a trancer's prayer for her knees

Dearest Goddess of dancing all night,
of transformative, psychedelic, powerful, life changing events,
Goddess of long walks up the mountain and gorgeous strong legs,
have mercy upon me.

I may not have always held my body as I should have,
may have stood with knees locked in a defiant stance
in a stony challenge to the world to go ahead and try to knock me down if you can,
(and you can't)
but now I am ready to yield
soften
bend at the knees
relax
if you would please
grant me respite from the mounting pain
in these knees
which have carried me thus far
and for which I am ever so grateful.
You see, Goddess, I still need these knees
for many more vigorous mountain hikes and
reverent trance dancing for hours and sometimes days on end.



Sweet loving Goddess of gardens and scratch cooked meals,
Goddess of the sacred hearth that must be tended,
I beg of you offer me relief
from the aches and cramps of my feet, calves and crackling joints
that need to kneel in the dirt with veggies and flowers and
hover low over morning fires heating my children's home and
stand long hours in the kitchen
perpetually and lovingly
preparing the days' meals.
I will sit when I can, stretch and
wear supportive shoes on the hard tile floors,
will soak my feet and wrap my knees in hot castor oil healing packs,
but I beg for your compassion;
let me carry out my duties, work and play
without pain.



Diana, Goddess of the hunt and the hounds,
each day I invoke you as I exercise my pack of rescued beasts,
hike devotedly on my two legs so they may each stretch their four.
Please bestow upon me limber joints and far-reaching endurance,
relaxed smooth muscle tissue and
the ability to lope capably alongside my lupine companions.



Grandmother Goddess, I tell you,
someday I may need to rock more babies on my hips
and walk them soothingly long into the night and
Goddess of revolution and rock and roll,
I at times still find myself in tough black boots
(with supportive insoles, of course)
thrashing my way through the pit or
marching the streets of DC in protest of the abounding madness.
Holy, holy Goddess,
sometimes I seek only to kneel,
bow my head to the sacred ground,
give thanks and pray.
May I do so without the sharp stab of ligaments
stretching beyond their once liberal elasticity.



Goddesses, of you all I implore:
I need a thousand more miles
upright on these tired soles,
I need a million more stomps of bare feet into earth,
I need ease and yogic grace in my deep squats
as I hunker near the ground face to face
holding hands with women nearing birth and
listening to children share profound insights,
I need to feed the hungry on strong legs,
stand unwaveringly against injustice in the world
and leap in celebration when we should triumph.
I need to
walk
run
dance
stomp
hike
cook
march
bend
crouch
pray
attend
dig
plant
harvest
heal
and
jump for joy
for many, many long years to come.
For this boon, Goddess, I offer myself unto you.
I shall serve relentlessly
(though frankly you know I'll do it whether I ache or not)
but I would feel so honored to do so
in that blessed state of grace-
free from chronic pain.

a blog reborn

Oh my sweet and beloved blog, I have not abandoned you! I actually think of you far more often than is reasonable. I mean, if I am going to write, I should write. If I am not, I should not spend my time feeling guilty that I have not. That said, I believe I have returned.

This spring thus far has been...revolutionary. Certainly, I am prone to bouts of personal revolution, in fact, I seem to not function well without them. But somewhere between new years eve's self-inflicted, psychological turmoil (which I have yet to post about, but will; the tale is party written and deserves to come to light) and the first blooms of the equinox everything settled like a silky layer of silt at the ocean floor; the blackness is occasionally rustled by the tides but mostly rests compliantly below where I can dig my toes into its soft murkiness when I choose.

What has spring wrought upon me? With delicate hammers of silver and copper my life has been molded and fired, the materials of my days sometimes easing seamlessly into new forms and other times requiring a little extra banging into place.

I have new housemates, three to be exact, that actually comprise an entirely new family structure for me with great potential for the future. Three lovely ladies now complete my household, and we two mommies, two sons and two daughters have become the progressive evolution of the old Brady Bunch theme. And trust me, two cooperative parents under one roof is far superior to one struggling alone. We are having a blast!

There has been a shift in my codependency and in a primary love relationship. I am demonstrating a high proficiency in my lessons around living my life for my self and allowing others to do the same and keeping healthy boundaries. It feels fantastic.

A powerful catalyst swooped into town and once again brought up some questions for me that I continue to address. What level of priority do I place upon my need for the profundity I experience through trance, festivals and travel versus the sanctity I desire at home and with family and in relationships? How do I continue to strive for balance amongst them? Where must they intersect, and at what points is it acceptable for them to diverge? And who should I love and how and what love will compliment me most in all arenas of my being? These are all big questions for me, as both realms are of immense import to me. This is an ongoing process.

And then there is the pain. The physical http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifpain which seems to have, for some reason, become my constant companion. I seek the whys and hows and what to do for relief. I have been looking at the physiological and psychological reasons for these ongoing struggles and feel confusion. Should my goal be to find the answer that ends the pain or to make peace with it and accept its place in my life? I do not want to hurt, especially when I feel so fucking gloriously about being alive. But then, I count my blessings; at least I feel gloriously about being alive. At least my children are well. At least my home is safe. At least I continue to have these periods of personal transmutation and revelation. And yet I grow weary of the hurt.

And there has been music, so much music I am blessed to feel. Band of Horses, The Arcade Fire, Goa Gil and more. Next stop TOOL!

Alas, I am alive, dear readers, fully. I am activated. I seek answers but understand that I may spend the rest of my days looking for them. But for the opportunity to quest, I give thanks. Welcome back to my process and thank you very much for sharing.

soccer mom poetry

the sky is incredibly blue and
the breeze is soft and
the sun is warmly beginning to descend in the sky
casting long shadows
over long boys
finishing soccer practice
in this grass field where I
quite contentedly
scribble musings
in my pink flowery journal and
thank god in all her forms
for the grandeur of my life
holy heck!
blessed be.

the infinite possibilities of morning

I have definitely become a devout member of my own personal sun cult. I absolutely expand at the rising of the sun in the morning. Even though I am still tired and want to be asleep, when those brightest rays of light pour through my window as the sun creeps above the ridge line in the east, I am up.

Then, daily, I find myself plagued by what to do, how best to use this precious, glorious time that seems pregnant with possibility. Should I write? God know it's all I really want to do and there never ever seems to be the time for it. Should I read? I am volumes behind on the reading I would have liked to have done at this point in my life.

But there are so many more pressing and practical uses for my time. I could finish the dishes, or start the laundry, or prepare breakfast. Hell, I could start preparations for dinner, considering the amount of time that scratch prepared, whole foods cooking requires. I could wake my lethargic, homeschooled boys and try and get us all started on our day together.

