Love is that spring of life that fills the womb and penetrates the rest of the world in a blissful feeling of goddess within. Goddess that will not surrender to anything. Goddess that will bear the birth of LIFE. Of LIFE. Life itself is what calls and beckons and reckons and sings from the tops of the mountains all the way to the very depths of the sea. Mother. It is you. It is you. YOU are the mother. The keeper, the guard, the maker the wayfarer who sometimes gets lost. Lost in her creation. Child. Lost. In. The. Child. Is that her child? NO, it’s my child. I AM the MOTHER. I am THE MOTHER. Is it me? Yes. Carry me mother. Carry me to the doorstep of knowledge and truth. Carry me to that doorstep that will anoint ME the mother. Where the knowledge will flow. Where I will learn to play. Where I will learn to read everything there is to read so long as it makes me a mother. So help me god, make me a MOTHER.

Bring forth the child. Bring him to me. Lay him upon me. He is mine. I see him like I’ve never seen anyone. Ever. He is mine. I made him. I birthed him. I brought him into this world with every strength and pulse within me. My breath was taken away and given back again only to be taken away forever…when I laid eyes upon YOU. Seeing you was indeed seeing the face of god. The god within me that speaks so loudly I can’t turn it down and don’t want to. The god within that forces smiles through exhaustion and strength through fear. The god that holds me up and says I. Love. You. I love you. You are that god. God is you and now you see him looking back at you with approval. Showing you, telling you, holding you, needing you… He is showing you his true face. That one looking back at you? Is. Simply. You.

Mother. Maker. Creator. Beauty editor. You are her. You are beautiful. You are strong. You are Passionate and you are resilient. You are mother. Mother cannot break nor can she be broken. Mother cannot take nor can she be taken. Mother just is. She stands firm and tall and resonates from within. There is nothing more. She resonates. Beyond all space and time she is felt. She is held, she is loved and caressed by a community… a community who now call her… mother. She rises. She falls. But she always rises again. You call to her, you call your own, you call to all that is known because all that is known is… Mother.

For without this sacred calling we all cease. Silence. Then there is only silence. But because of you mother, silence leads to laughter. Great big belly laughter because THAT is mother. She is everything there is to be. She is a creation that could never be created because she just is. She serves. She bellows. She beckons. She stands tall…proud…radiant. She IS radiant. In every light. Through growth. Through pain. Through darkness and through her return to light she is growth. Belly growth. Breast growth. Hip growth. Mind growth. Spirit growth. HEART GROWTH. She’s so big that no one recognizes her. She’s dead. Whatever woman bore her is dead. The little girl in pigtails? Only a memory. The rebellious teen who shook with passion and fury to find her way? The college student searching with her mind for a purpose as if she would find it there. Her MIND? It’s gone…But her heart. Her heart… IS open. Her little girl sitting before her waiting to be nurtured and loved and doted on. Her teenager no longer needing the fury to get things done because all there is is all she needs. Love.

So, mother, I say to you… who are you? Who sits there rocking and praying and bouncing and swaying. Who sits there? YOU. Mother.

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Happy Mother

To mothers, one day consists of several mini days. By 10:30am, we’ve already lived one of them. The early morning: first milk, first meal, first diaper/clothing change, first tears, first sibling scuffle, first laughs, first enormous mess to clean up…we live lifetimes within lifetimes.

We don’t measure time by hours and minutes; for moms, there’s no “quitting time”. Our time is measured by seasons and cycles: feeding time, soothing time, quiet time, pre-nap time, nap-time (hallelujah), post-nap time, trying-not-to-yell time, making-cookies-to-make-up-for-losing-it time, is-it-too-early-for-a-glass-of-wine? time, why-aren’t-you-sleeping time, holding-sick-baby time, oh-my-God-this-child-is-magical time, and so on and so on.

Don’t ask me what day it is because I might not know. It’s slightly irrelevant.

Even when we’re away, whether it be a rest & relaxation weekend, business trip, or solo grocery shopping vacation, we’re still planning, wondering, worrying, smiling at photo memories on our phones.

