Meet Hayley
I am trained as a sensory herbalist, teacher of natural family planning and birth story listening therapist.
I spend much of my time tending the herb garden and thinking about how we can return care, cyclical wisdom and mothering to the centre of our values and culture.
I’m passionate about finding ways to restore right relationship with our body, soul, cycles and the land that supports us.
I'm motivated by a reverence for our true selves, animal bodies, real feelings and innate belonging to the web of life
I’m working to create a menstrual health culture where the cycle is understood as an initiatory pathway to health, wisdom, cultural and ecological restoration.
The challenges/ gifts I’ve experienced through the power of my own menstrual cycle continue to be a source of great transformation and healing.
I want our threshold experiences related to fertility, conception, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, birth, postpartum, matrescence and menopause witnessed and received so they can be honoured for the power and significance they carry for us all.
Powerful ecological and ancestrally assisted experiences through conception, pregnancy, pregnancy loss and birth steered me towards a life with mothering at the centre ~ not just the holding and caring for children but the centring the mothering for all of life.
I'm here for the messy, rich journey of living through troubled times
In service of remembering of who we truly are.
To help uncover the medicine stories we are becoming.
To play our part in co-creating the life sustaining future we all need.
How did I get here?
A myriad of health conditions throughout my life, invisible disabilities and neuro-diversity led me to explore what it really means and what it really takes ‘to be well’ in this culture. This is an ongoing unlearning/healing journey that continues to bring me into deeper relationship with myself, my body, my cycle, community and land.
This process has taught me that our physical symptoms are interconnected with our emotional life, psycho-spiritual health, relationships and lifestyle, as well as the wider cultures, systems and ecosystems we live within.
I have walked my way in and out of the labyrinth of dis-ease, grief and crisis myself many times. I learnt that deep healing (when we tend to the emotional root causes) is not comfortable or easy.
I’ve also learnt that times of dis-ease, challenge and discomfort can be some of our greatest teachers and thresholds for inner growth and healing.
I arrived to this work steadily through my own journey with crisis and healing ~ learning to stay with the trouble of ecological grief whilst cultivating a wide eyed wonder for life and the natural world.
What do I bring that's different?
My approach also draws from my life experience:
~ navigating life as a neuro-divergent, highly sensitive, introverted, empath
~ cultivating belonging and nourishment out of neglect
~ a range of rural, village, suburban and city work/life experiences
~ departure from a male dominated profession to follow a calling
~ intimate with the terrain of anxiety, depression, chronic illness, fatigue and burn out
~ recovering party girl, people pleaser, over-worker, over-giver, rescuer and co-dependant
~ lovingly inviting and ending pregnancy in my body, experiencing miscarriage & stillbirth
~ ecological awakenings/ embodied experiences of innate membership in the earth community and greater web of life
~ gracefully/ungracefully navigating the aftermath of parental divorce
~ moving in and out of times of estrangement within my family of origin
~ decades of menstrual cycle awareness, tracking, charting and menstrual wellness practices
~ decades of conscious connection in partnership
~decades healing through tending land: unlearning and decolonising alongside soil, plants and bees
~ surrendering to long periods of debilitating pregnancy nausea, illness & physical injury
~ experience being disabled, chronically ill and medically housebound
~ retraining and building a business to work around motherhood
~ transforming birth trauma following on paper ‘perfect’ home birth
~ surviving postpartum in covid lockdown
~ raising a secure, wilful, spirited daughter with sensory processing challenges
~ ongoing cultivation of self care alongside community care: showing up perfectly imperfect with village heartedness
Qualifications
Birth story medicine ® (BSM)
Trained Birth Story Listener working with the BSM process. Completed training in 2021 with Pam England as teacher and mentor. Member of the BSM school receiving regular ongoing advanced training and mentoring. Fully insured to offer BSM sessions.
Sensory Herbalism
Studied Sensory Herbalism with Karen Lawton and Fiona Heckels 2017-2020. Qualified as a Sensory Herb Practitioner in 2020. Guiding clients with this healing framework in mind since 2018. Fully insured to practice as a Sensory Herb Practitioner in the UK.
Natural Family Planning (NFP)
Became certified NFPTA teacher of the Sympto-Thermal practice of Natural Family Planning in 2017. Personally working with the method since 2016 both as both a form of natural contraception and to achieve conception. Mentoring menstruators and couples for greater menstrual awareness and fertility empowerment using this method since 2017. Fully insured to offer this work.
Regenerative horticulture
Apprenticed in Sustainable Horticulture during a 6 month residency at Schumacher College in 2014. Completed Permaculture Design Certificate in 2014. Forest garden training with the Agroforestry Research Trust 2014-2016. Worked as a vegetable and salad grower at School Farm CSA 2014-2017.
Beekeeping training with the British Beekeeping Association in 2012 and later, the Natural Beekeeping Trust 2014-2018. Too many bee books to mention, dedicated observation practices and years spent sit spotting, listening and being in the company of honeybee colonies and wild bees. I am forever indebted to the magic of bees.
Architecture and Design
2005 – 2019 worked in the field of architecture and design (qualifications: BA Hons First class, MArch Commendation and ARB registered 2013-19). Wide range of architectural, landscape design projects and natural playscapes. Architect for the community led development, Atmos Totnes 2015- 2019.
Associate design tutor, The University of Plymouth 2014-2019. Visiting tutor Portsmouth University 2010/11, Hooke Park, Architectural Association 2015/16.
Further training & experience
2024 – now
CPD Webinar about risks and causes of miscarriage up to 14 weeks with Wild Nutrition. ‘Initiations; a life of ritual’ course with Ancestral Medicine. Ocean song of sorrow; grief tending for the middle passage & embodied decolonisation for white folks with Sophy Banks & Fran Andre. Launching Cyclical Motherhood CIC and podcast. Where do we go when healing becomes ill? course with Bayo Ackomolafe. Ancestral lineage healing practices following the framework of Ancestral medicine with Daniel Foor. Mothers as Natural Leaders course with Looby Macnamara. Mother Nature Circles holder training with the Mother nature project.
2019 – 2023
Co-hosting self Employed Mums support group (ongoing). White women book club (anti-racist group enquiry for white women). Activism with South Devon Parents for Peace. Wim Hoff Method. GAPs protocol at Regenerative Cooking School. Red Tent women’s group. Feminist Marketing with Kelly Diels. Patriarchal Motherhood with Dr. Sophie Brock. PMADs training with The Motherhood Centre, New York. Association for Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology & Health. Rewilding Mythology with Sophie Strand. Grief tending with South West Grief Rituals and Grief Tending in Community. Cyclical business with The Red School. Bond 6 with Upfront. Re-villaging with Beth Berry at Revolution from Home. Trauma Informed Parenting with Mama Manon. The Aware Parenting Institute. Transformation through Mothering with Marion Rose.
2013 – 2018
Activate your inner Jaguar with Kimberly Ann Johnson. The Orphan Wisdom School. Extinction Rebellion. The Oxford Real Farming Conference(s). Wild Mother with Rachael Alaia. Bird language with Chris Holland. Shamanic journeying and drum making with Suzi Crockford. Forest gardening training with Martin Crawford at The Agroforestry Trust. Wild food and foraging with Ffyona Campbell. Tools for Conscious Collaboration training. Listening to the bees at Embercombe. 6 months living at Schumacher College. Friends Of The Earth volunteer. Studio In The Woods. Shelter volunteer.