Lavonne Natasha Caesar

Jessica Pratt [00:00:01] Hi, everyone, Jessica here from Leiamoon. I’m so excited to share a conversation today with my dearest friend, my spiritual teacher, a true inspiration for this entire Leiamoon project:  La Vonne Natasha Caesar, a.k.a. Jaguar Womban. Lavon is an incredible healer. She’s an artist, author. She’s the founding visionary of the Lighthouse Vibration. She truly is a lighthouse vibration–inspiring the brightest light in all people around her. I first met her at a women’s circle about three years ago now, where I learned about womb (vaginal) steaming for the first time. From her, I learned so much about how to care for my cycle, for myself; how my cycle relate relates to the moon and to the cycles of other women…. She is just such an incredible force and I couldn’t be more excited to share her wisdom with you. So I hope you enjoy this.

Jessica [00:01:02] This is Lavonne Natahsa Caesar, aka Jaguar Womban! What other names do you have?

La Vonne Natasha Caesar [00:01:10] I’m Jaguar Womban, and my birth name is Lavon attached to Caesar. My Sanskrit name is Smriti. For a while everybody called me Smriti.

Jessica [00:01:26] As a child, you grew up in several different areas. One of them was in Mexico, traveling around with your dad, your family. What was that like? Or what’s that part of your life story?

La Vonne [00:01:39] Growing up, well, my dad is a seventh day adventist minister. Seventh day adventism a religion, basically Christianity with a little Judaism. We keep the Sabbath, and I love Sabbath. I’ve been getting back into keeping Sabbath in my own style.

Jessica [00:01:59] I grew up with Sabbath as well in my Jewish household.

La Vonne [00:02:01] Did you grow up with Sabbath?

Jessica [00:02:02] Yes, Friday nights.

La Vonne [00:02:03] Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I love it. And I loved doing that as a family. And it really does keep the family together. And like the lighting and the candles and light welcoming Sabbath and closing Sabbath. Yesterday, I went to Sabbath meal with the whole family and all my cousins are there. And it was like, I love that. Yeah. And then… getting on my own two feet…. You know, then you remember the ways of your childhood. Anyway. What was the question? My family. Growing up, my family. Yeah. We moved a lot. I was born in Canada and then lived in the Caribbean. My parents went to grad school at University of Wisconsin, Madison. We lived there for a second. Then I lived moved to Mexico. I feel like I grew up in Mexico. I left there at around 16 and came to the US. Then in college I lived in France, and then I went and traveled through Europe. Then I was traveling to South America for a while after that…. I’ve always been a nomad and a traveler.

La Vonne [00:03:04] But my my parents are: My mom is from Aruba and my dad’s Guyanese. So the nomadic gypsy part is in my blood, and I definitely don’t like to stay one place for too too long. So that’s the balance of why, spirit was like, “bounce around!” and I was like, “I’m cool with that. I could do that.” Yeah, so I’m a gypsy nomad and it’s in my blood. Yeah.

Jessica [00:03:31] So you studied poetry, is that right?

La Vonne [00:03:33] My masters. I have a master’s degree in poetry. At the time of the the car accident, I was writing my masters. So I finished my coursework and I was writing this masters. And then it got prolonged… And after my head injury, I forgot how to write and how to read. So I had to go on this period of like, re-learning that. And then I reapplied and finished my master’s thesis. But it’s a masters in English with an emphasis in writing poetry. And my friend Ben, who I mentioned, who flew me to Taos….We met at Boulder when I was going to Naropa University, which was a really special time, at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. I love Naropa. Yeah. And it was good to be back there. And that was the final chapter of the healing journey of this recent thing. So I flew into Denver and then we drove all through Boulder, and then we drove to Taos, and that landscape and the mountains and just remembering that period of time… I was so happy and integrated. I loved going to Naropa and I love Boulder. And there is a native myth that they say, like when you see those mountains, they’ll pull you back… Like you’ll have to come back there! Anyway.

Jessica [00:04:51] So you went back.

La Vonne [00:04:52] So I was back. And they really did heal me. And I’m feeling… I’m definitely feeling on the other side of something. Like I still feel fresh on the other side. Like I just crossed the river, like my ankles are wet, but I can tell him on the other side.

Jessica [00:05:07] Do you feel kind of how you felt after your car accident, where where your work has shifted at all? Or do you still feel like you’re on the same mission that you were before, in this most recent healing journey?

La Vonne [00:05:20] No, I feel like the car accident was the awakening of the mission… and then I got the download pretty early on about this nine year arc. This is the close of the nine year arc and 2020 is beginning the clarity of the work. So ,part of the download that I got in the mountains in Taos was–and part of what I was feeling was like, did I fail?–was that I thought that this nine years was the period when everything would blossom into the physical, but it was more like that was my school. So I did all these things. I studied with various teachers, I shared my own downloads. I tried to be as pure and authentic as I could about my guidance with Spirit. And Spirit was like, “you did a good job,” you know? “Now, go into the world and continue with the clarity that you got from your training and studies” and whatever. So it’s like, I feel still on that path. The car acciden was like a total complete shift, you know? So like I should describe it a little bit because this is a  podcast and we keep talking about it.

Jessica [00:06:23] Yeah. That little thing that happened… that BRAIN INJURY when you died and came back to life!

La Vonne [00:06:33] Yes, so in May of 2010 I was walking on the sidewalk, and a woman who was speeding hit me as I was on foot, and then she trapped me under the hood of her car and kept going. First she hit another car that opened her hood, and then she sent that car flying. Then she hit me. She scooped me up and kept driving and drove through a restaurant and hit a woman in the restaurant. When she hit the restaurant, my body flew. This was in Madison, Wisconsin, and I flew from State Street to Henry and Johnson. So my body went flying. And when they found me, I was clinically dead. And then I was in a coma for a day, woke up, and when I woke up was a blank slate. So I didn’t remember, like, the significance of my name or of anything else. And I left the hospital in a wheelchair. There were then things I had to go back for and whatever. But that’s what started this journey of like re-learning walking, talking, reading, writing, and then more significantly, social interactions and like being in the body… the emotional side. So the diagnosis was a traumatic brain injury. My head split in five places over here, and then I had burns on my body from being trapped in the vehicle. But I didn’t break any bones, and I flew really far and the doctors would always comment on it. And one doctor, he was like, “were you a yogi?” One doctor in Madison. And at that point, I don’t even know if I’d call myself a yogi now… I am a yogi in a sense, not Asana-based, but I’m like a yana yogi. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s interesting. So, but that was the big shift in consciousness. And so that set me on a path like… how Spirit writes this story: so under the guise of healing from this brain injury, I did set about going in really deep and lgetting into like, “Who am I? What’s going on?” Because I was literally like, “who am I?” The same question that we all have…”Who am I?” And I’m like, no, literally, “WHO AM I?”

