A Blessingway

Here's my shy-guy-space-boy. You can't see is four teeth in this picture, but they're there. Boy, howdy, are they there. Just ask my boobies.

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I went to my first Blessingway on Sunday. A Blessingway, or a "Mother Blessing," is a Lakota ceremony that has made it into mainstream living rooms, where women gather to honor a woman who is about to give birth. My friend Kara was the mother of honor this weekend, and I still tremble when I think of all the life that was in that room. There was a pulse, a heart, a smack of thunder. It was one of the most authentic experiences of my life.

We did not hug trees or brush Kara's hair or wash her feet. We did sip tea and make a birthing necklace and give her an item from nature that would go into a basket meant to be a focal point during labor. We shared stories and poems; we drew on her belly with non-toxic eyeliner. Our purpose was to give Kara birth energy and to let the baby know that it was welcome in this world.

This was not a baby shower--not at all. No one even brought a baby gift "just to be safe." The safety was in the company of each other, and in the recognition that wrapping toilet paper around a pregnant woman's belly after guessing "how many squares around" she is, does nothing whatsoever to prepare a woman for the experience ahead of her.

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

My Inner Child Is Showing

What you see in the picture (besides a very silly me), are Jack's Waldorf-inspired wooden clips. Kids are supposed to dig them, I suppose because they can manipulate them, or see how a fulcrum works, or secure a sheath of silk to something to make a fort. Of course, I don't see them advertised on loud commercials during Saturday morning cartoons.

My boy got his in the mail yesterday, and his chubby little hands squeezed them open. I'm impressed. He also got other wooden toys from both American and European companies, some of which will have to go out of business on February 10th because of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which will require all toy manufacturers--even the ones who have been acting responsibly all along--to test all of their toys for harmful stuff. Don't get me wrong: I love that there won't be leaden Wiis shipped from China, but are they really serious about asking wood whittlers to test...wood? I mean, this is the whole reason I chose the toys I chose for my son--because they're safe, and they always have been. And now we may not be able to buy these because of the toymakers may close down shop because of the hefty cost of testing all their handmade wares. So mama's buying all the good toys while the gettin' is good. Happy 8-month birthday, Jack!

Anyway, the spirit-birthing part of all this is that I AM GETTING TO PLAY WITH SOME OF THE COOLEST TOYS EVER. Wooden dollhouses, wooden nesting bowls, wooden blocks...I'm having a blast! Jack is playing too, but he's more into chewing on everything. And with these toys that don't have lead paint or bad-for-you varnish, I'm not worried about that at all.

Sleeping Dreams, Sleeping Babies

My sleeping son, my dreaming son. My son, the dream.

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My good friend Wade stopped in yesterday to talk about life and sip tea. He lives in Boulder, and I hadn't seen him in two-and-a-half years. He got to meet Jack for the first time, which was a full-circle moment: Wade knew me back when I yearned for a baby. He even knew me back when I pretended that I didn't yearn for a baby because it hurt too darn much to think that motherhood might never be part of my life.

They don't make 'em like Wade anymore. When I think of unadulterated kindness, I think of him. He's honest, poised, and gentle, and he's a guy who truly listens to his intuition. Because of all of these wonderful things about him, I barely even remember that the first time he spoke to me, he snapped like a scared snake. But in his defense, I was the timid new hostess of the fine dining restaurant where he waited tables under too many stressors, and I was asking too many questions. He apologized later that night, and he's never said a cross word to me since. I never stopped asking him questions, on-account-of he has super-interesting answers.

Wade's intuition brought him to Nashville for a whirlwind visit, and I'm better for it. I remembered how good it was, not so long ago, when I'd fire up my cast-iron tea set to prepare for his visit. The last time I saw him was a week after I moved into a place of my own [see my last post], and he was preparing to move his family to Colorado. He brought me an old heirloom traveling trunk, telling me it was too bulky to move halfway across the country, and also saying it was a safe place to keep my dreams.

Many nights, I sat on that trunk alone in my new place, drinking Earl Grey and listening to Chet Baker, staring out the door into a magnolia tree and waiting for my dreams to get bold enough to pop out of the trunk beneath me. Who knew that four-foot box could hold so many new friends, lovers, magical meditative evenings, and an entirely new life. My son must have been horribly uncomfortable in there, but golly--I let him pop out of there as quickly as I could. Of course, I know he just wanted to get to the giant boobies full of yummy milk.