What I often end up doing, what I did this morning between starting and finishing this post, is going for my morning walk. My saving grace, my kinetic salvation, I walk up the mountain with my pack of unruly dogs almost every day and it serves as their exercise and mine and my opportunity, if only for 35 minutes, to be outside and soak up the sun and breathe the mountain air and be in my body fully.

Often when I wake I think I could stretch. I could do yoga. I could meditate and do chi gong. But I don't. I need to, but I don't. I haven't mustered up the routine of it yet. I will need to sit with books and read and figure what style and what method and what approach. Then I will just wake up and do it. I don't know for what the hell I am waiting. I haven't figured it out.

I like the feeling that I get in those hours, as though I could accomplish anything. I seek to harness it and to make better use of it. Someday, perhaps, I will rise and compose a fine poem, start the laundry, read a chapter, make omelettes with fresh veggies for breakfast, complete six sun salutations and one 1000 hands Buddha chi gong form, soak the beans for dinner, correct homeschool papers and come up with a brilliant new science experiment for the day and take a strident stroll as a walking meditation up the mountain all before 10 AM. That would rock!

What do you do in the morning?

frustrated and grateful

I never thought I would be so truly dependent on computers, but I am. My lovely little machine has, for some reason, failed me again recently which meant I went a week without it, and now that it's back it doesn't feel like mine anymore. It's got a new operating system installed and I have to go through the hassle of transferring the data (of which, thank god, I had saved much though not all) onto it, replacing lost files and applications, some of which I paid for, and I am just annoyed about the whole thing.

Furthermore, my frustration is compounded by the fact that I really depend on it to write now, and I feel like writing more than ever before, and I am not getting to do so for all the lost time these inconvenieces cost me in conjunction with the immense busy-ness of my life. I mean, this is not what I wanna be writing about.

I pray for time and fluidity of currency so I have more opportunities to write. And do other things, like write at the beach or, say, Burning Man. For which, incidentally, I received my ticket today. Black Rock City, here I come - blessed be!

And in walks gratitude, a refreshment, a healing balm . Thanks, gratitude. I am grateful for your help.

just so you know...

At midnight last night my pretty Aleksie came home. Yay!

frazzled

Well, I do hate when I go this long without posting, and this time it's quite a tragedy because there is so much good writing in my brain that I just have not had time to get out of my system and onto a screen. It's making me crazy. I have been so busy and I am quite tired. I seem to need so much sleep. Plus, I started a long and involved post that seems very important to me and I keep thinking I'll get back to it and shouldn't post anything else till that gets completed, but alas, tonight I just need to vent.

I am so premenstrual, I am very overly emotional. I have felt clingy and a little hung up on some things (read: people) that I have lately been in a rather good space about. This morning I cried in the car on the way to our new homeschool coop group (which is quite wonderful, by the way) about the idea that I wouldn't have another baby. Frankly, I feel like I have been processing that concept for a while. In many ways I felt like this past fall and the emotional pain I was having was my grieving over the acceptance that my childbearing days truly are over, so I felt very much in a place of acceptance. It was a bit of a surprise to creep up on me so unexpectedly.

I have also been sick with some silly cold or flu which I certainly caught last weekend at this "kissing" party I went to. (Yes, it was every bit what you imagine it to have been.) So the cold combined with the PMS is making me feel vulnerable. Often in states like this my dreams go a bit haywire, as they are prone to surreal hyperbole and drama in a graphic and visual way anyhow, and I have dreamed twice in recent nights very vividly about my beloved dog Aleksie coming to harm or dying.

So tonight, she and the silly rottweiler decided to take off as they do when Stanley gets loose. It pisses me off and worries me, but usually they are gone a few hours then show up tired and dirty, but always together. Well, Stanley has been home for over and hour now and there is still no sign of Aleksie, gone since 5:00 this afternoon, and my fear that some harm has actually come to her is really starting to get the worst of me. I mean, those could have been prophetic dreams. It would certainly not be the first time I have had dreams of that nature. But then again, I do not trust myself right now because I know I am emotionally vulnerable and over anxious as a result. I just want her to come home.

So the rest of my life you will have to wait upon. If you haven't already seen it you could check out the valentine I made for everybody I know earlier this month. Part of it was just a recycled post from a very early date in this blog. Ooh! Actually, you could do that, too. If you haven't been reading from the beginning, now is a good time to go back and catch up on some of my earlier posts. My blog is definitely not strictly chronological and most of my posts read as individual compositions. So there. I'm off the hook. Go read my old stuff while I sit here and worry about my dog and work on some long winded, heady new stuff to post later.

Goodnight. I hope my 'leksie girl comes home safe and sound and all in one piece and I hope I sleep well and find some time to write.

unconditional

I normally don't blog other's writing, but there is something that I really want to share in the world that I don't think has gotten nearly enough credit. Ulali is a First Nations women's acapella trio, (First Nations, for those who may not know, is the title some of the indigenous tribes of North America more commonly but inaccurately known as Native Americans have chosen for themselves.) and they are amazing, brilliant, talented and inspiring. Their album Mahk Jchi is a powerful work of art, rife with gorgeous harmonies, deeply felt but never dramatic emotion, humor, and a most compelling sense of compassion.

One of the last tracks on the album, called All My Relations is the most powerful statement in acceptance, inclusiveness and unconditional love I have heard anywhere, ever. The degree to which they succeed in offering their devotion to all their relations, meaning all of us, as in we truly are all one family on this planet, the good, the bad and the heinous amongst us, is astonishing. It is profound.

This entire album tends to make me cry for a host of reasons. Just the sheer beauty of these women's voices evokes a strong sense of love and loss and challenges overcome which is plenty to yank a tear or ten from me. Also, when my beloved lost his mind and ended up in a rehab in Tennessee a couple years ago I got into the habit of listening to this album on the drive to visit him. That was, naturally, a very emotional time in my life and that album brought to mind for me the beauty of the world in contrast with my own pain, the pain of women struggling in such a broken world, and the overwhelming tragedy of cultures lost and how that has affected all of our ability to be whole. I would drive and sing and cry and cry and cry.

