The Healing Connection

10/07/2026

🌿🌙 WITCHY WEDNESDAY 🌙🌿

🌙 Midwives: The Women Who Helped Bring Life Into the World

Long before hospitals became the standard place to give birth, birth happened at home, in communities, and in the hands of women who had learned the knowledge of childbirth through generations.

They were the midwives. 🌿

A midwife wasn't simply someone who helped deliver a baby.

She could be a caregiver, herbalist, counsellor, teacher, advocate and trusted member of her community.

She knew the rhythms of pregnancy.

She understood the stages of labour.

She knew traditional comfort measures.

She knew how to recognize when something wasn't going normally.

And she understood something incredibly important:

Birth wasn't just about the baby.

It was about the mother, too.

Across cultures and throughout history, women developed their own traditions surrounding pregnancy, birth and postpartum care.

There were special foods.

Birthing positions.

Herbal preparations.

Rituals.

Songs and prayers.

Women gathering around another woman in labour.

And the quiet knowledge passed from one generation to the next.

🌿 Women teaching women.

For much of history, childbirth was primarily a female sphere of knowledge.

But that began to change in different parts of the world as medicine became increasingly professionalized.

Male physicians and formal medical institutions gained greater authority over childbirth, while midwifery became regulated, restricted or pushed aside in many places.

And this is where the history gets complicated.

The popular story that “midwives were persecuted simply because they were witches” doesn't tell the whole truth.

Some midwives were accused of witchcraft during periods of witch persecution.

But accusations varied enormously depending on the time and place, and many people accused of witchcraft were not midwives at all.

There were also broader struggles over who was allowed to practice medicine, who controlled medical knowledge, and whose expertise was considered legitimate.

In some places, midwives continued their work.

In others, laws and professional regulations increasingly limited who could practice.

And in some communities, traditional birth knowledge survived quietly through families and cultural traditions.

Today, midwifery is a recognized healthcare profession in many parts of the world, including Canada.

Modern midwives aren't simply recreating historical childbirth practices.

They combine professional education, clinical knowledge and evidence-based care with a model of care that places tremendous emphasis on informed choice, continuity of care and the person giving birth.

And perhaps that's one of the most beautiful threads connecting the past to the present.

The tools have changed.

The knowledge has expanded.

The medicine has evolved.

But the fundamental idea remains:

A woman deserves to be supported while bringing life into the world. 🤍

So this Witchy Wednesday, we're honouring the generations of midwives who carried knowledge about birth through history.

The women who sat beside labouring mothers.

The women who welcomed babies into the world.

The women who comforted, encouraged and cared.

The women whose knowledge was sometimes celebrated, sometimes challenged, and sometimes feared.

🌙 Birth has always been powerful.

And the women who understood it have always been part of our story.

🌿 The Healing Touch Wellness Centre

Exploring the history, traditions and stories behind our connection with nature, healing and the wisdom passed down through generations.

09/30/2026

🌿🌙 WITCHY WEDNESDAY 🌙🌿

🕯️ The Wise Woman: Keeper of Knowledge

Before there were doctors on every corner, specialists for every concern, and an app for practically everything, there was often the wise woman.

She might have been the village herbalist.

The midwife.

The woman who knew which plants grew nearby.

The grandmother who remembered old remedies.

The person people went to when they needed advice, comfort, practical knowledge—or simply someone who would listen.

She wasn't necessarily a “witch.”

And she wasn't necessarily a medical professional in the way we understand that term today.

She was something much more deeply woven into her community:

A keeper of knowledge. 🌿

Wise women learned through observation, experience and generations of teaching.

They knew the seasons.

They knew the plants.

They knew birth, illness, death and grief.

They knew how to preserve food, make remedies, tend wounds, care for children and support women through pregnancy and childbirth.

And perhaps just as importantly…

They knew people.

They knew who needed a little extra help.

Who was grieving.

Who needed a meal brought to their door.

Who needed someone to sit beside them.

Who needed a reminder that they weren't alone.

Much of this knowledge was oral tradition—passed from one generation to another rather than written in textbooks.

Mother to daughter.