Jessica [00:08:42] You know, that’s an evolving process from birth. But for you, it was like, how old were you? In your 20’s, right?

La Vonne [00:08:48] I was 30. I’m 40 now. I turned 40 this year. I really like being 40.

Jessica [00:08:54] I love it. I was close.

La Vonne [00:08:58] Something happens at the 4-0. As a women, you do ground down. I feel really amazing. Yeah, yeah. Get excited.

Jessica [00:09:12] And so, did answers come right away? Or this was also a process, I’m sure.

La Vonne [00:09:17] Yeah. So that’s been the nine years. Who am I? But I think I got the gift of a blank slate. So now looking back and with the wisdom that’s been awakened in me now, like looking back, I can see like what a pure and beautiful state I was in in the beginning. You know, I was on the farm. This family, that’s known me. And they have a picture of me. They would give me a little things to do. And I was like, really blank slate, like I’d be painting this fence. There’s a picture me painting. And then birds would come and like land on me. Just… my mind was clear and I was at one with all things. But on the journey of who I am, once it passed, like speech pathology, occupational therapy and physical therapy and those more practical things… Well, I kind of quit all that and went to Ananda Ashram, and I was still walking with a cane, and I just started meditating and doing yoga a lot. And I was in a place to do it because it was such a blank slate. And I see now that that was such a gift… Because I didn’t know, it was terrifying, you know? But like looking back, I’m like, “oh, what a beautiful gift!”

La Vonne [00:10:33] But at the time, there was a lot of fear in it. And this goes back to what you were saying about our cycles. I think Florence Scovel Shinn, she talks about…in the “Game of Life” for women, she talks about getting to the place of seeing everything as a golden link in the chain of your good, and how everything has been happening for your good and really feeling that. And that’s clicked now. I can feel it in my body. I can feel how everything’s been happening for my good. But the thing is that it’s not outcome-based. It’s just seeing and understanding the journey as this ritual of purification. It’s like purifying you and purifying you and purifying you. And that’s what we’re all wanting and that’s what we are achieving. And that feeling, that vibration of like, “YES, like everything is happening.” Like, “for ME, like this… This is all for me.” Like, “this love. It’s for me! This sun… This is for me,  these trees…” Like even the car accident… I can feel it and I can feel this inner shininess. I feel, like, my diamond… Like I feel pure and bright. The Lighthouse Vibration, I feel it really shining. I can look back and see and not be afraid. And then I can now look forward and not be afraid. The ritual, the purification, the journey and the perspective, it’s ridding you of fear, you know. So it’s like, yeah, another dark time can come again. And I’ll just, like, go down deep and without the fear lenss and then I’ll come back up and then it is what it is. So I think I used to believe that I would rid myself of those low moments and that would be an outcome that resulted from this vibrational shift. And it’s like, no, I’ve learned how to maintain the vibration regardless of where I am in the time-space continuum of my emotions or physicality. Like, I’m fearless, like she’s not afraid!

Jessica [00:12:48] Yeah. Having a holistic understanding that all that is and all that’s happening around us and/or to us is for that process of cleansing and purification… So that your diamond is going to have even more facets to it. Like, it ALL is a gift, always even if it’s emotionally taxing.

La Vonne [00:13:07] Yeah. there’s a quote from Napoleon Hill, actually, but it’s from his more eccentric book, Outwitting the Devil. He talks about like, no matter what happens now, I no longer need to have fear because I know I understand the story now… Like I understand what’s going on. And I’m connected to like an internal guidance system that I know is going to pull me through. Or like a sense of the divine. My sense of the divine is clear. So I know I don’t need to have fear about what will come. And that’s really what I’m feeling aligned with. And I have my practices and my tools now.

Jessica [00:13:54] Yeah, and that’s kind of like your mission right? What you’re bringing to the world, or even to other women, is that sense of self that you’re learning–or the process of re-learning yourself. In hosting women’s circles, that’s the wisdom that you’re sharing with others.

La Vonne [00:14:14] Yeah, I like how you say it! I love that, I love you.

Jessica [00:14:18] So I met you three summers ago.

La Vonne [00:14:20] 2016.

Jessica [00:14:24] 2016, when you were hosting the Circle of Light. I had no idea what that was.

La Vonne [00:14:29] At Maha Rose.

Jessica [00:14:30] At Maha Rose. But it was a women’s circle, which even when I tell people like, “oh, I met La Vonne at a women’s circle,” I have to like, unpack what a women’s circle is…. I’m like it’s a circle…. Of women? [laughing] Yeah. I mean, it was just like a meetup, on the solstice, to celebrate life.

La Vonne [00:14:47] Yeah! it was on the solstice.

Jessica [00:14:51] During that time when you were creating these monthly circles and theming them around whatever cosmic events were happening…like with the moon…. What what was your intention there? Like, was that something you really like sat down to create? Or were you just kind of open to it writing itself and knew that if we gathered, and had tea, and sat, and kind of passed the talking stick, that magic would inevitably happen?

La Vonne [00:15:19] So what happened with the circles, like how they began is…. So I went on this journey of trying to get better, trying to get better. And then people who saw how badly I was.. and saw how I was shifting, started asking me questions–mainly women in my life. Then after a while, I was like, let me try to talk to a lot of you on the phone at the same time… just because I was answering similar questions and people were coming to me. So I thought, like, let’s do something over the phone, and then I would have like a group phone call. And then we would do this phone call. And then I started saying, like, let’s meet. And anytime somebody meets, I’m going to make them tea. So I’d be like, well, you can all come to me. They would come to me and I’d make them tea, and I think I more just noticed…everyone was asking me the same things… So I thought, let’s bring it all together and do something. Maha Rose was something where… through the Maha connection it became something like more like really very tangible. But I always called it the Circle of Light. When I did the work with the medicine man, I saw like this circle of light. The circle of lights came around his head. I did a prayer ceremony. I tied my prayer knots, and the circle of light came over his head. A circle of light came over mine. And then they said, “You are the Lighthouse Vibration. Where you go, you raise the vibration of the house. And you are this house of light.” And this circle of light came. Another time when I was in Vipassana in Australia, I had like a download. I saw like all these different women, like our wombs, like the circle of light also. And like all of them connected all around the globe, like these circles of light. And then like the lights connecting and this like intricate Flower of Life kind of symbol, and I was like, “ahh it’s the circle of light!” But so I think I was carrying that download really strong. And I always just get like really clear, I get the downloads really clear. That’s been the struggle of like being in the physical. That’s manifested more as a challenge of being in the physical. But like, the spiritual download of what I’m doing always comes in really clear. And so I knew that like womb holders needed to be in the same space at the same time at certain times. And that we could get work done on a big level together in that way.

