About
Elemental Birth Rites is a team of three super inspired midwives who are reimagining the art of midwifery.
The tradition of midwifery care, by integrating the art of holistic healing can address the physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual challenges of a women’s experience to provide life changing transformations that honor women’s transition from maiden to mother or from traumatized/wounded mother to empowered mothers.
We welcome you to explore this site to understand more about our work and offerings. At the heart of this community lies our coursework which engages pregnant couples through an inner process of preparing for birth as a rites of passage. We offer one on one and self guided movement through an experience based course that hopes to inspire and awaken self awareness for parents to be to truly arrive at their birthing ceremony resourced and feeling ready.
Meet the Team:
Rachael Jean of Elemental Midwifery
Rachael is the creatrix of the Elemental Birth Rites course journey and has been nurturing and caring for the seeds of this project for several years. Having come to midwifery with a background in Alternative Healing through her study of massage therapy, sound healing, herbal medicine, and many other modalities, she always felt a deep call to fuse these passions. After she graduated midwifery school and got certified as a professional midwife in 2015, she began caring for clients and providing homebirth in the rural mountains of Colorado. She witnessed many homebirth scenarios where women were left traumatized or let down by how their birth stories transpired. She felt a powerful need to honor the holistic experience of birth by addressing issues beyond the physical reality that had shown to play out and contribute to challenging births. She created a synthesis based on her personal study of ancestral healing, transpersonal psychology, and earth based spirituality, that became the basis of the Elemental Birth Rites course journey. She is so excited to have a space to share her passion for exploring shadow work for healing, personal transformation, and her deep reverence for the sacredness of birth and her role in service to the ones who are choosing to be born at this time along with the families welcoming these new spirits. Rachael devotes to the art of birth keeping in her practice, Elemental Midwifery, located in rural Maine where she takes each of her clients through the Elemental Birth Rites journey.
Aba Oyedi of Urban Bush Midwifery
Aba Oyedi, registered nurse and professionally trained midwife, has been working with families welcoming new life into the world since 2006.
Her journey and call to birth work began with the free birth of her own daughter; an experience which inspired her to commit to supporting women and families in health and wellness through the childbearing year and beyond. Aba’s love and respect for indigenous, pre-colonial cultures and the traditional modalities that assist with maintaining physical, mental and spiritual balance have been a key part of her practice and a pathway facilitating her ongoing interface with traditional cultures in the Americas and abroad.
Currently, Aba is in solo practice as a community midwife in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties. Her practice, Urban Bush: The Living Traditions focuses on Whole Woman Wellness, wholistic health education, and utilizes Elemental Birth Rites to prepare families for the deeply spiritual work of bringing forth children at home.
“Elemental Birth Rites rides the crest of a beautifully expanded energy around our boundless human potential and how we can truly prepare to realize that potential through the journey of pregnancy and birth. I am deeply honored to hold space in such a necessary community.”
Valerie Patroni of Green Lily Midwifery
Val is a Mother to her four extraordinary daughters, and wife to her beloved husband. She is a community midwife, in service to childbearing womben and their families in varying capacities, and has been involved in Birthwork for just over 15 years. With a background in teaching Yoga and Cranio Sacral Therapy, mindfulness, Holistic health, and intuitive healing have been the invisible thread, still leading and inspiring her today.
After her own profound experiences within the realm of shadow work, journeying deeper into healing her hidden wounds, and uncovering the precious gifts that lie behind them, it has become an integral and profound part of her work as a midwife. Ushering Mother’s through the magical seen and unseen metamorphosis that is birth/death/rebirth, is an honor to witness and be chosen to be a part of.
