Tag: Feminine wisdom

We Don’t Need to Hurt to Heal: A Feminine Reclamation of Wisdom

I’ve been thinking about all the times I’ve doubted my body because someone with a degree said something different.

All the times I was told that if it wasn’t backed by science, it wasn’t real.
That if it wasn’t studied in a lab, on rats, on men, on isolated variables, it didn’t count.
That my knowing wasn’t proof.

But I’m done accepting that framework.

Because the feminine path of healing doesn’t require violence.

I don’t need to see an animal suffer to know what nourishes me.

I don’t need test results to believe what my womb already told me.
I don’t need a randomized control trial to validate what my intuition whispered when I lay awake at night, wondering why my body was shutting down.
I don’t need mouse trials to honor menstrual cycles, emotions, or sacred bread.

Because the truth is: we are not machines. We are ecosystems.

And the way we heal is not through control and dissection, but through listening and remembering.

Science, as we know it, has been built on extraction.

  • Take from animals.
  • Take from women’s bodies.
  • Take from indigenous wisdom and call it research.
  • Package it. Patent it. Profit from it.

But feminine wisdom doesn’t extract. It relates.

It says:
What if we let the body speak?
What if we trust the earth’s timing?
What if we stop cutting open the mystery and instead sit with it?

I believe in a way of knowing that doesn’t require harm to be valid.

Call it soft science.
Call it sacred.
Call it memory.
Call it what it is: truth.

Because I’ve lived in a body that has broken from expert advice.
I’ve lived through diets that won applause but drained my vitality.
And I’ve felt the return of power when I stopped asking permission and started listening inward.

We don’t need to hurt to heal.

Not animals.
Not ourselves.
Not the land.
Not each other.

We need nourishment.
We need reverence.
We need to remember what we’ve always known.

And we need to stop treating wisdom like it must be proven in order to exist.

Some truths are older than studies.
Some truths are meant to be felt, not measured.

And I will no longer apologize for holding them.

Posted on by martucia 0

When the Experts Are All Men: What My Body Knows That Science Ignores

I’m reading One Spirit Medicine by Alberto Villoldo, and I’m trying, truly trying, to keep an open mind.

But I keep noticing something that I can’t unsee: every expert he cites is a man. Every doctor, every researcher, every authority on the gut, brain, or spirit. Men. The only woman he mentions? His wife, in passing, as someone who did a journey for him once when he was ill. No mention of what she found. No mention of her voice.

And that makes me angry.

Because this book claims to be about healing, about spirituality, gut wisdom, ancestral memory. Yet it’s built on a foundation that ignores or sidelines women’s wisdom entirely.

It’s the same pattern I’ve seen in so many spiritual and wellness spaces: male gurus, male teachers, male authors co-opting ancient traditions, especially those rooted in indigenous and feminine knowledge, while continuing to center male voices as the authorities.

Then he starts talking about how carbs are toxic. How grains are destroying us.

And listen, some of it is valid. Yes, the wheat we eat today is more processed and gluten-heavy than what our ancestors ate. Yes, food has changed. But the sweeping claim that carbs and grains are inherently harmful?

That erases entire cultures. Entire ancestral foodways. Entire bodies, like mine.

I tried the high-fat, low-carb “keto” diet years ago. I counted macros. I cut carbs. I lost weight (thirty pounds in a year). But I also lost my period. My hair. My glow. My sweat started to smell like onions, something no deodorant could fix. My hormones were shot.

And no doctor, no expert, no male wellness guru had warned me about that.

Because they weren’t studying women.

My body was trying to tell me something long before the science caught up.

She was saying: I need carbs. I need rhythm. I need nourishment, not just discipline.
I need balance, not control.

I reintroduced carbs slowly. And with them, I brought back life. Color. Softness. Cycles. I made myself a promise: never again will I silence my body’s wisdom in order to fit someone else’s idea of health.

So when I read Villoldo, or any man, talking about “bad foods” and “gut science” and ancient medicine, but only through the lens of male experts and westernized frames of authority, I start to shut down.

Because I know what’s missing:
Women’s voices. Women’s bodies. Women’s experiences.

We are not side notes.
We are not footnotes.
We are not support staff for the hero’s journey.

We are the soil. The seed. The ceremony.

And I don’t need a PhD to know what my body knows.

Posted on by martucia 0