Self Care for Menopausal Babes

If you are menopausal or peri-menopausal, as so many of my friends and acquaintances are realizing they are, you have been or will soon be confronted by some form of fatigue - either from insomnia, night sweats or nurturer burn-out. Perhaps you are working as a teacher, nurse, secretary or in some other helping profession. Perhaps you have full-time work at home, or perhaps you have an ailing parent you are caring for as well as your children.

The most important Mother's Week (I've just extended it from one day to one week!) message is the one I received in my in-box this morning from Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and Mother-Daughter Wisdom. I think it's so important I'm passing along an excerpt to you:

"One of the biggest challenges women face is learning how to care for themselves while caring for others. It requires a delicate balance between what often feels like polar opposites. I’ve spent a lifetime studying self-care. And I’ve come to the conclusion that good self-care is the single most important aspect of our health, period. The programming of self-sacrifice leads ultimately to health-destroying sentiments, such as guilt, resentment, anger, and other emotions linked to high levels of stress hormones. Self-sacrifice feels wrong to us on a soul level—our spirit gravitates naturally to joy and happiness. That’s why self-sacrifice ultimately makes us sick and keeps us stuck in dead-end situations."
Dr. Christiane Northrup's e-health newsletter excerpt

Unforunately some of us have been programmed to be good girls, and give selflessly to others without thinking about ourselves. Sometimes it takes a major health challenge, like burn-out or chronic fatigue syndrome or breast cancer, to make us stop and take a look at how we are emptying our feminine container, giving our energy away, and losing our joy.

My wake-up call was a broken leg, and a small cyst in my left breast (which turned out to be filled with a thick creamy substance!) The message took me a while to figure out - but while I was lying in bed with a cast, I had time to think and reflect. I also had time to listen to how my husband was dealing with a busy household, and time to talk with him in the evening about my feelings. I learned I had to speak up and ask for what I wanted (help with kids, help in household), especially in the sensitive area of sexual pleasure. I learned a lot of things.

I learned I was not superwoman, and could not do it all alone.

I learned that nobody else wanted me to be self-sacrificing anyway.

I learned through therapy (after my father passed away and more emotions came up) that I had always felt I wasn't 'enough', not good enough, not pretty enough, etc. And that I overworked myself out of needing to feel worthy. I had a hard time saying no to volunteer jobs for instance, especially if they had a nice title attached like 'coordinator' or 'vice-president'. My self-worth was lower than I imagined. And I was keeping myself too busy to wonder why I felt depressed, stressed and over-extended.

It's a long slow process towards self-honesty, and learning to be true to myself. On the road, I am learning how making myself invulnerable cuts me off from feeling close to people. How controlling others is a technique that used to work for me in my dysfunctional childhood home, but how it doesn't work with my own family now. How pushing myself beyond my comfortable limits makes me end up going over the edge and useless to those who rely on me.

Self-care involves dumping a lot of old baggage that doesn't serve me anymore. Guilt, resentment, anger and stress were making me a very cranky person. That's not the woman I want to be. Menopause has been a gift for me, in that it has forced me to pause and reflect, and dig deep. In that descent into murky waters, I have found some healing. I have begun to accept myself, know my limits better.

I hope you will not wait until something breaks. Heed the warning signs, the tension in your neck and shoulders, the explosive anger and PMS, the extreme fatigue and insomnia, and take action. Slow down. Be kinder to yourself, and that will increase your capacity for kindness to others. If you lose yourself, or your health, you can't help anyone anyway.

One way you can do this is to be mindful of your own body rhythms. See the Women's Wisdom blog (link on the left) for Seven Tips for body guidance.

Keep it simple, and find your joy :)
musemother

Centering in Peace

This morning I sat with myself in the quiet, and let myself sink into the core of peace at my center. There is nowhere else I want to be. There is nothing more important that needs doing.

This is a radical change of awareness, and a necessary one for me.

Finally, I am losing interest in running myself ragged, in losing myself in frantic activity, in senseless doing just to get things done on 'time'. My list of things to do is still there. And yes, the laundry is getting done thanks to a lovely machine in my mudroom. A few more piles await. There are phone calls to make, and people to see.