Grandmother to granddaughter.

Neighbour to neighbour.

Healer to apprentice.

And because this knowledge often lived outside formal institutions, it could be incredibly vulnerable to being lost, dismissed or suppressed.

The “wise woman” is also part of the complicated history behind our modern understanding of witches.

Not every wise woman was accused of witchcraft, and not everyone accused of witchcraft was a healer.

But throughout history, women who lived independently, practiced folk healing, assisted with childbirth, or held knowledge outside accepted structures could sometimes find themselves viewed with suspicion.

Today, the idea of the Wise Woman has been reclaimed in many different ways.

For some, she represents intuition.

For others, herbal knowledge, spirituality, nature, ritual or traditional practices.

For others still, she is simply the woman who has lived enough life to know that sometimes the most important thing you can offer another person is a cup of tea, a listening ear and a safe place to land. ☕🌿

And perhaps that is something worth remembering.

We live in a world overflowing with information.

But knowledge isn't the same thing as wisdom.

Wisdom comes from experience.

From paying attention.

From asking questions.

From knowing when you don't know.

From learning from those who came before us—and being willing to change our understanding when we learn something new.

🌙 The Wise Woman isn't about knowing everything.

She's about staying curious.

She's about sharing what she knows.

She's about knowing that healing has never been just about the body.

And she's about making sure the knowledge worth carrying forward doesn't disappear. 🌿

So here's to the grandmothers.

The herbalists.

The midwives.

The aunties.

The healers.

The storytellers.

The women who always seemed to know what to do.

And every woman who has ever sat beside another woman and quietly said:

“I've got you.” 🤍

🌙 The Healing Touch Wellness Centre

Exploring the history, traditions and stories behind our connection with nature, healing and the wisdom passed down through generations.

09/28/2026

Speak Reiki - Episode 49

09/23/2026

🌿🌙 WITCHY WEDNESDAY 🌙🌿

The Herbalist: Medicine Growing in the Garden

Before medicine came in brightly labelled bottles, much of it grew right outside the door. 🌱

For generations, people learned to recognize the plants around them and understand their traditional uses.

Leaves.
Flowers.
Roots.
Berries.
Bark.
Seeds.

And the people who carried this knowledge were often the herbalists, wise women, healers and traditional medicine keepers of their communities.

They knew that different plants had different properties. They learned when to harvest them, how to dry and preserve them, and how they were traditionally prepared as teas, infusions, poultices, salves and other preparations.

This wasn't necessarily about magic.

It was observation.

People noticed that certain plants seemed to soothe an upset stomach. That some helped settle a cough. That others were traditionally used on wounds or for aches and pains.

Then that knowledge was passed along.

Mother to daughter.
Grandmother to granddaughter.
Healer to apprentice.
Community to community. 🌿

Of course, traditional herbal medicine wasn't always accurate or safe. Some plants are poisonous. Some interact with medications. Some traditional remedies simply don't work.

And that's an important part of understanding herbalism today.

We can appreciate the history and cultural knowledge of plants without assuming that everything our ancestors used is medically proven—or that “natural” automatically means safe.

In fact, many modern medicines have roots in compounds originally discovered through plants.

The difference is that modern pharmacology can isolate, study, test and standardize those compounds.

So perhaps the real lesson isn't:

“Ancient medicine was better.”

Or:

“Modern medicine replaced everything that came before it.”

Maybe it's somewhere in between.

🌱 We inherited generations of observation.
Modern science gave us new ways to understand it.

And the garden still has stories to tell.

Next time you walk past a patch of herbs, flowers or weeds, take a closer look.

That “weed” might have a history older than your house. 🌿

Just remember: admire first, research second, ingest last. 😉

🌙 The Healing Touch Wellness Centre
Exploring the history, traditions and stories behind our connection with nature and healing.

09/16/2026

🌿🌙 WITCHY WEDNESDAY 🌙🌿

The Medicine Woman & the “Witch”

Long before modern pharmacies, clinics and medical textbooks, communities relied heavily on knowledge passed down through generations.

And much of that knowledge was held by women.