An invisible umbilical cord tethers us to our young and we nourish them as they reciprocate by feeding us life, whimsy, and for every gray hair they inspire, a dozen unexplainable love/angel/star dust-filled moments where you look around and say “Oh my God did anyone just see that? Did you see what my baby said/did? If the world saw this it would bring world peace. Did anyone see that?”.

I’m always just a little bit tired. Oftentimes, I’m exhausted. I’ve never been completely done with the laundry. The floors need mopping. My youngest needs to learn more words. My eldest needs learn less words. I need to stop buying dark chocolate covered almonds and pretending like they’re a healthy snack.

The last regular period of good night sleeps I had was before my first pregnancy- when my world was my own and I still had personal space. Even when they’re silent from 7pm to 7am I still find myself staying up until 1am just to relish the silence and then waking up at 3am to make sure they’re chests are still rising and falling, life is still inside of them.

I’m an unreliable friend. Maybe I’ll call you, maybe I won’t. Ask my small supervisors. Talking on the phone with one kid trying to slap the device out of my hand and the other taking advantage of my distracted state to create a mess that will take 45 minutes to rectify makes conversations with the outside world an inconvenient novelty. Maybe I’ll see you, maybe I won’t. If by some miracle I have an $11-12/hour babysitter, have completed my work for the day, have cleaned up the disaster created in my home from a days worth of kid-rearing (check out the disturbing amounts of food on the kitchen floor- that’s just from dinner), and have the energy to remove myself from my bed after the kids are down, let’s do something.

At times I want to flush both of my children down the toilet. Other times, I feel close to tears at the realization that we only have 60 or so years left on Earth together. And only if everything goes right. Sometimes I hide from them in my own home, as if they’re little squeaky-voiced intruders with toys in their greedy fists instead of guns and knives. At other times I squeeze them so tightly and for so long that they wrestle their chubby bodies out of my grip, gasping for air (”Where are you going? Mommy isn’t done!”).

But I can’t just be a mother. I’m a lover, friend, sister, cousin…expectations pull me in all directions and all the while my mommy badge stays on. So I ask myself: “What’s the difference between a martyr and a queen?”

Both serve. They both give of themselves. They’ll both eventually die. They’re both worshiped.

But the queen has released her need for angst. She knows that she can inspire others with joy as much as she can with fear. She can enter her own castle while still on this Earth and is not at all shy or modest about the massive, glittering crown atop her head. In some sort of quantum farming experience, she enjoys the harvest while planting it. She fertilizes her plants with her laughter and faith, not her body. For the Queen, time collapses on itself and the suffering and celebration of life are united. And her shoes are better.

The queen and the mother exist inside of all women, motherhood of course intensifies their roles. Every moment, we former girls, now women, have to choose which lady gets the pedestal. Our daughters and sons are watching.

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Growing up I remember hearing the Christmas story about Jesus’ birth. My favorite verse was always about Mary right after she became a mom: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Even if she didn’t have shepherds and wise men visiting her with all kinds of fancy gifts and didn’t have a son who wouldn’t go on to be the most famous human being in the world besides Michael Jackson, her birth would have been the most important moment in her life.

Going from woman to mother is indescribable and fluid. I become more of a mother everyday.  My first acts of mothering took place as soon as I peed on the stick and saw the words “pregnant” (digital pregnancy test). Maybe even before.

Birth is incredibly sacred. It’s been moved from fields and bedrooms to hospitals in many cases, but it remains primal, mysterious, rebellious. It can’t even be predicted. Maya, my eldest, was born 10 days after her due date. Tali was born 10 days after as well.

It’s no wonder that the state of birth rights are in crisis. Our culture isn’t patient (I know I’m not). We’re not farmers who grow our own food and have learned to watch and obey the Earth and respect Mother Nature’s cycles. When the sun goes down and asks us to sleep, we can just flip on the light. We can have strawberries in the winter. We think we’re in charge and enjoy the illusion of control over the elements.

I deeply believe that birth is our last remaining link to the natural world.

Women’s bodies are ecosystems that hold the secrets of creation. Medical authorities can try to tell us that we don’t know how to give birth. That it is in our best interest to schedule dates to get cut open, or that we should be afraid for our lives and babies’ lives and hand over all control to a corporate third party. Religions can shape our minds and tell us that pain is our birthright and our punishment and that being born with a uterus and vagina makes us inferior, shameful creatures that need to be controlled and dominated.

