"Be at peace with your menopausal metamorphosis. Like puberty, like birth, menopause is a process not aided by hormonal manipulaiton. Extra progesterone is for pregnant women, not emerging crones." Susun Weed, New menopausal years, the Wise Woman's Way
The message Susun gives in her book on herbal approaches is more than just good medicine. It's common sense.
She urges women to pay attention to their bodies' signals, listening in, paying attention to dreams also, and keeping records of our cycles. Talk to other women before you decide what is 'normal', she counsels. Change in menopause is normal. Trust your instincts.
I think this is the hardest thing about women's cycles to accept: they are changeable, and menopause is all about change - I think for the better. Once the rollercoaster of symptoms subsides, and even during it, a measure of deep peace installs itself, a knowing deep in our bones of rhythms so ancient.
Like the seasons, our cycle is never still. Like the moon, we wax and wane. Why resist? Accept the power of change, the power of the body's wisdom.
Easy for me to say, I hit menopause 2 years ago, and the rollercoaster of hot flashes, PMS, night sweats and mood swings has greatly subsided.
The only thing I mess about my periods is not knowing where I am in my cycle - something new for me to get to know, how the menopausal woman follows the moon.
peace,
musemother
Monday, October 23, 2006
Friday, October 20, 2006
women's power and menstruation
extract on women's power from The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen
menstrual taboos are about power: "The truth of the matter as many Indians see it is that women who are at the peak of their fecundity are believed to possess power that throws male power totally out of kilter. They emit such force that, in their presence, any male-owned or -dominated ritual or sacred object cannot do its usual task. For instance, the Lakota say that a menstruating woman anywhere near a yuwipi man, who is a special sort of psychic, spirit-empowered healer, for a day or so before he is to do his ceremony will effectively disempower him. Conversely, among many if not most tribes, important ceremonies cannot be held without the presence of women. Sometimes the ritual woman who empowers the ceremony must be unmarried and virginal so that the power she channels is unalloyed, unweakened by sexual arousal and penetration by a male. Other ceremonies require tumescent women, others the presence of mature women who have borne children, and still others depend for empowerment on postmenopausal women. Women may be segregated from the company of the whole band or village on certain occasions, but on certain occasions men are also segregated. In short, each ritual depends on a certain balance of power and the positions of women within the phases of womanhood are used by tribal people to empower certain rites. This does not derive from a male-dominant view; it is not a ritual observance imposed on women by men. It derives from a tribal view of reality that distinguishes tribal people from feudal and industrial people.
Among the tribes, the occult power of women, inextricably bound to our hormonal life, is thought to be very great; many hold that we possess innately the blood-given power to kill--with a glance, with a step, or with a judicious mixing of menstrual blood into somebody's soup. Medicine women among the Pomo of California cannot practice until they are sufficiently mature; ....So women of the tribes are not inclined to see themselves as poor helpless victims of male domination. Even in those tribes where something akin to male domination was present, women are perceived as powerful, socially, physically, and metaphysically. In times past, as in times present, women carried enormous burdens with aplomb. We were far indeed from the "weaker sex", the designation that white aristocratic sisters unhappily earned for us all."
Origins of PMS: (due to hormonal imbalance.) From Dictionnaire des malaises et maladies
"It is the rejection process, and guilt that have started to come to the surface. For a woman, the menstrual period is a reminder that she lives in a universe dominated by men. PMS indicates that situations are making me question my perception as a woman in relation to my femininity, especially if I wish to succeed in a professional career. I could be troubled, confused or influenced by stereotypes imposed by society.
affirmation: I love myself, and accept myself as I am, and I let myself evolve."
Some food for thought, for women who bleed,
with love,
jenn
musemother
menstrual taboos are about power: "The truth of the matter as many Indians see it is that women who are at the peak of their fecundity are believed to possess power that throws male power totally out of kilter. They emit such force that, in their presence, any male-owned or -dominated ritual or sacred object cannot do its usual task. For instance, the Lakota say that a menstruating woman anywhere near a yuwipi man, who is a special sort of psychic, spirit-empowered healer, for a day or so before he is to do his ceremony will effectively disempower him. Conversely, among many if not most tribes, important ceremonies cannot be held without the presence of women. Sometimes the ritual woman who empowers the ceremony must be unmarried and virginal so that the power she channels is unalloyed, unweakened by sexual arousal and penetration by a male. Other ceremonies require tumescent women, others the presence of mature women who have borne children, and still others depend for empowerment on postmenopausal women. Women may be segregated from the company of the whole band or village on certain occasions, but on certain occasions men are also segregated. In short, each ritual depends on a certain balance of power and the positions of women within the phases of womanhood are used by tribal people to empower certain rites. This does not derive from a male-dominant view; it is not a ritual observance imposed on women by men. It derives from a tribal view of reality that distinguishes tribal people from feudal and industrial people.
Among the tribes, the occult power of women, inextricably bound to our hormonal life, is thought to be very great; many hold that we possess innately the blood-given power to kill--with a glance, with a step, or with a judicious mixing of menstrual blood into somebody's soup. Medicine women among the Pomo of California cannot practice until they are sufficiently mature; ....So women of the tribes are not inclined to see themselves as poor helpless victims of male domination. Even in those tribes where something akin to male domination was present, women are perceived as powerful, socially, physically, and metaphysically. In times past, as in times present, women carried enormous burdens with aplomb. We were far indeed from the "weaker sex", the designation that white aristocratic sisters unhappily earned for us all."
Origins of PMS: (due to hormonal imbalance.) From Dictionnaire des malaises et maladies
"It is the rejection process, and guilt that have started to come to the surface. For a woman, the menstrual period is a reminder that she lives in a universe dominated by men. PMS indicates that situations are making me question my perception as a woman in relation to my femininity, especially if I wish to succeed in a professional career. I could be troubled, confused or influenced by stereotypes imposed by society.
affirmation: I love myself, and accept myself as I am, and I let myself evolve."
Some food for thought, for women who bleed,
with love,
jenn
musemother
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
the secret of life
I just watched the movie trailer for The Secret - it looks so intriguing, I want to watch it. My women's circle and I may view it later in November at the chalet retreat weekend.
But today, in the grey skies and rain, walking the dog around the block and scuffing my shoes on wet leaves, I knew this: the secret of life, for me, is only a breath away. It lives inside the tree bark that I love to look at, it hovers in the moistened grass, and at the tips of red oak leaves. It follows me everywhere, but I am too busy thinking to hear or see it.
My secret, your secret, the pulse of life keeping you alive, is that you are already a success. You are alive, and if you can appreciate the beauty of that gift, the secret begins to unfold, one breath at a time.
I know, it sounds too simple. Many look for it and do not find it. It is hiding under our very noses, inside our very hearts. It is tangible and real. Sometimes, we need to be shown where, and how, to look.
Peace of mind is one breath away.
Look for it.
musemother
But today, in the grey skies and rain, walking the dog around the block and scuffing my shoes on wet leaves, I knew this: the secret of life, for me, is only a breath away. It lives inside the tree bark that I love to look at, it hovers in the moistened grass, and at the tips of red oak leaves. It follows me everywhere, but I am too busy thinking to hear or see it.
My secret, your secret, the pulse of life keeping you alive, is that you are already a success. You are alive, and if you can appreciate the beauty of that gift, the secret begins to unfold, one breath at a time.
I know, it sounds too simple. Many look for it and do not find it. It is hiding under our very noses, inside our very hearts. It is tangible and real. Sometimes, we need to be shown where, and how, to look.
Peace of mind is one breath away.
Look for it.
musemother
Monday, October 16, 2006
Fall Inwards
It is fall, and it's gorgeous in Montreal. Gold and orange and a bit of red, amid lots of green - actually one tree in the back window fills my room with orange and yellow light; the rest of the trees are either green, yellow-brown, or empty. It has been a strange, slow fall, for leaves.
My energy this fall, usually high in the weeks preceding my scorpio birthdate, is a little more tranquil. Heady energy one day, slow and quiet lull the next. This is a good thing.
Have you ever noticed where energy comes from? When I have a hectic, social weekend with lots of wine and food and friends, Mondays are hellish, sluggish. When I have a quiet weekend, with lots of home time and music and singing, time with my hubby to talk and time to watch the kids dash out the door, I wake up rested and ready for the new week. Believe it or not, I just noticed this fact this weekend. Duh! you say.
Last night I watched a video of Maharaji speaking to dignitaries in Thailand - he was so passionate about the peace within, about savouring and enjoying existence. And he said something that struck me: when you go to sleep, it's the end of the day, but also like a little death. You wake up and start all over-- the next morning the sun rises on a new day, and a new life.
Think of how many chances we receive to get it right - one day at a time, a chance for me to not rush through the day and the lists, but stay open to the possibility of something new, a fresh breath, a surprise gift from the day. Can I stay open to that for more than five minutes?
I'm on my way out the door now, to walk the dog, and sniff the grass, and discover what the day holds for me.
Namaste,
musemother
My energy this fall, usually high in the weeks preceding my scorpio birthdate, is a little more tranquil. Heady energy one day, slow and quiet lull the next. This is a good thing.
Have you ever noticed where energy comes from? When I have a hectic, social weekend with lots of wine and food and friends, Mondays are hellish, sluggish. When I have a quiet weekend, with lots of home time and music and singing, time with my hubby to talk and time to watch the kids dash out the door, I wake up rested and ready for the new week. Believe it or not, I just noticed this fact this weekend. Duh! you say.
Last night I watched a video of Maharaji speaking to dignitaries in Thailand - he was so passionate about the peace within, about savouring and enjoying existence. And he said something that struck me: when you go to sleep, it's the end of the day, but also like a little death. You wake up and start all over-- the next morning the sun rises on a new day, and a new life.
Think of how many chances we receive to get it right - one day at a time, a chance for me to not rush through the day and the lists, but stay open to the possibility of something new, a fresh breath, a surprise gift from the day. Can I stay open to that for more than five minutes?
I'm on my way out the door now, to walk the dog, and sniff the grass, and discover what the day holds for me.
Namaste,
musemother
Friday, October 13, 2006
A Woman's Way
today is Friday the 13th. A very lucky day for women who follow the moon, because there are 13 moons in a year.
Here is an excerpt from my forthcoming collection, The Tao of Turning Fifty.
Tao Te Ching # 42
The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.
All things have their backs to the female
And stand facing the male.
When male and female combine,
All things achieve harmony.
Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the Master makes use of it,
Embracing his aloneness, realizing
He is one with the whole universe.
My note: Stephen Mitchell makes liberal use of the masculine and feminine in his translations, sometimes making the Master female, sometimes male. But always, it is a question of the one becoming two. The folllowing entries are written about a woman’s way, and are intended as support and inspiration for anyone going through peri-menopause and menopause. Just so you know you’re not alone. Here is some of my newfound wisdom:
Women are lunar
Listen to the moon mom’s wisdom:
She waxes.
She wanes.
She is not full on 100 watt bright
all month.
She has a dark period.
She hides for a while,
Rests up for the month of creative fullness ahead.
Slow down,
Your pain will grow less.
You may want to bully your way through
But bulls are not cows.
Take time alone, sit down on earth,
Look up at the moon, and
ask for guidance.
Squat in frog pose for cramps, drink nettle tea.
Listen to your mom.
She’s got wisdom.
Note: How to marry myself: the worldly, practical, doer (beaver energy) and the spiritually hungry be-ing (snake energy) want to marry, inside the breath. So I let myself bathe in stillness, in the clear stream of breath running up and down the center of being. Feel my self become cleansed and whole. Then return to the list of things to do, calls to make.
Follow the Kiss principle: Keep it simple, silly.
with love,
musemother
Here is an excerpt from my forthcoming collection, The Tao of Turning Fifty.
Tao Te Ching # 42
The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.
All things have their backs to the female
And stand facing the male.
When male and female combine,
All things achieve harmony.
Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the Master makes use of it,
Embracing his aloneness, realizing
He is one with the whole universe.
My note: Stephen Mitchell makes liberal use of the masculine and feminine in his translations, sometimes making the Master female, sometimes male. But always, it is a question of the one becoming two. The folllowing entries are written about a woman’s way, and are intended as support and inspiration for anyone going through peri-menopause and menopause. Just so you know you’re not alone. Here is some of my newfound wisdom:
Women are lunar
Listen to the moon mom’s wisdom:
She waxes.
She wanes.
She is not full on 100 watt bright
all month.
She has a dark period.
She hides for a while,
Rests up for the month of creative fullness ahead.
Slow down,
Your pain will grow less.
You may want to bully your way through
But bulls are not cows.
Take time alone, sit down on earth,
Look up at the moon, and
ask for guidance.
Squat in frog pose for cramps, drink nettle tea.
Listen to your mom.
She’s got wisdom.
Note: How to marry myself: the worldly, practical, doer (beaver energy) and the spiritually hungry be-ing (snake energy) want to marry, inside the breath. So I let myself bathe in stillness, in the clear stream of breath running up and down the center of being. Feel my self become cleansed and whole. Then return to the list of things to do, calls to make.
Follow the Kiss principle: Keep it simple, silly.
with love,
musemother
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Breaking news: Bees can fly
"My mother gave me a bumblebee pin when I started work. She said: "Aerodynamically, bees shouldn't be able to fly. But they do. Remember that." Jill E. Barad
I've been reading a book called Odd Girl Speaks Out, ed by Rachel Simmons, about girls, bullies, cliques and jealousy - and remembering my own years in high school -- it's no picnic.
First you have to figure out how to dress, how to wear your hair, how much make-up to wear; then you have to figure out how you fit in. Are you unique? are you one of a kind? Nobody seems to want to be singled out as 'different', yet everyone wants to be 'special' or unique. Of course not everyone is part of the 'popular' clique - maybe you belong with the library card carriers, nose in a book all the time; or the computer nerds, who may call themselves privately brilliant, not nerdy. Or maybe you're a sports jock or a hip-hop dancing cheerleader. Everybody (even in schools with uniforms), gets stuck in a niche somehow, partly based on how they look. And what the crowd (or gang) thinks counts.
I remember not fitting in anywhere - altho clever in grade school, I turned out not to be a 'browner' or nerd. Some classes I was good in, history and English. Others I was lost in, *science and math*. In others, I got detentions every week for not handing in homework on time (home economics) or for swearing at the teacher (French). This made me part-time member in the 'rebellious' gang, the ones that wore jeans and liked to smoke cigarettes outside the school doors. Having an attitude, being snarky with everyone, becoming cynical and sarcastic, and having a mean mouth, were easy skills to acquire, but being a girl, I also wanted to be liked, to be pretty, to have a boyfriend. It was an odd mix.
Being 4'11 and 80 pounds for most of high school didn't help me attract the right guy either. Changing best friends every year kept things fresh, but it wasn't until I started hanging out with 5'8" tall Janet did I start to have real fun, and become a "Keep on Truckin" type of girl. We liked to dress in overalls or second hand Sally Ann dresses. We felt we were originals. But sometimes we made ourselves feel better aobut not belonging to the 'popular crowd', by picking on a little guy with black polished shoes and a briefcase we called "Little Prick".
I am not proud of our amaturish attempt at bullying. We followed him in the hallways, whispering insults behind his back about the way he was dressed, or the weight of his briefcase. We even kicked him once in the seat of the pants - either Janet or I. We made his life miserable for at least part of one year, possibly Grade 10.
It was early days of feminism, and I wonder if we thought it made us more powerful to pick on someone younger, and male. Paradoxically, the year after, we gave a shy newcomer with long hair and flannel shirts the opposite treatment. We made him our special friend and member of the Keep on Trucking society. He was almost mute he was so shy, but Janet joked with him and made jolly so that he began to actually smile in public.
What is all this rambling about high school years? I have a daughter, who is in and out of a clique of the same friends since Grade One. I have a son whose group of friends expanded in high school from one to six or seven. They are both tightlipped about what goes on amongst high school friends. But I know sometimes those friends can be mean back stabbers, gossiping, and downright mean. And that some days they take it all in and don't know how to react or respond. I know my son can be kind and generous, and also mean and sarcastic. I know my daughter is sweet and kind, and other times judgemental and snooty. And I know some of those girls have been in real emtoional trouble, and felt excluded from the 'gang'.
The odd girl in my life was me. I eventually learned to speak up for myself. And keep up with the tall girls.
So I hope my daughter (who is already taller than me) learns to value her own opinion, and her own intuition as well as the 'gang's. And that whether she wears the right hairdo or the right pyjamas to a sleep-over is not what will make or break her friendships. Most of all, I wish them one true friend in their life time. And I wish them the knowledge that even those unwieldy looking things called bees, so un-aerodynamic, can fly.
their mom, jenn
musemother
I've been reading a book called Odd Girl Speaks Out, ed by Rachel Simmons, about girls, bullies, cliques and jealousy - and remembering my own years in high school -- it's no picnic.
First you have to figure out how to dress, how to wear your hair, how much make-up to wear; then you have to figure out how you fit in. Are you unique? are you one of a kind? Nobody seems to want to be singled out as 'different', yet everyone wants to be 'special' or unique. Of course not everyone is part of the 'popular' clique - maybe you belong with the library card carriers, nose in a book all the time; or the computer nerds, who may call themselves privately brilliant, not nerdy. Or maybe you're a sports jock or a hip-hop dancing cheerleader. Everybody (even in schools with uniforms), gets stuck in a niche somehow, partly based on how they look. And what the crowd (or gang) thinks counts.