And All My Relations in particular culls the strongest response from me because it so eloquently reminds us that we need to include all in our prayers, even those who seem like the perpetrators, the enemy. To hear a dedication coming from the mouths of First Nations women directed not only to their ancestors and all the victims of the atrocities of relocation and extermination, but also many who have caused suffering along the way is a humbling reminder that we all could work a little harder at cultivating compassion in our hearts and minds. Compassion is a way of life whose purpose is to allow us to forgive those who seem not to deserve forgiveness, but in our forgiveness we serve love in the highest and that can only elevate us and the plight of our species. At least that is what I believe, though I am not always perfect in my attempts at compassion. This song prompts me to strive for it.

All My Relations by Ulali

To our elders who teach us of our creation and our past so we may preserve Mother Earth for ancestors yet to come, we are the link.

This is dedicated to our relatives before us, thousands of years ago, and to the 150 million who were exterminated across the western hemisphere in the first 400 years time starting in 1492:

To those who have kept their homelands and to the nations extinct due to mass slaughter, slavery, deportation and disease unknown to them, and to the ones who are subjected to the same treatment today,

To the ones who survived the relocations and the ones who died along the way,

To those who carried on traditions and live strong among their people,

To those who left their communities by force or by choice and for generations who no longer know who they are,

To those who search and never find,

To those that turn away the so called non-accepted,

To those that bring us together and to those living outside keeping touch, the voice for many,

To those that make it back to live and fight the struggles of their people,

To those that give up and those who do not care,

To those who abuse themselves and others and those who revive again,

To those who are physically, mentally or spiritually incapable by accident or by birth,

To those who seek strength in our spirituality in ways of life and those who exploit it, even our own,

To those who fall for the lies and join the dividing lines that keep us fighting amongst each other,

To the outsiders who step in, good or bad, and those of us who don’t know better,

To the leaders and prisoners of war, politics, crime, race and religion- innocent or guilty,

To the young, the old, the living and the dead,
To our brothers and sisters and all living things across Mother Earth and her beauty we’ve destroyed and denied, the honor that the Creator has given each individual, the truth that lies in our hearts…

All my relations.

There is no way I can do this song justice by just publishing the words. You need to hear their voices speak their truth. Please find Ulali and support them by purchasing their music so you can experience their gift of beauty yourself and so they can continue to generate music of the highest vibration.

it's my blood

Today I was talking to my friend, S, an empowered, feminist woman. She had just gotten her period and was having some cramps and complained a little. I, who has somewhat of an issue with random muscle spasms and cramps in other parts of my body said that I prefer menstrual cramps to that other type of cramping. S said that she prefers no cramps at all. Then I told her that not only do I prefer uterine cramps to the cramping of other muscle groups, but that I actually kind of like uterine cramps. She said I was weird.

I guess she must be right. I realized that all my years of feminist consciousness raising and herbal education and midwifery training and practicing has put me into what is probably a tiny minority. I am so deeply connected to my cycles and appreciate my body so much that I love menstruating, furthermore I enjoy the minor discomfort associated with it.

Now please hear me out. First of all, I know there are many women out there who, for a variety of reasons physiological and emotional, experience extreme discomfort and even acute pain during their menstrual cycle, and I, gratefully, am not one of them. I would likely feel differently if I were. Also, I believe that it would be far less difficult for all women to cope with the physical and emotional symptoms associated with our reproductive cycles, and reproducing itself, if we were all in a culture that allowed a little more space for us to provide ourselves with the care we may need to ameliorate those symptoms, care such as time off, bed rest, nourishing foods and teas, gentle exercise, support of other women in the community, support of the men in the community, etc.

That said, here I am, anomalous. I like the bleeding, the gorgeous bright and dark reds of my blood. I like the warm sensation of the contractions as they gently grip my womb. I appreciate the emotional vulnerability, the wide openness that comes in this state and the days leading up to it. I get a kick out of the tears I can find myself shedding over a sunrise or a Hallmark commercial. I even find the tender soreness that my nipples experience to be kind of yummy; my breasts long to be held and when I am lucky enough to have the pleasure of someone's attention on them the sensitivity is really quite a turn-on.

I like to sit and let the waves of aching wash through me as I am submerged in a hot bath. I like it that when I go to bed the night of the first day of my bleeding I am assured I will sleep deeply and deep into the morning. I try whenever possible to allow myself that treat, that brief, period vacation some mornings.

I am glad that when I bleed I bleed onto cotton cloths and pads that I wash and use over. I spend no money on disposable menstrual products that eventually get thrown or flushed away.

I cherish watching how my cycle gets swayed with the moon. I am not a 28 day bleeder; I generally cycle more quickly than that so it is interesting to notice how the tides of the earth and orbit of the moon can pull me into one direction or another, a slightly longer cycle, a particularly juicy fertility spell during a full moon, a dark, heavy bleed during a new moon. I track the days of my cycle in my We'Moon calendar and have done so for ten years or longer. I am as in touch with my fertility as I think one could be. I can choose not to practice any other method of birth control than fertility awareness when I have a lover if I want because I know beyond the shadow of a doubt when I am able to get pregnant. It is a beautiful blessing.

So to those of you reading who are shirking at my intimate recount of something most women hide or despise I ask that you have an open mind and imagine that perhaps there would be far fewer women who did suffer under a simple and natural rhythm of their bodies if they were not forced to hide it or feel shame in it or work through it quietly eating Midol and stuffing chemical laden tampons into the most delicate niche in their bodies. Perhaps like so many other things in our world we are out of balance in how we manage, approach and appreciate what women's bodies do.

I like bleeding. You could, too. And our men can learn to love everything that our bodies do and appreciate and value our cycles and make space and provide love for us in the course of that flow.

And thus we have come to the end of another one of my feminist, tree-hugging, dirt-worshipping, witch-talking, yoni-loving tirades. But you can excuse me, right? I am bleeding, after all. ; )

(PS - I bet most of you have never seen Judy Chicago's earth-shattering, feminist art piece called Red Flag. I chose not to use it as the image heading up my blog only because I wanted to gently introduce my feelings on the matter, but if I were feeling feisty, this is the image I would have used. Please check it out. Judy Chicago is one of my heroes.)

you know it's the holidays when... (alternate title: you know you have serious food issues when...)

All I've eaten today is cookie dough, egg nog, and a pound of bacon. Granted, it was locally-raised, all natural bacon and organic cookie dough and egg nog, but still.