Jessica [00:18:01] Yeah! And that certainly happened! I feel like everyone I met in that space with you there as our guide went on to then become, like, their own lighthouse in their community….

La Vonne [00:18:13] Yes, in the Maha Rose group! You all are all so magical, it’s beautiful. And I love how I’m connected to all of you still. It’s nice.

Jessica [00:18:20] Really nice. And so at the end of the circle, I remember you introducing us to vaginal steaming, and I never heard of it before you spoke of it. So at what point did you learn about vaginal steaming? And at what point did you realize that was going to be something that you pass on to the women in the circle?

La Vonne [00:18:40] I’m Caribbean so vaginal steaming is normal and part of my culture and I’ve always known about it, like from my grandmas and aunties and everything. And it was just something that, initially, in the world, in my La Vonne “academic” mode, was just kind of like, “I don’t need to be doing all this stuff…” Like the Caribbean things… and I just wanted to be more American, maybe. And then it came back into my consciousness on my healing path. Like where there was a lot of like ancestral and cultural things like being remembered. And also because if you’re needing to heal something or do something, that would be aunties are going to tell you to do. And then I also studied home birth, birth work with Whapio Bartlett and then apprenticed with these African midwives doing home births. And so then there was a lot of steaming and working with the herbs and the baths for conception, and then also postpartum. So it came back into my consciousness at that time, really strong. And then my specific work with the coma was [all about] coming down into my body, coming down into my body. And I had been doing all these different things. And I’m certified in so many different things. But it was just because I was trying to find what was for me. But when I did the steaming, I could feel it. I would pull down into my body… and I would be less afraid, less anxious. Voices would quiet. A lot of, like, the stress and just like a general feeling inside would quiet down. So I knew I came into full remembrance of a lineage that I’m carrying in my blood. Like, I fully remembered it. And then still kept it within… with the struggle of like, am I going to teach this to, like, these white American ladies or am I just going to keep it to myself? And then, that’s always a big thing on the path. But in the end, like the download that I feel is for me is that, like if you are a womb carrier, then me, Jaguar Womban, I have a message for you. So it’s not like excluding even somebody with a penis. It’s just like, this is the work that I feel I’m here to do. And I’m not here to say “this lady, can have it because of her color and this lady can’t because of her color.” I have a work that I think will bring us all together and create…  it’s the Circle of Light. It’s going to take that silver cord and it’s going to like, weave us, weave us, weave us back into one big circle, because the womb is not a respecter of persons. She doesn’t see color and form. She is the one womb. And that’s what I’m working to cleanse. So at that point, like, I had like a specific download about that and I was like, “I release this information!” And then I started talking about it. And then once I started talking about it, I started channeling really clear, because now–you’ve known me a long time–once I start talking about the steaming, then it comes through really clear. And then I started doing individual sessions. And I started noticing once I was really tapping into her root frequency and I had the herbs, it was like really super clear. And I would see like the plants like around her head, almost like a flower crown. But I would see the plants really clear. And I would need to ask, like, what is this? Motherwort was the first one that came through loud. And I was describing to all these people, I was like, “It’ like fuzzy. It’s like pink, it’s like a vagina, like a flower, it’s opening…” And finally, an herbalist friend I had was like, “Is it this?” Anyways, so it was a journey to figure out what I was even seeing and I’d have to go and research them. And they talked to me back.

Jessica [00:22:20] But I think it makes sense for you too that, like, you know, plants also have spiritual qualities, and that they have Spirit. And the vibrations of the plans are also very helpful when you’re steaming. Like, they have their own physical properties that help us on the physical level, but there’s also the spiritual properties. Not everyone is totally onboard with that, perhaps, but I think for you, that’s the part of the plants that are speaking to you and about the people you are working with.

La Vonne [00:22:55] Yes. And they’re speaking. It’s like very specific. Like, the knowledge is very precise. Very specific. And over these nine years, I have 100 percent–like 100 percent of women who have come to me wanting to conceive, have conceived. Every single one! My mom is like, you can’t in data say 100 percent… But it’s 100 percent! And the last woman, the session that I did this last year, she’s someone that I know from high school. And we did a session and I was like, you’re gonna be pregnant by the end of the year. She’s kind of like, I don’t know. And I was like, you’re gonna do this… And you’re going to be pregnant by  the end of the year. And she texted me in December, she’s pregnant. It was like, very close. But  I maintained my hundred percent. It was making me doubt, but I mean, it’s 100 percent. So I know that it’s real and I feel no doubt about it. And what I’m doing, I’m still perhaps neurotic, like in life, and anxious in… I don’t know, making a sandwich, like, going to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, like driving a car. But in the work, I feel very precise and confident. I feel like… I feel tapped in. I feel no doubt. It’s beautiful.

Jessica [00:24:03] And even like we’re steaming, you’re sharing this information with women in circle, but also on individual consultation. And in that type of format, are you usually doing phone consultations and having women, like find herbs on their own? Or are you doing like in-person guided steams? Or doe it even really matter? I guess that’s part of the question.

La Vonne [00:24:25] Yea well you know, when we steam together in a group, something really powerful happens! Like in the Berkshires–you know race Brooke Lodge?

Jessica [00:24:34] Yes.

La Vonne [00:24:35] That was my biggest steam. It was like over 40 women at Race Brook Lodge last year around this time. At the Thea Gathering.

Jessica [00:24:43] Yeah.

