With Moon Menstrual Doula + Postpartum Doula

Oh, how we’ve been itching to let this news out! This has been pure joy to plan with and . The newest Red Tent Doulas course is just around the corner!
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Who is it for? Menstrual Medicine is for women and womb-bearers who want to reclaim the lost wisdom of caring for ourselves and one another and bringing it to their communities. Over the course of a year, we will be diving oh, so deep; beginning with the first bleed and taking us through menopause and beyond.
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From pain, shame and taboo to ritual, ceremony, and craft – and of course herbs and nourishment – this course is incredibly comprehensive. And we have an amazing list of guest teachers of international acclaim.
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Sign up now for the waiting list by commenting Medicine or sending a DM, and keep your eyes out for more information trickling out over the next wee while ❤️

Our breastfeeding journey ended a couple of months ago, after going for over 2.5 years. It got a bit lost in the shuffle of early pregnancy and moving house, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it in that sensitive, precious time.
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It was a beautiful and arduous road. There were big difficulties peppered throughout – from those manic early days of cluster feeds, blocked ducts and mastitis, to luteal phase aversions, ni**le biting, wakeful nights, and the wild ride of feeding during early pregnancy (nausea and ni**le pain galore). But I also shared such a profound closeness with this growing child, and the good always outweighed the bad and so we kept going.
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I have zero regrets about nursing him to sleep for that whole time, nor for bed sharing nearly the whole time, too. Some people tried to push the shame on us, as some people will, but that was how I chose to parent my child. He’s now a well-adjusted little person who has basically never had separation anxiety and who sleeps alone in his room most nights. He has a strong and resilient immune system, both from all that milk with changing nutritional substance and from not ripping him away before he was ready.
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How it ended… Before finding out I was pregnant, the vortex of hormones I was experiencing became too much and I felt super-averse, but then it all settled. Jericho kept asking for ‘mommy’s milk, not kitchen milk,’ and I felt okay abiding. It had only been once a day, at bedtime, for several months by that point. Then the ni**le pain began to increase as pregnancy progressed. We were a week away from moving so I figured I would hold out a bit longer to bridge the gap and maintain a sense of comfort. But then, he asked for ‘kitchen milk, not mommy’s milk.’
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And that was it 🌈 It was the kind of end that I wanted – led by him. I didn’t feel the depression that I thought I would, probably because my whole being was wrapped up with creating new life. I felt okay with allowing that current of nourishment to return inward. One cycle ending and another beginning, simultaneously.
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Now let’s hear something about your breastfeeding/chestfeeding journey🫶

36 journeys around the sun, and 16 weeks into pregnancy 🌞
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Much change, much magic, much curiosity.
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I listen, I heal.
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I assimilate.
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In a new home, with another baby on the way, my heart is flying high with creative outpours and I’m trying to give space to them but also reign it in a tiny bit. To stay grounded as I dream (I’m finding the free-flowing creativity this pregnancy wild! Last time, I all but lost it—it seemed like it was all channeling inwards—until just a few days before giving birth when it started to pour back out).
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To feel the melancholic parts as much as the joy, because that’s the stuff that growth and alchemy are made of.
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I am here for it all. 36 today and loving motherhood and this wild pregnancy.

Some newly-crafted products are coming this Friday!
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🐚 Nourishing, moisturising bath milk filled with magnesium salts, mushrooms and two herbal blends to choose from
🐚 A new sumptuous herbal body oil that was formulated for 3 glorious figures in mind: the pregnant mamas, the new mamas, and the menstruators (though its luscious ingredients are great for all! The scent is heavenly)
🐚 A tasty floral duo tincture blend to support pain in your belly and head
🐚 A syrup rich in plant-based iron and vitamin C derived from herbs, fruit and blackstrap molasses to take during and after your period, in pregnancy or postpartum
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Plus a new batch of lime flower tincture! My antiviral choice for myself and my boy, and one I reach for when my heart needs a hug.
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How is your autumn feeling, my friends?