It's not like I'm a monk in a monastery. I spent a busy weekend preparing for our annual choir competition, then singing for 6 minutes on a big bright stage in Springfield Massachusetts with the Sweet Adelines Region 1. Superb singing, and accapella entertainment all weekend, even on the bus ride home. I came back to my family of teens, dog, and cats, and to a wonderful roast pork lovingly cooked by my husband (his first). The busy beat goes on.

But the thirst, from deep in my heart this first day back, was not to catch up on emails, or read the newspaper back to back, but to sit and feel the warm glow inside me. I must feel this calm centre. I must drink from this oasis. No more eliding, sliding and gliding away from it. Here is nurturing, here is self-care, here is delight, and much much more than this - Maybe only my big toe has gone under the waves, but the ocean beckons. Lose your fear, baby, come in. All the way in.

Being human amounts to this: be conscious and enjoy every moment. Move from there. Be aware of your need - slow down and feel it. I can't tell you why it's important. But it is. Like food, like water, like breath.

See for yourself, feel for yourself, don't take my word for it.

Visit tprf.org (link on left) to find out more. Or wordsofpeace.com. Become your own best friend.

have a wonderful new leaves bursting out kind of day,
musemother
ps this week I want to talk about Mother's Day, self-care, mothering ourselves, and so much more. Stay tuned.

Buds and Birds

So the birds are out building, and the buds are showing, it must be spring - it even warmed up a bit today.

Just a quick note to say I'm back on the blog. After a busy week, learning new skills, learning about myself, digging deeper for conscious awareness of the core of being. Instead of acting and reacting from habit.

no time for longer message right now,
will return,
musemother

Mothering the Monster

Sometimes I imagine I am writing a column that will be read by thousands of women. I read a few articles in the new Chatelaine magazine which focus on mothering, natch because it's Mother's Day in May. It makes me feel like I would love to find that kind of knowledgeable yet slightly snarky voice some of the women have.

Particularly one article about the dark side of mothering. First time in a national magazine that I have read something dealing so honestly with a mother's inadequacies - she admits that she felt she was losing it, describes how she locked herself in the bathroom so she would not harm her two little daughters, one of whom was screaming and banging on the locked door. I think she actually left the marriage and the children temporarily.

I rarely felt it that extremely, but there were definitely times (still are? but rarer) when the screaming ogre, the PMS monster, the mommy-from-hell is at the helm ranting and losing it. When they were really little, I remember trying to meditate one Saturday morning, while little fists banged on the door, crying to come in; and silly me expecting my husband to pick up the slack since it was 'his turn' to care for the kids that morning.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a mask you could put on and take off, the Mommy Monster Mask, and after you acted out your frustration with the mask on you could take it off and reassure everybody that it was all just a play, not for real, that nobody would get hurt. Unfortunately, I think the tiny humans in the house would still run for cover and be extremely afraid.

Love-hate, light-dark, the shadow side of mothering is all too present some days. Most of the time it stems from lack of self-care, I think. The days when the cup runneth over, not of joy but of frustration, are often days when lack of sleep and jangled nerves from too much stress do us in. An article in the G & M newspaper this a.m. says stressed parents affect the health of their kids (DUH!). As if we need a scientific experiment to tell us this....

So harried and harassed moms and dads, please heed the shrill breaking of your nerves and get help! there are herbal remedies, there are breathing exercises, even just going for a run may help you get back on track. Don't neglect yourselves. Mother yourself, baby yourself with little kindnesses regularly. Keep the stress level down - I'm telling myself this, obviously, because when I am stressed my teens start snarling back at me and we all get out of whack. Why am I so hard-headed?

It's taken me this long (and I need reminding) to realize that my energy can shift, and then their energy shifts, and we're happy again.

Sigh, parenting is not about perfection, nor about 'getting it right'. It's about learning. It's about self-acceptance, the darkness and the light. Knock my head on the wall again to find out it hurts. Oh yeah, and naps are a really good way to change the energy to softness, for me.

I'm going away to a conference for 5 days, but will write when I get back.

lots of love,
musemother

feminine energies

I had no idea going into the workshop what would be in store for me. I thought it would entail ritual drama, some mythology, I don't know what.

But it created such a deep sense of safety and peace in me, to be able to focus on my women's work, the writing I do about menopause, birthing, menstruation. To feel this is important and acceptable in a deep nurturing way.