La Vonne [00:24:43] I love that gathering and I love Sathiya and the whole group. And that was my biggest group steam. And it was so, like “poom, poom pow!” It was just like “poom, poom pow!” Aand people were like… Three or four women got up and were like, “I had this lump here, I could feel it go down…” Like big, huge things happened in the group. On an individual level, you can see me in person if you happen to be where I am, but typically I’ll do a session like this. Like with video, I just need to, like, kind of see you to feel you and then I’ll download the recipe. So it’ll be like this, this this this is coming through. In addition to the recipe, the prayer, the ritual that you’re needing. So I’m going to say, “OK, this is my download for you. You need to go on the full moon, you know, with seven white roses and seven white candles…” Like in this way. But it’ll just come through really specific. And what’s going to happen on my end is as you’ll start rambling, like “my boyfriend and I don’t know my job” etc., and then I’m just like herbs, herbs, herbs, recipe, and then I’ll see you doing it pretty precisely. Like, I’ll be like, “Do you have a pink bedspread on your bed? Ok. You need to go kneel there and then like you need to creat [certain things]…” Like each woman–it’s unique. And what I really feel about the steams and the plants are like Dr. Sebi, I study Dr. Sebi, says the plants have an electrical frequency. You see, the womb has an electrical frequency, and an alchemy can arise–like the auric field of the body has  an electrical frequency. So the plant, it’s like I see it like the different like holes, almost like in your field. It’s like, yarrow goes there, motherwort goes there. Calendula goes over here. It’s like a formula and it can come together and it, like, sutures everything. And then this happens. It’s a wholeness. Do you feel me?

Jessica [00:26:36] Yes!

La Vonne [00:26:36] Ok [laughing].

Jessica [00:26:39] I mean, you’re so inspired to do this and share this information with as many women as possible with the intention–

La Vonne [00:26:48] To the point that I get manic! Yeah. I’m like, EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW!

Jessica [00:26:52] But it’s awesome that the bigger message too is still about elevating womb consciousness, which is more of like a universal voice that’s been seemingly repressed for such a long time. And there’s like this great liberation that’s happening slowly. And I think so many women are craving that feeling… and even thinking of your history as like a poet club, I love… because I feel you speak about it in such a metaphorical way. Like, of the act of sitting on our thrones, like with our feet on the ground, working with plants as women and opening ourselves –like completely, to the waters… Like to the fertile juices that are.

La Vonne [00:27:34] Yeah, get moist, get moist!

Jessica [00:27:37] Yeah, I mean it just feels good, like, on such a basic level. There’s a lot of naysayers out there who are like, “You should not be steaming. It’s gonna cause this and this and this…” But it’s really this simple, noninvasive thing. And if it feels bad and it’s doing something wrong for us as individuals, then we’re sovereign enough to say for ourselves, “Oh, I shouldn’t be doing this.” But I think most women that like really–

La Vonne [00:27:59] Yeah, everyone should do it!

Jessica [00:28:01] Like there’s really not… You know,  you’re going to love it! Basically is how I feel. Which is what you said. I think in our first circle towards the end, you were describing vaginal steaming. Like Stephanie and certain people knew exactly what you werre talking about; I was like in the “new person” camp at that time. And you’re like, basically, “It’s going to change your life.” And when you said that, I was like, “OK, like, I’m down.” If she’s saying that, I’m kind of, like, game for change right now. That’s why I moved to New York City–just trying it all and testing it all out, and figuring what’s sticking and what’s helping to elevate. Or even just to release these pieces of myself that were, like, hyper stressed out. That was like such an immediate click for me of like–

La Vonne [00:28:44] I love you–

Jessica [00:28:44] Giving it a try and being like, “OH…RELAX.” You know, just… complete… surrender. And that’s really what the divine feminine is. It’s like the great opening of…. Spirit.

La Vonne [00:28:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s going into this surrender. And from that surrender, feeling the force of vulnerability. Because we think of like force and power in this  phallic pushing way. And I just, I think it’s something you need to experience. So I’m like, it’s a ritual of prayer with the body. And you open your womb, you connect back down to the roots of the earth, which, in like an ideal way you’ve grown them and then you’ve dried them, and then you’re going to reintegrate back with them within the cycle of the moon. And we all sync up. Like we all sync up. And women’s blood cycles often shift when they start steaming–they’ll like, sync back up to a new moon, or they’ll change the time or rhythm of how they’re bleeding. It’s the original download of the circle of light. You know, we all sink back up! When we sync back up, we let the friction between us–which is false; it’s a myth, it’s a lie–melt away…from the rose petals and the lavender and the steam. And we can love each other more, too, because that’s part of that myth that’s keeping [us separate]. It’s like divide and conquer. So we can like come back together in this wetness, I think! And women do soften towards each other and towards ourselves when we start with these practices. Everybody can steam. I can’t think of who shouldn’t team. Now I’ve steamead women in all phases. I think that as when traditions come back, we get so excited about them and then we embrace that. And then we get to like a more and more nuanced understanding of it. And I think something beautiful about it is it’s just like the cup of tea, you know? So you can drink one cup of tea to get all pumped up, and you can drink another cup of tea to calm down. And so it’s the same with the steaming. It’s just one way to get [connected with] those herbs. And then you develop this conversation with the plants and then you yourself know, oh, I need a little yarrow, I need a little yarrow right now.

[00:31:13] And then you can know, “OK, this is the way that I can get this plant into my body through my most absorbent tissues.” And then you develop your own relationship with the plants and you’re like, “OK, today’s a calendula/mugwort day,” you know? OK, like, “Today, this month, I need this.” Yeah. And just understanding that it’s a practice. Not like a one-time pill that you pop, although you can do like once steam get pregnant! I do have a couple of those.

Jessica [00:31:43] So steaming as a ritual–that’s connected to the moon cycle or… your internal menstrual cycle, which eventually kind of become one and the same, let’s say…. Is there, in your opinion, like too much steaming or too little steaming? Or is it more beneficial to make it more regular in terms of where it falls within a 28 day cycle?

La Vonne [00:32:05] Yeah, because the woman is not–nothing in life is linear. And specifically the woman’s body. Anything that is ritual, is done in rhythm, creates the potency and the power, you know? So I always a say good start is like three days after you bleed. But then there may be a specific time and way that each woman should steam. In my work, it’s going to come out like in a really ritualistic way. I’m going to say like,”It’s going to be on your birthday to cleanse the lineage with your mom,” or “At the full moon, like by the edge of the water…”  The download will come really clear. Or in terms of birth, like when you’re ovulating, “Steam and  have sex with the lavender still all  fresh in your vagina, and everything will catch and then you’ll conceive….” So they’ll be like specific times in that way. Definitely with anything, you can overdo it. That’s our Western tendency. And the balance of that is, like, keeping things in or in a ritualistic rhythm. But anything for the woman is done cyclically to create the potency, because it’s like the time is like this [cyclical]. Not like this [linear]. You know what I mean? So you want to do it like this [cyclically], and it’s creating a stronger rhythm than when you try to do it like this [in a linear way]. If you get excited and you’re like, “I’m just going to steam seven days in a row,” I mean, you want to do anything that much!