💥 NEW ONLINE CLINIC HOURS 💥 I’m pleased to now be offering some varied hours for herbal consultations, including a full day on Thursdays.
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This is for all herbal medicine and food medicine appointments. Whether you’re looking for support with your menstrual cycle, menopause, pre-conception, pregnancy or postpartum, book in now and let’s navigate it together 💗
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I provide online consultations to delve deeply into these areas. We look at your challenges from a whole-body lens and create a plan tailored to you which includes the modalities of herbal medicine, nutrition, holistic practices and lifestyle changes. The aim here is to teach you to approach your body and life from a place of empowerment and create lasting change.
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Book through the link in bio, from my website, or by sending a DM. Need a different time? Just DM. I’m a full-time mama + entrepreneur and these hours reflect this. I’m more than happy to find a time that works for you.
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Some areas we can cover:
Endometriosis
Adenomyosis
Pelvic pain
Painful periods
PCOS
Fibroids
Cysts
PMS / PMDD
Painful ovulation
Heavy periods
Absent periods
Mid-cycle spotting
Irregular cycles
Perimenopause / Menopause symptoms
Postpartum period issues
Fertility challenges
Low s*x drive
Hashimoto’s
Thyroid or adrenal issues
Flare-ups
Immunity issues
Chronic fatigue
Anxiety or depression
Hair or skin issues
Neurological disorders
Headaches
Gestational diabetes
Pregnancy nausea and vomiting
Constipation in pregnancy
Leg-cramps
Skin and hair changes in pregnancy
Varicose veins
Pregnancy swelling
Urinary and vaginal infections

Big full moon feelings coming out today in somatic painting. Big round feelings 🌕
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I ground and listen to the energy in my body.
I move it around through breath, stretching and drumming.
I sip on some tea.
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And then I paint. Rarely sitting, my process is about moving my whole body, using sweeping motions, dancing, and rotating myself around several pieces at once. This is how I get things unstuck, how I raise vibrations, how I heal.
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Here’s a tea for the ride 🌸
Skullcap
Tulsi
Chamomile
Lemon Balm
Ginger
Fennel

I filled my cup today, and used it to paint (literally; I forgot my water pot, so I used some of the meadowsweet & chamomile tincture-infused water from my bottle 🙃)
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I’m finding it interesting how parenting is intertwined with cyclical living—not just in terms of living with/within our own menstrual cycles, but also in line with the seasons. My creative practice ebbs and flows in the same way, taking various forms at different times. I think that becoming a parent alchemises this—it’s not as linear as it used to be.
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Part of this tidal push and pull from the moon teaches us how it’s so vital to give back to ourselves, to save an extra portion. Caretaking is profoundly and often back-breakingingly difficult. Rewarding, yes (sometimes anyway), but it’s not possible to create from a place of depletion. Biologically or spiritually.
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I’m not sure who needs to hear this, and I’m not altogether sure what I’m saying, except for this—to all you parent/artists out there: keep creating. It may not look like what it used to pre-children. It may not be ‘enough’. But it is going somewhere; it is filling something up. And I know, at least for me, that one of the most rewarding parts of living this creative parent life is seeing the magic in my child’s eyes and hands as he creates and watches me create.
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By the way, if you’re in Glasgow and a creative parent/parent of creative children, do go check out the very special for a beautifully-curated selection of art supplies for you to share together. I’m finally testing out the Stockmar watercolours I got for Jericho and I (he gets to try them out tomorrow cause today was a day for me).

Here’s a personal one for you: it’s a piece of paper from 2017 detailing all of my endometriosis symptoms that I brought with me to appointments with specialists and practitioners. And after so many years of studying and trying out ‘this and that,’ pretty much ALL of these have disappeared!
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This was written around the time that I was at my worst. I was bed-bound for most of the month, unemployed, and chronically inflamed from a laparoscopy gone bad (ablation surgery). My excision surgery—known as the ‘gold standard’ for endo—did a lot of good comparatively, but my life still didn’t belong to me. A hysterectomy would have come next had the pandemic not occurred, which is when I decided to become a mother.
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Endometriosis and motherhood terrified me, and the first year postpartum was difficult for all of the regular reasons plus getting my period back 3 months after the birth. Two failed (ejected) IUDs told me this: you have deeper work to do.
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And I did it, and it was hard. I weaved together practices and lifestyle changes that I learnt over the decades (and left some behind), and all the while could not stop thinking that I needed to help others do the same. It was the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done. Do you want to live in harmony with your womb, your cycle, and your vital creative essence? My diary and my DMs are open—let’s chat 🧡