Blessings and abounding delicious and nutritious food to be enjoyed in moderation to you all.

thursday morning, i see the sun

I am climbing
Slowly
Ascending again
As I have done before
Exorcising myself from this darkness
One rung at a time
I am heaving myself
Some days no progress at all
Then this morning
With the light on the horizon
Beckoning as it does most days
I arose from bed
And left the telephone behind
Tell tale sign that I am not
Bound
Captive
To the promise of your call

I am trying
To receive the love of others
That bounty
With which I have been generously
Blessed
Which I somehow often
Miss
Flailing about waiting
Begging
Insisting
That only love from you will do

I am learning
Studying my role and
The women and men around me
How we all
Do or do not
Love
Examining this concept
From every angle
The lover, the loved, the unloved
Steeping myself
In its glory and anguish
In the heartfelt charity of friends seeking to please
In the bitter cold of the sheets against my skin
Each night in bed alone
I admit my humility
I accept my lesson
I attempt to wait only for the
Unfolding
The flowering
Of each event of the heart
On my way


(From the bottom of my heart, Ashaya, I thank you for your gracious love and generous help. I cannot express enough how you have aided in restoring me. That all midwives and friends should be honored by their loved ones as you have done for me is my wish; our world would be a kinder place, a refuge rather than a battlefield. I love you.)

raise it up

This poem is clearly the culmination of the emotional work I've been doing and the writing that has been going on here in this blog. I performed it last week at Gaia Resurrect's all women's poetry, art and music performance in Asheville. As usual, my sense is that my work is more effective off the page than on it and is truly brought to life by my performance of it, but since I'm working with this written medium I am going to go ahead and make this poem as an offering to my people, my community, and to some people in particular like Rain's parents and Citrus's parents and to myself, today being the eight year anniversary of the loss of Ursula. Blessed be.
***************************************************************************************

I am a prophet of saying unpopular things.
I talk about bodies and birth
Without doctors and drugs,
I shout about freedom for each to do with her body as she choose,
I scream it is our right to refuse what others think we must do
Even if that thing seems like it is good for you.
And I whisper about death holding a righteous place in our lives.

I believe that we are bought and sold by fear
Our bodies which we should hold dear are manipulated and managed
By an untrue terror that is instilled,
Insisted upon and insidiously enforced by stories whispered,
Threatened from the cradle with the horrors of the grave.

I love life gorgeous in its infinite complex tangible way,
Its endless opportunities and unexpected days,
Do not underestimate how I cherish it when I go on to say that
Death has unfairly been given a bad name.

I long to live long and have many days on earth
And I have been devastated and disheartened by death
Have lost loved ones who seemed taken untimely or violently
Wept for the mothers who weep for sons and daughters killed mindlessly,
Yet I come to say fighting death and fearing our natural course
Is harming us, hurting life, creating great remorse in the days when we should
Live for living
Not fear for dying
Live for living
And accept that

Death is a home
The turn of the spiral that composts, nourishes, restores
Before rebirth
Death is the name of the angel who ushers us on our way
Wherever in the universe we’re meant in that moment to be
Inevitably

Why has this lie that death is our enemy come to be the alma mater of modern society?
Once upon a time every one lived knowing that someday they would die
They accepted it, they carried it with them through their days and
It was no source of fear and
It was no source of pain
It just was.


Now we’ve been taught to dread our approach to the grave
We’ve learned that we must beg to assure we get the most days
We’ve been told that there are supernatural ways
Of cheating cruel nature and her unfair play of forcing us to have losses and to age
and for each of us to someday lay decomposing underground.

To buy in to the fabulous miracle of evading death, we learn
We must literally buy in.
We are convinced that every dollar we spend will save us from an untimely end,
From the maternity ward to the auto lot to the grocery store
We are convinced that the more money we spend, the more we can live
and the less we will die
and it is simply not true.

I do not lie to you when I say that our fear of death is thrust upon us at our births.
From the moment we are conceived we feel acutely the energy
Directed to us
From our mothers and fathers and doctors and friends, and
No one in this room was born in a time
when all those well-intentioned people
Did not fear and project and
Act crazily over the possibility that our new lives could end
Suddenly or unexpectedly without intervention.
We learned before our births it is unacceptable to die
Thus our births were ruled by the unacceptable lie
That the only way to be born safely and live
is to supersede natural law
Which has every animal on the planet
Birthing in her natural home amongst her own
Without doctors, machines, drugs and insurance
Without bells and whistles and untrue assurance
That her baby will live no matter what
Because that’s not true.
Like every animal mother your mothers’ chances of giving birth to you alive
Were very, very, very high
Regardless of location or the presence of experts
Regardless of technology, regardless of excess,
But she never had a guarantee
That all her offspring would live because
Regardless of location or the presence of experts
Regardless of technology, regardless of excess
Babies still die.

And I say
As unpopular as it may be
That it is time we accept the nature of natural losses
And stop starting our lives under the worst of curses
Which is to fear constantly even as we live
To fear constantly on the brink of new life
Of the death that will surely seek us in its own time
And to still take care of ourselves and be careful and be healthy
But to no longer be ruled by that mythology so stealthy
That tells us if we buy good doctors and safe hospitals and new drugs
If we buy bigger cars and stronger militaries to depose foreign thugs
That we will live forever,
That our children will never die
Because they will.

As women we experience the undue burden of culture’s death scorn
As carriers of life we’re expected to fulfill the fabled promise of new life guaranteed born
And our bodies have become battlefields for powers that be
To vent their frustration at their inability
to have complete, unswayable control of all things wild and unpredictable.

We are wild and unpredictable
Despite the laws that have been decreed as to where, how and if we give birth,
Despite the unwritten laws that say how we as women should look, act and feel, and
We cannot tell anymore what is real.
We experience insecurity feeling we cannot have control over
Our own bodies and our paths,
We are objectified as bodies expected to perform certain tasks that
someone else determined for us, and
We are having a hard time knowing who we are and what to do.

Well let me tell you-
There is no shame in our bodies and no shame in our blood
There is no shame in our abortions and, regardless of outcome,
No shame in our births.
We cannot judge one another or ourselves on the merits of our reproductive worth
Because that’s exactly what the patriarch wants us to do.

Have you ever held an embryo in the palm of your hand?
Have you ever held an embryo in your heart, in your womb, in your soul,
An embryo whose heart never beat without yours?
How many women in this room have known death inside their own bodies?
How many women in this room have carried life that never made it to light
whether the end was of your choosing or of theirs?
Raise your hand, raise it up,
You have nothing to hide-
We must tell our stories to each other if none others if we are to survive.


Our culture’s fear of death has left us paralyzed and alone amongst each other.
It spends billions to wage war and murder thousands of innocents
While screaming and insisting that every conceptus in every womb must live
Despite its mother’s impetus.
This is madness, this contradiction under which we’re forced to live
Something has got to give.