Our culture has even been powerful enough to convince women to objectify themselves to the point of fearing rather than embracing how pregnancy forever change one’s body. Lower back tattoos are sexy, the beautiful lightning bolt marks a child leaves on your abdomen from creating a tent out of a sundress are not. Breasts filled with silicone are coveted, breasts filled with milk are covered up as women scurry off to feed their children while standing up in restroom stalls.

Thankfully times are changing as women ask questions rather than just nod their heads. We’re listening to older women and learning to trust in and understand the language of our bodies. The good little girls are transforming into something far more wild (and I like it!).

Every woman with more than one child knows that each birth births a new you and delivers a lesson. With Maya’s birth, I learned that when I give into fear, I hand away my power. She could have been a homebirth but I was afraid and went to the hospital for comfort. My labor was fast, and “easy’ but I’ll never forget how I felt like a trapped and without choices. What could have been a sacred moment, the moment my first child would enter the world, felt cold. There were strangers in the room. It was a teaching hospital. Our agendas were not aligned and I felt the discrepancy like ice against my skin and went on a very tangible mental vacation for about three days. Sometimes I still get angry.

I’ve heard many people say that it doesn’t matter how a baby comes into the world as long as they do so successfully. It matters to me.

Tali’s birth taught me about trust. People thought I was crazy for wanting to give birth alone after a few dreams that she wanted to be born that way but I did it anyway. In the moment of her birth there was no one in the room but I felt surrounded by the Divine presence, a whole cast of angel midwives, and all of my ancestors.

Now I feel as if another birth is happening, this time no baby, just me. I enrolled in doula school and will be starting over the next few weeks. My whole life I’ve been branding myself as a business professional but the contractions have started and every women knows that contractions are painful to the degree that they are resisted. My whole being is being pushed through a birth canal, squeezing me, sometimes I can’t even breathe. I know why babies often cry when they finally come out and feel air for the first time. They’re not (always) sad, it’s just a lot of work to be born. Tears of relief perhaps. An exclamation point. Maybe if they could speak they’d say “Fuck that was crazy!”. I would.

I really, truly look forward to serving the women I work with as a doula. I’ll keep running my business because my kids drink milk like it’s water, but I definitely feel a new me on the horizon.

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–
Mrs. Erika Allen

http://blueberrypancakesfordinner.wordpress.com/

Love is the spirit of my faith. The quest for truth is my sacrament and service is my prayer. To dwell together in peace, To seek the truth in love, and to help the other, the different , To the end that we all shall grow into harmony with the Divine.

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Marget Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood once said “As often as I have witnessed the miracle, held the perfect creature with its tiny hands and feet, each time I have felt as though I were entering a cathedral with prayer in my heart.”

It was during early morning nursings, when she was very little, I would find my self in a holy place. My little apt would be come a cathedral, it would be so quiet, sometimes, I could hear trains in the very distance, the moon would be our only light, beaming though the window. We were “alone”, but there was something else, someone else in that room with us. Sometimes I would imagine it was my father, whom The Buddha asked “to watch over us” not long before he died. Maybe it was my grandmother or great grandmother or even great great grandmother. But more often I would feel what, I could describe only as the Divine Feminine, The Goddess. The Mother. Some call her Mary or the Blessed One.

In our home we call her “The Lady”.

The Lady would sit next to me, reminding me that this terrible, excruciating, exhaustion would soon be gone. That I would feel better soon. That I was doing, G*s work. She would Comfort me, Telling me that no, S would not just arbitrary die, that the boys would be ok. Now I think she would remind me that the chances of my children being kidnapped from just outside their classrooms is almost nil, that The Head and I have broken the chain of alcoholism and addiction. If I contenue to work a strong program of recovery is a huge step towards sobriety for our children and their children.

Unitarian Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men – from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.”

