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.

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?