In this world of price tags and dollar signs, the Placenta Liberation Front is a creative, refreshing perspective on the age old practice of placenta medicine–or what Phoenix midwife Shell Walker refers to as “placenta crafting.”
So what’s so liberating about placenta crafting?
First of all, Shell offers FREE placenta encapsulation training. That’s a radical departure from the online training courses in the US and UK that charge hundreds of dollars, or the hard-to-find, real live training workshops that charge the big bucks, too.
Second of all, Shell views placenta knowledge as a commonly shared resource that should be accessible to everyone, rather than copyrighted, trademarked and patented.
In fact, the only thing she asks of her placenta students is that they pay it forward. In exchange for receiving her free training, she asks students to commit to providing 5 free placenta encapsulations over the next year, take a refresher class after a year, and subsequently train at least one other person in placenta encapsulation within a years time.
Shell’s intentions and the way that she frames placenta work seem to come from a deeply wholistic perspective. She advocates for a method of placenta work “that speaks to the subtle essence of placenta crafting.”
When are the hands better than a knife?When are bare hands better than gloves?When is mortar and pestle better than an electric grinder?And what of our intentions, our thoughts, our connections, our sacred breath and their contribution to the process?For these reasons and more, I would love to see the art and soul of placenta crafting preserved and passed from hand to hand. Live and in person.This is my contribution to that end100 newly trained placenta crafters by the end of 2012Free of commerceFree of discriminationFree of territoriesFree of market controlFree of price settingFull of knowledgeFull of careFull of considerationFull of love
Imagine an army of egalitarian placenta crafters, armed with a mortar & pestle and size 00 gel caps! Marching forward into the birth world, spreading placenta knowledge wherever they go.
I look forward to keeping track of the Placenta Liberation Front, and this new direction for the lineage of placenta knowledge.
This is GREAT! With the current trend in placenta medicine, it’s beginning to feel more like a pyramid scheme and who can make the most money out of offering this service and not at all about the healing of the mother.
Love this!!
I LOVE THIS! I believe that this knowledge should be available to everyone, regardless of their income. When I started my placenta craft, I was so shocked by what I saw in certain online training programs. It just didn’t work for me, personally. This method of teaching seems so much more empowering.
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Yey for this. I’m a yet-to-be-mummy, but you bet I’ll be placenta crafting – high risk of PND for me, I’ve heard consuming placenta is a big help for this – I’ll have to do a lot of research to do this, and have no help from my partner (probably none from the midwife either) to at least store the placenta after birth. I’d love to see the NHS here in the UK teaching this to pregnant women, much in the same way they now teach breast feeding and encourage use of cloth nappies.