Alison Ritchie

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Canada
Winnipeg, MB
Alison Ritchie

Walking with Women through Birth & Rebirth
Folk Herbalist | Healing Arts | Deep Nourishment | Wild Feminine
Let’s Begin 👇🏼🌸

I am here to activate, inspire, repair, and help create a new path forward for mothers, birth workers, wild women and the next generation.

15 years ago I began my journey into motherhood where I deep dived into all things surrounding the childbearing year, herbal medicine, food therapy, and regenerative & holistic health. I became utterly fascinated with the human body, what makes it tick, the great mystery of life and how everything is mirrored in the cycles and rhythms of nature. I am acutely aware of the crossroads we stand at in our collective human history. I move through this world awake & aware, soft & tender, but also with the protective & fierce spirit of Mother Bear energy. The revolution we all feel brewing isn't coming from outside ourselves - it will come through us. It starts with you and me, here and now, in our bodies, our kitchens, our homes, our gardens, our frequencies, our businesses and communities. We are the ones we have been waiting for. In birth, in health, with our food, in all aspects of our lives...this is the chapter of the story we take it all back!

03/02/2026

The spring equinox brings with it LIGHT and the beginning of a new cycle. So many things are about to awaken and end both inside and out. It’s the turning of the great wheel!
There’s still spots available for our midseason retreat happening next weekend if you wanna come dive into all this and so much more! We’ll be out in the forest playing! 🌲🌲🌲 That is linked up in my bio.
I’ve struggled recently with how I want to show up here on IG. What matters, what is actually valuable for people, and how can I help. I don’t care to contribute to any kind of doom and gloom agenda because at the end of the day what we focus on is what we give energy to. I have 2 kids in this world that I love more than words could ever say, and I want to leave a world for them to thrive and be safe in. Isn’t that what we all want on some level?
I’m working on some new things that I’d love to invite you into soon. 💕

02/25/2026

What are you seeing out there, Mamas and Birth-workers? You’re on the front lines of life coming in. I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this.
I have been attending births for 16 years and have witnessed a huge spike in lip & tongue ties, allergies, eczema, asthma, colic, and autoimmune diseases.
I also think this is a multi-faceted conversation with way more than just GMOs at play. This is a dialogue worth carrying on in my opinion.
However, GMOs can affect our children not just at birth and while they are in utero, but as they begin to eat food other than breast milk. The compounds within GMOs and the chemicals used on them, like glyphosate, are linked to hormonal disruptions, imm*ne challenges, gut health issues, and more.
Given how foundational pregnancy is in shaping the next generation, I thought I’d create a course and now a 4 day retreat for Birthworkers to go right into the heart of important issues like this one. We go deep into food & nutrition, herbal medicine, lifestyle & environmental issues, circadian biology, and the mind, body, spirit, transformation from maiden to mother.
I have 3 spots left for this retreat happening in September out in the beauty of the Boreal Forest. Come expand your offerings as a wise woman in your community!

02/24/2026

If you’ve ever been told to just let them cry it out so they “learn” to sleep…

Please know: babies don’t fall asleep this way because they self-soothed.

They fell asleep because their brain went into shutdown mode.

And that is not the same thing.

Dr. Gabor Maté puts it plainly: when babies are left alone to cry, it’s not just a parenting strategy - it’s a trauma.

Night after night of not being responded to wires the brain to expect that their needs won’t be met.

This is not about blaming parents.

It’s about questioning a system that tells exhausted mums to override their instincts, ignore their baby’s cries, and call it “sleep training.”

(Even though we’d never treat adults this way.)

Sleep is a biological function.

Connection is a biological need.

And no - meeting that need doesn’t “spoil” your baby. It protects their nervous system and lays the foundation for emotional resilience.

So if you’re holding your baby to sleep, rocking, feeding, or just staying close at night - You’re not creating bad habits.

You’re creating safety.

And that matters more than any “sleep schedule” ever could.