I remember not fitting in anywhere - altho clever in grade school, I turned out not to be a 'browner' or nerd. Some classes I was good in, history and English. Others I was lost in, *science and math*. In others, I got detentions every week for not handing in homework on time (home economics) or for swearing at the teacher (French). This made me part-time member in the 'rebellious' gang, the ones that wore jeans and liked to smoke cigarettes outside the school doors. Having an attitude, being snarky with everyone, becoming cynical and sarcastic, and having a mean mouth, were easy skills to acquire, but being a girl, I also wanted to be liked, to be pretty, to have a boyfriend. It was an odd mix.
Being 4'11 and 80 pounds for most of high school didn't help me attract the right guy either. Changing best friends every year kept things fresh, but it wasn't until I started hanging out with 5'8" tall Janet did I start to have real fun, and become a "Keep on Truckin" type of girl. We liked to dress in overalls or second hand Sally Ann dresses. We felt we were originals. But sometimes we made ourselves feel better aobut not belonging to the 'popular crowd', by picking on a little guy with black polished shoes and a briefcase we called "Little Prick".
I am not proud of our amaturish attempt at bullying. We followed him in the hallways, whispering insults behind his back about the way he was dressed, or the weight of his briefcase. We even kicked him once in the seat of the pants - either Janet or I. We made his life miserable for at least part of one year, possibly Grade 10.
It was early days of feminism, and I wonder if we thought it made us more powerful to pick on someone younger, and male. Paradoxically, the year after, we gave a shy newcomer with long hair and flannel shirts the opposite treatment. We made him our special friend and member of the Keep on Trucking society. He was almost mute he was so shy, but Janet joked with him and made jolly so that he began to actually smile in public.
What is all this rambling about high school years? I have a daughter, who is in and out of a clique of the same friends since Grade One. I have a son whose group of friends expanded in high school from one to six or seven. They are both tightlipped about what goes on amongst high school friends. But I know sometimes those friends can be mean back stabbers, gossiping, and downright mean. And that some days they take it all in and don't know how to react or respond. I know my son can be kind and generous, and also mean and sarcastic. I know my daughter is sweet and kind, and other times judgemental and snooty. And I know some of those girls have been in real emtoional trouble, and felt excluded from the 'gang'.
The odd girl in my life was me. I eventually learned to speak up for myself. And keep up with the tall girls.
So I hope my daughter (who is already taller than me) learns to value her own opinion, and her own intuition as well as the 'gang's. And that whether she wears the right hairdo or the right pyjamas to a sleep-over is not what will make or break her friendships. Most of all, I wish them one true friend in their life time. And I wish them the knowledge that even those unwieldy looking things called bees, so un-aerodynamic, can fly.
their mom, jenn
musemother
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The feminine face of God
“Clearly, it is time to ask ourselves where we are going. And…where we are going, is back into daily life. The women…spoke not only of the need to slow down and create an opening for awareness of the sacred in our daily lives, but of the need to embody, to enact, to be a vessel of that awareness so that it flows into all our relationships.” The Feminine Face of God
Finding my own yoga practice: my breath, my belly, little egg inside the universal flow, I reach up my spine to Father sky, lay down on my back on Mother Earth. We have been such poor one-sided creatures, forgetting our mother, ignoring her power and love. Somewhere in the cosmos, our sparks and beams dance in the sacred dance of union, male and female, yin and yang, mountain and stream, ocean of light inside the belly, inner me inside of me, caress inside of me, the birth and rebirth of me. There is no life without mother birthing all her creatures. You may call her nature, earth, Gaia, you may name her virgin but she is still the source of the wet moist breath, hot blood, firm bone, waters salty and sweet, milk of life and kindness. Her lungs have blown into your mouth the air you depend on, so do not spit into the wind.
His lightning, her rain; his totem, her face; his pole, her ground; his mountain, her dance; his clouds, her wind; they breathe together in unison. Dig into the sand, it fills with water. We are matter filled with spirit. We are female infused with male, and male infused with female. Mortal infused with immortality.
Over night, love changed direction. I reached up and grabbed the wind.
Excerpted from The Tao of Turning Fifty, A Woman's Way
by jenn
Finding my own yoga practice: my breath, my belly, little egg inside the universal flow, I reach up my spine to Father sky, lay down on my back on Mother Earth. We have been such poor one-sided creatures, forgetting our mother, ignoring her power and love. Somewhere in the cosmos, our sparks and beams dance in the sacred dance of union, male and female, yin and yang, mountain and stream, ocean of light inside the belly, inner me inside of me, caress inside of me, the birth and rebirth of me. There is no life without mother birthing all her creatures. You may call her nature, earth, Gaia, you may name her virgin but she is still the source of the wet moist breath, hot blood, firm bone, waters salty and sweet, milk of life and kindness. Her lungs have blown into your mouth the air you depend on, so do not spit into the wind.
His lightning, her rain; his totem, her face; his pole, her ground; his mountain, her dance; his clouds, her wind; they breathe together in unison. Dig into the sand, it fills with water. We are matter filled with spirit. We are female infused with male, and male infused with female. Mortal infused with immortality.
Over night, love changed direction. I reached up and grabbed the wind.
Excerpted from The Tao of Turning Fifty, A Woman's Way
by jenn
Monday, October 02, 2006
Heart of Gold
And the funnel of light poured gold through the fontanel, into the filigreed girdle, the center of being. As it filled her, all words emptied. She no longer knew her names and in the tremulous light, as shaky breath poured up or down, this namelessness puffed up the skin like a balloon. The heart loosened from its string and floated in a circular flight, sky underneath, earth above, silent turning, in this gold sea.
Skin, voice, light. Meaning, sex, memory, longing, cry. Into her ears and eyes. No longer anchored to the useless words, only bubbles in water, no voice to call out with. And anyway, One hears her. Tongue nestles in the receiving place, at rest. Stay there, embraced, with prow of canoe pointed at the river’s mouth.
A flute sound in her ear, she turns. What was that? Lost it. Begin again, sit and learn. Listen. Not speak. How to get back? The door is unlocked. She has never understood. Thinks there is work to do. Hopped a long time on one foot on the wrong side of the door.
This day she finds it - still where she left it. This time, heart is quieter, less frantic, willing to be faithful for a few minutes, days, or weeks. Will they ever turn into longer than moments? This waking dream she falls into, out of.
Ah, the heart is made of gold.
Whatever you practice, that you will become good at. Maharaji at Amaroo, September 2006
musemother
Skin, voice, light. Meaning, sex, memory, longing, cry. Into her ears and eyes. No longer anchored to the useless words, only bubbles in water, no voice to call out with. And anyway, One hears her. Tongue nestles in the receiving place, at rest. Stay there, embraced, with prow of canoe pointed at the river’s mouth.
A flute sound in her ear, she turns. What was that? Lost it. Begin again, sit and learn. Listen. Not speak. How to get back? The door is unlocked. She has never understood. Thinks there is work to do. Hopped a long time on one foot on the wrong side of the door.
This day she finds it - still where she left it. This time, heart is quieter, less frantic, willing to be faithful for a few minutes, days, or weeks. Will they ever turn into longer than moments? This waking dream she falls into, out of.
Ah, the heart is made of gold.
Whatever you practice, that you will become good at. Maharaji at Amaroo, September 2006
musemother
Monday, September 25, 2006
Howdie Mates
Well I got on-line down under so here's a brief message from Oz land. We are living in a tent with Wallabees nibbling like deer on the grass behind us. The birds sing a cacophonous
wake up call that lasts one hour, from 5 - 6 a.m. And Maharaji spoke to us last night about the search for God. How wonderful it was to sit and listen - feeling that serenity and peace within, and knowing that He, or "IT" or the Creator, whatever you call that energy of love, is within us all the time.
So we have four more days to be in tune with the wonderful nature here, (minus the snakes), and get in tune with our own selves - it's an opportunity of a lifetime - accepting existence, as he put it last night. And it lasts a lifetime.
Lovely to be here, wish you were here :)
jenn
musemother
wake up call that lasts one hour, from 5 - 6 a.m. And Maharaji spoke to us last night about the search for God. How wonderful it was to sit and listen - feeling that serenity and peace within, and knowing that He, or "IT" or the Creator, whatever you call that energy of love, is within us all the time.
So we have four more days to be in tune with the wonderful nature here, (minus the snakes), and get in tune with our own selves - it's an opportunity of a lifetime - accepting existence, as he put it last night. And it lasts a lifetime.
Lovely to be here, wish you were here :)
jenn
musemother
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
No more cheat codes
Life is not a video game. No cheat codes allowed.
There is nothing I would like better than to find a web site with all the answers. What is coming up next for me? Will I find a full-time job, start a publishing company, return to teaching, go back to school and learn how to heal the emotional damage that strains the body's health, find the magic link that makes me a cool mom with wonderful kids...wait, I already have that last one.
No, there are no short cuts. Day to day. Breathe, Panic, Breathe - Relax! Receive.....Today was a wonderful day. Packing, ironing, running errands, getting ready for a long trip - that always energizes me. I woke up singing and danced in the kitchen while making breakfast and coffee - it was only 6:45 but I was high....
My daughter is happy she got some new clothes, my son is off to a hockey game and turning 16 while we're away - so he's happy - 'hey, no parents and I'm having a party!' My nephew is supervising, don't worry.
But I told him, no more downloading cheat codes cause they bring viruses into the computer.
Not much to report except that I am taking a break from writing this blog - see you all in October. I am catching a plane to Honolulu with my sweetie, and then we're flipping the world over and heading down under.
Toodles,
jenn
There is nothing I would like better than to find a web site with all the answers. What is coming up next for me? Will I find a full-time job, start a publishing company, return to teaching, go back to school and learn how to heal the emotional damage that strains the body's health, find the magic link that makes me a cool mom with wonderful kids...wait, I already have that last one.
No, there are no short cuts. Day to day. Breathe, Panic, Breathe - Relax! Receive.....Today was a wonderful day. Packing, ironing, running errands, getting ready for a long trip - that always energizes me. I woke up singing and danced in the kitchen while making breakfast and coffee - it was only 6:45 but I was high....
My daughter is happy she got some new clothes, my son is off to a hockey game and turning 16 while we're away - so he's happy - 'hey, no parents and I'm having a party!' My nephew is supervising, don't worry.
But I told him, no more downloading cheat codes cause they bring viruses into the computer.
Not much to report except that I am taking a break from writing this blog - see you all in October. I am catching a plane to Honolulu with my sweetie, and then we're flipping the world over and heading down under.
Toodles,
jenn
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Honouring the inner masculine
Ok, to even the debate, let's talk about the inner masculine and inner feminine, instead of calling it the sacred whatever. The inner masculine is about the fathering you received, according to Linda S. Leonard, author of The Wounded Woman, Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship. I found all kinds of archetypes and images that resembled my relationship with my father, in this book, which I originally read over ten years ago, and recently picked up again.
My father's legacy to me was neither all positive or all negative, but since I left home at age eighteen, and especially as I had children and questioned the parenting I had received, I have focused on the negative - the rageaholic angry man who threatened us with verbal abuse, yelled at us for minor infractions and seemed to lose it for no reason at all. The patriarch, the authoritarian 'boss' of the household who made us feel tense and uncomfortable and seemed to belittle my mother's opinions and attitudes, in spite of proclaiming a deep love for her. The man who behaved inappropriately with women and girls.
I can't begin to describe my parents' co-dependent relationship, but suffice it to say, I was a father's daughter - the eldest, the one encouraged to excel, praised for my brain as well as my looks, made to feel special, the apple of his eye. On the other hand, while he encouraged me to pursue my interest in theatre as a hobby, he pooh-poohed writers and artists as likely to be starving in attics or alcoholics, (although he paid for my sister to go to art highschool and loved to paint himself). He just didn't think they were good careers.
Reading about the armoured Amazon woman archetype, I saw myself in that image; somehow accepting my father's image of me as strong, intelligent, rational and in charge, also led to an overidealizing of the masculine qualities of strength, hardness, and self-protection that lead to a terrible burden of over responsibility and joylessness basically - and sore shoulders - maybe cause it drove the playful feminine underground. I saw my stay-at-home mother (another bohemian artist in her soul) as the weak one without power (and in this situation she mostly was). But if women turn themselves into ambitious, competitive fighters to get ahead in the world and turn our backs on the softening influence of the feminine, of spontaneity, we negate a part of ourselves and become too serious, rigid, lose the joy of life. Leonard describes some of the mistakes we make when we imitate this rigid idea of the masculine, like this:
"This young woman's Amazon armor covered up a shame of her femininity so that she overrode the demands and needs of her body. She also mouthed a theory that there was really no difference between men and women. And she treated her body that way, not acknowledging the changes of body and mood brought on by her menstrual periods." Linda S. Leonard
Of course I am interested in how we override our monthly cycles, and our bodies in general.
So I am reconsidering my father's legacy, since his death two years ago. I remember the artist in him that painted a stained-glass window with water colour paint and black tape on our huge front window, the Madonna and child image he outlined in tape on the family room window. He was a quirky eccentric, his yard was never mowed on time, the weeds drifted over to the lawn of the extremely nit-picky neighbour who happened to be my vice-principal at high school. He collected old cars that rusted out while they waited for him to 'repair' them with my brothers and his yard was the 'shame' of the neighbourhood, or maybe just of me.
But he was also a warm, sensitive man, who taught us a love of story, and language. He loved Little Theatre; before we were born he acted and directed plays. He played piano and sang, mostly after a few beers, and he loved literature, opera, music in general. He taught me a love of the French language and I followed my own dream to Montreal, and married a French Canadian.
Now that I'm beginning to recover my inner masculine's positive side, I hope this frees up my creativity! that's the promise Leonard holds out. That conscious recognition or naming of the beast, brings light; that seeing the shadow or dark side of my father as part of myself, and seeing his good qualities as part of myself too, will heal me.
here's to reclaiming the inner masculine, the man with heart.
My father's legacy to me was neither all positive or all negative, but since I left home at age eighteen, and especially as I had children and questioned the parenting I had received, I have focused on the negative - the rageaholic angry man who threatened us with verbal abuse, yelled at us for minor infractions and seemed to lose it for no reason at all. The patriarch, the authoritarian 'boss' of the household who made us feel tense and uncomfortable and seemed to belittle my mother's opinions and attitudes, in spite of proclaiming a deep love for her. The man who behaved inappropriately with women and girls.
I can't begin to describe my parents' co-dependent relationship, but suffice it to say, I was a father's daughter - the eldest, the one encouraged to excel, praised for my brain as well as my looks, made to feel special, the apple of his eye. On the other hand, while he encouraged me to pursue my interest in theatre as a hobby, he pooh-poohed writers and artists as likely to be starving in attics or alcoholics, (although he paid for my sister to go to art highschool and loved to paint himself). He just didn't think they were good careers.
Reading about the armoured Amazon woman archetype, I saw myself in that image; somehow accepting my father's image of me as strong, intelligent, rational and in charge, also led to an overidealizing of the masculine qualities of strength, hardness, and self-protection that lead to a terrible burden of over responsibility and joylessness basically - and sore shoulders - maybe cause it drove the playful feminine underground. I saw my stay-at-home mother (another bohemian artist in her soul) as the weak one without power (and in this situation she mostly was). But if women turn themselves into ambitious, competitive fighters to get ahead in the world and turn our backs on the softening influence of the feminine, of spontaneity, we negate a part of ourselves and become too serious, rigid, lose the joy of life. Leonard describes some of the mistakes we make when we imitate this rigid idea of the masculine, like this:
"This young woman's Amazon armor covered up a shame of her femininity so that she overrode the demands and needs of her body. She also mouthed a theory that there was really no difference between men and women. And she treated her body that way, not acknowledging the changes of body and mood brought on by her menstrual periods." Linda S. Leonard
Of course I am interested in how we override our monthly cycles, and our bodies in general.
So I am reconsidering my father's legacy, since his death two years ago. I remember the artist in him that painted a stained-glass window with water colour paint and black tape on our huge front window, the Madonna and child image he outlined in tape on the family room window. He was a quirky eccentric, his yard was never mowed on time, the weeds drifted over to the lawn of the extremely nit-picky neighbour who happened to be my vice-principal at high school. He collected old cars that rusted out while they waited for him to 'repair' them with my brothers and his yard was the 'shame' of the neighbourhood, or maybe just of me.
But he was also a warm, sensitive man, who taught us a love of story, and language. He loved Little Theatre; before we were born he acted and directed plays. He played piano and sang, mostly after a few beers, and he loved literature, opera, music in general. He taught me a love of the French language and I followed my own dream to Montreal, and married a French Canadian.
Now that I'm beginning to recover my inner masculine's positive side, I hope this frees up my creativity! that's the promise Leonard holds out. That conscious recognition or naming of the beast, brings light; that seeing the shadow or dark side of my father as part of myself, and seeing his good qualities as part of myself too, will heal me.
here's to reclaiming the inner masculine, the man with heart.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Montreal killing spree
We were having our women's circle meeting, just an hour ago, we were focusing on the socialization of boys, as a possible topic, the bullying, humiliation, that turns boys into aggressors, the obsession with video games, that makes them withdraw from family, the differences in pre-teen soft-hearted sons who love to hug and talk, and then later sarcasm and hardness sets in - when my husband called and told me there was a killer loose in Dawson College, downtown, and that he had just crossed over to Alexis Nihon and shot at people there. I didn't see that mentioned on the TV on CNN, but it's happening right now!
