Gathering of our Heads, Hearts, Hands and Hopes

Whether you’re joining us online or on the island, we want the spaces between the ‘Gathering of our Heads’ in the educational sessions to feel every bit as memorable as the sessions themselves - sometimes joyful and noisy, sometimes creative, sometimes deeply meaningful, and sometimes simply an excuse to kick off our shoes and enjoy being with other birth workers.

Gathering of our Hearts

On the island, we’ll head out onto the Laguna Madre for a dolphin tour - salt air, clear seas and hopefully a few fins appearing beside the boat. At the same time, our virtual crowd will trade dolphins for dough with Beach Baking, gathering in their kitchens to make beach-themed cookies together using cutters sent in their conference gift bags. There’ll be beach-bar and waterfront hangouts on the island, relaxed online gatherings from home, Lotería and Basta for all, and Sunday-morning ¡Café y Chisme! - all chances to relax, laugh, and make memories with birth worker colleagues… who will be friends by the time the weekend is over. We even get to have a heartfelt celebration of the students taking their next steps into midwifery, with a beach graduation.

Gathering of our Hands

The crafts are simple, but the meaning behind them matters. Midwives will decorate footprints so that graduating students can quite literally follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before them, with our virtual midwife attendees fully included in creating that path. We’ll also create a collaborative patchwork beach scene, with each person decorating one square in their own style before all those individual pieces are brought together into something none of us could have made alone. Add in beads, ribbons, illustrated messages in bottles and more, and there’ll be plenty of opportunity to put our hands to something different, chat while we work, and perhaps rediscover a little creativity that has been buried under charts, call schedules and everyday life.

Gathering of our Hopes

And amid all that activity, we’re leaving space to slow everything down. One morning will begin with the option of a gentle and intentioned yoga flow, whether that means rolling out a mat on the beach or joining us online from home. Our Blessing of the Hands will connect generations of midwives: those whose hands have been blessed before will pass that blessing on to those whose have not - blessing them with hands that know how and when to hold, to comfort, to intervene… and to be sat upon. And for those drawn to something quiet and intimate, Closing of the Bones will introduce participants to a traditional postpartum practice rooted in Mesoamerican and Latin American traditions, creating space to explore its sense of care, transition, closure and restoration.

By the end of the weekend, we hope you’ll have laughed until your face hurts, made something that carries a story, shared a conversation that stays with you, and found yourself part of a community that feels a little closer than it did when you arrived.