Jessica [00:33:38] What about personal practice for you? Because even going through your journey the last month? I guess, becoming really ill, or having the last year be like super magical hyper magic, back to back, and then having a lesson like, “oh, I need to have some more like boundaries around my body” and like, yeah, having more like self care? You know, Spirit was sort of testing you and saying, what if I just consume all of your time around that?

La Vonne [00:34:05] I know, they just had me like a rag doll! Like my shaman was like, tell them “NO!”

Jessica [00:34:12] But were you steaming during this time or did you just even lose that practice altogether? And are you coming back to it now and re-connecting with your body in a different way?

La Vonne [00:34:23] Oh, no, girl. I always am steaming. Yeah. But you know, I’m all about the authenticity. Like, if I’m not steaming, I won’t teach. And if I’m not steaming, I won’t do sessions. And maybe I can chill out with that. But I’m really disciplined with myself in that way. Because I feel like as a teacher, it’s really easy once you start like with the outgoing of something, it is a challenge to balance it with like pulling it back in; like pushing it out, pulling it back in. But I do feel, that’s something I feel really strongly about. So I’ve always been steaming, but I definitely have periods where I’ll feel like… I get into like like… I’ll just go in, like, I’ll feel the agony. I don’t run from what I feel, you know what I mean? So I’ll feel it all the way to the bottom. And maybe that’s my style. But like, I do go into a place where I’m just like, “Spirit!?”, like [a cry]. I just go there. And I do go into places where I’m like “I don’t even want to steam!” But alas, for a while, then I’ll do it, because once I do it, it’ll break. It’s like, you know how it is–it’ll open up the energy and I’ll hear the answers coming through. But, you know sometimes you get in a funk and you don’t even want the answer yet? And you just want to still be in a funk for one more day and then–

Jessica [00:35:47] Wallow in your misery?

La Vonne [00:35:57] Yeah and you’re like, “Ancestors, you don’t answer any of my blah blah…” And then they’ll be like “STEAM, MY CHILD.”  And then, yeah, yeah. But I try to be disciplined. This is my sabbatical year and then I’m still doing things. But, I’m really being disciplined about focusing on pulling my energy in, so even silent retreat. It’s like I’m making my choices, but it’s like from a way that I know I can maintain like this, like keeping my energy flowing in. But something I try to be really disciplined about is if I’m not feeling align to not speak from that place. So if I’m moving to something, I’ll really go out of commission and go into the cocoon and process. But you know me….  I don’t have a strong internal thing that’s like “produce, produce!” I really just am like, very, in my flow. So if I’m processing something, I’m going to wait till I get the clarity on it. When I get the clarity, then  I’ll share it. Then I’ll come out of the cave, and then I’ll take I’ll teach, and then I’ll go back in the cave.

Jessica [00:37:11] And then throughout that cycle of like extroversion and retreating, steaming is always a part of that cycle. And is there a point in that outro-intro cycle that steaming really lies for you all the time? Or is it just based more on your menstrual cycle? Are those two related?

La Vonne [00:37:30] Those are related for me. Even after the head injury. The head injury and womb and steaming. So with the head injury, I was getting peak suicidal like around with the rhythm of my period. So my moon cycle, my bleeding. So when I started steaming like in that same rhythm, it was. Clearing everything. [phone dings] What’s that?

Jessica [00:37:51] No, my phone is dinging.

La Vonne [00:37:52] Oh I was like, it’s the angels!

Jessica [00:38:01] Oh, it’s Andrew texting, asking if he can come chat with us.

La Vonne [00:38:06] Oh, yay, yes! It’s a good time because we’re talking about periods, too.

Jessica [00:38:12] Yeah. He loves periods!. Y.

La Vonne [00:38:16] Yeah, he loves that! He’s just the man to come in right now!

Jessica [00:38:16] I remember you sending me photos from one of the Pleiades books, and it was like “put blood on the back of his neck.”

La Vonne [00:38:21] Hey Andrew!

Andrew [00:38:21] Hi!

La Vonne [00:38:21] Oh the Earth book by Barbara Maciniak. I love that book. She talks about on the bottom of his feet too. She talks about putting the blood on their neck and their feet. In that book “Earth.”

Andrew [00:38:41] Yeah.

Jessica [00:38:44] The elixir for eternal life was semen and menstrual blood.

La Vonne [00:38:48] Yes. I love that book.

Andrew [00:38:52] We haven’t tried that one.

Jessica [00:38:52] So now we’re like hitting 40… So maybe like when we hit 60 we start on the elixir regimen.

La Vonne [00:38:58] Of drinking it?

Jessica [00:38:59] Yeah. It’s just a prediction.

Andrew [00:39:02] We should start sooner.

La Vonne [00:39:05] Why hold back? I’m not the one who’s going to tell you not to do it. I’m going to be like, “Do it tomorrow!” But I do like the idea of putting the blood in the garden and feeding your family, and like, marking, and putting it on your partner and like circling. Like those energetic things. Like maintaining the frequency of your home through this frequency that you’re carrying.I like all that. I mean, that resonates with me, and it resonates with my whole electrical, alchemical understanding of the steam process… What the plants are doing, the earth… Like we would originally sit together on the ground and we bleed it back into the earth. So it’s like the frequency that’s missing, that’s causing all of this like alchemical mismatch and  like fires everywhere, its the blood! We need that, like, wet blood. It’s like back into the earth. The mother wants it. So we’ve got to give it back. We’ve pulled it from her. And so we’re out of balance. And the masculine wants it. The masculine wants the blood on them.

Andrew [00:40:06] Give me the blood!

La Vonne [00:40:06] But, you know, like in the native tradition, like Sundance, the man wants…. We naturally release our blood. The masculine also desires to have that same ritual.

La Vonne [00:40:22] So with our tribal knowledge activated within the community, we provide a way for the masculine to release that blood. Like Sundance, they hang [by their skin on hooks] from the tree and they’ll bleed, you know? That same type of [idea]…it keeps the ritual activated. Yeah.

Andrew [00:40:39] You know, a good friend of mine, Jake, went to Sundance last year and he wasn’t in the dance, but he was like, you know, supporting. I think you go there and you can support, and then there are a lot of stages you can go through. It sounds pretty incredible. But I didn’t think about it in that context. I’m going to share that with him.

