This is my story.

My 11th birthday. This was the year I started my period, which was the most painful experience of my life thus far.

For various reasons, I’ve always had painful periods. The story I believed was that I was unlucky to be a girl and have to deal with it all.

I envied my male peers who seemed to carry on at school, unbothered by the pain, the planning, and the struggle of periods.

Then a shift started to happen. In my high school art class I made a series of 10 pieces about my painful periods, and this sparked something.

Periods were actually kind of… beautiful!

I learned about their connection to the moon, and my world view started to expand beyond the story I grew up with.

I became a yoga teacher at 17, and this accelerated the shift even more. As I started to tune into my body, I realized how precious she was.

My passion grew. I studied women and gender studies in university, trying to unravel this plight of being female. I wanted to understand more.

I started to become passionate about birth and pregnancy too, I even started working at a local birth center. The epiphanies continued.

Pregnancy and birth aren’t curses. Instead, maybe it’s the medicalization, the harshness. The push to make bodies as small as possible, and the system that turns away from the softness of a postpartum body.

All of these realizations were confirmed as I spent more time in nature and noticed how the pattern of all living things reflected what happened in my body. If the moon has phases and seasons shift and change, then my body that operates off the same cyclical clock can’t be bad.

Slowly it unfolded… maybe being a woman with a body that bleeds and births isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s the patriarchal devaluing of anything that flows, the structure that leaves no space for rest.

In fact, being a bleeding, birthing, cyclical woman is earth-shatteringly powerful.

I wanted to share it!!! I had been creating art through the whole journey to process and express the new.

With lots of help and encouragement…

Studio Marilyn was born!

I became pregnant with my son, and his birth was the most empowering experience of my life. The story that mothers are victims of birth, that it’s dangerous and miserable, was one sided and unhelpful.

Creating and birthing new life was a path to immense pleasure! I have never been so confident in my capabilities and power.

This changed everything for me. Even though my pain hadn’t changed, my period became a sacred time. Even though motherhood was difficult, it was deeply empowering. I felt an increased sense of belonging in my own body, in the world, and in my relationships.

I started to create tools that put into practice all I had learned. They help women, honor their cycle, embrace their bodies, feel empowered in birth, and overall remember their worth.

And guess what… these tools really helped people!

I find that art is particularly helpful in expressing these potent ideas and helping them settle in your heart. I still personally use these creations to remind myself that I am worthy and my cycle is valuable.

We are in this together!

So here we are!

My creations are my prayer to point us towards rest, the feminine, cycles, periods, birth, and bodies that are blessed. They can help reword your thinking, heal wounds, and bring you into a place of power and healing.

I’m grateful everyday to do this with you all.

Much love, Marilyn