Interview with Nubia Earth
I first met Nubia through my then three-year old daughter.
We were on the playground, and while my daughter generally keeps to herself until she’s had time to get to know someone, when she set eyes on this woman sitting regally on the playscape, reading her book, she stood right in front of her and said brightly, “Hello!” All the while telling me, “Mama, look at her beautiful hair. She has locs. Mama, I love her skirts.”
The next day, when she spotted Nubia again on the other side of the slide, she bent down to get a clear view, gave her a big wave, and offered another enthusiastic hello. I thought, okay, I must truly meet this woman whose energy makes my discerning child immediately want to connect and play. Sure enough, we started talking, and it turned out we’d actually had an email exchange a year prior about midwifery services! We met for tea, shared sounds, reflections, and otherworldly conversation. Destined to meet.
Rebecca : When we met you were on sabbatical? Where did the call for that originate? Was it a response to your body, a specific event, something else?
Nubia : Yeah, definitely trusting, listening to the body, but I started to take intentional time off because I was pushing myself way too far and burning the candle on both ends. I was so invested in caring for the community, but not understanding that in order to actually show up for people, I have to be taking care of myself, so it was more that the universe, my body, my mind, demanded rest of me. And then after I finally did that for the first time, I was like, oh, why is this not part of what I do annually or every so often? Though, it took me a while to schedule that without feeling guilty because it seemed like every time I’d set the intentional time off, I would get a flood of requests from the world. But I built such a community. There are other amazing birth workers, educators, and herbalists that I can refer and feel confident that someone is still gonna get good quality care.
Rebecca : I’d like to talk about your introduction to this work. You’ve shared that your first two hospital births were deeply jarring. What moved you to transform those personal experiences into your life’s work?
Nubia : When I got pregnant with my first child, everyone tells you, you have to get regular clinical care and birth at this hospital, and I took that route. I remember getting up outta the bed after pressing the bell so many times and asking for my baby. And finally I just went out to the nurses' station, almost like a mad woman asking ‘where is my baby?’ And their reaction was you shouldn't be out of bed.
So with my son, I always laugh and say, I don't know why I went back to the scene of the same crime. But when they brought me the wrong baby to breastfeed, I said OK there's just no way I’m ever doing this again. And it made me want to educate other people about their options.
I just knew this cannot be the end all be all. I don't think this is how we're supposed to birth. And it links back to me as a child sneaking to my mom’s bookshelf and reading her copy of spiritual midwifery on her bookshelf. Those images stuck with me. Their birth stories were magical.
Rebecca : Sounds like you moved from the ‘I’ to the ‘we’ pretty quickly and understood that others were experiencing similar challenges and wanted to do something about it.
Nubia : It was immediate. I started researching right then. I'm talking to other people in the community, and finding out that my experience was mild in comparison to some of the things that they had gone through. I started feeling almost guilty. Like wow, I came out unscathed. I really don't have much to complain about. But then understanding: no, it's not about whose pain is worse. Nobody should be experiencing any level of unnecessary pain at such a beautiful time in their life. Eventually, when I had that first home birth it felt so clear that this is how you're supposed to be treated. I'm gonna scream it from the rafters! Everybody needs to know this. I want to be able to provide that for people.
Rebecca : I love that flow of experience, pain, process, sharing resources.
Nubia : Ideally I can get to a person before they have that first bad experience, if they can be open to the idea, so that they're not coming from a traumatized place like I was. And I think even now, that's what pushes me to teach and educate student midwives because we don't even learn this in mainstream midwifery education. The spiritual side, the holistic side, the communal side is completely removed from the education process, and that's really important. People still assume “I get pregnant, I get clinical care, I birth in a hospital, and that's just the end all be all.” And it can be. But I think people need to know that there are other avenues to explore as well.
Rebecca : Earth Groundz, the space you’ve created, serves as a hub of that kind of community, right? When I walked into your space at Earth Groundz for the first time, I felt like I was stepping into a dream, straight from the heart.
Nubia : Accurate, yeah, I always knew it would be called Earth Groundz. We've been open since January of 2021, and it's beyond the dream that I originally imagined. At first, I just thought this will be a place where people can come for good care, even if they're getting care somewhere else as well. I always had this idea about communal midwifery care, but the things that have been born out of this space - midwives coming from other countries and offering workshops and the drum making, all of those things are a huge part of birth work. They’re all different ingredients and elements of alchemy that go into creating a positive experience from preconception all the way to postpartum.
Rebecca : You are quite the visionary. Would you be willing to share how you cultivate your vision?
Nubia : You know, this year has taught me about the power of the spoken word and the written word in terms of manifestation. And also pouring just as much energy into giving thanks for the things that are actually coming to fruition.
Rebecca : How do you think giving gratitude plays into creation and visioning?
Nubia: Well, in retrospect, I see that a lot of this is my ancestors. Because if you believe in the concept that every baby born is an ancestor returned, it means we are just doing this loop or the spiral over and over again. For example, even when I'm at a birth, there's a moment where I feel a spirit has come into the room, and sometimes, I recognize that as my ancestors. Sometimes it's the birthing person's ancestors. Sometimes it's all of our ancestors. I can feel all of them there. Remembering that even though we might not visibly see them, I can feel their presence. And it's important that I give reverence for that fact. I couldn't do this work without paying homage to the midwives that were able to see us through the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade. If they could keep mothers and babies safe in those horrible conditions. That's some deep tuning into the moon, that's tuning into herbs, that's knowing what to feed, that's laying on of hands, that's them calling on their ancestors, and bringing all of their wisdom from their homelands to a foreign space.
Knowing that we wouldn't be here having this conversation, if they weren't able to do that. So I can't do this work day to day without continuing to pay homage to them.
Rebecca : This is a gorgeous telling, Nubia. You move with a lot of intention - your tattoos, your aesthetic, even your name. What guides that for you?
Nubia : Well with my name. That's an interesting thing 'cause people always say, oh my God, I love your name. And I say thank you, I'll tell my parents because that's my name, that's my birth name. I do believe that names are affirmations we embody. I feel connected to that element. And, I feel like it's something to live into.
My jewelry is an adornment. That was definitely something our people took a lot of pride in, and that was something that was stripped of us for a long time. Even the covering of my head. This is my crown, so I want that to be covered and protected.
The tattoos, they all chose me. My last one I got two years ago, it’s the Zia symbol. That's the four elements, the four directions, the four energies, the four different cycles of life. Those things are constant. If we continue to sit in deep respect for those things, it all seems to balance out. So, that's how I show up for the work.
Rebecca : Do you feel like that's always been true? For me, I definitely woke up to myself. That truth was always inside of me, but I had a lot to move through to live true to myself and add intention to my life.
Nubia : I always ask people when was your spiritual awakening? 'Cause there's a moment where it's like, okay, now there's no turning back. You know what you know and you realize, I have to live it. For me, that first happened when I was 17, but I learned to keep it to myself because I didn’t think anybody understood. But it kept calling to me. Eventually I got to a point where I felt like I had no choice but to start navigating life in that way.
It really makes me think about the connection between co-creators and their unborn child. I want more parents to be open to the idea that children need to come into their own being. They're here with a purpose. And it's more for us to commune back and forth with them to understand who they are, who they're becoming, and why they chose you as parents, as opposed to why did we choose to have a child? There’s gonna be times where they're teaching you and where you're teaching them. It’s the infinity loop.
Rebecca : I appreciate you, Nubia. Thanks for sitting down with me.