It is time to embrace death as a part of our lives
and to refuse to live meekly under her shadow.
It is time to rage against death’s misuse
as she is meted out murderously upon others deemed unworthy,
Others perceived to threaten our tenuous existence
They are murdered by the false promise that with their deaths
Our deaths are indefinitely delayed
The false promise that says by killing these others our lives will be saved.
Refuse to accept the lies that you are told
And stand up for the right
Of every human being to live their full story so boldly and free
that humanity can finally achieve peace.

We are going to die every single one of us-
Me and you
And my children and your children, too.
It is true and beautiful despite the pain at the loss
It is our life’s destiny to die and it is rightfully ours.

To live life fully one who loves life must learn to love death,
Have compassion for death
She waits patiently for the day she’ll hold us in her arms
Though we scorn and dread her all the while.
Take comfort in knowing that when the right time comes
She is waiting to whisper in your ear,
Have no fear my love,
Your remains will now rest in the bosom of the earth and
Your spirit will soar amongst the timelessness of the universe.

happy birthday just a position! : what's in a year?

I did it. I have consistently written in this blog and kept it active and growing for one full year. I am pleased and proud! Tonight I am composing my 46th entry, so in 12 months time that means I have averaged writing near to once a week. Hooray!

So why is this significant? Well, if you go back to my very first post you will read that one of my main reasons for starting a blog was so that I would have a tool that would compel me to be accountable to my writing and to write regularly. I am a writer, a poet, a wordsmith, a speller, an editor, a complete and total fool for the written word. Writing is my one true art, my love, my passion, my therapy and my pastime. Why then did I need compulsion to keep writing on a regular basis? Because, as many of you know, I am also a single, homeschooling, work at home mother, as well as an activist, a trance dancing priestess, a birth attendant in varying forms, a dog rescuer, a friend to many, a lover to a few, a cook, and a Burner, and that all takes up a whole, big lot of my time, and sometimes writing gets lost in it. But since I started my blog 1 year ago I have been writing more than I have in years. Hip, hip hooray!

So what else have my blog and I accomplished this year? We have seen deaths and births and sometimes both at the same time and have continued to work out our feelings about such matters. We have facilitated the beginning stages of my sons' adolescent years with sensitivity and just a hint of hilarity. We rescued and adopted a large, male rottweiler to add to our pack of two females, an elderly black lab and an also recently rescued, young husky shepherd. We also brought home an entire family of chickens, one mother hen and 10 chicks who grew up and then were systematically decimated by said husky shepherd leaving us, once again, chickenless. We have seen friends come live on our land, then leave no longer quite what I could call friends, to be replaced by other kind people with whom we share the land, and it seems there is a continual coming and going of the occupants of this place. We fulfilled the dream of many years of attending Burning Man, and decided that we ought to continue to go ad infinitum. We have had my lovers drift in and drift out, yet I am still occupying the romantic limbo that has been my place for many years now. We have been trying, essentially, to learn about and to live in love. We have enjoyed many, many moments with my young sons, and laughed heartily together. We have propagated poetry onto the planet. We have survived the season of the snake on this here mountain, and successfully hosted a breathtaking wedding ceremony practically in the rattlesnake snake den with no ill outcomes. We have trance danced and explored the ethers then come back to tell the tales. We have thought at times we would die from the exquisite pain of it all and others as though the deafening bliss would keep us aloft infinitely. We, apparently, have bonded, my blog and I, because I am now referring to my blog together with myself in the first person plural as if we were the best of buddies out doing all this wild marauding together. And thus, we must be.

So come one and come all and join my blog and me on the fabulous adventure of life through the next year. Let's continue to learn and grow and think and feel together, all of us. I have so thoroughly enjoyed the great dialogue that has arisen out my last posts and their comments; this is exactly the type of discourse I have always hoped for. Talk to me! Tell me what you think when I tell you what I think! Let's dialogue (I love using that word in a verb tense). I was telling a friend (you know who you are you sweet thing ;) tonight while celebrating the glory of my one year old blog that what I miss the most about the academic setting, and dear god I do miss it, is the excellent discourse amongst peers. It is one thing to read and write and formulate opinions and proffer them, but it is through the process of discussing them and sharing them and dissecting them then integrating others' input and ideas that allows us to grow and develop the most in our thinking and learning. I want to do that with all of you: those who have regularly followed my meanderings and those who occasionally drop in and those who are totally new to my zealous opining (ooh, that's another really sexy but atypical verb tense. See? I just love words!). Stick around, let's think together. Let's write together. Let's get our groovy letter rhumba on together!

For my blog's birthday my offer to you, dear readers, is a birthday gift. For every reader who leaves a comment on this birthday post, I promise to write a personal and individualized haiku in response to your comment. I assure that these haiku will be authentic and finely crafted pieces of poetic pleasure that you will treasure for years to come. I'd love to make poetry for all of you, and that is what I shall do. Thank you for your support and input, dear readers. I hope you'll stick around.

Tonight's composition was accompanied by a deeply steeped and well-cooled quart of red lavender tea.

living free: more thoughts on birthing autonomously

This post is a continuation of the comments from the Birthing Autonomously post:

When it comes right down to it, after another discussion with another friend on this topic today, I realized I am just plain fucking scared to go to prison. I realize that I would be the "perfect" midwife to be able to walk into a woman's home with nothing but her birth on mind; even in the most supportive of cultures I'd still have all of my own personal issues with which to contend. It feels like a massive defeat to admit this because I always felt so brave before, I felt like I was doing the work of the righteous and therefore I'd be protected, and I don't feel that way anymore. I feel defeated. I feel like "they" won. I no longer feel like that brave, radical protector of women and children who would do anything to spare them the horrors of Western medical obstetrical care. I feel like a wounded warrior who just wants to rest comfortably at home.

And the truth of the matter is I can say my inability to make the ultimate sacrifice is for my children, that I have chosen my primary path in this lifetime, and as closely linked to my mother path as midwifery is that my obligation to the two children I brought forth myself must be my first obligation, my undying commitment. It simply would not be fair to sacrifice my freedom to mother them for the benefit of another's child while they still need me. I could say that, and I do. And yet I find myself wondering if choosing motherhood wasn't in some ways my out for making all the sacrifices I feel I should have in this lifetime. Being a mother has allowed me to excuse myself from not being on the front lines in Oaxaca and in all the other places around the globe that have needed witnesses for peace and workers for justice. I always say that motherhood is my primary activism, and I still believe that to be true. I know that by raising conscientious, compassionate, honorable men I am doing the world a much-needed favor. But it feels a little like I took the cush route.