I am practicing my religion when I am changing diapers and or breastfeeding or holding a hurt child whose sibling had used hands instead of words. Or checking again while they are sleeping to see if they are still breathing listening to the same joke for the elvendly billionth time and still laughing or Cleaning up 3 am barfs ( why is it ALWAYS at 3 am?) wiping noses and tushes; whether I am climbing Mount Washmore. Or just letting them go ahead and color the walls what the hell right? The wall is just another medium! We like the arts in Waldorf schools!

I am worshiping when I do not yell when I want to. I am in worship when I do the dishes or cook dinner. Though I must admit that I hold true the wisdom of Phyllis Diller who said “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”

It was during that early time in Princess Nekkey’s life, that I started to collect Mary statues, I like the Madonna and child ones, I have some of mother’s breastfeeding, and a few of pregnant woman. I now have several alters in my home that I have made dedicated to mothering and motherhood. They remind me of my 2 am visits with The Lady.

This is my life, my home is my sanctuary, my act of mothering is worship, and prayer and offering and yes there is sacrifice of time and personal space. But the truth is and I believe every mother would agree. This is a short, very short time in my life was just a season. And as seasons do it will pass, more would come and my children would grow and learn and hurt and heal.

I believe my life as a mother is a divine calling that my work as a mother and wife was an offering to my children, to G*d and the world…that this works, dare I say “woman’s work” would matter for generations… I am honored to be a wife and mother. But I must say…I must admit look forward to the day when I can pee in peace, eat a meal in a restaurant with out chancing a toddler around or even maybe. Sleep a whole night. Oh yeah….it is very hard to write anything with a 3 year old. Ask me how I know.

Blue Berry is a wife, a mother, a sister, a woman of liberal religious faith, a Waldorf mom who lets her kids watch TV, eat fast food and when she has time, a blogger, even though she can not spell. She want to be a Minister when she grows up. In her free time she……has no free time.

The characters in her life are as follows.
The Head-Her husband
The Neck-Her Self
The Buddha – Man Cub #1
The Rock Star- Man Cub #2
Princess Nekkey- Girl Cub.

A very wise woman once said: Let me tell you something, The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.

Read Erika’s blog:
http://blueberrypancakesfordinner.wordpress.com/

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Although I can recall a number of times I’ve cried in front of my sewing machine alone in the wee hours of the night – usually due to both machine and user tension issues. But all in all I’m a pretty tough lady. And why would I ever have the need to cry? I’ve got my act together and life has always been exactly the way I planned it.

And then one Tuesday Fall evening it happened for the first time in almost eleven years. My husband saw me cry. I cried. I cried with every ounce of my being. I cried a never-ending stream of tears. I cried to the point of hyperventilation. I cried to the point where no words could be spoken. So what could bring this emotionally hard-as-nails woman to her knees in an instant? With a toddler at my waist, a one year old on my left hip and a positive pregnancy test in my right hand there was nothing I could do but cry. Since I wasn’t capable of speaking I handed the test packet to my husband. He pulled out the “Do Not Eat” preservative sachet in the packet with the test stick and with all seriousness he said he wasn’t sure how to read this but he assumed the test was positive. My husband’s reaction was quite different than mine. He was over the moon with excitement about having another baby 19 months after my one-year-old daughter was born who is only 21 months younger than my son.

I cried that evening and I cried the next several days. But eventually I stopped crying and did something I had never done before. I relinquished myself to the fact that there is a higher force out there far beyond my understanding and definitely far beyond my control that has a plan for me and has a plan for this child. Needless to say this pregnancy was not expected or planned for. To the contrary it was planned against. Now I’m not an expert, but isn’t birth control supposed to control birth?

I’m a control person, yes I admit it. I like to control everything and I meticulous plan for every detail in my life. Before retiring into motherhood I worked as an IT software analyst where there were problems but every problem had a solution and I satisfyingly found them. There is an order to software systems and I loved it. Even my children were meticulously planned. I got pregnant exactly when I planned to with both of my beautiful children. I even planned to have a son and then a daughter. Not sure exactly how I controlled for that, but I did. So how dare mother nature and this force beyond my control make plans for me without my consent?! Oh but she/he/it did.