We all got shivers, we all stood up and held hands (it was the end of our meeting), and closed our eyes and said a prayer for the people injured, but mostly for the sad, misguided injured boys who are doing the shooting - this is real time - and I have goosebumps just thinking about it. What can we do to mother better, to provide safety? We in our suburb are so privileged, and part of our mission in this circle - apart from informing ourselves on health for women, mothering teens, menopause, etc. is to find a worthy local cause and contribute to it, to help in some way build a better community.
Boys need attention, too! I want to see my son grow up to be an open, communicative, loving individual who is able to express his emotions, including anger, constructively, not withdraw into video games, TV or computer and shut out the interactive social world around him. Whoever damaged these young men (I heard they were in their 20's and there's more than one - one has been killed by police, maybe two), probably a combo of neglect, abuse, and being put down once too often, made them dream of claiming power for themselves with a gun, taking life as if they were the all-powerful creator who gives and takes.
I can only pray for them. Pray for the scared kids at Dawson (some of whom I may know) who are running home to safety right now, to be with the ones they love and be held, comforted, in love.
Individual peace, self-love, care, respect for our children, our elderly - all this is needed NOW! And let all parents pay a little more attention to their kids, today...don't let them slip away.
I'm on my way to pick up my daughter at her high school, and yes, next year my son is going to CEGEP, and I was thinking about Dawson College as one option.....
signing off,
musemother
We all got shivers, we all stood up and held hands (it was the end of our meeting), and closed our eyes and said a prayer for the people injured, but mostly for the sad, misguided injured boys who are doing the shooting - this is real time - and I have goosebumps just thinking about it. What can we do to mother better, to provide safety? We in our suburb are so privileged, and part of our mission in this circle - apart from informing ourselves on health for women, mothering teens, menopause, etc. is to find a worthy local cause and contribute to it, to help in some way build a better community.
Boys need attention, too! I want to see my son grow up to be an open, communicative, loving individual who is able to express his emotions, including anger, constructively, not withdraw into video games, TV or computer and shut out the interactive social world around him. Whoever damaged these young men (I heard they were in their 20's and there's more than one - one has been killed by police, maybe two), probably a combo of neglect, abuse, and being put down once too often, made them dream of claiming power for themselves with a gun, taking life as if they were the all-powerful creator who gives and takes.
I can only pray for them. Pray for the scared kids at Dawson (some of whom I may know) who are running home to safety right now, to be with the ones they love and be held, comforted, in love.
Individual peace, self-love, care, respect for our children, our elderly - all this is needed NOW! And let all parents pay a little more attention to their kids, today...don't let them slip away.
I'm on my way to pick up my daughter at her high school, and yes, next year my son is going to CEGEP, and I was thinking about Dawson College as one option.....
signing off,
musemother
Fathers mother too
Yesterday, I saw part of the solution to our current imbalance of feminine and masculine - the first was a man carrying a baby on his hip, at the door of a garage where mechanics were fixing his car; the second was another man with a baby on his hip (two in the same day! must be a message there), reading books in a mall. They looked completely at ease and natural.
Feminists have written books about this, Nancy Chodorow I think, that when men learn how to take care of children, not only will it give the mothers a needed break, it will teach them about empathy, compassionate caring, communication - when you have to find out what a crying baby needs it brings out all your non-verbal communication skills, as well as the verbal ones when the 2 year olds try to tell you what they want - my son's first words were 'ba'ketball' and 'papa' . That last one floored me, cause I wanted him to say 'mama' first. But Dad had been walking him up and down the hallways during his first six months of colicky evenings. And changing his diapers and giving him baths, and getting pooped on.
I love watching my almost 16 year old son, 5'10 and a voice as deep as gravel, playing with his 6 year old cousin, teaching him how to dive off the diving board, or letting himself be splashed in the hot tub by the little imp. This was beyond the call of duty, and it lasted almost a week during their visit last summer; although I'm sure he found it irritating to be on call for his cousin, he never said no. He always went swimming with him. And ended up laughing and having fun, too.
What I am grasping at saying here, is that it's a human thing - not a monopoly owned by women - to be caring, loving, and caretaking. If more men took care of their elderly parents, their toddlers and children, and more men probably are, then we will uncover the deepest secret - fathers can 'mother' too. It's a human capacity we all possess - some of us just need more practice at it. Some of us, even women, need to mother ourselves, too. Get good at the softening up, the self-love that allows us to love others.
Hey, I'm just learning the power of this stuff. Mid-life is forcing me to soften before rigidity breaks me into pieces. My body is a great teacher, my kids are great teachers, life is a great teacher. Earth is a great school.
It's not a feminine thing, it's love.
amen,
musemother
Feminists have written books about this, Nancy Chodorow I think, that when men learn how to take care of children, not only will it give the mothers a needed break, it will teach them about empathy, compassionate caring, communication - when you have to find out what a crying baby needs it brings out all your non-verbal communication skills, as well as the verbal ones when the 2 year olds try to tell you what they want - my son's first words were 'ba'ketball' and 'papa' . That last one floored me, cause I wanted him to say 'mama' first. But Dad had been walking him up and down the hallways during his first six months of colicky evenings. And changing his diapers and giving him baths, and getting pooped on.
I love watching my almost 16 year old son, 5'10 and a voice as deep as gravel, playing with his 6 year old cousin, teaching him how to dive off the diving board, or letting himself be splashed in the hot tub by the little imp. This was beyond the call of duty, and it lasted almost a week during their visit last summer; although I'm sure he found it irritating to be on call for his cousin, he never said no. He always went swimming with him. And ended up laughing and having fun, too.
What I am grasping at saying here, is that it's a human thing - not a monopoly owned by women - to be caring, loving, and caretaking. If more men took care of their elderly parents, their toddlers and children, and more men probably are, then we will uncover the deepest secret - fathers can 'mother' too. It's a human capacity we all possess - some of us just need more practice at it. Some of us, even women, need to mother ourselves, too. Get good at the softening up, the self-love that allows us to love others.
Hey, I'm just learning the power of this stuff. Mid-life is forcing me to soften before rigidity breaks me into pieces. My body is a great teacher, my kids are great teachers, life is a great teacher. Earth is a great school.
It's not a feminine thing, it's love.
amen,
musemother
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
september 11 come and gone
Ok, there are worse things to do than to remember five years ago what happened in NY. The sky was literally falling, Chicken Little, and it wasn't a nightmare, it was on TV. People jumped out of buildings on fire. Dust and debris everywhere, chalk white faces running.
I thought it was WW III and worried that I didn't have any water in the basement, or food stockpiled.
My kids and I (teenagers) talked about it, in the sense that they asked if they could watch TV, Oprah was interviewing someone who checked one of the terrorists in at the airport.
I am so wary of Harper and Bush using this anniversary as a new scare tactic to get more money, more arms, more soldiers killed in a losing battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the mothers were running the country, do you think they'd be sending off their sons and daughters to foreign lands to get slaughtered? I know we're all 'one community' on the planet now, but how far do we have to go?
When bombs and arms are making such big money for people, do we even get to negotiate? Is there a feminine way here? could women get to negotiation, empathy, compassion for others, and turn the tide? we'd have to get Iraqi and Afghani women the power to change things, the power to speak up, the power to have a Voice and be heard. Is that why we are fighting the Taliban forces?
I'm meeting my Women's Circle tomorrow, and I hope we find some sustaining, nourishing talk about how women can make a difference. Bringing up kids right is part of it - my son was holding back from punching his sister yesterday - she was punching him cause of some teasing comment he made - and he said, I wish you were a guy so I could hit you back! even if I gave him permission to hit her (hey, she asked for it, she's a tease too), he wouldn't. started a whole debate about how guys naturally shove, kick, punch each other (partly as play), and how girls do it differently - yeah, all the talking is behind the back, in some quarters. Would we really rule the world differently?
My daughter said in the car today, So Mom, you run for President - (we've got Prime Minister's here, dear).
I stuttered, well, I don't like politics.
She said, Yeah, I hate it too and I wouldn't last a minute.
So who are these brave women who will run for power and make a difference?
musemother
I thought it was WW III and worried that I didn't have any water in the basement, or food stockpiled.
My kids and I (teenagers) talked about it, in the sense that they asked if they could watch TV, Oprah was interviewing someone who checked one of the terrorists in at the airport.
I am so wary of Harper and Bush using this anniversary as a new scare tactic to get more money, more arms, more soldiers killed in a losing battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the mothers were running the country, do you think they'd be sending off their sons and daughters to foreign lands to get slaughtered? I know we're all 'one community' on the planet now, but how far do we have to go?
When bombs and arms are making such big money for people, do we even get to negotiate? Is there a feminine way here? could women get to negotiation, empathy, compassion for others, and turn the tide? we'd have to get Iraqi and Afghani women the power to change things, the power to speak up, the power to have a Voice and be heard. Is that why we are fighting the Taliban forces?
I'm meeting my Women's Circle tomorrow, and I hope we find some sustaining, nourishing talk about how women can make a difference. Bringing up kids right is part of it - my son was holding back from punching his sister yesterday - she was punching him cause of some teasing comment he made - and he said, I wish you were a guy so I could hit you back! even if I gave him permission to hit her (hey, she asked for it, she's a tease too), he wouldn't. started a whole debate about how guys naturally shove, kick, punch each other (partly as play), and how girls do it differently - yeah, all the talking is behind the back, in some quarters. Would we really rule the world differently?
My daughter said in the car today, So Mom, you run for President - (we've got Prime Minister's here, dear).
I stuttered, well, I don't like politics.
She said, Yeah, I hate it too and I wouldn't last a minute.
So who are these brave women who will run for power and make a difference?
musemother
Monday, September 11, 2006
Being here now
Dear fellow travellers, today is a new day, a beginning again, for spirit and intellect and body to harmonize. Here is my day's truth: ego looks outwards for guidance. Mind wants to row the boat upstream. Spirit wants to let go and follow the current of life like a river, go with the life force whereever it leads. Dizziness happens when outer and inner eye are not aligned!
I've had vertigo since the end of May, over three months ago. I took it as a clue from the body to begin slowing down, the going inward that menopause has brought me to. But I just found this note (above) from July - that had the answer plainly written. I keep wanting the future to unveil itself, but my happiness and subject matter are hidden in the present moment. Only in the Now, can I feel anything, let alone be guided by the inner eye.
So I am grateful to have been reminded to look here and now, not in tomorrow.
Whatever you love, you are. Rumi
Let your love longing through your tongue
let there be laughter and singing
let the tears fall willingly into your mouth
let the salt and sweet rejoice together.
Life in human form is full of contradictions,
the bitter-sweet melds and molds our hearts.
I ask the Universal soul to practise some song through me.
My morning began with a subtle surrender to the quiet presence within my heart.
For poetry and wisdom about the heart and inner peace,
visit www.maharaji.org.
peace,
musemother
I've had vertigo since the end of May, over three months ago. I took it as a clue from the body to begin slowing down, the going inward that menopause has brought me to. But I just found this note (above) from July - that had the answer plainly written. I keep wanting the future to unveil itself, but my happiness and subject matter are hidden in the present moment. Only in the Now, can I feel anything, let alone be guided by the inner eye.
So I am grateful to have been reminded to look here and now, not in tomorrow.
Whatever you love, you are. Rumi
Let your love longing through your tongue
let there be laughter and singing
let the tears fall willingly into your mouth
let the salt and sweet rejoice together.
Life in human form is full of contradictions,
the bitter-sweet melds and molds our hearts.
I ask the Universal soul to practise some song through me.
My morning began with a subtle surrender to the quiet presence within my heart.
For poetry and wisdom about the heart and inner peace,
visit www.maharaji.org.
peace,
musemother
Friday, September 08, 2006
Recording the journey
The Birth Journal that became a book
When I became pregnant with my first child, I had just enrolled in a Masters in Creative Writing program, something I had wanted to do for a long time. I had also wanted to get pregnant for a long time, but after two miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy, it was not a sure thing. Seven years and a BA in English later, I did get pregnant, the winter of my first year in the Master’s program. Now that I was becoming a mother, it seemed like nature had given me a subject for my thesis. I wanted to write about the taboos surrounding the female body in pregnancy, and issues such as masturbation, female sexuality, my relationship to my watermelon belly, as well as my changing relationship with my husband.
After my son’s birth, I continued to write sporadically in my journal, always on the lookout for poems, but also to record the sensation of breastfeeding, the feelings of loneliness and anger brought about by isolation in the house all winter, the new separation of my life in the house and his life at work – my husband being the breadwinner and me being the little wife and mother. After the birth of my daughter, I took a sabbatical for one year, but kept writing. My journal was a life-line, and one day I showed it to my thesis supervisor. I didn’t consider it “poetry”, but she liked it. She thought it captured my voice, the intimate details and rhythms of the life-changing event that was my first pregnancy. So I included it in my thesis, to add to the book of poems.
After I graduated a local publisher was interested in the book, after being rejected a few times because it didn’t fit into either the poetry or prose category, and being told that maybe I should just write prose. My first book, Little Mother explores the taboo issues about my mother’s alcoholism (first written about in a taboo journal), includes my birth journal from the first pregnancy, and poems about breastfeeding, birthing, baby’s bodies and women’s friendships, culled from my journal.
I think every mother should keep a journal of her pregnancy, her hopes and fears for herself and her baby, as a record of that unique time in her life. Now that I am losing my memory at menopause, (only partially!) I am so glad I wrote it all down.
musemother
When I became pregnant with my first child, I had just enrolled in a Masters in Creative Writing program, something I had wanted to do for a long time. I had also wanted to get pregnant for a long time, but after two miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy, it was not a sure thing. Seven years and a BA in English later, I did get pregnant, the winter of my first year in the Master’s program. Now that I was becoming a mother, it seemed like nature had given me a subject for my thesis. I wanted to write about the taboos surrounding the female body in pregnancy, and issues such as masturbation, female sexuality, my relationship to my watermelon belly, as well as my changing relationship with my husband.
After my son’s birth, I continued to write sporadically in my journal, always on the lookout for poems, but also to record the sensation of breastfeeding, the feelings of loneliness and anger brought about by isolation in the house all winter, the new separation of my life in the house and his life at work – my husband being the breadwinner and me being the little wife and mother. After the birth of my daughter, I took a sabbatical for one year, but kept writing. My journal was a life-line, and one day I showed it to my thesis supervisor. I didn’t consider it “poetry”, but she liked it. She thought it captured my voice, the intimate details and rhythms of the life-changing event that was my first pregnancy. So I included it in my thesis, to add to the book of poems.
After I graduated a local publisher was interested in the book, after being rejected a few times because it didn’t fit into either the poetry or prose category, and being told that maybe I should just write prose. My first book, Little Mother explores the taboo issues about my mother’s alcoholism (first written about in a taboo journal), includes my birth journal from the first pregnancy, and poems about breastfeeding, birthing, baby’s bodies and women’s friendships, culled from my journal.
I think every mother should keep a journal of her pregnancy, her hopes and fears for herself and her baby, as a record of that unique time in her life. Now that I am losing my memory at menopause, (only partially!) I am so glad I wrote it all down.
musemother
Thursday, September 07, 2006
musemother
A haiku of mine is posted on Rasu Seiro's blog at : "Last Chance of Salvation" http://ah-pois-eh.blogspot.com. There are some other fine haiku posted on his site. Check it out.
Here's one by Roo Borson:
When no one is present,
but it appears that someone is present
autumn is here.
here's three by me:
3 fall Haiku
Crows in the bare trees
before the full moon came
and the long night of rain.
Her breasts lengthen
as the years shorten.
She adjusts her shoulder straps.
Orange and gold gone,
bleak limbs wind-shorn,
yet beautiful in their leaning.
Here's one by Roo Borson:
When no one is present,
but it appears that someone is present
autumn is here.
here's three by me:
3 fall Haiku
Crows in the bare trees
before the full moon came
and the long night of rain.
Her breasts lengthen
as the years shorten.
She adjusts her shoulder straps.
Orange and gold gone,
bleak limbs wind-shorn,
yet beautiful in their leaning.
why I need to love my mother as myself
You're going to see more poetry on this site, and also more news from my on-going research into the importance of women's cycles and making this information more widely known. Two great web sites are www.mum.org (museum of menstruation) run by Harry Findley, and www.onewoman.com/redspot. Check them out.
Why I need to love my mother as myself (written and read for a retreat, Women's Bodies Women's Hearts, I organized almost ten years ago).
Because we have the same root
Because we are not the same
becaue we have the same female parts
because we have a vagina, vulva, breasts
because men love to snuggle with our bodies
because children love to snuggle with our bodies
because men desire to own our bodies
because children own our bodies
because other women know the sadness in our bodies
because we belong to each other
because we belong to the ones who come out of our bodies
because we belong to the ones who mother our bodies
because we mother others
because we shared the same body
because we belong to no-one and to ourselves alone
because we need to mother ourselves alone
because the need to be mothered needs to be let go of
because the need to be mothered is a deep longing
because the infant we were and the infant we are, is
because we have the same root: ovaries, uterus, placenta, umbilical cord
because the tree of this root reaches back to our grandmothers, all the way back to the first mother
because my daughter has the same root
because I must love my daughter as myself
because until we love ourselves we are not free
because our emptiness is connected to why we are mothers
because we must love our bodies as ourselves
because we must honour our bodies as ourselves
because we must fill the gap
because we must feel, because there is a hole to be filled
because there is a gap between what is felt and what is filled
because emptiness cries out for forgiveness
because if I do not mirror my daughter's self to her, she will never love her self
because we are women
because we have no self love
therefore, I must love my Mother as my Self
in so doing, I Mother Myself.