When my sister went to prison to serve her time for an act of civil disobedience directed at shutting down the School of Americas I was baffled by her choice and simultaneously enormously impressed that she could choose that level of sacrifice in the name of protecting others. I don't believe I could live without my freedom; I think I am a spoiled American convinced that I am entitled to be free even while others are oppressed. And I am working myself into a quandary trying to figure out how I am to be grateful for and manifest additional security and comfort and ease in my life, because I feel like I want and need that, while at the same time living in solidarity with those whose entire lives have been nothing but suffering and challenge and loss and pain.

Everything in our world is so fucking fucked up. You’re right, Ashaya, fuck all of that shit. I just don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know how to fight the good fight and not get lost in it, and so I’ve been trying to live the good life to loose that vibration onto the planet, that’s what all the trance dancing and the Burning Man adventures have been. I seek the balance between following what my own heart wants for my children and myself and what my heart wants for all the children on the planet. It is difficult to find.

While I am at it I want to continue to express how angry I am at this maniacal state our world has gotten into because I feel it also impacts my ability to be a good mother. Yes, I know I am a good mother and I know I’d receive a bevy of protests if I tried to suggest otherwise, but only I can know how much better a mother I’d be if I weren’t forever having to sacrifice my time to the lords of money, if I weren’t parenting alone due to my own or my partners’ inabilities to sustain healthy relationships because our world never taught us how, if I weren’t always chasing some social validation to appease my wounded soul and always needing sleep and therapy to mend my broken body and psyche-- all casualties of my lifetime under the patriarchy. I am frustrated that none of us get to fully be who we could be because of the shackles that capitalism and sexism and racism and environmental degradation and dehumanization has wrought upon our lives. FUCK!!! And all my ranting and all my raving does nothing but give me an outlet so I can clear my privileged head enough to lay it upon my pillow and sleep through the night so I can get back on my hamster wheel and start my routine of doing the best I can under the circumstances all over again tomorrow.

And, specifically I also want to address some of the comments that I have received from the Birthing Autonomously posts, both on Blogger and Tribe. Inevitably and as if on cue, those who are afraid of the loss and afraid of the death or have learned well the story about the dangers of birth that our culture taught them have spoken up to assure me that one way or the other birth really ought best be under the care of trained professionals, ideally in a medical setting, and to you all I will assert once again, that you are wrong. In a well researched comment sent to me via e-mail a friend pointed out:

Global Infant Mortality Trends

For the world, and for both Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and More Developed Countries (MDC) Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) declined significantly between 1960 and 2001. World infant mortality rate declined from 198 in 1960 to 83 in 2001.

However, IMR remained higher in LDCs. In 2001, the Infant Mortality Rate for Less Developed Countries (91) was about 10 times as large as it was for More Developed Countries (8). For Least Developed Countries, the Infant Mortality Rate is 17 times as high as it is for More Developed Countries. Also, while both LDCs and MDCs made dramatic reductions in infant mortality rates, reductions among less developed countries are much less than are reductions among the more developed countries, on average.

As illustrated in Figure I, infant mortality is strongly proportional to decreasing per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

My response to this is that it is not the excellent medical care women receive in MDC’s or the improvement in medical standards in the last 50 years that has lead to a lower infant mortality rates, rather it is the access to nourishing foods, safe and clean water supplies, sanitary living conditions, and reliable information on the best ways to care for oneself during the prenatal period, with access to those conditions being highest in the MDC's. Ironically, the United States, arguably the Most Developed Country, with its epidemically high rate of epidural and cesarean section and almost universal reliance on hospital birth and the use of MD’s as primary maternity caregivers ranks behind 42 other MDC’s for its infant mortality rate. Yes, you read that right. The United States of America ranks 43rd in global infant mortality rates, which means 42 other countries in the world have better success keeping infants alive at birth.

You want to know why? Most of the rest of those countries still have a longstanding tradition of midwifery care and/or a cultural acceptance for homebirth and/or socialized medical care which takes the profits out of giving women medications and surgeries during labor and leans toward providing care that is known to have the best possible outcome, not the highest profit margin.

And while I am not prepared to cite the study right this minute because it is late and I am tired (but I will if you insist, I know it exists because I utilized it both in my midwifery training and in my undergrad research for my BA in Women’s Studies), the most comprehensive research ever done on the safety of homebirth versus hospital birth revealed evidence that not only is homebirth equally as safe, as determined by rate of neonatal and maternal mortality and morbidity, as hospital birth, but even for a “high-risk” birthing population, some evidence shows that homebirth is considered SAFER than hospital birth.

However, I must make it clear that this research proposed those statistics based on homebirth with a trained attendant, i.e. usually a midwife, because to include the spontaneous births at home in the population that did not plan unattended home births but ended up unexpectedly birthing at home without an attendant (due to “precipitous labors” or uneducated/underserved populations who did not seek care because they could not afford it and therefore, in theory, also did not have the appropriate resources for adequate nutrition or education in the prenatal period) throws the numbers out of favor for homebirth. Mind you, NO ONE has ever done a study of the outcomes of planned, unassisted homebirths in a population of informed consumers with sufficient access to adequate nutrition, prenatal education, and self-assessment tools and techniques, so we have no idea what those numbers would look like, but anecdotally, the stories are reassuring.

So to say that because poor women all over the world are still dying in greater numbers when they birth autonomously at home does not adequately support the idea that it is safer to give birth either with an attendant or in the hospital. Sorry. I stand by my story. I still believe it is our fear of and inability to accept death that leads us to cling so desperately to the idea that there is a safer or safest way to give birth in someone else’s hands and on someone else’s terms. Birth is beautiful and birth works, but like the rest of Mother Nature’s wild creation, birth refuses to be tamed and behave in a manner in which we always have control. Birth is autonomous in and of itself, and in the aftermath of facing death at birth’s gate I feel more sure than ever that I trust it as a process.

Blessed be.

birthing autonomously

I wrote this in response to a forum question that a woman posed asking if anyone on the list had had or would have an unattended or unassisted birth, meaning a homebirth without a midwife or doctor present:

If I ever have another baby, which I still pray that I will, then I plan to have an unassisted birth. My boys are 11 and almost 13 y.o. and their births were both attended by a midwife, resulting in one hospital transport and one gentle, straightforward homebirth.

