Hearing the call, what is waiting to be born

This period of confinement due to the corona virus shutdown around the world is a challenging time for some, and a blessing for others.

If you are struggling to make ends meet, going crazy working at home while your children also need attention, I get it. I have the greatest sympathy (having been a writer who worked at home while my children were young).

But if you find yourself with some extra down time, and have managed to meet all your basic needs for shelter, food, safety, love and belonging, perhaps you are feeling the call for finding a deeper meaning and purpose.

Especially during the mid-life transition,  there is often a call to transformation, to reinvention. This is not so much a mid-life crisis involving little red sports cars as it is a sense of dissatisfaction, of wanting something more, of longing to get in touch with a deeper, soulful part of self. Or of finding meaning and being able to give back to the world.

Personally, I felt it most strongly during menopause, where everything I had done from age 30 to 49 began to drift away. I had been writing and publishing poetry, actively involved in the writing community doing readings and volunteering with the League of poets and local writers' organization, when I suddenly lost interest. I had two teens entering puberty at the same time as my hormones were rising, so the hot flash clash was part of this issue.

But I remember going to a week long writers' retreat and discovering over the course of that time that my true interest was not in belonging to a literary group. I wanted to reach out to women like me, mothers who were at home, part-time or full-time and trying to find their creative flow. I was not motivated by literary prizes as much as getting together with a circle of women and exploring our needs, our themes, our angst and our blessings. My women's circle became a sacred space for me to feel seen and heard.

The Creative Circle I was teaching from home sustained and fed me, as well as providing support for other women for about ten years, but then it happened again, I heard the call to reinvent myself. Maybe because I had been giving and supporting others all my life, as a eldest daughter, mother, and teacher, my well was a bit empty. I wondered how I could continue to serve while taking care of myself and feeding my soul. I took a year long course on Rites of Passage and how to create rituals so I could incorporate that on retreats with my circle of women and also celebrate their turning fifty.

But soon I was 60 and menopause long past. I was not an elder yet, nor a grandmother. Who was I now? What did I really want to do with my wild and precious life? I did what I often do when in a period of not knowing, I left for two weeks on a pilgrimage to Ireland visiting various sacred sites of the goddess with a Celtic Shaman. During a drumming ritual and ceremony, she helped remind me that my creative center was calling out for me to nourish it with something just for me. I came back still reluctant to stop leading workshops.

I was, however, keenly interested in my mother's ancestors from Ireland. How had my great grandmother's voices been shut down, and how could I dialogue with their stories of anxiety, depression and other challenges, and learn more about my own? I began writing a memoir, using letters and information from my mother, my maternal aunts, and a memoir written by a great-aunt about her life in the early years of the 20th century. I lost my mother recently, at age 89, and feel a need to get back to that writing and expand it.

All this to say, my life pattern since my mid-forties has been one of frequent reinvention, new projects, studying with teachers and travelling on pilgrimages, but above all, seeking to listen to the inner call and follow my intuition. Honing the feminine side and listening to my intuition may have been the real goal all along, rather than changing my role, giving myself a new job to do, or even a new book to write.

This call to finding our core values or selves, and honour our inner depths, may lead us to leave behind certain roles or aspects of our selves. We may feel disoriented or lost in the maze of choices available to us and not know what we really want. I know many women in my circle have gone through this in their late forties and fifties.

What I have found is that creative process has been so helpful - whether it's by using journal writing, taking a class on fairy tales and myth, using ritual and ceremony, or making collages and using the symbolic language of images, we need to find a way to go beyond our rational selves, and get back in touch with our deeper longing.

This inner voice is often covered over by the outer world of busyness, or by guilt of not being seen as productive - which makes this confinement period a great gift - we may have less structured work time, more silence, more alone time, and more opportunity to reflect, and get a clearer picture of what the elements calling out to us are. If we choose to, of course. There is always the option to pig out on ice cream and chocolate, binge-watch shows on Netflix and zone out, which I also have resorted to over the past two months. Right now my hunger is for something real, something deep and authentic, and perhaps you feel that way too.

What I want to offer you is a path to regain strength and serenity from simple practices that help to tend the soul, listen to your heart, and find where your life is calling you. Sorting and sifting, like Psyche in the underworld sorting peas and beans, is an essential task. Making peace with the past, embracing all the parts of us, the fabulous and the flawed, are also important mid-life tasks.