Mornings are a meditation.
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If you’ve been here a while, you might know how vital food and drink rituals are for me. They begin to unravel as soon as I set foot into the kitchen and take my first sips of of the first drink of the day, bringing my mug outside into the garden for that dose of first morning light (even if hidden behind grey skies).
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Each week, I choose a new drink to prepare in a dedicated pot I’ve dubbed the cauldron. I pile in the herbs, fill the pot with water, and let it bubble away for a half hour while I tinker away with other small tasks that have big impact: getting our breakfast ready, preparing 2 or 3 more drinks that I’ll be sipping on at some point in the morning, adding my morning tinctures to my lemon-water, and beginning to bottle remedies for clients and the Shop.
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The contents of the pot is always a little different, riffing on what I’ve been feeling inside lately, and tastes and ingredients I’m attracted to that day. It’s always some sort of ‘coffee’ (sometimes with actual coffee thrown in alongside herbs), cacao, or chai. I heat the pot on subsequent mornings and take another cup, sometimes spiking it with a splash of grass-fed cream.
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Decoctions, as this herbal preparation is called, are a wonderful way to work with hearty, nutrient-dense herbs like mushrooms, barks, roots and berries because it extracts so much nutritional value. And by simmering them again and again each morning, the herbs just keep giving.
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Currently in the cauldron: reishi, lion’s mane, chaga, cacao husks, cinnamon and cardamom. Sometimes, in the morning I’ll add a bit of rosemary to my mug.
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Do you want to learn how to make yourself ritualistic drinks? ☕️

Here we are in a new cycle! 🌕 Orders will be posted out from Monday onwards
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Just 2 bottles left of:
✨Migraine Ease tincture blend (Feverfew, Skullcap, Chamomile, & Ginger)
✨Many Moons Oil—a super sensual massage oil infused with Mugwort, Chamomile, Damian’s & Yarrow
✨St John’s Wort Oil—infused with flowers and leaves harvested on the Summer Solstice. I’m super loving this one right now!

This womb and I have been on a long-ass journey.
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Oh, the stories and scars I’ve collected over the decades—ones filled with blood and pain and tears, of heartbreak and loss of faith in both self and spirit.
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How I lost my way so desperately that my life became a hallowed-out version of itself, depleted of everything that mattered. And how that brought me to contemplate taking my own life.
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But lost paths can take us to the most resplendent of landscapes, and pain and trauma can be our wisest teachers–if you’re willing to listen.
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To me, womb medicine and healing is made of a myriad of modalities. I work with the science and the spirit; the physiology and the energetics. The nervous system, detoxification system, and digestive system. It’s all about balance; not about maintaining it (because we are always in a state of flux), but rather learning the language so we can always cultivate a sense of it.
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And this is what I offer to you: a whole-body approach of practices married with deep nourishment through herbal medicine, nutrition, and recipes to create a depth of vibrancy in your womb that will vibrate out to the rest of your body. Who’s in? Send a DM to chat more about it 💗

Here’s us back in the day, in full postpartum mode with cozy socks and hat, babe on b**b and book in lap.
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I’ve been reflecting on this so much lately, not just in light of World Breastfeeding Week, but also because of the journey I’ve been on with my 2 and a half year old.
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It’s been such a non-linear trip, a cornucopia of deep emotion and the mystical experience of watching something so tiny morph and change as they remain tethered to you in some shape or form. The push and pull of motherhood. The ebbs and flows.
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The total giving of your body to your baby is so profound. Needs of both mother and child evolve, and listening to the murmurs (or screams) of your heart is essential. We have both learned about boundaries together. We almost stopped on multiple occasions, having gone days without ‘moon milk’, only to resume again.
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I feel content with this sacred journey. I continue to dig deeply, listening to what my body and heart are telling me. I had visions of going beyond two years but was respectful of the fact that it might be far less, too. I wasn’t breastfed as a baby, and my mother was the first in many generations to nurse my younger brother and sister. She met a lot of resistance and felt isolated in her experiences.
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I’m grateful that so much has changed in this landscape today, that there’s so much more awareness in general—for both the good and the bad, the wonderful and the difficult. I remember a few people telling me it was the hardest and best thing they had ever done, and that’s exactly the way it feels.
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I’ve chatted with many of you about your own experiences and I have so valued what you’ve had to say. So much strength and beauty and selflessness and selfishness and love. No matter your journey, however brief or long, I see all of you and I thank you for helping to create the community that keeps us moving forward 🧡

Aaaaaand we’re back!
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It’s been a wobbly couple of months here and I chose to keep the Shop closed in between my periods, but it’s now open again — with some exciting new remedies for you to check out!
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🌼A tincture for migraine relief — both as a preventative and for in-the-moment pain
🌼Both an elixir and an oxymel made with spruce tips and lavender for coughs, colds, fevers, and gassy or sluggish bellies
🌼An overnight nourishing tea for pregnancy chock full of essential vitamins and minerals
🌼A beautiful (super super small batch) of St. John’s Wort infused in extra virgin olive oil. It’s great for nerve, muscle and joint pain, burns, scrapes, and my fave —slathering it on growing pregnant bellies or for menstrual cramps
🌼Bath tea! Many of you have asked, so here you go! My preferred way to bathe
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The Shop will remain open for the next few weeks, but I will be operating on a reduced schedule towards the end of August, so get in there! Most of the usuals are in stock and I’m working on replenishing those that aren’t. Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask 🧡