La Vonne [00:41:00] Yeah. Yeah. You give blood. The masculine wants to give blood. With sweat lodge and earth large too. Sweat lodge was traditionally, I was taught, for the men as well. They want too like, because we [women] have the natural release, it’s like rituals to create, like a release for the masculine. So then they’re in the sweat, like their fluids are coming out of their body and like going into the ground. And the women would be in the Earth Lodge, like bleeding into the ground, and the men would be in the sweat lodge releasing their fluids and their prayer into their ground. So our prayer goes into the ground, their prayers go into the ground. And  we create that balance, you know? But that ties to the steaming as a ritual of prayer with the body. And yogic knowledge of movement with the body is true knowledge. Like, the only true knowledge we have is experiential, like direct experience with the body. That’s why one of the branches of yoga is asana. You move with the body, and then you understand what you’ve been meditating about. So it’s the same with the steaming. You like, squat down with your body, you know? You squat down into the into the movement. You have the experience, and then you understand in a way that’s beyond like a scientific data or a conversational exchange or something that you want to proselytize or defend. You just feel it in your body because you, like, made that prayer with your body.

La Vonne [00:42:22] And that experiential knowledge is something that nobody can then argue with you about it. You’re like, I did it. It happened. As a mother, you’ve given birth. That’s like an experiential knowledge that you have. Nobody will tell you like what that was. It was what it was like, you felt it.  You went on the journey with the body. And I think any opportunity that we have to, like, really have those moments of like unification of the spiritual and the physical, that’s when we create like potent power like within ourselves. Because when we can sink into the vibration of like this is knowledge that I have in my body, nobody can argue with me about it. Like I don’t need to tell you. It’s just sitting in here inside me and it’s activated. Those are the times that we, even in the spirals of going down low, that’s what keeps a strong. And we hold on to it, I think. Yeah. Do you feel me?

Jessica [00:43:13] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

La Vonne [00:43:16] And that’s what I think that steaming can do, as a woman. And I used to talk about like–now I’m more like everybody talk about it–but I used to be like, how I was taught in _______Caribbean is like, you just do your thing. You don’t talk about it. It’s just like your quiet little secret time. Your secret time that you have, you know? That you like really go with within, you focus on your prayers, and you birth them out. Because keeping things like within us is potent too.

Jessica [00:43:49] I’m curious, when you were learning or training more as a birth and postpartum doula–did you learn about steaming during your training then?

La Vonne [00:43:57] When I studied with them, when I was apprenticing with the midwives, they just do it a lot. I learned about steaming growing up, just being Caribbean. And then it came back into my world with… More when I was working with the midwives and going to different homes and doing births. Because the American way is like you don’t get into the water right after the birth. But the Caribbean-African way is like you’ll have a bath right after… With like, herbs to close you up. You’ll also put some herbs on the baby, and you’ll steam pretty soon afterwards with some herbs to like close you. And then you’ll also steam in the beginning to open you. But all of those things, I think in the Western tradition: you don’t get in the water for some weeks after baby, and you also wouldn’t steam when pregnant. I was also talking about when you’re bleeding–[during] period cycles–so you can steam as you’re bleeding with some really soothing flowers. You can steam with some soothing flowers. And then that combined with doing things in a cyclical rhythm, as opposed to in a linear understanding, like the body remembers the cycle. So you’re going to reprogram your body now. So you’re going to reprogram it and add like [for example] a dash of calendula. And it’s like, “Oh, I get calendula every time when I bleed.” Does that make sense? The body remembers and then it will expect the pleasure. Because it’s pleasurable! So you can mix it all in. It’s funny, like once you release something, then you forget it was there.

[00:45:32] Like, “I never used to have that… or, oh yeah actually I did… like a few months ago.”

La Vonne [00:45:37] That’s the magic I think of when things happen, like in a subtle, nice flow.

[00:45:47] Hi Andrew!

Andrew [00:45:50] Hey! It’s great. I love listening to you speak on this. I’m just so glad that we got an opportunity to connect with you and and do this right here, right now. I mean, I was putting Yarrow [our daughter] to bed, so I missed a lot of what you guys were talking about. She’s in a nap right now.

La Vonne [00:46:08] Oh, we were talking about Yarrow!.

Jessica [00:46:10] Yeah. Yeah. Everyone needs to work with her!

Andrew [00:46:17] Well, it’s really just great to hear you. I love just hearing you speak about steaming. You know, it’s been so long since Jessica first met you and came to your workshop. And it’s like we’ve been on this crazy journey ever since then doing our sort of thing with it. And it’s been a really big, unique, interesting learning experience for me, as a man. Like, life pretty much revolves around vaginal steaming. I’m just yeah, I mean, I’m in the background of like what we’re doing with our business…. But it’s been incredible for me to just learn so much about, like how many different ways… and how rich this tradition is, how global it is, how much of a birthright it is for all women everywhere. And the more I learned about it, the more that I believed in it as a process and as something that is the right that every woman has to experience with her own body. And it’s just like you were saying, it’s experiential knowledge. I mean, I don’t have a vagina or a yoni, but like even like what you were talking about with the sweats, you know, Jessica was telling you how we have like these bi-weekly saunas here in our community. And I’m like the honorary fire keeper for the men’s sauna. And I mean, I know exactly what you’re talking about.  I’ve done sweat lodges, too and this isn’t a sweat lodge per se… but the physicality of it and the connection to spirit.

La Vonne [00:48:04] It’s a mini sweat lodge!

Andrew [00:48:06] And it’s one of the most important, like grounding rituals in my life. And I mean, I I never miss a sauna! I’m always there. It’s so important for me. It’s just part of who I am. And I do feel like there is there is this connection between that and steaming and the alchemical nature of it.

La Vonne [00:48:24] And you have herbs in there probably, yeah?  Do you have herbs in the sauna? Like eucalyptus.

Andrew [00:48:34] Well we do essential oils.

La Vonne [00:48:35] Yeah that’s the plants!

Andrew [00:48:35] Lavender, cedar, eucalyptus. So we always do some different kind of essential oils when we’re in there. And then there’s a whole other thing with cold, you know, cold exposure and this and that because we jump in the water too and we kind of combine those things. I don’t want to get too off topic….

La Vonne [00:48:55] No I love all of that.

Jessica [00:49:00] Come stay with us!

La Vonne [00:49:03] I do want to! That’s going to happen. Especially since this is my resting year. Last year, it was like I was working so hard.

Jessica [00:49:11] I think too, like the greater mission of elevating the voice of the divine feminine, or even just the feminine energy in general softening of opening, rather than the masculine of like, piercing and putting forth, it’s just like a different vibration. I feel like that’s something you’re [Andrew] learning more about wanting to support as much as you can, even [as a man].