Life is a process of growth and change. Little by little, we find new versions of ourselves waking up, or older versions and dreams we had forgotten being revealed. Paying attention to our lives requires we grow out of the limited awareness of ourselves as merely the 'roles' we play.  Learning that our struggles and challenges are great teachers, and that we have hidden allies on our side, will help us discover our dreams, our loves and fears and bring new self-awareness, as Bud Harris, the author of Sacred Selfishness says. SoulCollage(R) and journaling have both helped me redefine who I am, embrace all the parts of myself, the fabulous and the flawed with greater self-compassion.

I hope to offer an on-line class coming soon which will help us remember What Wants to be Born in You. It is never too late to dig deep and hear the call.

See my website for more information about what I offer and sign up for my newsletter so you can find out when this class will begin.  online classes can be followed by zoom from the comfort of your living room or bedroom; a circle of support created with you in mind.

www.jenniferboire.com

My mid-life journey

I have always considered myself a writer, first and foremost, until I discovered in my late 40’s that I enjoy working with women in creative circles more than sitting at home alone writing. I’m also learning about my archetypes – and how my Caretaker, Spiritual seeker and Creative artist side are all balancing out in this facilitating and teaching role.

While the kids were growing up, I spent my spare time writing poetry in my little office at home, alone, without much feedback, besides the odd publication, without nourishing conversations with other women, in a competitive literary environment. On the Writers Spa trip to Taos in 2006, I was asked if I really wanted to make it in the literary world, and I realized my answer was no. I wanted to reach mainstream women, and write a blog on my menopausal journey. The Tao of Turning Fifty (2012) was born out of that blog.

The search for meaning and purpose is rarely a straight line. There are many dead-ends, wrong turns, swamps of despair, mountains to climb, but as Carolyn Myss says, we have a blueprint in our souls, and if we follow our excitement, our passionate likes, we will uncover the energy we didn’t know we had, that has been pushed down or covered up. Following our ‘loves’, what we used to do and love, gives us a big hit of an endorphin, pleasure rush. For me, getting back to dancing and singing on stage with the Hudson Music Club was 100% more fulfilling than reading my meager poems in front of a static and often unappreciative audience. I rediscovered my Performer self, by following my love of singing.

Lately, taking classes in expressive arts and working with creative process has awakened my inner child-artist self. The one who loved drawing and colouring, sketching flowers and seedpods in my science workbook at school, before somebody shut me down in Grade four by accusing me of copying someone else’s work in an art class. Now I’m integrating this love of art making into my Creative Circle, and have reinvented myself online as Creative Soulful Woman. Naming and Claiming my creative energies has been so empowering.

At mid-life, we are free, more than ever, to rediscover what we love, to get into Creative Flow, find out what makes us glow. It’s high time to let go and release what no longer serves you or makes you feel small. It’s time to tune in, receive inner guidance, and get help from intuitive clues.

Ask yourself, What do I love? What would I do if it weren’t so selfish? (especially if you’re a caretaker type).

My own Caretaker/mother and Artist/performer selves are no longer in conflict. My kids have flown the coop and I am free to pursue my hobbies and creative interests (as long as I don't overload my self with lists of things to do and house projects!)

How about you? Can you carve out some time just for you? 

Make a plan, pencil it in, take a class, put on your dancing shoes, buy a bike. It’s time to enjoy the rest of your life.

See www.archetypes.com for a quiz to find your Archetypes

Jennifer Boire

Creative Soulful Woman

find me on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn

https://www.facebook.com/creativesoulful/ 

NOTE: New On-Line Class called Her Journey: The Heroine's Quest at Mid-Life, 8 weeks, weekly conference call, begins Wed. Oct 12. 7:30 PM EST, all calls recorded, more info and registration on the website. www.jenniferboire.com

Mid-Life Journey Through the Wringer

One summer, while vacationing in Nantucket, I went down to the ocean with my teenage kids, to watch them body surfing and jumping through the 10 foot high waves. It looked like fun, my husband was joining them, but I hesitated on the edge, watching. In one brave moment, I decided to dive through a big wave and reach them on the other side, thinking I knew how, from observing them.

Wham! I was pulled under, rolled around and sent into a spinning topsy turvy roll, struggling to get back to the sandy shore. My husband held out his hand to help me, only to get thrown on top of me, as we rolled over and over, unable to stand or catch our breath until the Wringer was done with us. Once I got back on my knees on the sand, gasping for air, I pulled up my bathing suit, shook the sand out of my bottom, and walked shakily back to the cottage to lie down for a while, thoroughly K-O'd by the ocean's powerful waves. A lesson in surrender, and a full Neti saltwater cleanse at the same time.