(c) Jennifer Boire
musemother
Why I need to love my mother as myself (written and read for a retreat, Women's Bodies Women's Hearts, I organized almost ten years ago).
Because we have the same root
Because we are not the same
becaue we have the same female parts
because we have a vagina, vulva, breasts
because men love to snuggle with our bodies
because children love to snuggle with our bodies
because men desire to own our bodies
because children own our bodies
because other women know the sadness in our bodies
because we belong to each other
because we belong to the ones who come out of our bodies
because we belong to the ones who mother our bodies
because we mother others
because we shared the same body
because we belong to no-one and to ourselves alone
because we need to mother ourselves alone
because the need to be mothered needs to be let go of
because the need to be mothered is a deep longing
because the infant we were and the infant we are, is
because we have the same root: ovaries, uterus, placenta, umbilical cord
because the tree of this root reaches back to our grandmothers, all the way back to the first mother
because my daughter has the same root
because I must love my daughter as myself
because until we love ourselves we are not free
because our emptiness is connected to why we are mothers
because we must love our bodies as ourselves
because we must honour our bodies as ourselves
because we must fill the gap
because we must feel, because there is a hole to be filled
because there is a gap between what is felt and what is filled
because emptiness cries out for forgiveness
because if I do not mirror my daughter's self to her, she will never love her self
because we are women
because we have no self love
therefore, I must love my Mother as my Self
in so doing, I Mother Myself.
(c) Jennifer Boire
musemother
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Queen takes her menopausal rest
Message from the Queen of Heaven
Dear ladies, queens of your households,
May you give yourself a few moments of peace today to experience the blessing of rest. I, goddess Ishtar, reclining on my chaise-lounge, would like to encourage you to do what I do at the full moon, when my heart is full too. I have been busy for two weeks now, waxing into fullness, mounting tides, climbing mountains, blessing fields with my rising energy. Feeding, cleaning and folding, like you, my daughters, who are sisters and mothers. Birthing, caring for the ill, the babies and needy ones. And now, before the descent of the next two weeks’ waning time, I pause for a day, in stillness. I lay my feet on my golden couch by the window, where I can listen to the bird song and watch the sun rise in the sky.
Let the world continue to spin without me for today. I remove the Queen headdress and crown. I remove the staff of power from my hand. I remove the girdle of fertility, the sandals of activity, the bracelets of charity to others, and I lie on my couch and am fed.
The pure water of the river cools me. The breeze reminds me of my breath. I rest. And the world restores me to myself. I invite you to partake of this Sabbatu, or Heart’s Rest, too.
Blessings
musemother
Dear ladies, queens of your households,
May you give yourself a few moments of peace today to experience the blessing of rest. I, goddess Ishtar, reclining on my chaise-lounge, would like to encourage you to do what I do at the full moon, when my heart is full too. I have been busy for two weeks now, waxing into fullness, mounting tides, climbing mountains, blessing fields with my rising energy. Feeding, cleaning and folding, like you, my daughters, who are sisters and mothers. Birthing, caring for the ill, the babies and needy ones. And now, before the descent of the next two weeks’ waning time, I pause for a day, in stillness. I lay my feet on my golden couch by the window, where I can listen to the bird song and watch the sun rise in the sky.
Let the world continue to spin without me for today. I remove the Queen headdress and crown. I remove the staff of power from my hand. I remove the girdle of fertility, the sandals of activity, the bracelets of charity to others, and I lie on my couch and am fed.
The pure water of the river cools me. The breeze reminds me of my breath. I rest. And the world restores me to myself. I invite you to partake of this Sabbatu, or Heart’s Rest, too.
Blessings
musemother
Monday, September 04, 2006
bug soup
Bug soup
Inside the chrysalis
The transforming cocoon place
The low-lying energy renewal space
There is melting going on
Before the muscle and wing
Before the colour and deft flight
The poor caterpillar reduced to a liquid mess.
And that is exactly how I felt
At 49, awaiting the end of bleeding
The big change
I lay low and felt my muscles liquefy,
All my energy turned inward.
No more dizzy crawling, running and doing
Just rest
And more rest,
Even naps in the afternoon.
Until my beautiful wings began to grow
And surround me with rainbow reflections.
Sunshine called me out.
We dried our flimsy wet things
And took off.
Inside the chrysalis
The transforming cocoon place
The low-lying energy renewal space
There is melting going on
Before the muscle and wing
Before the colour and deft flight
The poor caterpillar reduced to a liquid mess.
And that is exactly how I felt
At 49, awaiting the end of bleeding
The big change
I lay low and felt my muscles liquefy,
All my energy turned inward.
No more dizzy crawling, running and doing
Just rest
And more rest,
Even naps in the afternoon.
Until my beautiful wings began to grow
And surround me with rainbow reflections.
Sunshine called me out.
We dried our flimsy wet things
And took off.
you will find the honey
You will find the honey that you need, little bee
when you begin to seek the feminine in me...
the sweet well of being, the power of now.
So she is back, the quiet woman by the blue-tiled pool. The grasses this year are even taller and tinged with mauve on their grain tips, the azure salt water of the pool is crystalline, inviting, but the weather has cooled; a dry breeze blows through the birch trees, moves the floating rings around the stone-edged water. Over a simple lunch of Ry-krisp, avocado, tomatoes and sprouts ,she admires the swaying grasses and briefly closes her eyes to hear a cicada ringing its loud buzz overhead. Silence, except for the public works trucks beyond the cedar hedge. She imagines she is back in the peaceful life of the ashram (when she wasn't busy cooking for ten people) -- the simple stark bedroom, white shag carpet and blue cloud wallpaper. A lit candle and a small photo the only decoration, her white comforter and foam mattress her only furniture.
Compared to her present house, with its many rooms, library, home-office, vast gardens of perennials, that lifestyle was bare and simple. When she longs for a simpler life, that is where memory flashes back to - not the chaos of her overcrowded family home with seven siblings, but a few brief years of service and meditation. She is simplifying things, but in any case, the blank white room is the reference point - the stillness of a room alone, and this is her week without children, before the week of retreat without spouse or cats or dogs.
Reading the newspaper induces anxiety, stirs up the idea-making machine. This is not a time of goal setting but of clearing, emptying out, entering the void and trusting, going past her fear, time to discover whether she, alone, is enough. Her contribution will not arise out of anxiety, fear and panic. First, pull back. Keep out of sight. Find the inner alliance, ask for help in finding like-minded people for encouragement. Like last night, she hadn't asked for anything, and yet there appeared the most gorgeous double rainbow, brilliantly fluorescent in the dark grey sky. For twenty minutes it followed them as they left the trailer park where the kids were staying for one week, the sun in back of them, dark clouds in front. As the sunset began, a bronze-tinged mist filled the southeast sky and purple and grey clouds in the northwest - spectacular skies! isn't that what she was eager to see in Taos, the play of sky and cloud and desert expanse - god's paint board. She prays to be ready for the changes coming, for leaving part of herself behind, and for finding a truer understanding. A strong woman fearful of opening up to her own unknowing.
(written July 24, one day before trip to New Mexico).
musemother
when you begin to seek the feminine in me...
the sweet well of being, the power of now.
So she is back, the quiet woman by the blue-tiled pool. The grasses this year are even taller and tinged with mauve on their grain tips, the azure salt water of the pool is crystalline, inviting, but the weather has cooled; a dry breeze blows through the birch trees, moves the floating rings around the stone-edged water. Over a simple lunch of Ry-krisp, avocado, tomatoes and sprouts ,she admires the swaying grasses and briefly closes her eyes to hear a cicada ringing its loud buzz overhead. Silence, except for the public works trucks beyond the cedar hedge. She imagines she is back in the peaceful life of the ashram (when she wasn't busy cooking for ten people) -- the simple stark bedroom, white shag carpet and blue cloud wallpaper. A lit candle and a small photo the only decoration, her white comforter and foam mattress her only furniture.
Compared to her present house, with its many rooms, library, home-office, vast gardens of perennials, that lifestyle was bare and simple. When she longs for a simpler life, that is where memory flashes back to - not the chaos of her overcrowded family home with seven siblings, but a few brief years of service and meditation. She is simplifying things, but in any case, the blank white room is the reference point - the stillness of a room alone, and this is her week without children, before the week of retreat without spouse or cats or dogs.
Reading the newspaper induces anxiety, stirs up the idea-making machine. This is not a time of goal setting but of clearing, emptying out, entering the void and trusting, going past her fear, time to discover whether she, alone, is enough. Her contribution will not arise out of anxiety, fear and panic. First, pull back. Keep out of sight. Find the inner alliance, ask for help in finding like-minded people for encouragement. Like last night, she hadn't asked for anything, and yet there appeared the most gorgeous double rainbow, brilliantly fluorescent in the dark grey sky. For twenty minutes it followed them as they left the trailer park where the kids were staying for one week, the sun in back of them, dark clouds in front. As the sunset began, a bronze-tinged mist filled the southeast sky and purple and grey clouds in the northwest - spectacular skies! isn't that what she was eager to see in Taos, the play of sky and cloud and desert expanse - god's paint board. She prays to be ready for the changes coming, for leaving part of herself behind, and for finding a truer understanding. A strong woman fearful of opening up to her own unknowing.
(written July 24, one day before trip to New Mexico).
musemother
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Quotes for Wild Women Writers
"Women must learn the self-love, the self idealizing, the self mythologizing that has made it possible for men to think of themselves as persons." (Intro to Rising Tides)
"There are legions who're singing sweet, hitting all the expected notes at the right intervals. But how to hit the wrong notes because that's where the feeling takes you...the meaningfulness and intensity of this kind of struggle in the writing can't be carried by artifice." Tess Gallagher.
"Without mirrors, the self does not exist." (a woman writer has to read somewhere or write who she is, a real identity other than the false image projected of how/what you are). Margaret Atwood
"Menopause is a metamorphosis, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The caterpillar needs a cocoon, and sodo you. One of the most important things you can do during menopause is to take time for you. Go into your cave, go into your cocoon, go into your room and shut the door." Susun Weed
On the edge of chaos, your conscious mind is not as functional - there are too many conflicting impulses, lack of clarity and confusion. Check in with the breath, let the sand settle, come inside, like being deep underwater during a storm. You find you can breathe down here oddly enough, and you look up and see storm clouds, flashes of sunlight, waves and seaweed overhead. Deep in the calm belly of the sea, in that womb-like space, you float freely. No roots, no fear of falling, you are held safe and warm, in the rhythmic pulse of life, breathing in and out. You slow down your heartbeat to this rhythm. Now, your body is your pen--what is it you want to write? (myself)
"There are legions who're singing sweet, hitting all the expected notes at the right intervals. But how to hit the wrong notes because that's where the feeling takes you...the meaningfulness and intensity of this kind of struggle in the writing can't be carried by artifice." Tess Gallagher.
"Without mirrors, the self does not exist." (a woman writer has to read somewhere or write who she is, a real identity other than the false image projected of how/what you are). Margaret Atwood
"Menopause is a metamorphosis, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The caterpillar needs a cocoon, and sodo you. One of the most important things you can do during menopause is to take time for you. Go into your cave, go into your cocoon, go into your room and shut the door." Susun Weed
On the edge of chaos, your conscious mind is not as functional - there are too many conflicting impulses, lack of clarity and confusion. Check in with the breath, let the sand settle, come inside, like being deep underwater during a storm. You find you can breathe down here oddly enough, and you look up and see storm clouds, flashes of sunlight, waves and seaweed overhead. Deep in the calm belly of the sea, in that womb-like space, you float freely. No roots, no fear of falling, you are held safe and warm, in the rhythmic pulse of life, breathing in and out. You slow down your heartbeat to this rhythm. Now, your body is your pen--what is it you want to write? (myself)
what is the feminine?
In response to some who emailed me privately, and brought up the question, what do I think of as the feminine? I guess I am using it two ways: in the standard way of calling a way of dress or style as 'feminine' as opposed to a masculine style of dress etc., which comes from our social conditioning. But in the most profound way of embracing the feminine, what I refer to is the yin as opposed to the yang, the hidden source of creative power that powers the universe; the moist cave we were born out of, a mother's womb, or the small voice inside that counsels us that the Keres Indians call Thought Woman. I do believe that men and women each access their own wisdom differently, and the our bodies have different kinds of power. I think that as women we have been overly masculinized, modelled ourselves after men, and have lost the particular 'feminine' wisdom ways of the body, in our pursuit of intellectual excellence.
The spirit has no gender, but humans have classified and engendered everything, so I guess it helps me to use these terms. In French, every noun is either feminine or masculine - it's hard to get away from it. So for me, what has been belittled in me, i.e. the parts of the body, what has been mocked or trashed, what has not been useful to my advance or success in school, the non-rational, the intuitive, the healing power of a mother's hands, the knowledge of who is calling me before I pick up the phone - I associate that with the feminine. And it needs reclaiming. In ancient times, the Queen of Heaven and Earth had many powers - the feminine power was not only nurturing and life giving, but she was envisioned as a warrior woman. The Great Mother was dancing the dance of creation, birth, life, death, famine and abundance. Is it only a metaphor? or does invoking the feminine bring power to women?
It's important for me to get in touch with what has been maligned by religion, in my case, the Catholic religion. My body and it's holy discourse, it's bleeding and breeding, has been misaligned with 'sin' or absence of God/spirit. Matter/mater/mother is where we all begin. The original woman, Eve, was not the source of a fall from Grace, but was our wise Birth Mother. The old ways of burning women with healing power has made us fearful of the expression of our truth. In a mythological sense, the essential feminine breathes through the universe, as does the essential masculine - the marriage of the two is a divine intercourse. That is a story that needs rewriting - to put the divine consort back into God's arms. Retrieving my hidden affinity with the feminine way of knowing is healing me in some way I can't easily put into words.
What I know is this, if I see myself as created in the image of god, with both feminine and masculine parts, and I celebrate my physical femaleness as holy, and understand the responsibility having a female body holds as part of creation, honour and respect it, and understand it is to be as holy as the masculine, if I can hold onto the double image of Lady and Lord, (even if I know the creative energy needs no gender), it helps me feel stronger, more balanced. My body's wisdom is connected to having a cunt instead of a penis - it's that blunt. Uterus, ovaries, vagina: are power places that need re-sacralizing. To re-invest the female body, with feminine power. To write it with milk, as Cixous expressed it.
To celebrate what I am, body mind and spirit. Female body, mind and spirit. To counter the prevalence of belief that stems from eons ago: "These heretical women - how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and it may be, even to baptize." (Tertullian)
I leave it up to the men to do their own work. Finding out how to balance the masculine and feminine in themselves. To soften what is too hard, to strengthen what is weak. To honour and respect the feminine power within themselve, and in the women around them.
If you know what the 'feminine' means to you, please write and let me know. I am still stumbling in the dark.
best,
jenn
The spirit has no gender, but humans have classified and engendered everything, so I guess it helps me to use these terms. In French, every noun is either feminine or masculine - it's hard to get away from it. So for me, what has been belittled in me, i.e. the parts of the body, what has been mocked or trashed, what has not been useful to my advance or success in school, the non-rational, the intuitive, the healing power of a mother's hands, the knowledge of who is calling me before I pick up the phone - I associate that with the feminine. And it needs reclaiming. In ancient times, the Queen of Heaven and Earth had many powers - the feminine power was not only nurturing and life giving, but she was envisioned as a warrior woman. The Great Mother was dancing the dance of creation, birth, life, death, famine and abundance. Is it only a metaphor? or does invoking the feminine bring power to women?
It's important for me to get in touch with what has been maligned by religion, in my case, the Catholic religion. My body and it's holy discourse, it's bleeding and breeding, has been misaligned with 'sin' or absence of God/spirit. Matter/mater/mother is where we all begin. The original woman, Eve, was not the source of a fall from Grace, but was our wise Birth Mother. The old ways of burning women with healing power has made us fearful of the expression of our truth. In a mythological sense, the essential feminine breathes through the universe, as does the essential masculine - the marriage of the two is a divine intercourse. That is a story that needs rewriting - to put the divine consort back into God's arms. Retrieving my hidden affinity with the feminine way of knowing is healing me in some way I can't easily put into words.
What I know is this, if I see myself as created in the image of god, with both feminine and masculine parts, and I celebrate my physical femaleness as holy, and understand the responsibility having a female body holds as part of creation, honour and respect it, and understand it is to be as holy as the masculine, if I can hold onto the double image of Lady and Lord, (even if I know the creative energy needs no gender), it helps me feel stronger, more balanced. My body's wisdom is connected to having a cunt instead of a penis - it's that blunt. Uterus, ovaries, vagina: are power places that need re-sacralizing. To re-invest the female body, with feminine power. To write it with milk, as Cixous expressed it.
To celebrate what I am, body mind and spirit. Female body, mind and spirit. To counter the prevalence of belief that stems from eons ago: "These heretical women - how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and it may be, even to baptize." (Tertullian)
I leave it up to the men to do their own work. Finding out how to balance the masculine and feminine in themselves. To soften what is too hard, to strengthen what is weak. To honour and respect the feminine power within themselve, and in the women around them.
If you know what the 'feminine' means to you, please write and let me know. I am still stumbling in the dark.
best,
jenn
Friday, September 01, 2006
Embracing the feminine
Hi there. I changed my template and the blog came back! Hope you like the new look.
Blogging at age 51 (yes the previous article was written a few years ago and revamped this week), means I am challenging myself to learn new skills - computer programming not being one of them.