The Subconscious Mind Is Like an Elephant

This Eeyore-looking fellow here is one of my pugs, Henry. He's got luxating patellas, scoliosis, vestibular disease, a bum eye, and missing teeth. He believes that these assets are why he should charge a small fortune for his "love juice." I don't have the heart to remind him he's neutered.

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I woke at around 6am this morning from a dream in which my mind recreated a scene from my honeymoon with my first husband. I had forgotten about this particular moment, but my dream reminded me.

We were on San Juan Island in the Puget Sound, and we were hiking through a gorgeous park there. We came to a point that was steeeeep--where we got an open, panoramic view of a piece of the island. There was one of those signs saying, If you look in this direction, you'll see______. If you look there, it's _______. I felt as if I were the queen of something. There was a map of the world ahead of me. I had the sense that I had stepped into into some form of power, like all the Akashic records had opened up, and someone was guiding me though the secrets of my life, of all life. This was the summer before September 2001, a summer of innocence and ignorance, when the big news was a rash of shark attacks that left sunbathers wary of dipping their toes in the surf. My world was full of hope.

We both looked around in awe. I told him to make a wish. He wished that we would come back there in five years, and I wished the same.

Perhaps we shouldn't have spoken our wishes out loud. Nearly five years to the day, I was moving boxes out of our home into my own townhouse--a place for me to hibernate and heal some past hurts. There was nature all around my new place, which was something I had missed in the subdivision where we home we shared together. Nature heals me and makes me whole. Nature always draws me back.

My Heart Is Leaping

Jack is the cinnamon on my latte, the blueberries in my pancakes. He's the special feature on a DVD, and a CD's hidden track. He's the tiny seedling taking a chance at life on Mount Saint Helens' barren ridge. He's the plastic baby in the Mardi Gras king cake, and the bay leaf in the picana.

I love this kid.

The story of his birth I'll save for another post. I'm basing my whole thesis on our experience, which was quick and beautiful. Six hours, start to finish. There was barely time to get to The Farm for the final stage of labor, but the waking dawn sky and the spring morning chill were worth that 90-minute ride. I couldn't imagine his birth any other way.

Right now, he's plucking my arm like an upright bass, one little hand stretched in front of my arm, the other behind. He's a musical genius.

Today is MLK day, and tomorrow is Obama's inauguration. I have so much hope for my son's future at this moment that I may implode.

Peace.

1/11: Day of Angels

There is a book called 11:11 by Solara, and it came into my life in 2006. This was several years after I found myself looking at clocks at 11:11 or 1:11, or seeing this combination elsewhere, like on receipts, or in the titles of the songs by Gregory Abbott and Rufus Wainwright. Imagine how my heart raced when I saw 11:11 printed on this book's unassuming white spine! Solara claims that there's a meaning behind these numbers: when we see them, angels are trying to get our attention.

That's why I'm designating today, 1/11, the Day of Angels. The same with 11/11. Surely angels can have more than one day our calendars.

This is starting to feel like an auspicious day to begin a blog that I've been wanting to birth for a long time. Unlike babies, blogs can remain in the womb for an unlimited amount of time. I've been laboring hours today, and I'm exhausted already. No wonder I've been reluctant. But it was all worth it once I saw my blog's homepage.

Here's the deal: I approach life with both humor and reverence, and I'll bring both states of consciousness to my musings. I'm on a journey, just like everyone else. I'm a forever teacher and a forever student, and I don't claim to be an authority on anything. What I do aim to do is be conscious of whatever I'm doing, and to be flexible and spontaneous. Structure is not my strong point, but some darn good things have come out of my ability to follow alternate paths. not to mention my realization that there's good stuff hidden behind trees and down in little froggy holes. It's seeing the fortune hidden in these little places that's key, and it comes naturally for me most of the time. I see syncronicity and I don't dismiss it, no matter how goofy it may feel. I've become comfortable with feeling goofy. That's a skill in itself. (Though I'll leave it off my CV, just for now.)

Holistic pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and parenting are my passions. I'm well on my way to becoming a childbirth and postpartum doula, as well as a Birthing From Within mentor. You will get to see this journey unfold. I'm combining these skills with my certification as a neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and hypnotherapy practitioner. Add my zeal for writing short stories and my thesis-pending Master of the Arts in English, and I'm a veritable powerhouse. Something cool's about to happen. Something cool is happening.

Welcome to my fun little world. Happy birthday, blog: you're a Capricorn.