my great- grandmother and grandmother. Our ancestors and the spirits who walk with us communicate to us by giving us numbers and these numbers have a very specific meaning. It becomes an ongoing deciphering code. Once you understand the power of numbers, you can really learn about why you’re here, just through your own numerology blueprint, and get clarity about who you are outside of all of the trauma and repression. To truly have a real revolution is to stand your ground and know who you are – to not apologize for yourself but to have faith in a knowing that reaches well beyond slavery. I see the corona virus as a blessing because it forces us to change business as usual, really reassess how we’re living our lives, and question ourselves about what we’ve been avoiding or not giving the proper attention to. Are the things that you’re doing truly elevating yourself, your children, your family, and your community? One thing that I’m doing now to elevate our traditions is I’m planning on starting a culture reclamation podcast, because of my focus in the restoration, collection, and continuation of the healing and birthing system of traditional African midwifery. I want to look deeply into this system of wellness and care that the midwife had established way before slavery and restore that system and those gems that really held us together as a people.
C:
So I have one last question for you, and that question is, what do you think makes the Black matriarch such a feared figure?
S:
Well, once again that goes back to the dominant white male discourse and Western mindset because a lot of us have forgotten or lost the stories of who we are, not just as African people but also as a human race. Factually, the human race has been a matriarchy much longer than a patriarchy. Many civilizations for long periods of time have been ruled by women. Matriarchy is more of a tradition in African culture than patriarchy as well. Patriarchy is actually a result of us having these ongoing battles with Europeans and other groups coming into the continent and forcing us to defend our way of life. Black women have been in power a very long time, but we’re dealing with a dynamic of being prisoners in a white supremacist, patriarchal society, so of course it’s going to be hard to comprehend a Black female matriarch - that is the polar opposite of what this society is. This is a society that is ruled with the mindset of a white male. And everything that you see today as far as the hysteria and disorder is coming from the way white men see themselves in relation to their women, in relation to themselves, and in relation to nature. So there’s this huge disconnect. The concept of the Black female matriarch seems strange because we’re operating on the opposite end of the spectrum of that knowing, being, and doing. But I’m sure if you get into some real conversations with different ethnic groups, they know who we are. They know who the original people are and they are very aware of that. The problem is that we’re just constantly looking for validation from groups outside of ourselves. So we have to stop looking for validation from anyone. The only people that can validate us is us.
If you are interested in learning more about midwifery, herbs, body and spiritual health, or about the womb priestess herself, feel free to visit Sankofa Ra's instagram page at: