I'm not the Ostrich I used to be

I wrote this, in my trusty journal, almost exactly 2 years ago today. Daniel, my son, who is now just over 2 years old, was a tiny babe in arms, and I was pulsing with the love and mystery that being a new mother brings.

And I had another idea, inspired by my sister-in-law Anna, and that was to create a group of women (online perhaps) to talk about the themes of motherhood, to appreciate and support one another's simple accomplishments (like doing the laundry and not going insane...all in the same day!).

So here is the entry. I hope you enjoy it:


Sister Goddess Carla Duren, singing "Ostrich" www.carladuren.com

Over the course of the past few weeks, there has been this slow motion let down, the slowing of the train, so to speak, and my heart, which was set wide open by the wind, has been cooled in these past stagnant, swelling days of the approaching summer. I guess I expected to come out the other side of birth as a remarkably different and deeper woman; that people on the streets would see the brightness emanating from my every pore; that others would somehow recognize the hugeness of the feat I have recently accomplished.

But they do not see it and thus pass right on by, barely noticing this woman, me, who is just "another woman with a baby." These feelings have been unspoken and unnamed, lumped into a tighty category of "postpartum depression" as many other women tell me how they felt down for no particular reason at all. But there isn't "no reason." What women who have just given birth need is CELEBRATION, ACKNOWLEDGMENT for the HUGE, MIRACULOUS  event that have just navigated successfully.

And Mother's Day just doesn't cut it!

I am looking for the magic in life and in motherhood. It is my life line, my tie to all that is important and worthy of focusing on in this life. (By magic I don't mean pixie dust and faeries; I point to the potent powerful source a woman enters into during labor and the juice that is carried forth into the day-to-dayness of being alive.) I have turned to books. I have looked to inspirational speakers. I have a voracious hunger for this! And I'm not stopping till I cultivate it and can tap into this source regularly.

I have turned every direction except to face myself in the mirror long enough to see that I AM THE ONE who must first acknowledge the change, the crescendo of knowing that is coming, not in a single wave but in digestible daily doses, in all that is seemingly mundane about motherhood, in every suck from my breast, every diaper change and sleepy coo-sound.

To be a new mother is exhaustingly and surprisingly demanding and incredibly rewarding. It is standing at the edge of an open abyss and jumping in, knowing there is no end, no bottom in sight, but you do it anyway. This much I can already see and understand.

Last night I dreamed of escape and drowning, of mysterious symbols scripted on foggy mirrors, written by unseen hands. What is the dreamtime telling me? What can I learn from these images, that come during the 3-hour cat naps?

Right after giving birth, I felt a part of some other dimension, a brighter seamless reality. That was when I felt anything was possible. Was it just a hormonal displacement kicked into high gear? Was there nothing truly magical about what I felt and saw inside LIFE? I refuse to believe this. A belief or thought like this is quick to kill the spirit of life.

I desire to walk in the forest, feel the silky fern tips brushing against my bare legs, to carry Daniel there and be open to messages that enter my mind in these wild spaces.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your support and appreciation.

VITALMIX!!! Every body dance!

In a about a week, I’m turning the big 3-0! In honor of moving into a new decade/sphere/era/chapter of life, I need a little help from you all, to literally shake me up and breathe more fun, pleasure, clarity and LIFE into my days.

I desire to create the best, most fun, pull your ass out of a deep funk dance mix. The other gift I desire for this year is one of those turbo-powered blender, the oh sooo sexy Vitamix,

So in honor of that wish and this little proposition, I’m calling this the VITALMIX.

So, what’s that song that makes you leap out of your office chair or spring out of bed, even on a grey day? Be it feisty and fast or smolderingly slow, I wanna hear it!

Celebrate with me and send me your pick. I’m creating a mix 30 songs deep, one for each year, and if I choose your song to be on the mix, I’ll send you a copy of the final version! Plus, the person who brings me the grooviest, spirit-busting-out-of-my-body song will win one very special prize.

Well? I’ll be here, enjoying myself while the tunes come pouring in, inspiring me to jump, leap, and dance into this new year, my 31^st and best year yet.

Just be sure send me your song by 11pm CST January 18^th.  I’ll post the winners on January 19^th (the big day!).

Watch this for some instant inspiration:

MoonCircles.com

Sagittarius New Moon: Call and Response
by Dana Gerhardt

It’s another new moon: when the magically minded make wishes and astrologers attempt to divine this cycle’s intentions. But fates are personal. Even if a new moon chart could be forced to describe them all, no single astrologer could tell that many stories. The wishes you make now may indeed be super-powered, but if you don’t have a strong relationship with the archetypes, don’t expect special favors. If you rarely visit your spinster Aunt, she’s got little motivation to throw money at your leaking roof. New Moons are potent times to forge alliances with the gods. Visit the invisible world. Bow and open yourself to their touch. Make an offering. Humans have been rendezvousing with these archetypes for thousands of years. When you call out to the gods, they do respond!

Calling Sagittarius

The challenges of last month’s Scorpio cycle were meant to strengthen your capacities for patience, perseverance and resilience. Perhaps you were reminded of your strength. You do know how to put one foot in front of the other and survive. But Sagittarius plays an entirely different game. Even if your work this month is similar, you’re meant to take it to a higher plane. In this expansive, Jupiter-ruled cycle, seek out the people, places, and texts that open your mind and get you excited about the future again. What questions have you been pondering? Where have you felt stuck? Surrender to Sagittarius and the Centaur will reward you. Now is the time to shift perspective, expand your horizons, and let your life become adventurous again!

Yippee. More items to add to your to-do list. Don’t worry. Opening to the adventurous Sagittarian deva is fun—like racing a horse across green pastures, giddy with the joy of movement. Sagittarian energy is big, buoyant, generous, and prosperous. Its concerns are honesty and wisdom. To attract the Centaur, assemble the following transcendent ingredients: Time and space to roam, a hunger for truth, the certainty that life means something. Next: Ascend. Beam up. Climb the highest hill or building in your town, scan the horizon, let your lungs fill with fresh air, relax in this wide space. Or imagine you’re floating on the wings of an eagle, looking down on your world. Look again at whatever experiences may be challenging you. From this perspective, your luck can improve. If you’re feeling particularly frisky, lay back with open arms and shout "Take me, Sagittarius!" If this makes you weep with joy, you got the connection!

Or visit a university library. Preferably a big one. Walk through the book stacks with a quiet mind at a leisurely place. Stop whenever you feel like it. Take a random book from the shelf and read a paragraph. Keep moving. Read the thoughts of more thinkers whenever intuition directs. Then go outside and commune with the horizon. Enjoy an exotic foreign drink when you’re done. Or recite your gratitudes. Being thankful alters the mind much like reading books or sitting in higher spaces. Listing what you’re grateful for is powerful prayer. Do this for 21 days and you will utterly transform your world. Make it a practice to be thankful for the anonymous hands who built your house, who planted the trees on your street, who sat in a factory and made your shoes, for everything and everyone who brought you where you are today. And finally, if you’re not feeling buoyant enough yet, buy some helium-filled balloons. Take them for a walk in the park, not knowing when the moment will come when you’re inspired to let them go, just so you can watch them sail into the sky and disappear. Of course, you’re always free to innovate. In whatever way you choose, at the Sag New Moon, call in the spirit of this expansive and prosperous sign.

Sagittarius’s Response

Waiting for the response is the fun part. No way can I predict it for you. But in the next few days or even weeks, keep your eye out for Sagittarian visits. You might receive a surprise gift. Maybe an opportunity to travel. If you have an urgent question, you’ll likely receive a wise answer. Or a flash mob could suddenly sing the Hallelujah chorus in your local food court. A stranger may say your name with such a delightful foreign accent, it transports you to the other side of the world. The Sagittarius Centaur could arrive as a belly laugh, big and warm as Zeus. Or maybe it just hits you—that you’re in falling love with your life all over again. However the Centaur appears, let the meaning of the visit touch you deeply.

If you’d like to explore the archetypes in even greater depth, if you like to journal and/or muse on the positions of the Sun and Moon, you may enjoy my enrolling in my Twelve Moon workshop (by snail-mail or email). It’s designed to deepen your relationship with the guardians of natural time, the Sun, the Moon, and the zodiac.

© 2010 Dana Gerhardt
All rights reserved

First Post: Empowering the Creative Flow

This blog is a place to record the creative journey, well, my journey towards that "fertile flow". You know, the juicy spot that is seeping with authentic, colorful projects, be they gardens to plant, drawings to color, walls to paint, or socks to knit...But we are not always in this space of feeling in touch with our creative process. And here in winter it is often the case for me that I feel more internal and less able to express myself and creativity outwards.

And as a woman also drawn to the healing arts, I am interested in recording how creativity heals the spirit and the body. I know from experience that bringing something that lives inside of me out into the world, through accessing that creative space in my heart/soul untaps a force that the every day world does not find time to explain or support. "The replanted, rewoven female soul sets loose a fecund spirit inside us. We grow fertile with new words, new ideas, new consciousness, new lyricism, new energy. Our journey deposits psychological or spiritual energy (empowerment) into our internal banks. As Mary Catherine Bateson points out...'The energy to write this page is released by metabolized food...But the [psychic] energy to write this page depends on my state of mind, and such 'energy' can come from a sunset or a remembered smile.'"  (Excerpt from Sue Monk Kidd's The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, a biographical account of her journey from the constraints of Christian upbringing and abidance to the sometimes frightening (because it's unknown) and freeing arms of the Sacred Feminine in her life.) She continues...

"The energy or vitality to create is engendered from the soul...The first step...is simply acknowledging our creativity. Second, we must explore it. Ask yourself, 'What is my deepest passion, the truest, most vulnerable place in your heart. Greet this answer like it is your newborn self being placed in your arms. Love it. Bond with it. Feed it. Don't push it aside, minimize, make excuses, and starve this thing of beauty, because this answer is the window into your creative life.

"Third, we need to commit to our creative path. I don't mean to want to do it in our hearts or make plans to do it. I mean to actually do it...I meet women with all kinds of dazzling projects their souls have concocted that for some reason they never get around to manifesting...Tapping the flow of the soul is only half the creative process; the other half is figuring out how to do commerce with the practical world.

"And finally, to be empowered creatively we need to understand what to do when [i]nevitably [we] get discouraged and lose creative direction or passion...When that happens, I've learned to drop down into the creative nothing. I do sacred dawdling. I turn to nature. I lie on the earth or dig in the dirt. I get still, go silent, rest, take herbal baths...The main thing is to stop struggling and nourish yourself. When you nourish yourself, your creative energy is renewed. You are able to pick up your lyre again and sing."

Kidd, alongside such contemporary women writers like Clarissa Pinkola Estes & Alice Walker guide our female souls with their fluid imagery and vibrant expression of story, be it their own or one brought forth from within or retold from without. I have turned to their stories in dark times, "dark nights of the soul", when inspiration feels a million miles away and found a connection with life and my creative spark again. I also go into the garden and watch the plants grow, ask them questions and listen for their wise, mostly brief, answers. What brings you inspiration? Where do you find the strength to push through the dark nights and birth your light out into the world?

I’ve Got You, Under My Skin

I’ve Got You, Under My Skin