I am loving the reading I am doing about the feminine, and hope you enjoy learning along with me. It is not easy to go against everything you've learned and try to find out what is really "feminine" about yourself, especially if you, like myself, have always hated anything to do with that word. I used to associate it with blondes and bimbos. Now there's a heavy judgement!
Lately, I've tinted my hair with blonde highlights. I find myself wearing a skirt more often, (the colourful one I bought in Sante Fe was just the first!) And feeling less inhibited about my very female body. Yesterday in the pool, I actually took off my bathing suit top and swam with breasts touching the cool water - we have a cedar hedge keeping it very private, but I still felt like a radical exhibitionist!
I normally don't even look at myself in the mirror, let alone brush my hair or put on make-up - since I don't work outside the house it doesn't seem necessary to 'put a face on'. But my 14 yr old daughter is very fashionista, and has a cool sense of her own style, and very feminine ideas on female beauty - she has long hair, which she likes to get styled, shaves her legs, loves to buy make-up and jewellery. I guess at her age I went through all that too, but then rejected it as being too 'feminine', too confining, too stereotyped. At 17, I was wearing overalls one day and high heels the next. Probably confused about what it meant to be a girl. In the 70's, sexual liberation and feminism meant we could dress like guys, act like guys, swear and smoke like guys, drink and party like guys - at least we thought we needed to, to be free. These days girls are showing off their belly-buttons and wearing tiny tank tops for the same reason. (at least, I hope that's the reason).
I have to confess I am not a radical feminist anymore. But I have started to appreciate the softer side of me, the swishing feel of skirts against my sometimes shaved legs, the curve of hips that are definitely starting to look like the Venus of Willendorf model. The breasts that are resonding to gravity and travelling southward on their own. What's next- nude sunbathing?
Embracing the feminine at this stage of my life means dropping the mask, embracing my quirky eccentricities, finding out what makes my heart dance - I made a cool collage yesterday that boldly stated: Follow your heart - put the world on Hold - and juxtoposed the words Crystal Butterfly - Earth Angel - Sexy Beast and Sinfully Good - it's all in there - the mix of sensual, sexual and spiritual that makes the feminine such a wild ride. Hormones are just the tip of the iceberg, ladies. Get your feminine on!
ps the secret code of women is what makes my heart dance!
musemother
Blogging at age 51 (yes the previous article was written a few years ago and revamped this week), means I am challenging myself to learn new skills - computer programming not being one of them.
I am loving the reading I am doing about the feminine, and hope you enjoy learning along with me. It is not easy to go against everything you've learned and try to find out what is really "feminine" about yourself, especially if you, like myself, have always hated anything to do with that word. I used to associate it with blondes and bimbos. Now there's a heavy judgement!
Lately, I've tinted my hair with blonde highlights. I find myself wearing a skirt more often, (the colourful one I bought in Sante Fe was just the first!) And feeling less inhibited about my very female body. Yesterday in the pool, I actually took off my bathing suit top and swam with breasts touching the cool water - we have a cedar hedge keeping it very private, but I still felt like a radical exhibitionist!
I normally don't even look at myself in the mirror, let alone brush my hair or put on make-up - since I don't work outside the house it doesn't seem necessary to 'put a face on'. But my 14 yr old daughter is very fashionista, and has a cool sense of her own style, and very feminine ideas on female beauty - she has long hair, which she likes to get styled, shaves her legs, loves to buy make-up and jewellery. I guess at her age I went through all that too, but then rejected it as being too 'feminine', too confining, too stereotyped. At 17, I was wearing overalls one day and high heels the next. Probably confused about what it meant to be a girl. In the 70's, sexual liberation and feminism meant we could dress like guys, act like guys, swear and smoke like guys, drink and party like guys - at least we thought we needed to, to be free. These days girls are showing off their belly-buttons and wearing tiny tank tops for the same reason. (at least, I hope that's the reason).
I have to confess I am not a radical feminist anymore. But I have started to appreciate the softer side of me, the swishing feel of skirts against my sometimes shaved legs, the curve of hips that are definitely starting to look like the Venus of Willendorf model. The breasts that are resonding to gravity and travelling southward on their own. What's next- nude sunbathing?
Embracing the feminine at this stage of my life means dropping the mask, embracing my quirky eccentricities, finding out what makes my heart dance - I made a cool collage yesterday that boldly stated: Follow your heart - put the world on Hold - and juxtoposed the words Crystal Butterfly - Earth Angel - Sexy Beast and Sinfully Good - it's all in there - the mix of sensual, sexual and spiritual that makes the feminine such a wild ride. Hormones are just the tip of the iceberg, ladies. Get your feminine on!
ps the secret code of women is what makes my heart dance!
musemother
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Mothering Myself
I stir from sleep, one ear off the pillow. “Mommy”-- I hear my daughter’s plaintive voice. Red numbers flash 4:30a.m. Groggily, I tiptoe down the hall and sit on her bed. Kate pulls me close – sobbing, a bad dream. She wants me to lie beside her because she’s afraid to fall back asleep. Chalk it up to one more night of interrupted sleep. At age 48, with insomnia and night sweats kicking in, some mornings I have a serious sleep deficit and would much rather stay in bed than get up and make breakfast. It’s not possible for me to quit my job, since my full time work is house-manager and mother for now. But before lack of sleep and pre-menopause turns me into mommy ogre, I’ve decided I need to mother myself.
Recently, there is a voice that is downright insistent about the need to take good care of myself. It complains that it doesn’t want to walk the dog, because she pulls on the leash and hurts my sore shoulder. Get the kids to walk her. (The physiotherapist said the same thing). It whispers to me to jump into bed with a heating pad right after the kids are tucked in. Or let them tuck me in! It gives me simple advice, like ‘sleep when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry, go pee when you have to’. Simple wisdom, but it’s hard to put into practice.
If that inner voice were my mother, what would she tell me? First, she’d say in that endearing way she has, quit complaining you’re tired and go to bed earlier! No more reading past midnight. She’d also tell me to sit down properly at a table, not shovel food standing up at the counter on my way out the door to the doctor’s. She’d say, slow down the pace - take a nap. My mother took a nap every day (8 kids in ten years forced her to). She’d ask me why I load up the agenda with an overwhelming list of chores to do. Before I’m even dressed the mental list starts humming: call the vet, get the tires changed, shampoo the dog vomit out of the carpet, get a quote for new garage doors, buy the latest
‘cool’ item for the kids’ lunches…. I read that keeping overly busy is a way of masking the inner voice, and leads to exhaustion. Maybe taking one item off the list per day will leave more room for creative time, help me get to that story I’ve been meaning to write.
Leaving open space on my agenda would make room for spontaneity too, like going for a walk in the park instead of letting the dogs out for a quick romp in the yard. Finding time to ‘be’ more and do less is a real challenge for a busy mom. Even if I don’t work outside the home (besides volunteer work), my inner task master doesn’t allow much free time for my own projects -- I could be more creative if I listened to my gentler, inner voice who coaxes me to sort through the pile of poems on my desk or to go out and rake old leaves, discover new shoots in the garden. I need quiet time to replenish the soul (in spite of the nagging voice that says, get back to the dishes, the laundry), to allow some moments of beauty into the day to reflect on the life lived, as well as living it.
The one thing my inner voice is adamant about is making time to sit quietly early in the morning before the family awakens. If a child wakes up and wants me to put in a movie on the weekend, I settle her in, then head back to my cozy chair by the window to contemplate the peace within. It soothes me like a comforter to rest inside the breath. I catch up with my sense of serenity, my purpose for being in the world seems confirmed, now that I am centered again. For me, morning practice is best, before getting caught in the phone calls and email trap.
Listening to the soft voice within has many benefits. Allowing myself these special moments every day allows my heart to appreciate the abundance in my life, the warm sunshine, the birds in the back yard, a new moon in a dark sky, and lets me be all here for my gorgeous children in the limited amount of years they need me so totally. So I’ve decided I can’t put off mothering myself until they leave home. That’s too far away. Have you noticed in the video instructions for putting on an oxygen mask on the airplane, you are told to put it on your own mouth first, then on your children? I think of that as a beautiful metaphor for mothering myself, which will help me be the best mother for my children.
musemother
Recently, there is a voice that is downright insistent about the need to take good care of myself. It complains that it doesn’t want to walk the dog, because she pulls on the leash and hurts my sore shoulder. Get the kids to walk her. (The physiotherapist said the same thing). It whispers to me to jump into bed with a heating pad right after the kids are tucked in. Or let them tuck me in! It gives me simple advice, like ‘sleep when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry, go pee when you have to’. Simple wisdom, but it’s hard to put into practice.
If that inner voice were my mother, what would she tell me? First, she’d say in that endearing way she has, quit complaining you’re tired and go to bed earlier! No more reading past midnight. She’d also tell me to sit down properly at a table, not shovel food standing up at the counter on my way out the door to the doctor’s. She’d say, slow down the pace - take a nap. My mother took a nap every day (8 kids in ten years forced her to). She’d ask me why I load up the agenda with an overwhelming list of chores to do. Before I’m even dressed the mental list starts humming: call the vet, get the tires changed, shampoo the dog vomit out of the carpet, get a quote for new garage doors, buy the latest
‘cool’ item for the kids’ lunches…. I read that keeping overly busy is a way of masking the inner voice, and leads to exhaustion. Maybe taking one item off the list per day will leave more room for creative time, help me get to that story I’ve been meaning to write.
Leaving open space on my agenda would make room for spontaneity too, like going for a walk in the park instead of letting the dogs out for a quick romp in the yard. Finding time to ‘be’ more and do less is a real challenge for a busy mom. Even if I don’t work outside the home (besides volunteer work), my inner task master doesn’t allow much free time for my own projects -- I could be more creative if I listened to my gentler, inner voice who coaxes me to sort through the pile of poems on my desk or to go out and rake old leaves, discover new shoots in the garden. I need quiet time to replenish the soul (in spite of the nagging voice that says, get back to the dishes, the laundry), to allow some moments of beauty into the day to reflect on the life lived, as well as living it.
The one thing my inner voice is adamant about is making time to sit quietly early in the morning before the family awakens. If a child wakes up and wants me to put in a movie on the weekend, I settle her in, then head back to my cozy chair by the window to contemplate the peace within. It soothes me like a comforter to rest inside the breath. I catch up with my sense of serenity, my purpose for being in the world seems confirmed, now that I am centered again. For me, morning practice is best, before getting caught in the phone calls and email trap.
Listening to the soft voice within has many benefits. Allowing myself these special moments every day allows my heart to appreciate the abundance in my life, the warm sunshine, the birds in the back yard, a new moon in a dark sky, and lets me be all here for my gorgeous children in the limited amount of years they need me so totally. So I’ve decided I can’t put off mothering myself until they leave home. That’s too far away. Have you noticed in the video instructions for putting on an oxygen mask on the airplane, you are told to put it on your own mouth first, then on your children? I think of that as a beautiful metaphor for mothering myself, which will help me be the best mother for my children.
musemother
Monday, August 28, 2006
sacred feminine
Ok - I just googled the Sacred Feminine and came across all kinds of debates about whether Mary Magdalene should be seen as Jesus' wife, a sacred harlot, inferior to the Virgin Mother Mary, and lots of Christian sites that react to Brown's book DaVinci Code, etc for even bringing up the subject of a divine feminine who is other than Mary the Mother of God.
I have read a lot of the literature recently, and have come up with my own idea of what is sacred - and what is feminine. (The question of whether we have a sacred masculine has never even crossed my mind, probably because we are all supposedly made in "god's image" and he was a Father. But Marion Woodman has called it the creative masculine or imagination.)
Here's my take: women have something divinely natural about their bodies that makes them co-creators with the Universe - they have a reproductive cycle that brings forth new life (yes, sperm is part of it too). But women have a monthly cycle that follows the moon in its waxing and waning - two weeks of building creative energy, two weeks slowing down towards the period of rest or bleeding time. Lots of people have written about how intuitive we are at this time, so I won't go on about it here. But that is the female body's link with the Universal Energy, through getting to know our bodies. And if we could link the sexual, creative aspects of our bodies with the divine aspects of universal energy....voila, Sacred Feminine. (Many other cultures have already imagined this by the way: Isis, Ishtar, Shakti, Demeter, Cybele).
To my early Christianized child's mind, it was comforting to hear stories about a Divine Father - but the Divine Mother was a virgin who had never had sex! So for all the people who resist the idea of making Mary Magdalene a spouse or consort of the son of God, just imagine for a moment that the sexual and the spiritual have been divided for so long, it is refreshing and liberating to imagine a beloved in the arms of God (and by her own choice, not as a child sold/given away to a temple to service men sexually, as someone spuriously suggested could be part of the Sacred Feminine).
Perhaps the Sufi's have it right (Rumi) when they say we are all the beloved of god. But I like the idea of seeing breastfeeding, menstruating, childbirth and other aspects of physical humanity manifest in the female form as having a Divine function as well. And thank god/s for birth control and freedom of choice so that women do not feel enslaved by pregnancy and childbirth, at least in part of the world.
What I do to balance out my 'language' problem with using the term God or Lord, is now I pray to Our Lord and Lady. It's not perfect, I know the universal energy of life has no gender, but I do this to balance the programming I received as a Catholic. It links me to the ancient mythology of the Sacred Marriage, that perfect balance found in the union of opposites, of male and female (see The Hebrew Goddess for a discussion of how the holy of holies in Yahweh's sacred tabernacle relates to the sacred marriage ritual).
Sacred feminine - is the yin as opposed to the yang, the receptive, moist, creative, inward, intuitive side that is in both males and females, and seemingly since it's less active, it's seen as less essential in our busy world. Yet millions of Chinese are dying this year due to overwork (they call it the mattress culture - they sleep under their desks!). Connection? We are so outward focused, so work and success oriented, so Yang and masculine in our culture of work, that there is little value placed on the yin, the receptive center, the place where we rest. Sabbath has been lost, the sabbatu or heart's rest, the sacred day off of Ishtar, Queen of Heaven at the full moon, when she was menstruating.
Anyway, getting off topic a bit - Kundalini energy is inside of all of us too, men and women, and it's not yin, although it could be visualized as the fiery hot flashes that menopausal women experience, and therefore connected to the sacred feminine.
Just thought I'd add to the mish-mash of ideas on the topic of Sacred Feminine, a topic close to my feminine (father's daughter) heart.
musemother
I have read a lot of the literature recently, and have come up with my own idea of what is sacred - and what is feminine. (The question of whether we have a sacred masculine has never even crossed my mind, probably because we are all supposedly made in "god's image" and he was a Father. But Marion Woodman has called it the creative masculine or imagination.)
Here's my take: women have something divinely natural about their bodies that makes them co-creators with the Universe - they have a reproductive cycle that brings forth new life (yes, sperm is part of it too). But women have a monthly cycle that follows the moon in its waxing and waning - two weeks of building creative energy, two weeks slowing down towards the period of rest or bleeding time. Lots of people have written about how intuitive we are at this time, so I won't go on about it here. But that is the female body's link with the Universal Energy, through getting to know our bodies. And if we could link the sexual, creative aspects of our bodies with the divine aspects of universal energy....voila, Sacred Feminine. (Many other cultures have already imagined this by the way: Isis, Ishtar, Shakti, Demeter, Cybele).
To my early Christianized child's mind, it was comforting to hear stories about a Divine Father - but the Divine Mother was a virgin who had never had sex! So for all the people who resist the idea of making Mary Magdalene a spouse or consort of the son of God, just imagine for a moment that the sexual and the spiritual have been divided for so long, it is refreshing and liberating to imagine a beloved in the arms of God (and by her own choice, not as a child sold/given away to a temple to service men sexually, as someone spuriously suggested could be part of the Sacred Feminine).
Perhaps the Sufi's have it right (Rumi) when they say we are all the beloved of god. But I like the idea of seeing breastfeeding, menstruating, childbirth and other aspects of physical humanity manifest in the female form as having a Divine function as well. And thank god/s for birth control and freedom of choice so that women do not feel enslaved by pregnancy and childbirth, at least in part of the world.
What I do to balance out my 'language' problem with using the term God or Lord, is now I pray to Our Lord and Lady. It's not perfect, I know the universal energy of life has no gender, but I do this to balance the programming I received as a Catholic. It links me to the ancient mythology of the Sacred Marriage, that perfect balance found in the union of opposites, of male and female (see The Hebrew Goddess for a discussion of how the holy of holies in Yahweh's sacred tabernacle relates to the sacred marriage ritual).
Sacred feminine - is the yin as opposed to the yang, the receptive, moist, creative, inward, intuitive side that is in both males and females, and seemingly since it's less active, it's seen as less essential in our busy world. Yet millions of Chinese are dying this year due to overwork (they call it the mattress culture - they sleep under their desks!). Connection? We are so outward focused, so work and success oriented, so Yang and masculine in our culture of work, that there is little value placed on the yin, the receptive center, the place where we rest. Sabbath has been lost, the sabbatu or heart's rest, the sacred day off of Ishtar, Queen of Heaven at the full moon, when she was menstruating.
Anyway, getting off topic a bit - Kundalini energy is inside of all of us too, men and women, and it's not yin, although it could be visualized as the fiery hot flashes that menopausal women experience, and therefore connected to the sacred feminine.
