Natural Living Expo Supports Midwife Center For 17 Years
James Carbone and wife Marjorie Gonzalez share the colorful crafts, jewelry and weavings by Mayan people to support the midwife center at the 2024 Natural Living Expo. Photo courtesy Natural Living Expo.
With patient and skillful nurturing for many, many years, an heirloom seed sprouted way back in 2007 by Michella Brudner blossoms each year in November as the Natural Living Expo in Marlborough, MA. This unique, in-person experience allows you to soak up vibes of love, healing and learning in carefully curated exhibit and workshop halls all weekend long. And every year those seed roots grow stronger, the branches wider, the foliage more brilliant, and the song sweeter of all those birds-of-a-feather flocking together in one big healing tree that just keeps growing more beautiful and inviting. 2024’s expo rocked my healing world! Mark your calendar for next year’s expo Veteran’s Day weekend, November 8-9, 2025.
The Natural Living Expo received a heartfelt note of thanks for 17 years of support from Asia Blackwell, the on-site executive director of Maya Midwifery International in Concepcion, Guatemala. The midwife center was sparked into being at the 1998 Spirit of Change Harvest Gathering, when midwife center benefactor, James Carbone, met Mayan elders around the sacred fire at the gathering and heard about their vision for a center. Land was purchased, construction began, and the ACAM Midwifery and Birth Center triumphantly opened in 2004. With continuing North American support, it has sustained and empowered local midwives ever since with retaining their traditional practices to keep their communities healthy.
“A huge thank you to board member Carol Bedrosian, whose daughter, Michella, has donated to and provided MMI with exhibit space at the Natural Living Expo free of charge for the past 17 years. This has contributed to our ability to fundraise annually, bringing in an additional $1,600 this year. These donations are making a huge impact while our grant writing is paused, as we move through the transition when our new Guatemalan association is legally registered.”
Through many tribulations, natural disasters and societal challenges, the midwife center has grown, adapted and found the resources to thrive, spurred on by the efforts of dedicated people both in Guatemala and the US. They need our support. For those of us who have so much, a personal donation during this season of giving or on Giving Tuesday, this December 3, helps keep the circle strong of all our relations. Please consider a tax deductible donation to the center to help. Thank you. Read more about the midwives and this incredible center at www.mayamidwifery.org.
Carol Bedrosian is the founder and publisher of Spirit of Change since 1987. She can be reached at carol@spiritofchange.org.