La Vonne [00:49:35] Right. So the male and the female. The woman body. The man body…. We we both want to experience this feeling up the surrender, which is the activation of that mother frequency, the divine feminine frequency, the divine mother frequency. So these different rituals are ways. There are ways that the feminine body can experience it and ways that the masculine body can experience it. But vibration-wise, it’s the same. So what you’re talking about with the sauna, when you go in, the water, the heat, the feeling… It puts you into a place of surrender. And in hat surrender you like go down deep, you feel your power, like you pull it up, and you release. But women with the steam, you let go, you physically squat down into this position of prayer and surrender. And then you like feel that steam coming up. And you go into that same vibration. So it’s just like different rituals. There’s ways that with the male, masculine body you can attune to that mother frequency, and there are ways best suited for the body that is a womb holder to attune to that frequency. But we can all do it. And it’s something vibrational, you know? It’s something like–it’s a frequency that we want to allow to rise back into balance with the current frequencies on the planet. But it’s for all the different bodies, you know?

La Vonne [00:50:58] Like we’re both craving it equally and then it’ll put us into good relation with each other, you know? Like because it’s like, you stea and then you literally have a better sex with your partner! So it’s like right away, direct effect. It can make things really amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It’s good for everybody!

Jessica [00:51:22] And then that’s what a lot of people ask you [Andrew].

Andrew [00:51:24] A lot of people ask about that, it’s true.

La Vonne [00:51:28] Well it’s going to tighten your uterine floor. So it’s like that’s going to make things better. Yeah. And you’re gonna make your vagina smell like rose petals and calendula. That’s going to be a better time. Come on. And that is what everybody wants. And then you’re going to put your frequency into like that fertile, like receiving state. So like on a vibratory level, and because sex is like predominantly energetic, you move into the space that we should be at anyway when we’re going to be getting into that energy with our partner, I think as a woman. That’s how I feel. Like there’s always a partner holding the feminine frequency and one holding their masculine frequency, even if you’re in a same sex relationship. It’s like, vibrational. So there needs to be–in order for sex to happen, there needs to be one partner receiving and one giving because that’s what it is a description of. So it’s like, if you’re a receiving, get into your receiving. Like, do your thing. Get into your role! That’s what I always say in session. Yeah. Go all the way in and make it magical, because the mother path is also the beauty way, you know? And I’m really big on that also, like making everything beautiful. I’m sure there’s other ways we can activate this frequency, but like, why not with rose petals and lavender and like, calendula, and just like, beauty all around? Like, why…. We just look at nature, like why should the sun come into the day, withlike a rainbow of colors in the sky, like pinks and oranges and blues? Like, just for beauty. Like, that’s it. Just for beauty. Yeah. That’s the mother vibration. Yeah, beauty.

Jessica [00:53:15] I don’t know how much longer we can keep you on the phone, but I want you to know I want to give you the opportunity to talk about your next retreat and how people can connect with you.

La Vonne [00:53:30] Oh, yeah. I wish you could all come with Yarrow. So this is something it’s open. Anyone can come. Men and women and everything in between. Like all ages, all genders, all everything. And we’re going to be in silence. So I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the silence. It’s like appealing and intimidating at the same time. It’s February 28th to March 4th and it’s on the coast of Oaxaca, in Mazunte, Mexico. It’s Maha Rose South. Their Mexico location. And there’s going to be three days of pure silence. But I’m going to talk you into it, and we’re going to lead you out of it. I’m really feeling silence right now. Like, it’s a very potent form of that, like sensual, receiving, tender but strong birthing energy. Like when you go in with an agreement in a ritualistic way into a state of silence and clear the frequency of your mind, and then being next to the ocean water…and where we are, you just hear like that “shh, shhh” sound of the ocean all the time.

La Vonne [00:54:41] My invitation is to come and just get into this frequency with me and like, let that water wash out, like wash out the voices and the anxieties and the doubts and the fears and like, the things that aren’t true. So that the truth that we’re carrying can rise up into our consciousness and we can birth it in that way.

La Vonne [00:55:02] But I’m really calling in like an orgasmic birthing of certain vibrational awareness, but coming in, like in the beauty way. In the beauty way. So February 28th to March 4th or 5th, at Maha Rose South. And it’son my Instagram bio and the Maha Rose website. And I love Maha. Maha is where we met. It’s what brought us together. Yeah. And I have a long relationship with them, and we’ve been through a lot together and have hada lot of really healing conversations. And I’ve grown a lot with them and I respect and love that space. And I love Mexico, having grown up there. And so it’s like a lot of things that I love all together! And I’ve done a few Vipassana retreats, like ten days of silence. They really changed me and affected me. I’ve done maybe four or five. And they’re really potent and powerful. I’m not making us do ten days, we’ll just do three. But just to, like, catch the feeling. And I would like for there to be men there. I’m calling in some men. I want to be silent with some men too, because I think that silence is a way that the masculine can really feel that vibration that I’m talking about. And it’s also that I want to experiment with just putting forth the frequency without so much talking. Because I think I can do it.

[00:56:33] Just arrive from within. And then it’s less–any time my body gets involved, then there’s like an element that has to be stripped away for your pure awareness to rise up, you know? So I feel like just, like, we can experientially be with each other. And then what you’re wanting to know will rise up from within. Does that make sense?

Andrew [00:56:58] Sounds amazing.,.

Jessica [00:56:58] I know, we want to go!

La Vonne [00:57:02] I want all three of you to come! We’ll do something together.

Andrew [00:57:04] Silence is golden and we love it. Like where we live right now, is this historically–like I don’t know if you guys talked about this–but the Quakers lived here, and we learned about the Quaker history and, you know…

La Vonne [00:57:20] They’re all about silence.

Andrew [00:57:21] They’re all about silence! Yeah, it’s so quiet here where we live. And I mean,  I know exactly what you’re talking about in terms of grounding masculine energy in silence and seeing what arises from that. I mean, there’s nothing I love more actually.

La Vonne [00:57:41] [Giggling] Andrew’s coming!

Jessica [00:57:49] Even having a birth experience in a quiet environment. Well I was not quiet, I was out loud. But for me, like my nature is definitely more in the quieter space. So it was really like–.

La Vonne [00:58:05] Then you can be loud and powerful! I love you.

Jessica [00:58:07] Yeah. I felt so comfortable and so held by the quiet around me that I could roar as big as I needed to and open as big as I needed to to allow for a really powerful birth. So it was beautiful. And really special.

Andrew [00:58:25] Did you tell her more about Yarrow’s birth?

Jessica [00:58:25] No, not really.

Andrew [00:58:27] Do you want to know?

La Vonne [00:58:28] I do. I do. We only talked about it before and then–en caul and in the pictures. I want to hear everything.