Just thought I'd add to the mish-mash of ideas on the topic of Sacred Feminine, a topic close to my feminine (father's daughter) heart.
musemother
the dance of intimacy
Something about writing and blogging and putting my work up for public consumption without the safe borders of a published book is scaring the bej'sus out of me, and I think it has to do with what Suzanne Falter-Barnes calls writing authentically: I have to get in touch with the scared, vulnerable part that doesn't want to come out of hiding. This means writing intimately.
Right now there's a tight knot in my stomach as I write. I've been doing Suzanne's Dream Binder exercises. It's one thing to dream, another to put it down on paper, and quite another to go public with what you think you've found out is your soul purpose.
Part of my soul purpose involves communicating with women about what I am learning. I had a great chance to learn more about women's issues from two of my sisters and one sister-in-law this weekend. We had a good old-fashioned girl chat in the kitchen (where else?) while it poured rain outside. All my favourite topics were on hand, the budding sexuality of teens (and why they want to dress like Paris Hilton), why girls are giving themselves away so easily in the 'bitch-whore' gangsta culture of hip-hop, how to instill awareness of the dangers of drinking in mixed company, (already a problem at age 14). It seems like the old double standard hasn't gone away. Girls still need to be told to watch out, don't lose control or a guy will take advantage of you. Girls still need to learn how to find pleasure for themselves, not only learn how to please a man.
How do we get wise, anyway? And how to pass on that wisdom in a way young girls will hear and not judge 'old-fashioned'?
One of my sisters is a senior tech writer, unmarried at 40 and veteran of the dating game, longing for a meaningful relationship with a caring, commited guy. Another is divorced, a young grandmother at 50, and through different self-help techniques is working on releasing old patterns so she can love herself and attract the right man. My sister-in-law has only been with one man, my brother, for almost twenty years.
I have been married for twenty-two years, was celibate before that for almost ten years. We are all over forty, approaching menopause or in the thick of it, and three of us have daughters. We have had mixed-emotions about our relationship with our father, and perhaps with men in general.
The big question for me is, how do we model self-love, self-acceptance, and self-respect for younger girls, if we haven't found it ourselves? How come it has taken over thirty years for me to learn as much as I know about myself? What can I do to cut the learning time shorter for Caitie? or does she have to learn by trial and error as I did? Can I protect her from hurt, damage at the hands of callous guys?
My mother it turns out, was not the best source of advice for myself or my five sisters. The feminist way that I espoused early on, to be independent, free and act emotionally detached as most men appeared to (i.e. sleep around), has not worked out for women either, I believe. I think we have a biological need to be 'attached', and from puberty on are hard-wired to find a suitable mate and make a nest/home. I don't think women can sleep around as easily without getting emotionally involved.
Shouldn't there be some training in how to be intimate, when it's appropriate, when not to give yourself away, some secret code that all women share about how to tell a sexual fling from a long-term relationship?
I don't have the answers, only questions. My hunch is that when I understand the connection between spirtuality and sexuality, I will be closer to understanding the nature of Longing and Desire.
stay tuned,
musemother
Right now there's a tight knot in my stomach as I write. I've been doing Suzanne's Dream Binder exercises. It's one thing to dream, another to put it down on paper, and quite another to go public with what you think you've found out is your soul purpose.
Part of my soul purpose involves communicating with women about what I am learning. I had a great chance to learn more about women's issues from two of my sisters and one sister-in-law this weekend. We had a good old-fashioned girl chat in the kitchen (where else?) while it poured rain outside. All my favourite topics were on hand, the budding sexuality of teens (and why they want to dress like Paris Hilton), why girls are giving themselves away so easily in the 'bitch-whore' gangsta culture of hip-hop, how to instill awareness of the dangers of drinking in mixed company, (already a problem at age 14). It seems like the old double standard hasn't gone away. Girls still need to be told to watch out, don't lose control or a guy will take advantage of you. Girls still need to learn how to find pleasure for themselves, not only learn how to please a man.
How do we get wise, anyway? And how to pass on that wisdom in a way young girls will hear and not judge 'old-fashioned'?
One of my sisters is a senior tech writer, unmarried at 40 and veteran of the dating game, longing for a meaningful relationship with a caring, commited guy. Another is divorced, a young grandmother at 50, and through different self-help techniques is working on releasing old patterns so she can love herself and attract the right man. My sister-in-law has only been with one man, my brother, for almost twenty years.
I have been married for twenty-two years, was celibate before that for almost ten years. We are all over forty, approaching menopause or in the thick of it, and three of us have daughters. We have had mixed-emotions about our relationship with our father, and perhaps with men in general.
The big question for me is, how do we model self-love, self-acceptance, and self-respect for younger girls, if we haven't found it ourselves? How come it has taken over thirty years for me to learn as much as I know about myself? What can I do to cut the learning time shorter for Caitie? or does she have to learn by trial and error as I did? Can I protect her from hurt, damage at the hands of callous guys?
My mother it turns out, was not the best source of advice for myself or my five sisters. The feminist way that I espoused early on, to be independent, free and act emotionally detached as most men appeared to (i.e. sleep around), has not worked out for women either, I believe. I think we have a biological need to be 'attached', and from puberty on are hard-wired to find a suitable mate and make a nest/home. I don't think women can sleep around as easily without getting emotionally involved.
Shouldn't there be some training in how to be intimate, when it's appropriate, when not to give yourself away, some secret code that all women share about how to tell a sexual fling from a long-term relationship?
I don't have the answers, only questions. My hunch is that when I understand the connection between spirtuality and sexuality, I will be closer to understanding the nature of Longing and Desire.
stay tuned,
musemother
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Soul of a Child alive and Well
At the recent Taos Writer's spa, someone wrote a note about my creative play presentation : soul of a child alive and well!
I put that one on my desk, in front of the picture of the gazebo with chaise lounge by the sea, where the Queen of Heaven has installed her self to rest and recoup for the busy days ahead.
The quote I picked one day at the circle was "Let the beauty you love be what you do" (Rumi). That too, is a reminder about what I am here for. I love the 'doing', but the 'letting the beauty be' is harder to hold on to in the midst of summer vacation, nephews visiting, kids plans overriding my own projects, and dizzy housecleaning after painters have come through and left plaster dust over three rooms. So the challenge yesterday was how to find beauty in housecleaning -- not so hard, after all. After I had mopped the floors (enlisting help from daughter and son), replaced the hall carpets, the office/library carpet and chairs, plugged in the modem and set up the computer, done five loads of laundry and some grocery shopping, the house felt beautiful again and my peace of mind returned.
Soul of a child, inside the mother, alive and well. I am reminded of that daily, as I begin to lose patience with the holidaying TV watchers, or go hysterical in the car with two teens teasing each other, pinching, squealing in loud voices. I can laugh and giggle too. I don't have to take myself so seriously.
Play, create, be a child again was part of the precious Taos message. We found the joy in creating something from nothing in our last workshop - I made a crown for the Queen of Heaven out of paper rollers for coins, scissors and tape, then walked around the group parading it, while telling the story I had written about Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, taking a day off at the full moon when she was menstruating. Rest, the key word for menopausal women, mothering women, and menstruating women. Rest and renew. Give yourself a break, and a nap.
So, off to breakfast for the troops, and a day at the water park. Guess I'll play a bit more before school starts and my work days begin in earnest!
top of the morning to you,
Jenn
musemother
I put that one on my desk, in front of the picture of the gazebo with chaise lounge by the sea, where the Queen of Heaven has installed her self to rest and recoup for the busy days ahead.
The quote I picked one day at the circle was "Let the beauty you love be what you do" (Rumi). That too, is a reminder about what I am here for. I love the 'doing', but the 'letting the beauty be' is harder to hold on to in the midst of summer vacation, nephews visiting, kids plans overriding my own projects, and dizzy housecleaning after painters have come through and left plaster dust over three rooms. So the challenge yesterday was how to find beauty in housecleaning -- not so hard, after all. After I had mopped the floors (enlisting help from daughter and son), replaced the hall carpets, the office/library carpet and chairs, plugged in the modem and set up the computer, done five loads of laundry and some grocery shopping, the house felt beautiful again and my peace of mind returned.
Soul of a child, inside the mother, alive and well. I am reminded of that daily, as I begin to lose patience with the holidaying TV watchers, or go hysterical in the car with two teens teasing each other, pinching, squealing in loud voices. I can laugh and giggle too. I don't have to take myself so seriously.
Play, create, be a child again was part of the precious Taos message. We found the joy in creating something from nothing in our last workshop - I made a crown for the Queen of Heaven out of paper rollers for coins, scissors and tape, then walked around the group parading it, while telling the story I had written about Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, taking a day off at the full moon when she was menstruating. Rest, the key word for menopausal women, mothering women, and menstruating women. Rest and renew. Give yourself a break, and a nap.
So, off to breakfast for the troops, and a day at the water park. Guess I'll play a bit more before school starts and my work days begin in earnest!
top of the morning to you,
Jenn
musemother
Sunday, August 20, 2006
wellspring of life, divine mother
I have a small card on my desk found in a store in Taos. It has a picture of a woman standing on the crescent moon in a white gown, a halo of stars on her head and four wings on each side of her. It's called Divine Mother, Wellspring of life. On the backis marked: The Eternal Womb... "the soul will cleave to the divine intellect, and it will cleave to her...and she and the intellect become one Entity, as if somebody pours out a jug of water into a flowing spirng, so that all become one." Issac of Acco.
Part of my continuing search to learn/teach about a woman's life is a quest to embody that feminine energy, to bring it down out of mythology and symbols into a felt experience.
The other morning I was doing some yoga in a hotel room near Quebec City, (on my way to a vacation in the Gaspe Peninsula), and as I did the Warrior Pose, I felt such a flood of energy into my core, somewhere in between the lungs, near the solar plexus and up to my throat - and it felt so powerful and grounding. I know we are used to thinking of the symbols for god as Father and Mother, but I felt keenly the balancing of energies that have been called feminine and masculine, down my centre. The age old yin and yang, the merging of which would be called the Tao in my uneducated guessing.
It reminded me that I want balance. We women are not little men. Yet we have a masculine or yang energy, and a feminine, or yin energy. As a young feminist, I remember resisting the idea of being feminine, passive and receptive. I wanted to identify with the Yang, the active, the outgoing energy that accomplishes great things. I have so much to learn about the beauty of the Yin, the receptive, the open container which holds the yang, the creative spirit that Marion Woodman once described as the fiery thrust of the masculine energy, entering the container-made-ready of the feminine within.
These are all just words. What I want is to accept my femaleness as alright. To be feminine is not a sign of weakness, (as it has been taught us). We have learned to follow the male model, but our bodies and our brains are female (see the recent book The Female Brain). I have no intention of returning to the Victorian ideal of womanhood as submissive, obedient, passive. But I want an ideal for femalehood which values the yin as well as the yang, that gives me the freedom and the choice to live in harmony with my biology, not see it as a limitation.
As soon as a girl begins to bleed, she must come to terms with her femaleness, her body parts, her need for rest and nurturance. Her needs are different (even at birth) from her male brothers/friends/partners. As she grows into her power, she learns about her cycles, her body's rhythms. She has a chance to lear that the blood mysteries are sacred and are a gift to women, co-creators of new life with men.
My favourite book this week is A Woman's Book of Life, by Joan Borysenko. She has some wonderful thingsto say about our life's journey as women.
Let's accept our power as women, not diminish it by becoming little copies of men.
grateful to be still learning,
musemother
Part of my continuing search to learn/teach about a woman's life is a quest to embody that feminine energy, to bring it down out of mythology and symbols into a felt experience.
The other morning I was doing some yoga in a hotel room near Quebec City, (on my way to a vacation in the Gaspe Peninsula), and as I did the Warrior Pose, I felt such a flood of energy into my core, somewhere in between the lungs, near the solar plexus and up to my throat - and it felt so powerful and grounding. I know we are used to thinking of the symbols for god as Father and Mother, but I felt keenly the balancing of energies that have been called feminine and masculine, down my centre. The age old yin and yang, the merging of which would be called the Tao in my uneducated guessing.
It reminded me that I want balance. We women are not little men. Yet we have a masculine or yang energy, and a feminine, or yin energy. As a young feminist, I remember resisting the idea of being feminine, passive and receptive. I wanted to identify with the Yang, the active, the outgoing energy that accomplishes great things. I have so much to learn about the beauty of the Yin, the receptive, the open container which holds the yang, the creative spirit that Marion Woodman once described as the fiery thrust of the masculine energy, entering the container-made-ready of the feminine within.
These are all just words. What I want is to accept my femaleness as alright. To be feminine is not a sign of weakness, (as it has been taught us). We have learned to follow the male model, but our bodies and our brains are female (see the recent book The Female Brain). I have no intention of returning to the Victorian ideal of womanhood as submissive, obedient, passive. But I want an ideal for femalehood which values the yin as well as the yang, that gives me the freedom and the choice to live in harmony with my biology, not see it as a limitation.
As soon as a girl begins to bleed, she must come to terms with her femaleness, her body parts, her need for rest and nurturance. Her needs are different (even at birth) from her male brothers/friends/partners. As she grows into her power, she learns about her cycles, her body's rhythms. She has a chance to lear that the blood mysteries are sacred and are a gift to women, co-creators of new life with men.
My favourite book this week is A Woman's Book of Life, by Joan Borysenko. She has some wonderful thingsto say about our life's journey as women.
Let's accept our power as women, not diminish it by becoming little copies of men.
grateful to be still learning,
musemother
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Soul Purpose: making the unknown known
I made this promise to myself at the Taos Writer's Spa, in the closing circle, that I would help make the unknown known. Once a clairvoyant friend had also told me that my goal in writing was to make the invisible visible.
What does it mean to me? I wondered after I spoke it. What is the unknown? Actually it's simply whatever we do not know (yet), what is not visible to the seeing eye, but definitely visible to the seeing heart. We have all felt Presence within us - at special moments, at our daughter's wedding or the funeral of a dear friend or parent; watching a sunrise or a sunset, contemplating the multitude of stars in the night sky while camping, visiting a wilderness spot in the mountains or just sitting in meditation or doing yoga - glimpses of the unknown are rare, but they do happen.What does it mean to make it known? For me, it is to write about my own experiences, as a young person thirsty for self-knowledge or meaning, as a mid-life quester seeking answers, the “who am I” phase that has dogged me all my life. The heart is the doorway to the unknown, where feeling masters intellect, another way of knowing.
In Taos, I found the voice of encouragement I was seeking, in the persons of Suzanne Falter-Barnes (howmuchjoy.com) and Jennifer Louden (comfortqueen.com), two marvelous facilitators who helped me believe in me, and gave me the courage and encouragement (courage: comes from Coeur, heart) to manifest on the outside what I was looking for, my soul purpose.
My three main projects were already in infant stages, but I was stalled, waiting for confirmation of my talent or something outside of me, I don’t know what. There, I discovered that the themes I have been working on a long time are still the right ones for me: women’s cycles and spirituality. I ask the circle of friends from Taos to pray for my continued learning and the courage to spread my wings.
I get it now, I have lots of work to do and I also need to pace myself. I left a lot of sadness and old aches behind me – a rebirth of sorts occurred in view of the Sacred Mountain of Taos. I thank the goddesses of creativity and the women who have touched my life, and my generous husband, for the learning I brought home and the continued learning in the future.
follow your heart,jenn
Thursday, August 10, 2006
A new reality
So, back from Taos, and easing into the new 'real' world. Funny about reality, how it changes with your perspective. My life feels like a movie, or a story, that is constantly unfolding. What did I want to find at the Taos Writer's Spa? The freedom to choose, to express my creativity in new ways, to play, to open up to the unknown, to the possibilities, to learn how to work without pushing myself too hard. I have so many ideas for projects that I wanted time to settle down with my self in a quiet, supportive setting and listen in, to decide which project called to me.
I heard coyotes howling almost every night in the mesa behind the Mabel Dodge Luhan lodge. We walked on the pueblo land and saw the sacred mountain up close. There was a very quiet energy flowing through us on that sage-filled land.
Taos Mountain was sitting in front of my window every day. It/he/she made a believer out of a skeptic. I started to fall into a comfortable place inside, a deeper more meaningful place, where I could believe that what I feel is real. Morning affirmations and visualization exercises helped to ground me, and to connect within. to beging to trust my inner guides and messages, start to pay attention to the little things, like the humming bird that hovered beside me on my little 'deck' one morning; to drop down into my spidey senses, and be in my heart-space. It feels like being at home, at one with my body, not separated into mind-body or in my head.
It feels like I'm going against the 'program' to believe that messages can come from inside to guide me, but it also feels increasingly right in my body to believe that I am guided from within with every move I make, every step I take. I begin to let go and trust that the universe loves and supports me.
One morning in between conversations, a rabbit ran right by me - then froze not far away. I walke closer, and it turned and showed it's one eye was watching me. Rabbit in my Native American cards represents 'what you resist will persist'. Time to let go of fear.
"The dream of my life
is to lie down by a slow river
and stare at the light in the trees --
to learn something by being nothing
a little while but the rich
lens of attention."
Mary Oliver
Here is a poem I read at our last council meeting with all the beautiful, creative women there:
Taos Mountain
The air smells of clean laundry or detergent.
A huge cumulus cloud sits over the mountain, called Sacred.
A field with a leaning tree-pole fence leads towards the green foothills
and birds are chortling in the trees nearby.
What is it I came here to find?
Why travel so far to find yourself?
It's inside us, yes, but ungraspable, covered over, like the cloud that
covers the mountain.
From a certain viewpoint or perspective it all becomes clear -
I sit at the foot of the mountain and watch the splendour of cloud shadow
moving over its face.