Recently I was looking at a SoulCollage(R) www.soulcollage.com card I made called Transcendence or Coming Through, which shows a big blue tsunami sized wave, and a woman in performer's mode, arms up, as if to say, Ta-Da! I made it through in one piece.  Thinking back on my menopausal or mid-life journey, that is what it feels like now. Ta-Da! I'm ok now, I can breathe and stand on my own two feet.  Made it through! I know the mid-life transition can feel that way for some women. It's like a huge wave that sends you rolling, topsy turvy, no longer sure there the sky is, where the ground is, where your center is.

And make no mistake, you have to dive in to that wave, you can't really avoid it. But I want to reassure you, you will come out the other side, as long as you take time for yourself: lots of down time, slowing down to feel what you feel, taking notes, and allowing life to teach you whatever lessons it needs to show you. There's no point avoiding the work you need to do - there's no point shutting down your emotions, withdrawing from the process. This is major roadwork - renovations are underway. You are not the project manager, you are the house being renovated. Or so it feels like sometimes.

As Alexandra Pope says in her wonderful book The Wild Genie http://wildgenie.com/ you have to go down and in before you can come up and out.  Face the fears, the demons, give yourself some stretching time to be in your body, do some yoga or tai chi, let yourself write down what you need, allow yourself to imagine what you love, what would really bring you alive, get in touch with your wild feminine landscape - your inner creative fire. Don't fall back asleep - this beautiful transformation called mid-life is a wake-up call to a deeper, more authentic you.

You will make it through the wringer - find some friends to talk with, read all the books and blogs you can find, and perhaps even look into The Tao of Turning Fifty, written by a woman who has been through the wringer and now can say, Ta-Da!

musemother
https://www.facebook.com/Musemother
www.jenniferboire.com  free book excerpt and link to amazon.com

Welcome to 2012

Ok, you've received them too, a slew of Happy New Year pictures and copies of articles on Resolutions or Non-resolutions...getting a wee bit tired of hearing how it's all going to change in this new year. First off, I just got back from five days away, so naturally, the first thing on my list is laundry.

Actually, the first thing on my list today was Clearing Space, and decluttering, which includes emptying suitcases and washing clothes, but more importantly, clearing the mental space I need to begin my day.

Lucky me, I got to sleep in, unlike J who had to leave for work at 7:00 a.m. But instead of waking up to a cranky day of dust and decay, I decided to dust off the soul space. Listening to a CD with Ram chant helped heal my scattered cells and bring center back into focus.  I knelt on the floor and placed the crown of my head on the rug at the end of my yoga stretches, surrendered to peace. Ah, breath fills my lungs and muscles feel more serene, less antsy. Feel the well fill up again after busy dizzy streets of NY, colourful restaurants and French cooking, crazy fun in the city with our kids and friends. Back to ice on the lake, sun sparkling on frozen space out my window and sweet silence filling the air around my eardrums.

This is how my New Year begins.  Usher in the tranquility, release sadness, cranky moods and overwhelm.
Dust off the list of things to do and pick one or two things that really need my attention.

When the brain tires of firing up its 305 million circuits and synapses, it seeks its common denominator, the Anti-dote to stress and confusion, the One singular bell that rings a clear note.....ummmm, I like that. Re-balanced, I stand, two bare feet on the carpet, bent over, looking at my toes, soft chant on the stereo, a mother-lode of reverence.

Then up and on to the day: delete the 250 emails that accumulate while away, send in revisions for my book, delete delete the distractions that divide my attention.

Quiet the loud clanging of commerce and daily bickering over who has more than me - a bigger room, child, cow, wife, necklace, pot of gold, book sales, glass of wine, more facebook likes....

I am not going to plan for the future, at least not today. Today, I begin with rest and Decluttering.
amen,
jenn

Synchronicities and Trusting the Present

This is my new mantra: I am OK. I have everything I need.

First I read it in a little book of affirmations by Louise Hay, I Can Do It. The same clairvoyant my friend saw had told me to look up Hay's books.

The next time I heard the message was at a Woman's Circle meeting with Andrea Pinto, who teaches yoga near here. She gave a talk about higher consciousness, meditation, and then did a visualisation exercise. As I closed my eyes and followed her instructions, I came down a spiral staircase to a wooden door. Inside the room, was a telephone table and inside the drawer was a message for me: I am OK, I have everything I need.

A few weeks went by with me remembering occasionally to repeat this mantra to myself; in the spirit of the Secret, and the Law of Attraction, I am moving out of negative thinking patterns and into an attitude of gratitude. Last weekend, I attended a workshop at Kripalu, in Massachusetts, with some wonderful facilitators helping us to create transformative workshops of our own. One of the information sheets was called, The Practice of Being, and gave instructions on how to breathe into the moment, bring all your attention to the body sensations, feelings and just be a witness, observing with compassion and acceptance as energy moves through us.