Hello, dear friends. I am back and ready to reemerge!
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Much has been happening. Menstrual cycles and the endings of life cycles. Births. Family togetherness and love. The horrors of human nature. Sunshine and speed. War and drama. Planes, trains and automobiles. Ham sandwiches. Coastal walks. Happy surprises.
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I’m ecstatic to say that I’m moving my home and apothecary in just a few short weeks to the North Ayrshire countryside. I’ve been longing for a move like this for 5 years and am delighted that we will be able to frolic in nature whenever we please, and to grow plants in our front and back gardens. I’ve loved my last 8 years in Glasgow, but it’s time for some new changes.
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There’s much in the making aside from packing away my life in cardboard boxes, and I’ll soon share some of these with you. Consultations will continue as usual, with some reduced availability towards the end of the month. The Shop will reopen from its extended closure momentarily, and things may be a bit choppy with the move so if there’s anything you need then the time is now! As always, get in touch for anything bespoke.
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Thank you for all your patience and well wishes over the last wee while — it always means so much.
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A whole lotta love,
Brittney XO

Blender Oven Pancake 🥞
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Are you starting your day with 24+ grams of protein, ideally within the first hour of waking? That's what you should be aiming for to keep blood sugar and hormones in balance.
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Pancakes, both oven and stove-cooked, are weekly go-to's in my house. I've been making them in the oven for a while now after showed me how, and I take an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach by using the blender to mix in all kinds of nourishing goodness, which also quickens things. We tend to top ours with berries, maple syrup, and seeds, and you can dress it in a more savoury way too. Any leftovers are kept at room temperature til the next day (I just put a lid on my cast-iron pan).
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This is what was in ours this morning, but use the recipe as a skeleton and make it your own!
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Preheat oven to 175. Add a pad of butter to a pan and brown it in the oven while you prepare the pancakes

To a blender, add:
—1/2 cup oats or buckwheat flakes
—1/2 flour (GF or plain)
—1 tbsp sesame seeds
—1/2 tbsp poppy seeds
—1 cup milk (you can use some yogurt or buttermilk to make up the quantity)
—1 carrot (or a few pieces of beetroot)
—1 banana
—1 large handful raw spring greens (or kale, spinach or chard)
—5 eggs
—1/4 tsp vanilla extract
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Blend til very smooth and pour into your prepared pan. Bake for 20 min, and enjoy!

My life recently.

It's been a combination
of very high highs and
intense lows, with new
surprises each
day and at every turn.
I've been reflecting on my
business a lot, having been
taking a necessary slowing-
down of sorts. I'm so
grateful for my work and for
the ability to pause or change
pace when I need to;
something that I try to model
for those of you who feel
stuck or unable to do the same,
as I was for so long. And I hold
deep reverence for the vibrant
community I get to work with
and support, and to feel your
support, too—not only in
allowing me to do this work
which I so love, but also for
the compassion and
understanding that you
find for me. For allowing me
to be vulnerable.In this world
that can often feel so hateful,
holding this sense of empathy
and community is so very
necessary. Thank you all ♥️

On this longest day of the longest light, I sit and reflect on it all. The last year, the ebb and flow, the quiet and the loudness. The endings and beginnings and the changes, gradual and sudden.
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I'm no stranger to difficulties. It's the darkness that often lights my way forward; feeling into the watery depths and sculpting new forms.
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I'm not afraid of feeling and confronting, of crying and of holding. It expands my capacity to love, to hope, to be.
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For me, the truest truth is the breath and the cycle. Both continue, and yet both can stagnate and stagger for a few small moments.
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Creativity is the undercurrent, the thread that connects us all. The womb.
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Wishing you joyously long light and a short night, lit by the almost-full June Strawberry moon.
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Happy Solstice Eve 🌕
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XO, Brittney

The Cyclical Herbal Shop has now reopened and there are some tasty new additions reflecting the season. Super-healing for the inside and out, there's something here for you.
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Have a peruse through the rest of the Shop, too. This is the season of abundance and a great time to stock up on your favourites for the year. I've had so much fun creating these for you!
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Batches are small, particularly the Salt Forest Flower, so don't wait!
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XO, Brittney