Andrew [00:58:34] Oh my God, it was just so… It was so amazing. I’ll just chime in and say that, you know, we went on this whole cycle of figuring out how we were going to do the birth, which was totally led by Jessica. And I was just you know, they’re trying to be as supportive as I could the whole time. We definitely started out like planning to have a hospital birth. We first went to a birthing center in Connecticut. Then we went to an OBGYN at a hospital like in New York, and then saw another O.B. in Connecticut. That was terrible. We were sticking with this hospital for a while. Then eventually, Jessica decided to switch to the midwife care at the hospital. Then we met with our doula here, Jeni Howe, who is amazing. She’s the one that opened this Baby Botanica center.

La Vonne [00:59:22] Oh, wow.

Andrew [00:59:23] And we had a lot of conversations with her and we had been thinking about the idea of home birth. And finally, it kind of  dawned on I think both of us at the same time that, like, everything that we’re doing and everything that we’re advocating for…

La Vonne [00:59:38] Yeah…

Andrew [00:59:39] Like, how are we not doing a home birth? I mean, and it was really, Jessica, that said this first. But I was kind of thinking the same thing at the same time. So then we decided like last minute to switch and we found a home birth midwife.

Jessica [00:59:54] And I was like thirty-six weeks at that point. So I only had like a month left to go.

La Vonne [01:00:01] Wow.

Jessica [01:00:01] But, I think part of it too, is like feeling really confident that this is very normal–to birth! All of us came through in the same way. Of course, there its always a risk in birth, in terms of it being a hyper physical, dramatic experience. But, you know, the hospital is there for emergency purposes–and if we needed to use it for that reason, we would.

La Vonne [01:00:26] How did you find your midwife?

Jessica [01:00:29] Our doula gave us like four or five different numbers… But because it was kind of last minute, most of them were like, “Oh, we’re really booked,” and we’re in the middle of a very rural area. And it was kind of hard to find someone that would be willing to come all the way out to our home… And  even for me too as a first time birthing person, a lot of midwives were like, “Are you sure you what you’re getting into?”

Andrew [01:00:58] Yeah but she crushed it.

La Vonne [01:01:01] Yea, beautiful! I love you! This is so great.

Jessica [01:01:05] But we found this midwife, Susan. She’s based in Newburgh, New York. So she’s like an hour away. But she’s delivered over, like, thirteen hundred babies. So she was like totally on board.

Andrew [01:01:19] And the way that it happened, like it wouldn’t have been possible for us to have this kind of birth in a hospital–like not in a million years, you know?

La Vonne [01:01:29] Yeah.

Andrew [01:01:31] What Jessica was able to do with our doula and just going through–.

Jessica [01:01:36] Like freedom of movement, freedom of sound, I just feel like in a hospital environment that would’ve been impossible.

La Vonne [01:01:41] I can’t imagine you having a birth in any other way. So that’s what’s so funny about life. Like we just have to go through that journey. But this seems like the only way. I can’t even I can’t even imagine you in a hospital… Like strapped down to a bed with your legs up….

Jessica [01:01:57] That’s sort of what made me switch. Because I was watching obsessively all these birth videos. Like really raw like, very full-on, full-frontal birth videos. I loved watching them and seeing all the guts and gore that go along with it and being really inspired by that. And then I was like, maybe I should watch a hospital birth because all the videos I’m watching were certainly not things happening in a hospital. So then I pulled up a a YouTube video of a woman with a hospital gown on with the staff around her, like fully, you know….

La Vonne [01:02:25] And the flourescent lights…

Jessica [01:02:27] Yeah and I was like, that’s not gonna be OK for me.  I mean, part of vaginal steaming kind of also reinforces that concept of grounding down and opening and surrendering. And environment is really important, for feeling free enough to let yourself go to the depths that you need to go to… to be able to release anything… an idea… or [a baby] or whatever it is. So that’s why I was like, OK, this is not gonna happen here.

La Vonne [01:02:58] And then Yarrow was in there like, “I’m coming into the house!”

Jessica [01:03:02] I trusted completely! For whatever reason, I felt her spirit so strongly, just being like, “I know what I’m doing. What are you doing?” Like, “Show up with me!” kind of thing. And I guess I didn’t really hear that as strongly towards the beginning of my pregnancy. But towards the end, even being over thirty-five, the O.B.’s are telling me, “Oh, you’re a high risk pregnancy.”.

La Vonne [01:03:24] I know, it’s ridiculous.

Jessica [01:03:26] So I was sort of  taking that seriously and saying, “Ok, whatever medical technology I need around me because I’m ‘old’, I’ll have…” But I felt awesome. Like, I felt the most powerful I’ve ever felt, the most like confident I’ve ever felt while pregnant.

La Vonne [01:03:43] You looked so good too!

Jessica [01:03:43] And I love talking about it! And so I felt then, like coupled with Yarrow’s energy in my womb… We have the right support around us, including my husband, to be able to do this. Even like our home here in this Quaker forest.

La Vonne [01:04:02] Right. Even the land. Even the land. And you know what’s magical? It’s like you you’d both made all the decisions. Like you’d already created the perfect environment for what you would need in that future moment. Like you decided to move out of the city to that space. Like you’d already set everything into place. That’s really magical and powerful.

Andrew [01:04:23] I think it was Yarrow that set it all off from the start.

Jessica [01:04:29] I kind of think it was the baby, saying “What are you guys doing over here? I’m going to start a fire…” Remember, we had a fire in our apartment?

La Vonne [01:04:32] Yes, I remember vividly. That was Yarrow!

Jessica [01:04:37] She’s been around for a while, I think.

Andrew [01:04:39] And then I had a dream like a week and a half before the birth. I had a dream that it was going to be an en caul birth, like in the bubble. That’s how she came out. It was like totally unbelievable.

Jessica [01:04:54] When I started pushing, it looked like a little water balloon emerging. Oh, I sent you the photo…

La Vonne [01:04:58] Yes, I have the photo. I love it! Yeah.

Andrew [01:05:02] Ok Yarrow is waking up from her nap. I gotta go take care of her.

La Vonne [01:05:04] Oh, okay. I love you.

Andrew [01:05:06] I love you too! Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this interview with us. Thank you for introducing us to the beautiful world of vaginal steaming and everything that it has to offer and doing all that you do. You’re an amazing human and we love you. Thank you.

La Vonne [01:05:20] I love you. And I’m going to see you soon. It’s been too long.

Jessica [01:05:24] It’s quiet here and we’re not that far away. 

La Vonne [01:05:28] No, I’m coming through! Yeah, I can drive to you.

Jessica [01:05:32] Come hang.