I have been practicing as a lay midwife for the last 7 years and just attended my first stillbirth last month on my birthday. I had been feeling for quite some time that I was ready to quit practicing midwifery, and that most recent birth has propelled me to accept my own resignation. But you see, the reason I had been feeling that I was done practicing was not because I do not want to attend births, but simply because over and over again I felt like I had no business attending these births as the "manager" or the "expert." I believe so strongly in our bodies' ability to give birth and I also believe just as strongly in the natural cycle of birth and death, that I had begun to feel like the women whose births I was attending, the typical, american, homebirth client, the women who were already taking good care of themselves and eating well and educating themselves about pregnancy and birth and motherhood, they did not need me. I felt there was too much potential for me to disempower them. And perhaps some women wouldn't make the leap to have their babies at home without a midwife, and they feel they need that support in our crazy society that doubts them so heavily and instills them with fear, and so I am glad there are midwives out there to do that good work. But me? I am ready to let go and let birth happen on its own.

When that little girl was born dead into my hands I realized that there was nothing anyone could have done to "save" her, and I also realized that there was no need for her to be saved. It is normal for some babies to die, it is the way of the earth, it is the way of nature, it is part of the cycle of life. I began to feel that all of the prenatal testing that we do and most of our society's choices around prenatal care and birth are all rituals we have ascribed to in order to ward off death, and you know, they just don't work. No matter how hard we try to save them all, there will always be babies that die, at home, in the hospital, in utero and sometimes in our arms. And it is sad, so, so sad. No one wants to lose their child and face that grief. But for millennia human and other mammal mothers have been giving birth and losing their young, and no matter how much we intervene what you will find is that most babies survive their pregnancy and birth just fine, and there are always some who don't, but what I believe to be true is that our culture has such an abject fear of death and has vilified it so seriously that we are no longer capable of accepting the normalcy of death and taking it in stride. We act as if a lost child is the greatest of tragedies, and though it is in some ways (my miscarriage was one of the hardest challenges I have ever faced and I thank god for the safety of my living sons every day), it is also a normal part of life. It is our fear of death that has lead us to behave so irrationally about how we birth.

So, I will support my sisters and friends on their birth journeys. I love birth. I want to be there if I am needed to serve a woman and her family as they go through that life changing experience. Of course, I fully support education for all women, in particular in regard to their needs in child-bearing. Women need help learning how to care for themselves during pregnancy, what to eat, how to exercise, how to care for their changing emotional and spiritual needs, in particular because we have lost much of that wisdom that used to passed down from mother to daughter and from sister to sister before we abandoned our care into the hands of obstetricians. Women need to hear birth stories, read birth books, watch birth movies since most of us are no longer blessed with the gift of being present since childhood at the births of our siblings and our cousins and our neighbors. We need to work towards normalizing the concept of birth, and of death as a sometimes part of birth, so that more and more women will feel empowered enough to birth autonomously.

Many women who believe firmly in homebirth with a midwife in attendance will eschew the idea of birthing unattended, and most of the time it is not because they feel like they need one more person at their birth; they have partners and family and friends to hold their hands and look into their eyes and feed them sips of tea while they labor, but because they want one "expert" present at their birth. Truly for most women, they feel they need that expert there to keep them and their baby alive on the off chance they are the one in thousand or a million who will lose their baby or won't live themselves. And I would be remiss to state that there are never situations that can arise in a birth scenario that could lead to dire consequences, including death, in which a trained professional could manage to keep all parties alive, for that is true, there are situations like that. But does every woman who gives birth need to give up certain autonomies and freedoms, does every woman need to thwart what may be the natural consequence of death simply in order so that a few will be saved? I cannot answer that question for anyone but myself, but I know that I am willing to risk that myself or my child is the one that dies so that I can experience birth as authentically, naturally and spontaneously as the universe intends for me by choosing to birth of my own recognizance.

I support all women to have complete freedom to birth wherever and with whomever they choose. Blessed be.

the internet is sucking out my brain

An hour and a half ago I walked into my room and sat down at this computer to look up a wheat-free pie crust recipe. I just walked into the kitchen and remembered that was what I was doing. I never looked it up. Instead I joined tribe.net and started my profile. Now, to top it all off, I am blogging about how incredibly easily side tracked I am by the internet. sheesh.

only so much time

I am trying, as usual as my Libra self, to find balance. I have been working more lately, finally. Not that I wanted to be, but I need to feed the family and such, and the big holidays of the summer have drawn to a close, so I am buckling down and doing the work that needs to be done.

What this translates into is that all the time I am now selling for an income has eaten into the time in which I had been doing other things, like writing. I know there is a way for me to do it all, I simply have yet to come upon the magical spell that works to allow the maximum amount of waking, cleaning, laundry, fresh food preparation, dog walking, animal tending, yoga, income producing, creative writing, homeschooling, kid playing, reading, music listening, dancing, activism, socializing, healthful eating, sleeping, dreaming and (hopefully again some day) lovemaking in a day. I believe the magic which will allow me to accomplish all those things exists. I am working on it.

In the meantime, my thoughts today are on the nature of balance. This morning a dear friend honored me by sharing a story, a tragic recollection of a moment in her early childhood, the pivotal moment, an instance of cruelty demonstrated by someone who ought to have been protecting her that has impacted her ability to feel safe for most of her life. I was so grateful she could and would share this with me. So many of us, so many more of us than there rightfully should be, have stories like these hidden away deep in the recesses of our minds and our hearts, hurtful memories that get locked in our cells. I believe that by telling these stories, exposing them to the scrutiny and care of others, taking them out into the light so they can no longer hold their shadowy secrets hostage in our souls that we begin the process of healing.

As I rode home from soccer practice this afternoon, the air was crisp and fresh with that rare moment in fall before all is dreary and moldy and gray. The sun shone through the golden leaves and lit up our way like a hallelujah chorus of light. I was stunned by the regular, constant beauty of the world around me as I am daily. I just think everything is so fucking gorgeous: my children, the sacred earth, our profound gift of the experience of this lifetime, all the exquisite tastes and smells and sights and sounds and sensations that it staggers my soul to know that all of our delight exists amidst such gross destruction and cruelty. Almost every person I know has suffered gravely at the hands of others, most of us as children, most of us at the hands of those who should have cared for us the most, those who should have sacrificed their very lives to protect us, rather than be the ones who put us in harm's way.

So I seek to understand the balance in that? Is there any? Is the beauty and glory of life so immense that the profane and profoundly ugly must exist with it side by side in order for there to be balance? I suppose that's possible, though I am unwilling to totally accept it. Nature herself dishes out enough tragedy in the bear maulings and hurricanes and earthquakes and the thousand other ways she can devour and maim life on the planet for us humans to necessarily have to be in on the action, don't you think? Or perhaps life on earth is so utterly, admirably beautiful that the death wrought upon it by the natural rhythms and cycles is of the same beauty, and it takes the grossly inappropriate abuse, murder, pollution and warmongering we humans singularly perpetrate to offer an authentically polar opposite to all the world's grandiose good. We, perhaps, manifest that dark that gives the light.