I even brought in some art work of my sister's, and shared that with the circle, a big etching called Goddess Rising, with a woman asleep bent over her body, and a Venus of Willendorf, and a Greek statuette of a faceless woman with delta triangle etched in.

The stone we were asked to bring is one my sister found in England or Scotland, shaped like the top half of one of those round bulbous Venus's with a birdlike head.

We talked about our childhood, our sexuality, our lack of initiation, the need for initiation into women's rites, the monthly moon cycle we didn't celebrate. But it was simple, grounded in our own experience, nothing too esoterical which is what I feared I think.

Somehow it has to be brought into the mainstream, the sound connection, solid real tangible connection of our bodies to the earth, of our inner spirit and our foremother's struggle; somehow I want to celebrate their strength, not bemoan their weaknesses.

I want to find a place to meet, greet, and retreat with other women who long for this kind of communication, rest, rebirth into our authentic selves.

Blessed be,
Ho,
jenn

Poem for the Soul

The soul, like the moon,
is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mind
and my body, I too, Lalla,
am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,
Live in the soul.

When that was so,
I began to go naked,
and dance.

tr. by Coleman Barks

Lal Ded lived in the 14th century in Kashmir. Married at the age of twelve, her husband neglectd her and her mother-in-law treated her harshly; after twelve years she left their house to become a disciple in the Shiva worship tradition and wandered the countryside in a state of undress, singing and dancing her passionate mystical experience. (from Women in Praise of the Sacred, ed by Jane Hirshfield)

The soul, some say, is the feminine essence. I don't assign a gender label to it, even in the Jungian sense of feminine - but it is the soft power, the ageless child within, the well of peace and understanding. Touch a person's soul, and you fall into the infinite wonder.

Have a peaceful wonderful day, let your soul speak to you in metaphor, sunbeams, music.

peace,
musemother

Poem for Earth Day April 22

I was in a wonderful 'awakening feminine energies' workshop so missed posting this for Earth Day. One day late, here it is, a poem that was read aloud to a gathering on Earth Day a few years ago, in Angell Woods.

Angell Woods Poem, Or Finding our Roots

“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”
From Inversnaid, Gerard Manley Hopkins

I
Branches groan & crack like ship’s planks
in wind swell. These woods we crawled out of
one diluvial day, abandoning
the forked branch for a dry cave, eager
for a house that stood still. Here, in these
woods, a new development, larger than large
homes on smaller than small lots, tidy,
tucked in, no wild or wet to blow in.

II
Once lush maple & hickory forest:
tree forts, secret kisses, unmapped unpaved
and wild, a place of wonder for a child
where rabbits lurk, a Cooper’s hawk, a fox,
a marshy bog, or labyrinth for dogs.
While winter drags on in ice & slush,
in these quiet woods, we halt the rush
to stand with trees in mountain pose or
leap into ecstatic spring!

III
To find common ground with a tree, sit
at its root, let cool air ripple your hair.
Know that this maple exhaled so that you
may inhale.
Elders, we listen to their
counsel: longevity, flexibility.
Their casual loss is our casualty.
(Trees, like fairies, must be seen
to be believed.)

Now that the whole world is going green, and we are no longer just 'tree huggers' advocating caring for the planet, our earth mother, let us watch the tight buds unfurl with wonder, and praise the songbirds that make the trees their home and bring us such delight.

jenn

Poem for Today

April is Poetry Month. I have a great book of poems that any poetry lover should own: Good Poems, selected by Garrison Kellor of national radio fame.

Here is one I re-read a lot and love:

Lost
by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.


So as you walk outside today, perhaps to work or walking the dog or just going to the mail box to mail a letter, let the Hereness and Nowness of where you are be with you. Today there is sunshine after stormy weather in Montreal. Hearts are glad about this!

I am still lost sometimes in the forest of childhood, but an etching by my sister Sue of a shadowy girl leaving the forest and the house on the hill reminds me that I can move on, not stay stuck in that sadness of being lost.

Today, I am trying to stay still, not rush, not panic with the busyness my list of things to do causes.

I find stillness in the smallest places, doing laundry, cutting onions, making tea.

