Hey babe,

My name is Tarikura, I created this podcast for a two reasons.

The first is that I’ve had painful periods since my very first bleed — twenty years of searching for answers. I went through the Western medical system: I had a laparoscopy, tried birth control, followed the doctors’ advice — but nothing truly worked.

Around that same time, I travelled to India for my first yoga teacher training. My mind was blown wide open. What do you mean there’s a chakra system? That energy centres are recognised as being apart of a 2000-year-old indigenous medical system? From that moment, I began a ten-year journey into holistic health. I found myself in the most out-the-gate conversations with healers, questioning everything I thought I knew. I was frustrated that these ancient ways were so often dismissed as “woo woo” or “quackery” — when to me, they were clearly rooted in deep, ancestral wisdom.

The second reason is this: I grew up in kōhanga reo and kura (Māori schooling). I was privileged to be immersed in te ao Māori from a young age — an indigenous worldview where nature is revered, where ceremony is sacred, and where prayer, intention, chant, and sound are recognised as powerful forms of healing and devotion.

In the last ten years, I’ve found myself returning to this Māori world — deepening my connection to it, studying it, and remembering it. I feel a deep responsibility to lend my voice to this movement of reclaiming our ancestral ways.