This year, the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause plans to deepen our intergenerational narrative shift work by co-creating peer learning exchanges to normalize the menopause experience of Black people in the UK, New York, Toronto, and Puerto Rico.  We want to take you all along with us on our Magical Menopausal Multiverse School Bus tour! In each location, we will also co-host curated intergenerational menopause storytelling events called "Orisii" ( "pairs" in Yoruba). The peer learning and the Orisii dinners are being done in partnership with community-based organizations f ..read more

Welcome to the O. Estelle Butler Intragalactic Train Station, where all of our Milky Way is always within your reach. Please follow the illuminated paths to the ticket kiosk, your train line, and other needs you may have about the station. This is Omisade Burney-Scott and welcome to ‘Black Technologies of the Menopausal Multiverse.’ The voices and stories featured in this exhibition include our guests from Season 4 of the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause and myself. But what exactly are Black Technologies? These are methods, strategies, and formulas those born with uteri have learned ..read more

Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause measures our impact by the continuation of expanding and normalizing the conversations and understanding around menopause to be inclusive and centering all Black people---all gender identities, sexual expression, and ages. There is a growing ecosystem of Black people talking about menopause and aging. Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause has played a vital leadership role in ushering in this landscape and movement. We are menopausal alchemists, doulas, cartographers, and advocates. We have created a space that hasn't existed on this scale before t ..read more

There is a growing ecosystem of people talking about menopause and aging. The Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause sees ourselves as menopausal alchemists, doulas, cartographers, and advocates and has taken up an intentional role in ushering in intergenerational Black voices and narratives into the menopausal landscape.   We see our intergenerational work, healing, and storytelling as an ethos.  An ethos is "an element of argument and persuasion through which a speaker establishes their credibility and knowledge, as well as their good moral character".   Ethos elements ..read more

"Above all else, Our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s may because of our need as human persons for autonomy... We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profou ..read more

There is much we can learn-- or maybe unlearn about menopause and aging if we apply a Speculative Fiction lens. Our current understanding of Speculative Fiction is tethered to science fiction and fantasy, and the way this genre broadens the story or narratives begging shared to include the potent age-old question of “what if.” This question that has been posed by poets, folklorists, writers, and philosophers invites us to reimagine our present reality, and it offers us multiple diverse opportunities to understand “who” is speaking and what is happening from their vantage point.  Black Spe ..read more

Since we launched the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause, I have learned quite a bit about how Murphy's Law plays a role in what we produce. We are all familiar with Murphy's first law; if anything can go wrong, it will. However, I don't think many of us know that there are two other laws; nothing is as easy as it looks, and everything takes longer than you think it will. If I were to offer a podcaster's version of Murphy's law, I would posit: There's no such thing as stable Wi-fi. If your computer/tablet/cellphone battery can go dead mid-interview, it will. Sometimes what you think you ..read more

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”  -- Toni Morrison When I was a kid in the 1970s, School House Rock, short educational cartoon vignettes put to music, were ubiquitous on Saturday mornings. We learned about grammar, math and how the government work (kind of) all with a catchy tune. There was a particular School House Rock titled Mother Necessity" and it extolled "with Mother Necessity and where would we be without the inventions of your progeny"?  Where would we be indeed! The Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause ..read more

"This body does not bare destruction well. This body likes warm drops of rain and bare feet. Toes grounding in rich soil, and having my scalp greased. To move and to stretch just a little beyond reach, There is glory over there, a hallelujah in my feet. This body likes hot sun on bare shoulders, summer rain and not running inside. This body likes first morning light in her arms, new day sun streaming through open windows. This body likes warm fingers on the dip of my back. Lips brushing the hollow between collar and neck. This body clings to warm embraces, wishing and praying, praying and wish ..read more

At the end of each podcast episode, I close by saying, "we will see you again on the dark side of the moon". I chose this language because of the way moon phases have been divinely associated with menstruation throughout antiquity. The dark side of the moon is under the dominion of the crone, the wise one, the astrological sign of Scorpio, the goddess Hecate, and Orisa Oya.  It is a place of power, ancient magic, healing, ancestral connection and transformation. The idea of the dark side of the moon may also illicit an image of place that is cold, barren, volatile and inhabitable. If I'm ..read more