Since the day I stopped crying I decided to let a little bit of my control go and put it into the good hands of this universe and to my surprise an incredible weight was lifted from me. Not literal weight of course because mother nature is packing that one me now, but rather the weight I was taking on by filling every second of my being with thoughts like: how will I fit three car-seats in my beloved HHR, will I be able to handle the inevitable chaos that must come with having 3 babies, can we ever travel again, how will we afford this, will I ever get back into my career, what are people going to think of me, my god what will the neighbors say. Unlike my last career as a software analyst I have no answers. And for the first time in my life I’m ok with that. I somehow silenced myself of all those anxieties that erupted from a lack of pre-planning. And silence never felt so comfortable. For the first time let go and let be. And right there was a gift of hopefully many to come from this baby number three. I’m calling this gift humility. And anyone who knows me knows that humility was a much-needed gift. So maybe this gift is just part of the great plan this universe has for this child.

When I told a friend I was pregnant again she said God must have big plans for this baby to beat the odds coming into this world. Maybe he or she will find a cure for cancer or create a non-fat chocolate that tastes good. And with that I agreed whole-heartedly, questioned nothing, relinquished myself, silenced myself, and opened me and baby number three to this mighty, powerful, great and all-controlling universe. I have a feeling I’ll be doing much of that five months from now. And I’m ready for it! Thank you baby number three for your unexpected yet precious gift.

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He changed me. Not for the better or the worse. He changed me in every imaginable way possible so that I am no longer a woman unto myself but a mother unto the world.

His vision, his soul, his wondering eyes and forgiving heart tell me each and every moment that he is my guide and I am forever lost in his vision. Not lost in shadow but simply no longer a shadow of my former self.

I am his mother. The mother he chose, the mother I promised I would become. I am her now. Standing strong, embracing all that is wrapped in the womb of motherhood. The brilliant sights, sounds, visions, and apothecary of love… in every moment of every day I celebrate the woman he discovered when he was born. The woman that emerged just as he did.

I love her as she is the perfect vision in his eyes and now in her own. I take this not for granted but for my heart to expand and multiply.

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It’s like rock climbing for me (at least).  The climb up seems impossible, all of a sudden there’s anxiety and a new fear of heights. Then when I get to the top, it’s just perfection . . . All is as it should be.  Each climb seems like the first, a completely new challenge . . . we forget about all those other climbs and how wonderful they proved to be.
Then I turned around again and my baby is looking more and more like a little lady!  When did she get so sassy and the “Why?” question appeared out of nowhere and won’t stop. 

There are days when my creative energy is so focused on answering that crazy “why” question that I feel to tired to think about other anything when my mama quiet time comes late at night.

These growth spurts and molars are slowly killing me . . . Or saving me.  Sometimes I can’t tell the difference, maybe it’s the lack of sleep or forgetting to eat because my child was extra needy today.  All in all, everyday is a good day. 

These little things that can frustrate me are really quite amazing. She’s wanting to walk around in her own world and explore, she has definite ideas and NO ONE, no adults or other children will ever change her mind and I love that about her.

I just need to BREATHE . . . And laugh and think about all the wonderful things happening in that learning mind.  Then the creativity won’t stop, because a child is so full of hope and possibility and it just rubs off on me. Being able to watch them grow is a miracle to say the least.

Raising a child is just as much about raising and healing yourself.  It’s the best job in the world and far too under rated.

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You who are called by a thousand names,

May all remember

We are cells in your body

And dance together.

You are the grain and the loaf

That sustains us each day,

And as you are patient with our struggles to

learn, so shall we be patient

With ourselves and each other.

We are radiant light and sacred dark

-the balance-

You are the embrace that heartens

And the freedom beyond fear.

Within you we are born,

We grow, live and die -

You bring us around the circle

To rebirth,

Within us you dance

Forever.

~Starhawk, in Earth Prayers

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I have a little symphony
Growing inside of me.
Each day new notes combine
To form this amazing being!

Each time you move,
Each time you groove,
Each time you make your presence known
My heart rejoices,
My spirit sings
As the seed of life is grown.

I pray your spirit will always be free,
As I witness your unique symphony
The song that only you can write
On the amazing pages of this wonderful life.

~A. Williams

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