Without words, the wind reminds me of my breath.
A few thousand miles away from home
I find myself at home.
musemother
I heard coyotes howling almost every night in the mesa behind the Mabel Dodge Luhan lodge. We walked on the pueblo land and saw the sacred mountain up close. There was a very quiet energy flowing through us on that sage-filled land.
Taos Mountain was sitting in front of my window every day. It/he/she made a believer out of a skeptic. I started to fall into a comfortable place inside, a deeper more meaningful place, where I could believe that what I feel is real. Morning affirmations and visualization exercises helped to ground me, and to connect within. to beging to trust my inner guides and messages, start to pay attention to the little things, like the humming bird that hovered beside me on my little 'deck' one morning; to drop down into my spidey senses, and be in my heart-space. It feels like being at home, at one with my body, not separated into mind-body or in my head.
It feels like I'm going against the 'program' to believe that messages can come from inside to guide me, but it also feels increasingly right in my body to believe that I am guided from within with every move I make, every step I take. I begin to let go and trust that the universe loves and supports me.
One morning in between conversations, a rabbit ran right by me - then froze not far away. I walke closer, and it turned and showed it's one eye was watching me. Rabbit in my Native American cards represents 'what you resist will persist'. Time to let go of fear.
"The dream of my life
is to lie down by a slow river
and stare at the light in the trees --
to learn something by being nothing
a little while but the rich
lens of attention."
Mary Oliver
Here is a poem I read at our last council meeting with all the beautiful, creative women there:
Taos Mountain
The air smells of clean laundry or detergent.
A huge cumulus cloud sits over the mountain, called Sacred.
A field with a leaning tree-pole fence leads towards the green foothills
and birds are chortling in the trees nearby.
What is it I came here to find?
Why travel so far to find yourself?
It's inside us, yes, but ungraspable, covered over, like the cloud that
covers the mountain.
From a certain viewpoint or perspective it all becomes clear -
I sit at the foot of the mountain and watch the splendour of cloud shadow
moving over its face.
Without words, the wind reminds me of my breath.
A few thousand miles away from home
I find myself at home.
musemother
Monday, July 24, 2006
Kiss the Sky
Trees Lose Parts of themselves inside a circle of fog, Francis Ponge, translated by Robert Bly
Inside the fog that encloses the trees, they undergo a stripping...Thrown into confusion by a slow oxidation, and humiliated by the sap's withdrawal for the sake of the flowers and fruits, the leaves, following the hot spells of August, cling less anyway.
The up-and-down tunnels inside the bark deepen, and guide the moisture down to earth so as to break off with the more animated parts of the tree.
The flowers are scattered, the fruits brought down. This giving up of their more animated parts, and even of parts of their body, has become, since their earliest days, a familiar pattern for trees.
---------
Ok, what I want to do is invite you to re-read the poem, inserting the word 'menopausal woman' for the word 'tree'. Instead of oxidation, insert, peri-menopause. Imagine the fruits and flowers, leaves and bark as parts of a woman's body, analagous to female organs and body parts. The fact is that, losing moisture and 'giving up of the more animated parts' has been a familiar pattern for menopausal women for years.
Women lose parts of themselves inside the fog of menopause, but it's all for a good cause.
How devastating and beautiful the process of losing one's reliance on the outer 'fertility machine', the bloom and growth parts of the female cycle, and cycling down into the slower, more interior space of 'over-50', even if it's only a temporary slow down. For many women it's the best, most productive time of their lives, once they get past the turbulence and upheaval of hormonal changes, aptly called "The Change". Life choices, marriage choices, career, children - all are called into question. The Authentic Voice is longing to surface. The voice that doesn't care what 'other people' (read 'women') think, and that longs to run barefoot through the morning grass again in her underwear. The Voice that is rooted in the body.
I'm still waiting for that "most productive time" to kick in. Right now, it's rest and renewal, and more rest. I'm even curing myself of my addiction to emails. A stiff neck and shoulder has helped me avoid the slavery that the computer demands.
Right now, I'm preparing for a full retreat, a Writer's Spa in Taos New Mexico with the comfort queen. Kiss the sky for me, as Georgia O'Keeffe would say. I'm heading for that open sky in two days. Last night's double rainbow in flourescent colours against a dark grey sky (over Calabogie Lake, Ontario) was a good omen. I may meet my Self on the way back.
jenn
musemother
Inside the fog that encloses the trees, they undergo a stripping...Thrown into confusion by a slow oxidation, and humiliated by the sap's withdrawal for the sake of the flowers and fruits, the leaves, following the hot spells of August, cling less anyway.
The up-and-down tunnels inside the bark deepen, and guide the moisture down to earth so as to break off with the more animated parts of the tree.
The flowers are scattered, the fruits brought down. This giving up of their more animated parts, and even of parts of their body, has become, since their earliest days, a familiar pattern for trees.
---------
Ok, what I want to do is invite you to re-read the poem, inserting the word 'menopausal woman' for the word 'tree'. Instead of oxidation, insert, peri-menopause. Imagine the fruits and flowers, leaves and bark as parts of a woman's body, analagous to female organs and body parts. The fact is that, losing moisture and 'giving up of the more animated parts' has been a familiar pattern for menopausal women for years.
Women lose parts of themselves inside the fog of menopause, but it's all for a good cause.
How devastating and beautiful the process of losing one's reliance on the outer 'fertility machine', the bloom and growth parts of the female cycle, and cycling down into the slower, more interior space of 'over-50', even if it's only a temporary slow down. For many women it's the best, most productive time of their lives, once they get past the turbulence and upheaval of hormonal changes, aptly called "The Change". Life choices, marriage choices, career, children - all are called into question. The Authentic Voice is longing to surface. The voice that doesn't care what 'other people' (read 'women') think, and that longs to run barefoot through the morning grass again in her underwear. The Voice that is rooted in the body.
I'm still waiting for that "most productive time" to kick in. Right now, it's rest and renewal, and more rest. I'm even curing myself of my addiction to emails. A stiff neck and shoulder has helped me avoid the slavery that the computer demands.
Right now, I'm preparing for a full retreat, a Writer's Spa in Taos New Mexico with the comfort queen. Kiss the sky for me, as Georgia O'Keeffe would say. I'm heading for that open sky in two days. Last night's double rainbow in flourescent colours against a dark grey sky (over Calabogie Lake, Ontario) was a good omen. I may meet my Self on the way back.
jenn
musemother
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
bare bones and motherfamine
we are the bones of our mothers, we come from the bones of our mothers, we are starved for the cellular lustre of our mother's listening, our hearts crave mothering, and it feels good to read about Mary Magdalene as part of the Divine Mother that was 'x'd out of our conscious worship/awe eons ago, after the mother goddesses (read: pagan idols) were destroyed, burned, defiled, and the Father gods enthroned in her place - we lost the couple-ness, the duality. Life is duality, life is dual, egg and sperm, yin and yang. Night and day.
this motherfamine is our song of loss and ache of being for somehting deep, rooted inside our female bodies (and our male bodies), a call or longing for wholeness.
she was lost to us before we were born, as Adrienne Rich says. this honey nectar of mother love - how love the self, if you are woman, and are not in love with the feminine?
some musings on the brink of thunder, under a darkening sky, this July morning, watching the wind in the oak leaves frolic and blow. Remember the anointing, the sacred ointment poured out over Jesus, 'wasted' some said, the bride of the king giving him a special symbolic bathing in rich perfumed oils, and then her tears, and her hair rubbing his feet dry. the sensuality of spirit marrying spirit, inside the flesh.
Manna, breath of life, says the Dolphin in my cards this morning. Connect with divine energy through breath. Sacred Breath.
Dear reader, come play in the great ocean! Breathe, dance, dive deep. Open your heart and receive. Life.
this motherfamine is our song of loss and ache of being for somehting deep, rooted inside our female bodies (and our male bodies), a call or longing for wholeness.
she was lost to us before we were born, as Adrienne Rich says. this honey nectar of mother love - how love the self, if you are woman, and are not in love with the feminine?
some musings on the brink of thunder, under a darkening sky, this July morning, watching the wind in the oak leaves frolic and blow. Remember the anointing, the sacred ointment poured out over Jesus, 'wasted' some said, the bride of the king giving him a special symbolic bathing in rich perfumed oils, and then her tears, and her hair rubbing his feet dry. the sensuality of spirit marrying spirit, inside the flesh.
Manna, breath of life, says the Dolphin in my cards this morning. Connect with divine energy through breath. Sacred Breath.
Dear reader, come play in the great ocean! Breathe, dance, dive deep. Open your heart and receive. Life.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
lavish listening
My personal trainer and I had a chat about women and migraines today. I said, I think it's so common because we hate our bodies, hate our female processes, the fact that we menstruate, etc. She said, but they have given birth, they must feel the miracle of their bodies working. Yes, I said, but they numb themselves with epidurals (well, so did I for the first birth but I didn't plan to); caesarians are becoming so common the Canadian Medical Association is taking notice - because they cost the state too much. But the women forget about the recovery, having their abdomen cut in two, muscles that weren't meant to be cut open. They don't want stretch marks anywhere, won't breastfeed to keep their boobs in shape, want their vaginas virginal, act as if their bodies are their enemies, not their friends. I think self-hate is behind migraines.
PMS - pas ma semaine! is what my husband called it. but if we get enough alone time, rest time, interior tuning time, the symptoms may lessen. Honour thy cycle!
Lavish yourself with care, good food, exercise, sleep, good company, and you'll be amazed at how you feel.
Listen to your body - how many of us break a leg, an ankle, tear a ligament, strain a muscle, before we'll give ourselves permission to slow down, rest. Who are we doing it all for?
Appreciate life - if you are feeling dizzy and disoriented, maybe you're not being 'home' enough. Where is home? You carry it with you.
Lavish listening : one moment at a time. Just be. Help yourself.
"Middle age is a mental state. It begins when you accept your own power and are willing to exercise it, by shaping your own life and contributing to society at large." Zsuzsanna Budapest, The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries
I want to be a lavish woman.
to flow, lava-like.
lavish praise.
lavish giving.
from laver: to wash
Here is a link to hear some menopausal poems, read at the Atwater Library, April 13, 2006.
try this link:
http://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/en/node/49
or you can visit www.atwaterlibrary.ca, click 'computer services' and'audio' or poets, then click on my name. They suggest you save it first,then listen to it, if you want to download the file.
musemother
PMS - pas ma semaine! is what my husband called it. but if we get enough alone time, rest time, interior tuning time, the symptoms may lessen. Honour thy cycle!
Lavish yourself with care, good food, exercise, sleep, good company, and you'll be amazed at how you feel.
Listen to your body - how many of us break a leg, an ankle, tear a ligament, strain a muscle, before we'll give ourselves permission to slow down, rest. Who are we doing it all for?
Appreciate life - if you are feeling dizzy and disoriented, maybe you're not being 'home' enough. Where is home? You carry it with you.
Lavish listening : one moment at a time. Just be. Help yourself.
"Middle age is a mental state. It begins when you accept your own power and are willing to exercise it, by shaping your own life and contributing to society at large." Zsuzsanna Budapest, The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries
I want to be a lavish woman.
to flow, lava-like.
lavish praise.
lavish giving.
from laver: to wash
Here is a link to hear some menopausal poems, read at the Atwater Library, April 13, 2006.
try this link:
http://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/en/node/49
or you can visit www.atwaterlibrary.ca, click 'computer services' and'audio' or poets, then click on my name. They suggest you save it first,then listen to it, if you want to download the file.
musemother
Saturday, May 06, 2006
may mother of months
O may is the month of our mother
the glorious (something) of May....
we used to sing that in our two room school house, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Braeside Ontario.
Listen, something is about to happen
...
this is the day, the week
it may happen, the first leaves
...
listen to the birds
they speak, but from the wordless place
Song for Earth Day, (from Poems from my Backyard)
see www.souaid.com for more poems by me (Jennifer Boire) just posted in the guest poet section.
I am working on a new manuscript, on several actually, on a journal format about turning 50, on a non-fiction book for girls, and a collection of poems entitled Women are Lunar, the menopause series.
Happy May,
musemother
the glorious (something) of May....
we used to sing that in our two room school house, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Braeside Ontario.
Listen, something is about to happen
...
this is the day, the week
it may happen, the first leaves
...
listen to the birds
they speak, but from the wordless place
Song for Earth Day, (from Poems from my Backyard)
see www.souaid.com for more poems by me (Jennifer Boire) just posted in the guest poet section.
I am working on a new manuscript, on several actually, on a journal format about turning 50, on a non-fiction book for girls, and a collection of poems entitled Women are Lunar, the menopause series.
Happy May,
musemother
Monday, April 24, 2006
musemother
Poetry Readings in April,
rundown: last Saturday night in Portland Ontario, at the Legion Hall, a rousing round of poetry by John B, from LA, myself and Anders, organized with gusto by Anders Carson and his wife Vicky, and their lovely community. Jazz band's lively sets in between kept us bopping and hopping.
Thanks to all for such a great welcome and keen ears and hearts.
Atwater Poetry Project: ms Menopause in attendance again - boy she gets around. Took off her hat and gloves (Sabbatu, rest day, means no work, lie on the lounger) and read from the heart. A quiet audience, but appreciative. Thanks to Oana for organizing this series> Even if the venue is uninspiring....
Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School, classes of Mrs. Lori Brown, Grade nine and ten. Young Poets Week event. (QWF and League of Canadian Poets)
It was a pleasure to introduce these lively young people to some poets they may not have heard before, to awaken the ear to sound and the eye to metaphor: Neruda's Ode to my Sox, and Quincy Troupe's Magic Johnson - full of basketball lingo that the guys in the class translated for me - take it to the hoop Magic! My first time reading in a classroom, and I hope not the last.
Cafe l'Utopik and Restaurant El Rancho,
both bilingual events, with readings and music and even puppets made of driftwood. Thanks to Lynne Cooper who let me unveil Ms Menopause in her leopard skin pill box hat (of Bob Dylan variety) and read a message from the Queen of Heaven, and to Elizabeth Roberts for the trilingual event with Chilean poets in attendance too.
musemother
rundown: last Saturday night in Portland Ontario, at the Legion Hall, a rousing round of poetry by John B, from LA, myself and Anders, organized with gusto by Anders Carson and his wife Vicky, and their lovely community. Jazz band's lively sets in between kept us bopping and hopping.
Thanks to all for such a great welcome and keen ears and hearts.
Atwater Poetry Project: ms Menopause in attendance again - boy she gets around. Took off her hat and gloves (Sabbatu, rest day, means no work, lie on the lounger) and read from the heart. A quiet audience, but appreciative. Thanks to Oana for organizing this series> Even if the venue is uninspiring....
Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School, classes of Mrs. Lori Brown, Grade nine and ten. Young Poets Week event. (QWF and League of Canadian Poets)
It was a pleasure to introduce these lively young people to some poets they may not have heard before, to awaken the ear to sound and the eye to metaphor: Neruda's Ode to my Sox, and Quincy Troupe's Magic Johnson - full of basketball lingo that the guys in the class translated for me - take it to the hoop Magic! My first time reading in a classroom, and I hope not the last.
Cafe l'Utopik and Restaurant El Rancho,
both bilingual events, with readings and music and even puppets made of driftwood. Thanks to Lynne Cooper who let me unveil Ms Menopause in her leopard skin pill box hat (of Bob Dylan variety) and read a message from the Queen of Heaven, and to Elizabeth Roberts for the trilingual event with Chilean poets in attendance too.
musemother
city and green
here be green leaves, here be April rain and tulips, moss on trees and grey skies, oh heart that wanders, find your peace in rootedness, even in turbulent skies on a plane before touch down, there is a prayer from the heart to be calm, to not panic, to hold on to the common center, to the human, humility, of peace in the middle of the battlefield. Yes, even at home, especially the first day back, amidst a ton of laundry covering the floor and a ton of emails to answer.
paix et amour,
musemother
paix et amour,
musemother
The Oasis
Back from New York, I found this on my desktop. Never sent it out to be published, so will post it for you to read of my harried life a few years back:
In a hurried, harried world, sitting in stillness has taught me that the immediate present is the only place I can be at peace. Some days, I have no control over outside events, and the best I seem to be able to do is damage control.
This winter was a prime example: between a pedagogical holiday and one child sick, my two kids were home practically a whole week. My daughter had an ear infection, the dog vomited in the car, the kitchen sink got clogged with sand, and the heat pump started frosting up. Between plumbers, vets and doctor’s appointments, my regular schedule was totally disrupted. On days like that, if I don’t spend time in the quiet sanctuary within, it’s not a pretty sight. By Wednesday, the tone of my voice was getting shrill. The sore shoulder was acting up, there were groceries to unload from the car, and the kids made a beeline for the door, leaving me with the bags. “Come back and help me!” I yelled. It was already 6:15 pm, and I was totally clueless as to what to make for supper, (too late to make that beef stew I had planned). It may not be all out nuclear war, but my kids wisely aim for the hills, or hide behind closed doors when Mommy starts yelling. By Thursday, I was ready to abandon my list of things to do. No point fighting the chaos, which was not going away. I was no longer willing to let it disrupt my equilibrium. Nothing to do but surrender the battle, and wave the flag of peace.
