ABOUT ME
Transforming Passion into Purpose
Ruth Ann Colby Martin has spent her life seeking the Edge - pushing her personal edge where she finds growth, empowerment, and transformation. RACM has honed her skills to facilitate the growth Edge for others as an educator, speaker, midwife, and mentor with over 30 years of experience.
Blending her roles as a midwife, homesteader, adventurer, and practitioner of earth-based skills, Ruth Ann offers transformational EDGE mentoring, speaking, and programming.
With 20 years as a licensed midwife, Ruth Ann founded Ecstatic Birth, LLC, offering transformative midwifery care and education grounded in ancestral wisdom and nature-based practices. With a decade as college professor of midwifery, she also obtained her Masters Degree studying the intersection of nature and ancestral connection and ceremony towards improving well-being and belonging.
Ruth Ann lives what she mentors - from living a year in a hole she dug and eating mice - to almost three decades homesteading on a wilderness mountaintop and homeschooling three children while living sustainably. Hauling water from a creek, heating with wood, harvesting wild edibles and gardening, raising chickens, bees, goats, and occasionally a pig and teaching her children and homeschooling community how to not just survive but thrive in their environment.
A passionate practitioner of earth-based skills and survival living, Ruth Ann mentors students in wilderness skills and self-sufficiency, empowering others to connect with nature, build resilience, and create a strong sense of community.
With expertise and a Masters degree in cultivating and facilitating Ceremony as a personalized, transformative, and birth-right experience, Ruth Ann has had the privilege to be the officiant for scores of ceremonies including: weddings, pre-birth and post-birth ceremonies, children’s Rite of Competence and Rite of Passage ceremonies, and Celebration of Life.
Certifications
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Certified Professional Midwife
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Licensed Midwife
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​Masters of Science in Midwifery
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NRP/CPR
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Kamana Graduate
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
I truly enjoyed hearing the story behind your wedding. It serves as a powerful reminder that we must extend grace to all who are striving to reconnect with nature and the ancestral wisdom that is our birthright. I sincerely appreciate how you transformed an experience that once shattered you into something meaningful; one that not only honors your connection to nature and ancestry but also acknowledges the Indigenous peoples who may have shared this information with you. --MCU Student
There’s a distinct “before and after” in our journey that centers around Ruth Ann’s presence. She has changed our lives in ways that are lasting, sacred, and deeply grounding.
Ruth Ann has been our midwife for two home births, the officiant of our wedding, and a trusted mentor through seasons of profound transformation. In a time when so many are yearning for authenticity, depth, and connection, she is a rare and steady presence—someone who not only teaches but lives what she offers.
She has walked to the edge of what it means to survive, to mother, to partner, and to be human—and she returns from those edges with wisdom, tenderness, and a fierce reverence for life. Through her care and mentorship we’ve learned to bring ceremony and intention into our daily rhythm, and to root more deeply into our values, our lineage, and the future we’re shaping for our children.
Ruth Ann is a wise woman—a gift to anyone seeking to honor tradition, protect ancestral skills, and walk their path with integrity. She calls us to live with purpose and to become the kind of ancestors who will be remembered with gratitude. Isabelle Heydt, M.A. Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Ruth Ann has such extensive knowledge and experience in all facets of survival and Earth skills. Her ability to teach and share these skills with students of all ages and levels is remarkable. Learning with her is fun and engaging, always hands-on, and you walk away refreshed, with new skills of your own. Her passion for this teaching is contagious and felt by all who are lucky enough to learn from her. Lindsey Hayes