It's perhaps all about trust. A new way of being for me. To allow insights and knowing to come into being on their own instead of figuring things out. Got a chance to practice that the next day, at a local high school, as I lead a poetry workshop with 2 classes of Grade 10 students, ("too cool for school" is how the teacher put it). Hmmm, could we start with just being? with breathing in and out to wake up our feeling senses? it worked wonderfully. I am OK, in spite of being nervous, I have everything I need.

In an art class this last week, our teacher and guide, Kate, urged us to use our intuition, not to think too much, just put pastel crayon to paper and let go. Let the fun of colouring come back in, just like it used to when we were little and open to our imaginations. Before we learned the anxiety of pleasing others and comparing ourself to everyone else. We were all nervous, giggling and convinced our 'artwork' was no good. We needed a lot of pats on the back to believe: I am OK, and I have everything I need.

Yesterday, I was at a church service to hear a friend perform two songs. And wouldn't you know it, my mantra showed up there too. The minister used the psalm, the Lord is my Shepherd as the basis for his text, and asked us to respond whenever he said, The Lord is my Shepherd, with "I have everything I need" (another way of saying, I shall not want, the King James version).

I had to laugh, not having been in a church for years, and never having been to a Presbyterian service, that the message of being in the present moment was part of his sermon too. He quoted C.S. Lewis who said being in the present moment is the best way to experience eternity. At the end of the service, a woman got up to offer yoga and meditation classes in the Church annex. So many reminders, so many signposts along the way.

Just for today, I remind myself: I am OK. I have everything I need.

nameste,
musemother

Interview with Bella Part 1

Listening to Body Wisdom, Birth as Transformation and Rite of Passage

Interview with Bella Hoskins, Doula and writer: Our conversation begins with the moment of childbirth but encompasses all three stages of initiation into the Feminine Mysteries: menarche, pregnancy and childbirth, and menopause. I am thrilled to have discovered Bella’s blog, and her work with Birthing from Within and Birth Story Circles. Bella’s is a doula, childbirth mentor, storyteller, myth maker and weaver of words. She has been supporting women in pregnancy, birth and postpartum for the past seven years, honored to bear witness to each woman's unfolding as she gives birth to herself as mother. See her blog at http://www.beyondthemap.blogspot.com/, web site: http://www.chicagobirthrite.com/

Musemother: In a world where masculine principles of competition and success reign, it is hard for a modern woman who has spent her life preparing for a career to suddenly realize she wants to be a mother. And then have to deal with the lack of female companionship once she decides to stay at home with her baby. Our feminine life processes often seem foreign to us.
What knowledge are we missing about pregnancy and childbirth, apart from the medical knowledge we get in pre-natal classes?

Bella: In an energetic or archetypal sense, childbirth is the embodiment of the Feminine. And for some women, this can be a shift, an awakening of long buried parts of themselves. I do not view this as knowledge that is missing, as much as it is an innate knowing which may have became buried or disowned, forgotten or devalued. Childbirth and motherhood can then offer the opportunity for a re-awakening or reclaiming of that which has always been.

What every woman needs to know to give birth is unique to her. In her book Birthing From Within, Pam England speaks of this, that within each woman resides her deepest question. It is not something that can be found in a book or answered by a care provider, as it resides within the woman herself. Only she knows what she needs to give birth. Digging deep to unearth this question and then living with the question is the work of preparation, far more so then having all the answers.

In the end, we cannot truly know or be prepared for birth, at least not in the ways our culture has promised. There are things that cannot be learned but only lived. Preparation has more to do then with opening oneself to dwelling freely in the unknown than in attempting to manage and control outcome. Having life grow within our womb in which we cannot see, all of the letting go that comes with pregnancy, this shows us the way.

Musemother: I love to hear birth described as a ‘hero’s journey’. Joseph Campbell said this about motherhood and I firmly agree. Women face the greatest challenge in giving over their bodies to another life. Then the further sacrifice of putting another life’s needs ahead of their own for many years. Is that what the initiation into motherhood is? About the need for self-sacrifice?

Bella: The very nature of initiation is that it is not something to be known until you have arrived there. Still, we look to those who have been initiated and ask them what it is they know. Not so that we might get to avoid the process, but so that we will know we are not alone when our time comes.