Listen, the world is singing in your ear, the way home.

luv
jenn

Celebrate Life and your own Wisdom

Dear readers,

my shiny stats counter shows me I have many people browsing, reading, sneaking a peek at this blog, and so Thank You!

I am a bit in shock and awe today at the vagaries of Mother Nature - here in Montreal, a week after Easter, snow and sleet and cold. Not too unusual in early April, but after a week in hot tropical Panama, Central America, it's a huge contrast.

This morning I felt so grateful to have an oasis within to turn to for comfort. One look outside, a cup of coffee and toast, then back upstairs to my duvet and a peaceful, deep, nourishing hour of sitting with my core, in silence.

This practice just gets better I tell you, and it is not only available to yoginis and mystics. It's a practical practice, and it lets me join my rhythm of life within, where a celebration of life is always happening. See link to wordsofpeace.com for information.

Just got a flyer from Kripalu, my favourite yoga retreat place in the Berkshires, and got dizzy reading all the workshops offered. I notice most of them offer "shortcuts" and "breakthroughs" to the "full potential" and improved consciousness of bliss. An avid workshop goer, I love reading the descriptions, and most of them tempt me, but the truth is, once you are back home with yourself, it's up to you and you alone to find the source of (whatever it is you think it is called) within.

What I love about the inner wisdom I am learning is that it has no dogma, no dharma practices, no rituals, no rules, no chanting, no asanas, no fasting, no pujas. It is the inner puja of the soul, the harnessing of the mind to the heart, a simple but deep exploration in silence of the wonder of You.

Fresh, beautiful, changing every day yet always the same. The true Tao, it is said cannot be described, only felt.

Ah, yes, feeling - the only gateway to your self!

Ok enough about the Inner Gate to Wisdom. I am taking a workshop this weekend called Awakening Feminine energies, here in Montreal at the NHC Institute. Can't wait to find out what that is all about, cause one day I want to turn around and share what I have learned.

Dear wonderful women who are seeking shortcuts: one thing I do know is that it starts by listening to your body. In the pool in Panama, my friend Sylvie and I talked about our cycles, and how neat it is to know that you are in an up-swing cycle or a down-beat cycle - just like the moon who is shrinking from fullness right now I think, into the dark phase soon, then waxing from new moon into full moon again. We don't have to shine full on 100 watt bright all the time. Isn't that a relief?

There is a cycle even after menopause, and that surprised me! My energy still comes and goes in waves.

Ok so the one that really pulls me at Kripalu, just so you know, is called Sacred Passages, with medicine woman Marcela Lobos, to experience women's rites of passage the way our mothers could not teach us. Sounds awesome!

happy spring weather, however wacky it is where ever you are,
in love and peace,

jenn

April, Easter and Belly Wisdom

Picture from Taos, Writer's spa, Circle Talk

This is the last year both kids will be in the same school and have holidays at Easter so we are headed to Panama with another family, to enjoy beach and tropical jungle and maybe glimpse the canal.

But what I really want to tell you about is a book I've just picked up again, you know, the one on the shelf that just jumps out at you and says, read me! It's called The Woman's Belly Book. (I'm not good at putting links, but you can find it on Amazon or Indigo I'm sure).

I opened it up to the page, Enhance your Intuition - 'trust your gut'. Very timely because of all the changes coming up: a possible move, major renovations that would entail, causing that jiggly feeling of fear in the belly. But sometimes you have to move on through that.

The author (Lisa Sarasohn) says you know what your gut instincts are telling you in three ways:

"If I center my awareness in my belly and ask myself "What will happen if I....?" an image comes to mind that gives me an idea of the consequences. (I immediately see the view from the lake, ok)

If I focus my awareness in my belly as I'm considering my options, my belly tenses up as I think of one choice and relaxes as I think of another. (I picture that house, that view, then I picture staying put and ... hmmm, not clear).

When I'm writing in my journal about an issue that's been troubling me and come to a resolution, my belly rumbles, affirming my insight out loud!" (I'll have to try that one).

A magazine, Sagewoman, that I picked up this afternoon while rummaging for inspiration, had its whole issue based on grounding and centering. I took that as a clue to what I need today. This week has been scattered, almost dangerously so. I left the house on Monday to buy running shoes with my son, and when we got back an hour later, the kitchen was smokey, the alarm was beeping, and the dog was in a panic. I had left beets boiling on a back burner, and forgot to turn it off. That's a feeling I don't want to repeat ever! Then I rushed out to a choir evening, but first, a quick visit to the possible dream house. The alarm was shrieking over there, too! wrong code input.