Can that be true? I imagine life on earth was pretty fucking stellar a million years before humans made their debut. But did any other life form on the planet perceive it as such? Are we the ears that finally heard the tree falling in the woods and thought to qualify and quantify that experience?

"Wow! That was so loud, it terrified me!"
"I thought it was great. It was such a powerful, thunderous noise it made me feel more alive!"
Humans, we not only perceive, we interpret.

Duality. Do I believe in it? I am drawn to it, the Libran, justice-seeking scales of my psyche ever attempting to weigh things out, make them even, fair. Humans in general love our dualities, all that good and evil and dark and light and yin and yang and yadahyadahyadah. We're fixated. We're obsessed.

So what does it look like in a world, in a world view without balance? Must we have all that evil to weigh against the good? Must a million children go hungry so a million more can thrive on nutrient rich, organic food? Can there not be limitless joy without limitless sorrow? I'm not fucking buying it.

As much as I love balance and order I can feel the Eris lurking inside me, that wild, beloved chaos theory that gives rise to the exquisite fractal rebelling. Symmetry has its place. Order and logic are fine concepts that have taken us far. There is a time and a need for balance, but we have gone overboard, swung our own pendulum too far thereby destroying the balance in which we supposedly believe by believing in it too vehemently. If that has something to do with how the cycle of war and abuse got started on this planet, I am clearing this up right now. There is no way I can accept that all the tragic suffering must coexist alongside the peace and elation. I cast out the pain of the millions of children lied to and beaten and starved and fucked, I banish it from this realm. It has no place amongst poppies and puppies and mountain views and mango trees and moonrises. I see the lives on earth living out a scattered fractal pattern of so very much pleasure mitigated not by a single instance of raw abuse of power. I embrace it, I embolden it and empower that vision to take hold of all that experience, all that interpret.

he still holds my hand

My younger son is 11, and I am 33. I love the magic of numbers and it feels really special that we're both delicious double digits and that I am 3 times his age as 3, of course, is a magic number.

My boys, quite honestly, are awkward fellows. Chalk it up to the combination of being adolescent boys who have grown up entirely outside of the mainstream paradigm: they've never been to school, their mom is a pagan, psychedelic, priestess freak, their dad is a far away, liberal, academic, law student type, their clothes all come from thrift stores instead of box stores and malls, and they live deep in the mountains surrounded by a mismatched collective of neighbors and roommates and lots of animals and holy, holy, wooded beauty. They are different from other children. However, they are doing well with it, awkwardness and all. They are intelligent and wildly creative and mostly considerate and can function pretty well in a group. They play sports and video games, so as not to set them too far apart from their cultural peer group, and they argue and bicker and wrestle with each other, too, the older they get.

But a phenomenon in our lives that keeps occurring that I continue to cherish but wait on the edges of devastation to no longer be true is how blessed and lucky I am that G still holds my hand. He is a strong boy, a triple Taurus, so he's very earthy, almost feral at times, and quite headstrong. His physical makeup is the very embodiment of his bull archetype; he is stocky, muscular and firm, full-faced, and tough as a young bull learning his strengths. His hands are thick and rough with boyhood adventures of climbing trees and digging ditches and building forts. And those hands still reach for mine whenever we walk together. It is nigh on intoxicating at this point; every time he does it I catch my breath, silently so as not to let on at my grateful surprise and glee.

He holds my hand automatically when we walk in the city and need to cross streets. It must be ingrained after all those years that I refused to have it otherwise so paranoid of traffic accidents I am. And yet somehow L quit holding my hand every time we crossed the street at some point in the recent past. I don't remember it; I am unsure how he got away with it because frankly I'd just as soon we all hold hands when faced with the threat of vehicular manslaughter. But L is just as likely to be holding some younger child's hand when we cross now, so I trust him and let him go. What truly amazes me, though, is that G holds my hand out there in public, in full view of the city and whomever may accompany us. This big little boy has not yet matured so much that he even realizes that other boys his age would be mortally embarrassed to hold their mothers' hands in public, and so he himself is not. Thank my lucky stars.

Holding my hand is not just reserved as an automatic response to city walking, either. G holds my hand, takes my hand in his even when we go on our long walks up our mountain. We walk our dogs up the gravel, wooded road nearly every day, and oftentimes the boys carry with them sticks or swords or other, various, phallic implements of destruction as they seem genetically programmed to do. And yet even still, I regularly get the delighted rush of satisfaction of feeling that rough-palmed, chunky hand make its way into my own. His hand seeks mine. He likes holding my hand. He enjoys being close to his mom while he walks. I cannot put my true feelings into adequate words. I feel I am the luckiest woman in the world every time it happens. And when the getting is really good, now that he has grown so much taller, he occasionally throws his arm over my shoulders so we can walk arm and arm, as comrades, as partners, as the best of friends. What sweet bliss-- may it never end.

I wish every mother I know could have the opportunity to experience the visceral bliss of her half-grown son's hand, tough but not yet manly, grasping for the comfort of her hand's embrace. The world would be a kinder place if our boys were all so blessed as to be able to appreciate that safety and comfort and our mothers were all so gratified by their sons' appreciation of them.

right this minute

The sun is in Libra and the moon is in Aries and my heart is breaking, breaking, breaking. I want my Aries sun forever in my life, he needs his Libra moon forever in his life. How do we do it? How, dear god, do we make it work?

How long will it hurt this much? How long can I take this pain?

breakfast

I have a very dear friend with whom I occasionally share meals, and we have this game in which we discuss all the things that happen at the dinner table at my house which could never, ever have happened at the dinner table at his house as a child, for example listening to Led Zeppelin, children requesting additional servings of brussel sprouts or tofu, moms saying the word "fuck," etc.

This morning we were having breakfast and though my friend wasn't here to share it, I imagined the scenario before me was again unique to my household. With plates and mouths full of pancakes and hash browns, my L and my little sister sat side by side, fair skinned and light haired, both in all black attire singing along, word for word to Elvis Costello. It was darling. They knew all the words. They are such cute indie rockers of a like mind, though they are 12 years apart.

It makes me realize what it could look like if I had another child even though my boys are so much older now. I hadn't thought of it that way until I wrote it down. I still have no view of what life has yet to bring. I am open, trusting. Free and falling.