I have learned the hard way that if I don’t spend time cultivating my inner oasis, this mom will soon be scraping rock bottom with nothing to give. That’s not the kind of mom I want to be, so I’m learning that nurturing my need for balance and peace inside me actually improves the harmony in my household. The trick is to find a quiet time to be alone, when no one can disturb me. For me, this means waking up early before the kids are up, or after they have left for school. I sit in my comfy chair with my eyes closed, a warm shawl draped around me and practise some simple techniques for going within and feeling peace. I don’t need any props or candles, not even incense or soft flute music in the background. My peace is absolutely portable; it’s always with me, as long as I make the time. The hitch is to put off the busy list maker for a while. My teacher Prem Rawat once said ‘If you don’t sit still, how can you expect peace and tranquility to catch up with you?’ My thirst for peace is what propels me to go within.
Why go within? Within is where being takes priority over doing. Here is a time to set all other matters aside and enjoy the rich well of contentment that fills me with every breath. Focusing within, I allow my senses to be soothed from a different place. Instead of roaming lost in worries about tomorrow, or mulling over yesterday’s mistakes, I relish the stillness that is right now. Within me is a sanctuary that costs nothing, and is accessible at all hours of the day or night. The missing peace finds me, when I slow down, and sit still.
A good day is a day that I can feel at peace, even in the midst of unscheduled appointments, a puppy that chews my boots, kids’ illnesses, and getting my teen son off to school with a decent lunch packed. A good day is when I stop worrying about what is out of my control and put my focus on what is within my reach to improve. A good day is when I remember to eat regular meals so I don’t get cranky, get some fresh air and sign up for that Jazz Ballet class. And every day I practice the simple techniques that help me turn my attention within. Even in the middle of the day, I want to remember how close this peace is to me. Sometimes I even give myself a short break, get up from the computer and look out the window at the cardinal on the bird feeder. Amidst the rays of sun, the crystal flakes are like a bright dust falling outside the window. I take a deep breath, revelling in the serenity and calm.
I don’t have to wait for the resolution to end all wars on the planet. I don’t even have to wait until my children stop having earaches or the puppy learns not to chew on my boots. Peace is not hiding on the top of some far away mountain, or at the bottom of the sea. It's tiny doorway lies within me.
Jennifer Boire
In a hurried, harried world, sitting in stillness has taught me that the immediate present is the only place I can be at peace. Some days, I have no control over outside events, and the best I seem to be able to do is damage control.
This winter was a prime example: between a pedagogical holiday and one child sick, my two kids were home practically a whole week. My daughter had an ear infection, the dog vomited in the car, the kitchen sink got clogged with sand, and the heat pump started frosting up. Between plumbers, vets and doctor’s appointments, my regular schedule was totally disrupted. On days like that, if I don’t spend time in the quiet sanctuary within, it’s not a pretty sight. By Wednesday, the tone of my voice was getting shrill. The sore shoulder was acting up, there were groceries to unload from the car, and the kids made a beeline for the door, leaving me with the bags. “Come back and help me!” I yelled. It was already 6:15 pm, and I was totally clueless as to what to make for supper, (too late to make that beef stew I had planned). It may not be all out nuclear war, but my kids wisely aim for the hills, or hide behind closed doors when Mommy starts yelling. By Thursday, I was ready to abandon my list of things to do. No point fighting the chaos, which was not going away. I was no longer willing to let it disrupt my equilibrium. Nothing to do but surrender the battle, and wave the flag of peace.
I have learned the hard way that if I don’t spend time cultivating my inner oasis, this mom will soon be scraping rock bottom with nothing to give. That’s not the kind of mom I want to be, so I’m learning that nurturing my need for balance and peace inside me actually improves the harmony in my household. The trick is to find a quiet time to be alone, when no one can disturb me. For me, this means waking up early before the kids are up, or after they have left for school. I sit in my comfy chair with my eyes closed, a warm shawl draped around me and practise some simple techniques for going within and feeling peace. I don’t need any props or candles, not even incense or soft flute music in the background. My peace is absolutely portable; it’s always with me, as long as I make the time. The hitch is to put off the busy list maker for a while. My teacher Prem Rawat once said ‘If you don’t sit still, how can you expect peace and tranquility to catch up with you?’ My thirst for peace is what propels me to go within.
Why go within? Within is where being takes priority over doing. Here is a time to set all other matters aside and enjoy the rich well of contentment that fills me with every breath. Focusing within, I allow my senses to be soothed from a different place. Instead of roaming lost in worries about tomorrow, or mulling over yesterday’s mistakes, I relish the stillness that is right now. Within me is a sanctuary that costs nothing, and is accessible at all hours of the day or night. The missing peace finds me, when I slow down, and sit still.
A good day is a day that I can feel at peace, even in the midst of unscheduled appointments, a puppy that chews my boots, kids’ illnesses, and getting my teen son off to school with a decent lunch packed. A good day is when I stop worrying about what is out of my control and put my focus on what is within my reach to improve. A good day is when I remember to eat regular meals so I don’t get cranky, get some fresh air and sign up for that Jazz Ballet class. And every day I practice the simple techniques that help me turn my attention within. Even in the middle of the day, I want to remember how close this peace is to me. Sometimes I even give myself a short break, get up from the computer and look out the window at the cardinal on the bird feeder. Amidst the rays of sun, the crystal flakes are like a bright dust falling outside the window. I take a deep breath, revelling in the serenity and calm.
I don’t have to wait for the resolution to end all wars on the planet. I don’t even have to wait until my children stop having earaches or the puppy learns not to chew on my boots. Peace is not hiding on the top of some far away mountain, or at the bottom of the sea. It's tiny doorway lies within me.
Jennifer Boire
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Mother of all cities
So, the day before Easter, dark rainy skies. Droplets of water hanging off the young oak in front of my window. It's too early to get up, just 7:00 am-ish. And already reading my emails.
Off to New York this week with the family, to see The Producers and Spam alot on Broadway. tripping the light...
Dear Muse, it was a full moon two nights ago, and I thought of you. Black crow lands on the ash tree, bare, bleak against white siding. Land on my soul, touch me with your art, let the dual muses of poetry and Montreal, the city with heart, breathe into me.
Maple, dark with rain and moss, shorn branches from the ice storm, still unhealed wound on your side. There are too many of us, poets, writing in the dawn.
Ms. Menopause read on the night of the full moon, to a small audience at the Atwater Library. Dull room, poor lighting, I forgot my reading glasses. Someone kindly lent me theirs, and I noticed a smokey odour as I lifted them to my face. Later I pulled on the leopard spotted pillbox hat, the long gloves, to read a message from the Queen of Heaven. Be brave, foolish heart. Expose yourself to art.
one day, somone will post a comment....
Off to New York this week with the family, to see The Producers and Spam alot on Broadway. tripping the light...
Dear Muse, it was a full moon two nights ago, and I thought of you. Black crow lands on the ash tree, bare, bleak against white siding. Land on my soul, touch me with your art, let the dual muses of poetry and Montreal, the city with heart, breathe into me.
Maple, dark with rain and moss, shorn branches from the ice storm, still unhealed wound on your side. There are too many of us, poets, writing in the dawn.
Ms. Menopause read on the night of the full moon, to a small audience at the Atwater Library. Dull room, poor lighting, I forgot my reading glasses. Someone kindly lent me theirs, and I noticed a smokey odour as I lifted them to my face. Later I pulled on the leopard spotted pillbox hat, the long gloves, to read a message from the Queen of Heaven. Be brave, foolish heart. Expose yourself to art.
one day, somone will post a comment....
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Mothering the muse
Mothering the Muse
-musings on finding creative space published in Q-Write Newsletter of Quebec Writers Federation
“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy.”
Orson Wells.
It’s a common view that all mothers are selfless, compassionate and hardworking. Although far from selfless myself, I admit the mother in me has taken precedence over the writer these past few months. When a deadline is approaching, I only wish I could leave the dishes unwashed, let moldy t-shirts lie on the floor, leave the teens to fend for themselves for supper. In fact, the central conflict in my life right now is how to leave the mother side behind and nurture the writer. How to mother the muse?
Sheherazade told her stories each night to avoid having her head chopped off. Mothers know a lot about sleepless nights, endless stories and little tyrants demanding, “just one more” or off with your head. Inherent to mothering and writing is this conflict of roles that resist merging. In my mind, I can be either a good mother or a good poet. The poet in me hates schedules, discipline and regular habits. She is moody and rebellious and she doesn’t like to be disturbed. She equates creativity with messiness. Sometimes the Muse is hard to grab onto, so I spend days writing myself reminders to write in my notebook. Sometimes I actually do it.
Maybe the trouble I have is with my image of writers and mothers: mothers are supposed to love their offspring unconditionally, drop their own projects to sew elastics on ballet shoes or drive someone to the video store. Mothers don’t say “go away,” when their daughters come bugging them for help with French homework. They don’t put up a sign on their office door that says DO NOT DISTURB. In my mind, a “real” writer is a cranky old man with a pipe and beard who works in his study and never lets any children or noise in. Children tiptoe around him and never dare hug him. At his door stands a wife, ready to shoo the young ones away and answer the phone, deal with the plumber and cook the meals. Ah, the wife… well, that would be me.
It feels like the “real writers” are cooped up like hermits behind closed doors or in mountain retreats communing with the Muse. And the “real mothers” are baking brownies, washing floors and carpooling hockey teams. But I am a hybrid: a writing mother, and I manage to do both, with some compromise.
If I don’t mother the Muse, i.e., make time to write, my inner Hemingway comes alive. Then watch out! Mothering the Muse sometimes means answering her call in the middle of the night, or finding the tiny cracks in the day’s schedule where inspiration wafts up, in between breakfast dishes and homework and chauffeur service to after-school activities. It can also mean leaving the house to write in a café, waking up 15 minutes earlier to write a few morning pages, or spending the day at a friend’s cottage, where the octopus of household tasks does not live. I have to check my “mother guilt” at the door, though; it’s only one more block to my creativity.
Self-discipline and summoning up the courage to value my work above all other tasks are the biggest part of the challenge. Like most writers, I find that the trick is the doing of it, not the thinking about it. Maybe I can’t lock myself away in a cabin in absolute stillness and silence. But in the past 10 years I have somehow managed to publish a book and a chapbook, and to teach a course in journal writing, all while raising two kids.
Mothering has become a theme, a puzzle I am trying to figure out in my writing. My first book, Little Mother, explored in prose and poetry my first pregnancy, childbirth and nursing, as well as the earlier drama of living with an alcoholic mother. My latest creative project is a play about Eve’s mother. Mothering the muse, musing on mothering, it has all become one. Ideally, with a little help to manage household duties – cleaning ladies are true angels – and a little support from the Muse, a new manuscript will soon be in the mail to publishing houses. So, Muse, I am making an appointment with you for 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning – whoops, I forgot, school is out tomorrow. How about next week?
-musings on finding creative space published in Q-Write Newsletter of Quebec Writers Federation
“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy.”
Orson Wells.
It’s a common view that all mothers are selfless, compassionate and hardworking. Although far from selfless myself, I admit the mother in me has taken precedence over the writer these past few months. When a deadline is approaching, I only wish I could leave the dishes unwashed, let moldy t-shirts lie on the floor, leave the teens to fend for themselves for supper. In fact, the central conflict in my life right now is how to leave the mother side behind and nurture the writer. How to mother the muse?
Sheherazade told her stories each night to avoid having her head chopped off. Mothers know a lot about sleepless nights, endless stories and little tyrants demanding, “just one more” or off with your head. Inherent to mothering and writing is this conflict of roles that resist merging. In my mind, I can be either a good mother or a good poet. The poet in me hates schedules, discipline and regular habits. She is moody and rebellious and she doesn’t like to be disturbed. She equates creativity with messiness. Sometimes the Muse is hard to grab onto, so I spend days writing myself reminders to write in my notebook. Sometimes I actually do it.
Maybe the trouble I have is with my image of writers and mothers: mothers are supposed to love their offspring unconditionally, drop their own projects to sew elastics on ballet shoes or drive someone to the video store. Mothers don’t say “go away,” when their daughters come bugging them for help with French homework. They don’t put up a sign on their office door that says DO NOT DISTURB. In my mind, a “real” writer is a cranky old man with a pipe and beard who works in his study and never lets any children or noise in. Children tiptoe around him and never dare hug him. At his door stands a wife, ready to shoo the young ones away and answer the phone, deal with the plumber and cook the meals. Ah, the wife… well, that would be me.
It feels like the “real writers” are cooped up like hermits behind closed doors or in mountain retreats communing with the Muse. And the “real mothers” are baking brownies, washing floors and carpooling hockey teams. But I am a hybrid: a writing mother, and I manage to do both, with some compromise.
If I don’t mother the Muse, i.e., make time to write, my inner Hemingway comes alive. Then watch out! Mothering the Muse sometimes means answering her call in the middle of the night, or finding the tiny cracks in the day’s schedule where inspiration wafts up, in between breakfast dishes and homework and chauffeur service to after-school activities. It can also mean leaving the house to write in a café, waking up 15 minutes earlier to write a few morning pages, or spending the day at a friend’s cottage, where the octopus of household tasks does not live. I have to check my “mother guilt” at the door, though; it’s only one more block to my creativity.
Self-discipline and summoning up the courage to value my work above all other tasks are the biggest part of the challenge. Like most writers, I find that the trick is the doing of it, not the thinking about it. Maybe I can’t lock myself away in a cabin in absolute stillness and silence. But in the past 10 years I have somehow managed to publish a book and a chapbook, and to teach a course in journal writing, all while raising two kids.
Mothering has become a theme, a puzzle I am trying to figure out in my writing. My first book, Little Mother, explored in prose and poetry my first pregnancy, childbirth and nursing, as well as the earlier drama of living with an alcoholic mother. My latest creative project is a play about Eve’s mother. Mothering the muse, musing on mothering, it has all become one. Ideally, with a little help to manage household duties – cleaning ladies are true angels – and a little support from the Muse, a new manuscript will soon be in the mail to publishing houses. So, Muse, I am making an appointment with you for 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning – whoops, I forgot, school is out tomorrow. How about next week?
musemother
musemother
Well, I forgot how to get back and post another blog, so can't say as I am an expert yet at blogging. It's already been 2 months plus.
Haven't seen anyone answering my quest for info on women's cycles. I am researching a book on the value of the menstrual cycle, and some myths and facts about menstruation. Instead of seeing it as a curse, why can't we understand our symptoms of discomfort may also be coming from our discomfort with our female bodies in general, and with being either overtired, or plain not listening to our need for rest, food, exercise, all reflected in increasing annoyance and PMS. As women and mothers especially, we are raised to be good girls, to give to others before ourselves, and to meet everyone else's needs. Barring any medical reasons for discomfort, it's worth investigating your/our own need for quiet, alone time, and reflection on our inner lives during the few days leading up to our periods. (I personally know at least 4 women who are suffering from burn-out in midlife, and they probably each know four....all work and no play, or rest time makes Jill a dull girl. Menopause, peri-menopause - time to play catch up with self-care)
Ever thought about taking a sabbatical? Well, the thing is, even if you can't leave the job or home for a year, you can take mini-sabbaticals, or mini-retreats to soothe your soul. A walk near a lake, or in a local arboretum, botanical gardens or spending a night outside the city looking at the stars....even staying home and snuggling under the covers once a week instead of running like a maniac to all the social activities we feel we have to do....at least I feel I have to do, these are some of the things I like to do to get back in touch with my woman's soul.
As well as yoga and meditation, walks with my dog, these are my favourite retreats for the sacred feminine in me - and they are not only good for women. Men have an inner feminine too!
Ok that's enough from me - I'm going to send this blog address to people I know all over the place, and see who responds.
A sunny but cold April day in Montreal,
p.s. I am reading some poems in the guise of Ms Menopause next week April 13, at the Atwater Library. Then April 22, in Portland Ontario. Will post those details later.
syonara,
questing girl
Well, I forgot how to get back and post another blog, so can't say as I am an expert yet at blogging. It's already been 2 months plus.
Haven't seen anyone answering my quest for info on women's cycles. I am researching a book on the value of the menstrual cycle, and some myths and facts about menstruation. Instead of seeing it as a curse, why can't we understand our symptoms of discomfort may also be coming from our discomfort with our female bodies in general, and with being either overtired, or plain not listening to our need for rest, food, exercise, all reflected in increasing annoyance and PMS. As women and mothers especially, we are raised to be good girls, to give to others before ourselves, and to meet everyone else's needs. Barring any medical reasons for discomfort, it's worth investigating your/our own need for quiet, alone time, and reflection on our inner lives during the few days leading up to our periods. (I personally know at least 4 women who are suffering from burn-out in midlife, and they probably each know four....all work and no play, or rest time makes Jill a dull girl. Menopause, peri-menopause - time to play catch up with self-care)
Ever thought about taking a sabbatical? Well, the thing is, even if you can't leave the job or home for a year, you can take mini-sabbaticals, or mini-retreats to soothe your soul. A walk near a lake, or in a local arboretum, botanical gardens or spending a night outside the city looking at the stars....even staying home and snuggling under the covers once a week instead of running like a maniac to all the social activities we feel we have to do....at least I feel I have to do, these are some of the things I like to do to get back in touch with my woman's soul.
As well as yoga and meditation, walks with my dog, these are my favourite retreats for the sacred feminine in me - and they are not only good for women. Men have an inner feminine too!
Ok that's enough from me - I'm going to send this blog address to people I know all over the place, and see who responds.
A sunny but cold April day in Montreal,
p.s. I am reading some poems in the guise of Ms Menopause next week April 13, at the Atwater Library. Then April 22, in Portland Ontario. Will post those details later.
syonara,
questing girl
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