Meet Domino Kirke
“Domino is a musician, mother, doula, and a co-founder of Carriage House Birth, a collective of doulas working in New York City and Los Angeles. After taking a break from music when she gave birth to her son eight years ago, Domino will be releasing her latest album, Beyond Waves, on August 25.”
ON HER MORNING ROUTINE
I wake up, and I meditate and I pray, and then I go downstairs. My son is usually awake before me and he will often make his own breakfast, so I just join him. He’s eight. Then he’ll get ready and we’ll walk to school. When he’s with his dad, I try to go to yoga before heading to my office in Greenpoint to meet my partners in Carriage House Birth.
ON One of Her Favorite Books
The Body Keeps the Score is a psych book about how your body holds trauma. Reading it was really helpful for me to understand how the body is sort of like a patchwork quilt of events, and how we have cellular memory of things that happened to us, ranging from the most horrific, to falling off a bike when you were six. It turned my world upside down to truly understand what that means for human beings, that we’re sort of like storage units in that way, and that you have to do so much conscious work to release stuff from your body.
On Shopping and Personal Style
I like clothes with stories, so for me, buying new clothes is something I’m just starting to do. Being married has made me want to dress differently, which is kind of interesting. When you’re single, you always want to have a little thing going on. Maybe it’s just to be a little provocative, or have something that you do or wear that makes you stand out; you’re just always kind of trying to make your mark. For me, now of course that’s shifted. Married life is so much more elegant, there’s so much more linen, and there’s so many more flat shoes to be worn. I like a lot of vintage stores, and I also swap a lot of clothes with friends. We actually do clothing swaps at Carriage House, just to keep the community vibes going.
“We’re there to support the laboring person from the moment they go into labor until the baby is out—the baby’s earthside, we like to say. Generally, a doula will meet the family at the beginning of the pregnancy and go through it with them, so they’re informational, spiritual, physical, emotional support for the family, but mainly the mother. I became a doula after my son was born. I was interested in becoming a midwife, but decided that doula work was a better way to start, to really experience birth from the mother’s side. And then I just never looked back.”
On the Upcoming Carriage House Birth book
The book is going to be the stories of the Carriage House Birth families: birth stories, pregnancy journeys, fertility journeys, breastfeeding, etc. I hope it inspires people to seek out support from a doula—whether it’s a volunteer doula, or they can afford to hire one. But I also hope it helps normalize the process of childbirth. New York is a pretty lonely city; a lot of people aren’t from here, and may not have the support system of people like their mum or sister at their side during the process. And giving birth is such a rite of passage, yet for so many it’s such a traumatic event, a really violent event. And to enter motherhood feeling that way, is something that we want to make change in the world of maternal health. We want people to have all the information.
On Her favorite records
The Sigur Ros record was one I listened to when I was in labor with my son; that Joanna Newsom record blew my mind when I first heard it; The Low End Theory was a record I listened to endlessly when I first moved to New York—it embodies NYC for me.
On Balancing Being a mother and a musician
Seeing perfect strangers give birth, and being a mother and a single mother for a time, was really inspiring. It's hard to write when you have a child—hard to turn off that maternal part of your brain and to go back to that part of myself that was just a musician. For me, the key now is writing with people. If I can write with people, then I feel supported and held and inspired by the way they write.
Dress, Marques Almeida
On Her Beauty Routine
I’m just really into my face; I have very dry skin because I have Hashimoto’s, which is an autoimmune disease, so for me it’s all about oils. Face oils are my favorite, like the Dr. Alkaitis Organic Nourishing Treatment Oil and this Face Oil from Meow Meow Tweet. I really love One Love Organics, they’ve got a really lovely glycerin soap that’s so basic.
Domino's Beauty Tip
We like making natural toothpaste and deodorant ourselves, because they’re so easy to make. Of course I’m just as lazy as the next person, but I’m really trying to make a conscious effort. To make toothpaste, I combine about 1/2 cup coconut oil, 2-3 tablespoons of baking powder, 2 packets of stevia powder, 15-20 drops of peppermint or cinnamon essential oil, and if you like, you can add 10 drops of myrrh extract.
On her evening routine
I try to squeeze in another meditation, it really helps me. I like to cook at home, and I’m trying to cook more often after living in Williamsburg for 14 years where convenience was king and it was just so easy to go outside and get a quick thing or order something. I definitely did that a lot, especially being a single parent. So living in a more residential neighborhood now, I feel the need to stay home more and really practice my culinary skills. I really like to take baths, so I like to take a bath with all those crystals and witchy juju, just dump it all in. I have a lot of friends in the healing arts. I love social media just to see what people are putting in their baths.
Domino's Favorite Books
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Domino's Favorite Records
The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest
High Priestess of Soul by Nina Simone
Domino's favorite places
Best Shops: Narnia Vintage and Malin Landaeus in Williamsburg—both badass women who have great style who just really hunt and gather beautifully.
Best Matcha: Cha Cha Matcha.
Best Restaurant: Maison May is super clean and seasonal, which is good for my diet with my autoimmune disease. The owner is from Provence and also sells the best cookbooks.
Best Park: Fort Greene Park is one of my favorite parks, if not my favorite.
Best Park for Kids: Teardrop Park that’s an incredible playground for kids.
Best Museum: BLDG 92 is a really cool museum about the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Alexandra Derby makes these tinctures from flower essences, and she also makes menstrual jewelry with all the phases of the moon.
Top, Vintage (that Domino cut from a dress) from Geminola