And what is this initiation into motherhood? Self-sacrifice is part of it. As women our bodies are quite literally inhabited by another and this begins what will be a life long process of a giving of ourselves to and for our child. Though many paths can bring us here, mothering is one path in which we are asked to often set aside our own small wants and desires for the sake of another. And yet, I am hesitant to suggest or to feed the climate of dichotomy we live in, a combative relationship that pits mother against child. This is the perspective that says we can tend to our own needs or our child’s, but only one can win out. This has been the seed of much mother guilt and it is helpful to neither mother nor child.

To lose old ideas of self and even some things we once thought of as requirements, such as sleep or privacy any time we want or our notions of freedom, can be a difficult adjustment. And yet the path to surrendering our small selves is where we discover a new idea of freedom, which is freedom from living only to fulfill our own wants and desires, and finding ourselves in love or service. This is not the same as sacrifice that turns mothers into martyrs. If a mother “loses herself” in the name of giving to her child, abandoning her own needs as if they do not matter, then from where is she discovering the resources needed to listen and respond to her child, from what Source does she find the capacity to give?

I would say that the initiation into motherhood is what we see in all such rites of passage: the death of the old self so a new self may be reborn. In giving birth and becoming a mother a woman will lose the self she once was and knew and assumed was “me”. Practical life becomes rearranged and there is a new orientation. Her daily life will become quite different then it was before. And yet, it is more. Giving birth offers the opportunity to awaken as mothers to our child and ourselves. It is not just that we will now sacrifice for our child, but that we now we know we have what it takes to make such sacrifices. When a woman has seen the lengths to which she will go to birth her baby and care for him/her, she discovers within herself the capacity to offer this same love to herself. When a woman has descended and embraced her shadow sister, when she has found within herself “She who knows what to do when she does not know what to do”, she arises not as martyr but fierce warrior. She brings this warrior love to her child, herself and the world.

Musemother: How can we understand giving birth as one of the 3 ‘initiations’ or transformations that women experience from menarche to menopause? Is it helpful for women to understand this deeper significance to giving birth?

Bella: What each of these rites share, beyond the biology of changing hormones, is that they are an entrance into a new self. They all require that we lose what we once were in order to fully enter into what we will become. A girl getting her first period has lost something of her childhood as she moves toward becoming a woman. This is a cause for celebration and it also involves a loss of innocence. They come together, the life cycle found in each initiation. When a woman gives birth she must release who she once was in order to birth her mother self. This is the same even if one has other children. Now, she will no longer be the mother of one, but the mother of two, or many. And the loss is mingled in with the new life.

When a woman begins menopause and enters her power as a crone, she is leaving behind her ability to give birth to children, and it symbolizes the loss of youth and fertility in many ways as well. And yet, she is now free for other creative ventures, for creating and bearing life in ways a young mother cannot, as she is busy with the work of mothering young children. (Many great writers wrote their masterpieces in menopause.) Again, the old self dies so the new might be begin.

The other similarity between these three initiations is that though marked by events, they are very much a process. Seeing it as such can be helpful for a woman in understanding the deeper significance of birth.

Menarche, motherhood and menopause are each their own labyrinth. There is a crossing the threshold that begins the journey. This could be seen as getting your first period, giving birth, or the absence of your period. We often stop here, assuming that this is all there is. When really, menarche is a beginning and it is a process of moving from childhood to young womanhood. Giving birth may place your baby in your arms and yet we become mothers not in one moment or event or day.

Menopause, even when sudden through something such as a hysterectomy, is a passage of the waning of hormones and the internal shifts that accompany this experience. We say a woman is going through menopause or that an adolescent is going through puberty. We acknowledge it as a transition, a transformation marked by an event that in reality must unfold over time. There is wisdom here for mothers. There are the weeks of pregnancy which is a process, and so too is becoming a mother a process, a journey we are walking as though walking a labyrinth.

When walking a labyrinth, one cannot often see where she is going. There are turns and curves and though the center can often be seen, we do not know exactly how we will get there. So we do what we can, which is always enough, and that is take one step after another. Only one step at a time. You may feel you are close to the center, only to realize the path is taking you back out to the perimeter again. One step at a time. You cannot get lost. You may feel confused or unsure. But unlike a maze, there are no dead ends. So you take one step at a time. Arriving at the center of the labyrinth marks the completion of something. You are now most definitely not a child but a young woman. You are now not pregnant but a mother.

You are now not going through menopause but a crone. And then we walk back out and must circle and wind back through the labyrinth. This is when we are integrating that which has taken place within us. We are bringing what we learned and weaving it into our story, creating a life from our transformation. After giving birth, this is when we learn how to be mothers and discover our new mother self in relation to the rest of our life. This is the Return of the hero’s journey.

to be continued

thanks for dropping by,

musemother