Thank you for this important video

02/23/2026

A newborn arrives here on earth still needing a body to regulate against. Mum’s heartbeat steadies their breathing, and her smell tells their nervous system they are safe. Her skin, her voice, her presence, is the environment they were designed for.
When that closeness is interrupted too early or too often, a baby’s system doesn’t interpret it as “independence.” It reads it as stress. Their tiny body releases cortisol and their young nervous system learns vigilance instead of ease…and this extends beyond infancy.
It can echo through a lifetime as hyper-independence, anxiety around connection, difficulty trusting support, or a sense that love isn’t stable.
Our culture has normalized early separation with hospital nurseries, ridiculous schedules, and economic pressures that pull mothers back to work before their bodies or babies are ready. But biologically, we are still the same human animals who are wired for closeness and contact. For attuned, responsive care. 💓
When a mother is nourished and supported…�When she is given the space to stay close to her baby…�Two nervous systems learn safety together.
This is the beginning of secure attachment and resilience. Its how we learn trust in the body and the world. It’s a really big deal!
This is one of the many reasons why I care so deeply about how we nourish mothers.�This is why birth, postpartum, and the seasons that come before conception matter so much. This attachment is one of the ways we will build a new world!
If you feel this in your bones, and you are a birthworker, you belong in this work with me. Join me this September in a 4 day retreat out in the Boreal forest to expand your work beyond the labor and birth room…. From preconception to postpartum, this threshold is where it all begins and there is so much good work we can do here. All the info to join me is linked up in my B I O.

02/20/2026

In light of the recent news of the executive order to boost and protect domestic (US) production of glyphosate and its key ingredients, I thought it would be a great time to remind everyone of the duty we have as educators, birthworkers, and informed humans that this widely used agricultural toxin must be avoided as much as possible during the delicate time of preconception -> postpartum.
The fact that it is showing up in umbilical cords and breast milk should be greatly concerning to us all. Knowing what we know now about the waters of our body holding memory (check out amazing work on this) we really must take matters into our own hands to protect our children.
If today isn’t enough proof that no party of government will put the people’s health over profit, then God help you. It is truly up to you and me, to find the way through this. Voting with our dollars, bartering, creating systems outside of the beast to keep our families and communities safe.
This September I’m hosting a 4 day retreat for birthworkers where we will go in depth on the how’s and why’s of supporting the families and communities you work with to create real change in health from the get go. From before women even conceive - upstream where it really matters. This and so much more. It’s all based off my online program *of marrow and mother* where this interview with is from.
Let’s create a legacy of generational health for our children and their children. ✨🙏🏼 You know where to find the deets.

02/19/2026

Join and I at her gorgeous studio in the Boreal Forest on March 7th. Registration is at the top of my B I O.
See you there! 🌲☀️

02/17/2026

If the idea of fortifying a mother’s body between births and tending the soil between crop cycles feel like the same conversation, that is because they are!
In both cases, life does not begin at the moment of planting. It begins in the preparation. In the seasons where the ground is fed, the minerals are restored, the structure is rebuilt, and the ecosystem is brought back into balance so that what grows next can root deeply and thrive. 15 years of tending a garden has taught me this!
The female body is no different.
Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum are not isolated events. They are part of a larger cycle that includes preconception, nourishment, recovery, and the rebuilding of strength and reserves between each chapter. When this phase is skipped, rushed, or unsupported, we see it show up later as depletion, dysregulation, difficult pregnancies, challenging births, and mothers who are trying to give from an empty well. We are generations deep into this depletion.
For birthworkers, this is a call to widen the lens.
If we only step in at the moment of labor, we are arriving very late in the cycle. The conditions for birth have been forming for months and years before conception ever occurs.
When you understand how to support women in the seasons between births, through food, herbs, rest, cycles, circadian rhythm, and rebuilding, you begin to influence the entire arc of the childbearing year. Birth becomes steadier, recovery becomes deeper, and mothers feel held!
This is big work.
It is slow, embodied, seasonal work. It asks us to think like gardeners instead of mechanics. To tend the soil instead of trying to just control the outcome.
This is just some of what we will be learning at the 4 day “Of Marrow & Mother” retreat (based off my online program) this September. It’s for birth workers wanting to expand into the next expression of their work… beyond birth itself. From preconception to postpartum and beyond, the full childbearing continuum.
This is a small retreat by design with limited spaces. I would love to have you with us. Type Birth and I’ll send you the details.

02/05/2026

Why is it important to orient yourself with the seasons?

Because when you don’t orient yourself to the season, something else does it for you… usually the calendar, Hallmark holidays, or old survival patterns.

Understanding the cycles we live within isn’t a poetic lifestyle choice, my friends. It’s practical intelligence. The body is seasonal by design. Light, temperature, and time of year directly affect hormones, digestion, sleep, mood, cognition, and nervous system tone. When the outer season shifts and the inner rhythm doesn’t catch up, it shows up as fatigue, anxiety, irritability, or that feeling “off.” Before self-diagnosing with Google, it’s worth asking if this is simply a seasonal mismatch.

The transition from winter to spring can be very destabilizing, particularly in climates where the pendulum swings hard ( hello, Manitoba) Light increases faster than the body can metabolize. Energy returns unevenly. Sometimes this looks like restlessness or even mild mania.

