Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause

It's my birthday y'all!  So grateful for another rotation around the sun. So grateful for this 54 year old body that continues to carry me and teach me about how to love, heal and take risk to be more of who I am meant to be. I can't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday with our podcast listeners than to share this delicious bonus episode! My dear brilliant and super talented sister...

“As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible.” Toni Cade Bambara When my sister and I were little girls, we developed a skill set to be present in rooms with my mother and her best girlfriends without being detected. If we could be quiet and not make any quick movements, we could have access to the world of older Black women and bear witness to...

“We are often ‘too busy’ to find time for solitude. And yet it is in the stillness that we also learn how to be with ourselves in a spirit of acceptance and peace. Then when we re-enter community, we are able to extend this acceptance to others. Without knowing how to be alone, we cannot know how to be with others and sustain the necessary autonomy.” --bell hooks What year this has been. It's feel...

When I was in my late 20s, I felt like I was going through a tremendous identity shift and growth spurt. The shift was from a more conventional aspirtationally bougie identity of my early 20s to one that was seeking to find my authentic self. The self at home in this body and understanding the origins of my culture beyond these shores. I was a single mom, working full time in the non profit sector...

Emergency Care Of Open Wounds/When It Hurts by Indigo Calmly rinse the wound with copious amounts of cold tap water. This will significantly reduce the possibilities of infection. If available, use clean linen applied firmly against the wound to inhibit bleeding. If the pressure is not adequate, do it again. Another method allows the bottom of a stainless steel saucepan to be applied to the wound....

Things I remember about being 12... Faded Glory jeans A terrible hair cut that took 2 years to grow out My parents got divorced Starting junior high school Being kissed for the first time Being pressured to have sex for the first time Starting my period  Starting a friendship that became a sisterhood that has lasted 41 years Wanting to be seen... In this episode of the Black Girl's Guide to S...

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” ― audre lorde  When I started this podcast last year, I started with a vision of centering the narratives of Black women around menopause and ageing that resonated with me. Of course that meant that as cisgender, Black, heterosexual woman born and raised in the American South I needed to check my...

" we would never leave you. we would never leave you here. we would never leave the world like this. that's why we put you here. you hear us? we put maps behind your eyes and over the entire sky. we put stories everywhere you stepped. but child services would have called it neglect."  Dub : Finding Ceremony, Alexis Pauline Gumbs We all carry stories. Some of us like loose change absentmindedl...

Many of us who follow astrology recall our first Saturn Return in our late 20's. Some people refer to your Saturn Return as a "cosmic rites of passage", a time period that happens between your 27th and 29th year of life and can last about 3 years (what fun). It is during that time that the planet Saturn returns to the the sign it was in the moment you were born. When it returns,  Saturn brings wit...

“There she is. . . the “too much” woman. The one who loves too hard, feels too deeply, asks too often, desires too much. There she is taking up too much space, with her laughter, her curves, her honesty, her sexuality. Her presence is as tall as a tree, as wide as a mountain. Her energy occupies every crevice of the room. Too much space she takes. There she is causing a ruckus with her persistent...

" Sister, You've been on my mind Sister, we're two of a kind So sister, I'm keepin' my eyes on you I betcha think I don't know nothin' But singin' the blues Oh sister, have I got news for you I'm somethin' I hope you think That you're somethin' too..." Miss Celie's Blues, The Color Purple WHAT DO OUR COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS SOUND LIKE? A laugh, greetings from old friends, sighs of understanding, t...

What if? What if we fully embraced the changes that comes with passing of time? Changes in our bodies, intimate relationships, friendships, career paths, etc. What if we didn't view these changes as a bad thing to be feared? What if we shifted the narrative to explore the liberation and joy in this process of becoming something new? What if menopause is more than hot flashes and gray chin hairs? W...

North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green drops blessings like ripe mango into our laps. Walls breathe a heavy sighs of relief as she shreds the puny narratives we have about who we are and our power to reanimate and reclaim our medicine... our magic. She calls forth specters who resemble our own shadows and reminds us that we can, that we have no choice but to reknit ourselves back together...

Lionsgate Stardate 080819 Sovereignty, Awakening, Creativity, Power, Prosperity, Portal, Stargate ... Infinity. It's Leo season and in this episode of The Black Girls Guide to Surviving Menopause, we are honored to share our interview with Leo Lana Garland with you!  Lana Garland IS aperture. She is the portal through which our diverse narratives as Black folx can come through safe and intact. She...

Delores Sanky “Mama Dee” Eaton was born June 30, 1930 in Montgomery, Alabama. My mother, Mary Kinsey Mcconner Burney, Ibaiye, was born 16 days later on July 16th that same year in Pitt County, North Carolina. Though born under different circumstances and realities in the American south, their paths in life were oddly similar. If you know anything about Cancerian women, you know they are fiercely p...

Hey Folks! The response to The Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause has been amazing! Thank you to all our new listeners and subscribers. We want to hear from you! Send us a listener letter to decolonizingthecrone@gmail and in the subject line put “LISTENER LETTER”. Your letters can be questions or thoughts that we can discuss with our guest host or they can be offerings the guide we will be...

This is a new place. 52, divorced, one adult child, one preteen about to start middle school, parents gone, and reimagining what my work identity will be after 25 years of social justice work. It feels so foreign, exciting and scary. When did I arrive on the dark side of the moon? Am I alone here? There is so much ritual around your first period as a girl. Within in your family circle, culture and...

What is the Black Girls Guide to Surviving Menopause? Who is Omisade Burney-Scott and why does she want to curate spaces and dialogues which Black women over 50 that cultivates open conversations about "the change", shapeshifting, menopause, love, life, white supremacy, patriarchy, moon phases and the crone identities? There is no guide, book, journal or courses and what many of us experience cult...