A Slow Return // A New Moon

Many a moon has passed since I have found myself drawn to connect here on this space.

Where to start?...

This weekend, perhaps...

Saturday the 21st was a New Moon, reminding us like Spring that there are always cyclical and expected times to start over, anew, carrying the wisdom of our past and yet unburdened by it. Like the fertile green life and seedlings popping up in my garden, there is a new life that awaits and an old one that is slipping away. Here in North Carolina, there are still signs of winter, still a few barren brown trees...but not many. The signs of my own inner winter, they still remain as well.

There is the grief of a marriage lost, for over these months my husband and I have been separated, in therapy, out of therapy, and out of love. There are divorce papers to sign and lawyers to settle with. There is  my body, so clearly connected to my mind, that has also shed too many tears in the form of dramatic weight-loss and now an autoimmune hyperthyroid. (The thyroid represents the manner in which we metabolize the world, and for me, it has all been too much.) Yet here I am, ready. Like the New Moon.

A blank page.

White Space.

Beginner's Mind.

Open Mind.

Open Heart.

There is a scene in the second chapter of Eat, Pray, Love where Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing and praying in a pool of tears...on her bathroom floor. I have been there. Feeling "weary in the way that only a couple whose marriage is collapsing can be weary. We had the eyes of refugees." I have been there. She described her marriage and husband as "my lighthouse and my albatross in equal measure. The only thing more unthinkable that leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving." I have been there.

It is certainly not the script I would have written for myself. Or my son. I was raised in a nuclear family, and I intended the same for him. I INTEND the same for him. For I have not lost faith in love or the institution of marriage. The statistics are out there and they are certainly grim for second marriages, but it is because many do not take the time to learn and own the lessons of the first union. This I am doing--in therapy, intuitive & shamanic counseling, reading, journaling, and most importantly in meditation, pray, trust & intention. I will resurrect and I will be more available for a pure sweet love. This I know, as clearly as I knew the young boy coming to me years before he was conceived. He is one now. And a true gift. A living Buddha, living Christ reminding me that what matters is compassion, kindness, and surrender to the tides of life. There is something bigger at hand than my small wishes, expectations, judgements, Ego or will.

I surrender & accept, with the hope of the season and the wisdom of this beautiful Chinese proverb:

My barn having burned to the ground, 

I can now see the moon. 

Prodigal Fall



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Posting this, well, a little late...
(written Nov 27,2011)

Late November, that mysterious time of year when the leaves have fallen, the dark comes early, and a coolness bites the air; yet oftentimes like today the sun still appears to cast an amber glow to the sky and to life.

It is a time of turning inward. And a time that calls my name.
Since my youth, images and memories have embedded in my personal blueprint connecting me to this season; Curling up with a journal or a thick novel & a cup of chamomile tea. Fireplaces. Early bedtimes. Piles of blankets. Anticipation of Christmas. The time of year when my husband and I first started dating in late 2008; the way we spent most of our early courtship by the fireplace, in the kitchen making soups, on the sofa watching foreign films, hours, days, months in bed.

An odd time, as well, perhaps to come out of hiding. It has been awhile.

And an adventure. The months since my last post have been filled with sleepless nights and full days...colored by Love, beauty, and hardship. The leaves seem to have settled, though. My son, now almost 8 months old, is sleeping better, crying less, smiling more. We are both settling into a new rhythm during the days, mother & son. The gifts of the season.

Gift From the Sea; Part 1

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"For to be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The pattern of our lives is essentially circular. We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive like a spider's web to each breeze that blows, to each call that comes. How difficult for us, then, to achieve a balance in the midst of these contradictory tensions, and yet how necessary for the proper functioning of our lives." ~anne morrow lindbergh

ocean

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off for some much needed r&r: ocean time in la jolla and dress up in los angeles.
back in september.
xo

Favorite Parenting Books (thus far)

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PRECONCEPTION + FERTILITY

All Natalia Rose books for cellular cleansing

Spirit Babies

Parenting Begins Before Conception

Do You Want to Have a Baby?

Boost Your Fertility

Get Ready to Get Pregnant

PREGNANCY

Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful

Pre + Postnatal Yoga w/Gurmukh (dvds)

100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy

BIRTH

All books by Ina May Gaskin (Spiritual Midwifery, etc)

Hypnobirthing

Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way

Active Birth

The Business of Being Born (dvd)

BREASTFEEDING/WEANING 

*Vital to read BEFORE birth. I learned the hard way.

Making More Milk

Mother Food

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding

Baby Led Weaning

PARENTING PHILOSPHY

Continuum Concept

You are Your Child's First Teacher

Beyond the Rainbow Bridge

Simplicity Parenting

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

Ringing Cedars Series

Seven Times the Sun

EARLY + NEURAL DEVELOPMENT

The Wonder Weeks

Bright from the Start

What's Going on in There?

Happiest Baby on the Book

HappyBaby: the Organic Guide to Baby's First 24 Months

Nurture Shock

PLAY

Itsy Bitsy Yoga

Baby Play

Baby Tata (dvd)

The Rhythm of Family

The Creative Family

Fifteen Minutes Outside

FAMILY HEALTH

Organic Pharmacy

Linda Page's Healthy Healing

Prescription for Nutritional Healing

HOME HEALTH

Organized Simplicity

The Peaceful Nursery

Organic Baby

The Eco-nomical Baby Guide

Feathering the Nest

Healthy Child Healthy World
And Baby Makes Three

*Sorry I didn't link up the books; it's a lot I know. 

What can I say, my mum was a librarian for 30 years and let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree...

I LOVE to read. 

Etsy Find: Metal Pressions

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My friend Dana from homebirth class has the most beautiful necklace inscribed with her daughter's name on it. A friend got it for her HERE. I love the symbolism of keeping your little one close to your heart even if you're going back to work or just running out to the store...

The In-Arms Period; BabyWearing

the beautiful elizabeth and elodie of the littlest.
winner of the sakura bloom styleathon.

"The manner in which we approach the in-arms phase is important to consider. This phase is not one in which the child is consistently the center of attention. On the contrary, it is one in which the baby is simply present, in the midst of normal life and activity. From this vantage point, your baby learns about your world (not a contrived world centered exclusively around him or her), constantly observing and experiencing life with you. Your baby absorbs experiences of the "real" world, not a manufactured world in which adults are bored out of their minds and babies are given plastic imitations of adult tools to play with."  --Natalia Rose, CN and Amanda Dennis, MS Lifeforce Families, Birth to 5 Months

For more on the In-Arms Period:
THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT, by Jean Liedloff
LIFEFORCE FAMILIES, BIRTH-5 MONTHS by Natalia Rose and Amanda Dennis
*Book to be released on/before December 2011
For slings as above:
SAKURA BLOOM