The woman who knew which plants could be brewed into a tea.
The woman who knew how to prepare a poultice.
The midwife who helped bring babies into the world.
The grandmother who knew traditional remedies.
The neighbour people called when someone was sick.

They might have been known as herbalists, healers, midwives, wise women, cunning women, medicine women or folk healers. 🌿

Their knowledge was often practical, deeply connected to their environment, and learned through observation, experience and generations of tradition.

But then there is the word “witch.” 🕯️

The history is much more complicated than the idea that witches were simply women who knew herbs.

Not every person accused of witchcraft was a healer, and accusations of witchcraft could involve many different social, religious, political and personal factors.

However, women who possessed knowledge outside accepted institutions could sometimes become targets of suspicion.

A woman who understood childbirth.
A woman who lived independently.
A woman who challenged expectations.
A woman who knew plants and remedies.
A woman who was considered strange, outspoken or threatening.

Knowledge itself could become something to fear.

During periods of witch persecution in Europe and elsewhere, thousands of people were accused of witchcraft, and women made up the majority of those accused and executed in many regions. The reasons were complicated—and they weren't simply about herbal medicine.

What we do know is that generations of traditional knowledge were vulnerable to being dismissed, suppressed or lost.

And yet… some of it survived.

It survived in family recipes.
In herbal traditions.
In folk practices.
In midwifery.
In Indigenous knowledge systems.
In grandmothers teaching grandchildren.
In women quietly passing knowledge from one generation to the next. 🌿

Today, the word witch has been reclaimed by many people as a symbol of nature, intuition, spirituality, ritual, creativity and connection to the earth.

And perhaps that is one of the most beautiful parts of remembering this history:

We don't have to romanticize the past to honour the women who came before us.

We can recognize what they knew, acknowledge what they didn't know, learn from what survived, and appreciate how much modern medicine has also taught us.

Healing has always been a story of knowledge being passed from one generation to another.

So this Witchy Wednesday, we're raising a cup of tea to the medicine women, herbalists, midwives, wise women, grandmothers and keepers of knowledge who helped their communities long before we had everything we have today. 🌙🌿

Because sometimes looking backward isn't about going back.

It's about remembering. ✨

🌿 The Healing Touch Wellness Centre
Where curiosity, tradition, spirituality and modern wellness can meet.

09/15/2026

🌿✨ The History of the Medicine Woman & the “Witch” ✨🌿

Long before pharmacies, hospitals, and modern medicine, communities relied on women who understood the plants growing around them, knew how to tend wounds, supported women through birth, prepared remedies, cared for the sick, and passed generations of knowledge from one woman to another.

They were herbalists. Midwives. Healers. Wise women. Medicine women.

And sometimes… they were called witches. 🕯️🌙

The word witch has a complicated history. While not every person accused of witchcraft was a healer, many women who held knowledge outside accepted social structures—including knowledge of herbs, childbirth, fertility, illness, and traditional healing—could become targets of suspicion and persecution.

Their knowledge was often dismissed, feared, controlled, or lost.

But not all of it disappeared.

Some traditions survived through families, communities, Indigenous knowledge systems, folk medicine, herbalism, midwifery, and generations of women quietly teaching the women who came after them. 🌿

Today, when we use the word witch in a spiritual or modern context, it doesn't have to mean something sinister.

For many, it represents reconnecting with nature, intuition, seasonal cycles, traditional plant knowledge, ceremony, creativity, and the wisdom of those who came before us.

At The Healing Touch, we love that connection to the old ways—while also recognizing the importance of modern medicine and evidence-based healthcare. 🌱

There is something powerful about remembering that healing has always been more than one thing.

Sometimes it is a prescription.

Sometimes it is a practitioner.

Sometimes it is a cup of herbal tea, time in nature, ritual, rest, community, or simply having someone sit beside you and say:

“You don't have to do this alone.” 🤍

Here's to the wise women, healers, herbalists, midwives, grandmothers, storytellers, and keepers of knowledge whose voices helped carry these traditions forward.

🌙 The old ways aren't necessarily about going backwards. Sometimes they're about remembering what we forgot. 🌿

09/13/2026