If you live as though it’s already full spring, you override your system. If you treat it like winter, you stagnate. Many people feel this transition in their bodies through colds or flus. (often less as illness, more as system recalibration.)

When we pause to orient, we can ask better questions.
What does my body actually need right now?
What is nature doing, and what can I learn from it?
How do I gently shake winter off without forcing myself into bloom?

This matters because we don’t want to be living reactively. We don’t need to chase energy when we should be rebuilding it. We don’t need to push forward when the body is asking for integration. Seasonal orientation restores trust in the body, in intuition, and in life itself!! It becomes a lens through which choices feel clearer and more coherent.

The earth is both map and mirror.
To orient yourself with the season is to inhabit your life more fully, and clarity tends to follow.

I’m co-hosting a day retreat with my dear friend on March 7 — the second installment of our Midseason Series — where we’ll explore all of this and so much more together. Space is limited. Come join us!

01/12/2026

Last year I hosted 4 sold out retreats at this sweet spot in the Whiteshell Provinical park. This year I only have one Wild Feminine retreat planned for this summer - August 14-16 2026.
Each retreat covered the same itinerary but they all were SO UNIQUE. The women’s energy, the energy of the season, the weather - they were so beautiful.

Registration is now LIVE for this year! Space is very limited so come on in soon if this calls to you!

I will be a running a retreat based off of my program *of marrow and mother* for birth workers in September. More on that very soon. Type WILD below and I’ll send some details your way.
🌲🌲🌲

11/04/2025

Body oiling is a non negotiable for me as we move into the dark season more every day. 🕯️There is something about connecting with myself and all the beautiful plants via the oils that make it such a better experience. This is part of what preventative, self-reliant health care looks like for me. The massage and lymphatic drainage I feel is especially important in the slower months when I’m less active.

So… How to Practice Body Oiling?

🌿Choose Your Oil: Select a natural oil like sesame, coconut, almond, or one of my herb infused high vibe oils! Try to choose an oil that would grow in the environment you live in.
🤲🏽Warm the Oil: Rub the oil in your hands to generate heat before applying it to your body. You could warm it in a pot on the stove but I personally feel for my daily practice it’s an unnecessary step.
💆🏽‍♀️Massage: Apply the oil in circular motions over the joints and long strokes along the limbs, working towards the heart. I start behind my ears and on my neck and work my way to my feet. 🦶 There are so many nerve endings on your ears, hands and feet so make sure you get those!
🪷Let It Absorb: Leave the oil on for at least 15-30 minutes to allow oil to deeply absorb. This is why I love doing this when my pores are open because my skin absorbs it so quickly. I have a robe I throw on afterwards so I don’t get oil everywhere, but it really does absorb quick!
That’s it! This creates a barrier that locks in moisture but also feels SUPER grounding to my nervous system. It really helps me unwind at the end of the day and set myself up for a good sleep. It helps stimulate blood circulation, reduces stress and muscle tension, encourages lymphatic drainage, and delivers nutrients to the skin!
I have a variety of herbal infused oils made from herbs I’ve grown in my garden or wild crafted available for you to experience! Comment NATURE below and I’ll send you over to my shop. You can use code NATURE at checkout for 15% off your order!
Cheers to your vibrant health! 🌿

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Winnipeg, MB

Website

https://linktr.ee/this_grand_voyage_

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Welcome!

I am so pleased you’ve found your way here. Whether you are giving birth to a new baby, or a new way of life, you came here looking for more. My heartfelt desire is for you to have the courage to dive deep with all that you are - and make the most of your journey, on all levels.

I am an Earth and Birth worker. A student and stewardess of the ever changing seasons and cycles of mother earth and women alike. From the spring time blossoming pre-teen, to the wise, winter, silver crone, I work with women in all ages and stages. I study, create, grow and work intimately with plant medicines that assist women in their lives.

I am a women’s herbal educator, teacher, full spectrum holistic birth and postpartum doula, entrepreneur, gardener, wife and mother. I love studying ancestry, aromatherapy and astrology, spirituality and the metaphysical, thrifting vintage, eclectic fashion and home decor. I love travelling, music, Harry Potter, and of course my dogs, my family and our home.

I feel my work with women and birth in particular keeps me close to the Great Mystery of life, and serves as a great reminder that we, too, will venture back into that beautiful unknown at some point, so every day we wake up is a gift. Here I am on the grand spiral, and it brings me great joy knowing that I have awoken into this life and live in my passions, doing the work I have come here to do.