Forgot to put summer tires in the car for the garage appointment next morning (had to push forward another appointment the next day to drive in the tires). Booked Caitie a massage for after school, but her dance class was 2 hours long that afternoon; my cell phone battery was dead so she couldn't let me know; I drove there and back without finding her, assuming she'd taken the bus home. Luckily J had come home early and drove twenty minutes back to get her. Then to her massage, where she fell asleep, poor darling. I cooked supper at least while he was gone, and was done in time to take Caitie to see the homeopath at 7:30! ...what a day...I think I need a massage after this crazy week.

Sigh, anyway, you know how it goes. There are some weeks like that. Today was a blessed day of rest, relatively speaking. Only a few little duties, phone calls and documents came my way. I did some yoga, mused and read, wrote and rested.

But now, it's supper time....then Easter brunch for 20 people to plan and prepare, a community meeting to speak at Saturday night, the chalet to close up for spring....

I hope you have a restful long weekend, and sleep in :)

Happy Spring Solstice and Easter/Passover/

musemother

Letter to a teenage daughter

I'd like to ask for your help, from anyone reading this blog.

My daughter is entering the Maiden phase, has just hit puberty in the last year, and will soon be fifteen. That's the age I lost my virginity at, under dubious circumstances not entirely of my own choosing. Peer pressure had a lot to do with it, and hippy communes (hmmm, that story may come out later if I ever write that autobiography....)

So what I want help with is: how to let a daughter know how to trust her budding body's sexuality, and yet protect her from losing herself; how to teach her to trust her instincts in a world of double standards which does not honour female sexuality, yet encourages attractiveness and desireability in girls. How to teach her respect for her body, and boundary making?

I'd like to write her a letter, and tell her that being a virgin is a good thing, that sex is about choice, her choice not her friends' timing. I want to let her know that oral sex is sex, and that it's often degrading for girls to provide this as some kind of service to boys who give little or nothing in return, not to mention the risk of disease, herpes, etc. Being popular does not make it worth it. And then, alcohol - how a girl must keep her head together, because alcohol lowers her resistance, loosens her inhibitions and her common sense.

Women/girls make love for different reasons than boys I think. Maybe I'm wrong, there are lots of sensitive boys and men out there, but our needs are more emotional - we bond quickly. We make links, little spider threads of love and need get woven into our psyches when we make love. We can't break those bonds as easily. We expect reciprocity and it's not always forthcoming. I know I can't protect her from heart break, but as her mother, I want her to feel like she knows her own limits, her own self-worth.

So, for all these reasons, I need your advice - write me if you can, with your story, or how you let your daughters know about the joys and pitfalls of becoming a sexual being.

many thanks,
musemother

What my daughter taught me

I was digging through a big plastic container in my home office this afternoon, and dug out two collages I had made during a class a few years ago. One was cuttings from magazines, pictures and words on the theme of Finding My Passion.

I had pasted: the secret code of women makes my heart dance, and girl powered, guilt-free love is still a complete mystery". "Independent spirit, quirky but cool" and right on top in big letters: Follow your heart, put the world on hold.

The earlier one has some great pictures of a green watery oasis "felt but not seen" beside a buddha head "125 years of wisdom" - wish I could scan the whole thing and paste it on my blog. My dream-on garden, happy tails, I feel free, Abandon the conventional and raw pleasures are more indications of what I was feeling or looking for then.

Then, right beside these two was one my daughter had made with coloured pens, on a day she was home sick with a back-ache this past September. She wrote: Don't worry, Love will keep us alive, Lust, Life, Love, Live, Happyness is priceless (sic), Be yourself, Love Yourself, and Thx 4 everything! I (heart) you, (shop till you drop was also there!).

Tomorrow is the last class on Embracing the Feminine at the women's centre, and I thought of doing a collage, then wimped out because it involves gathering 6 glue sticks, finding giant pads of paper, magazines, scissors, etc. Maybe we'll just hold hands and count our blessings instead. It's been a wonderful journey, to explore the Feminine, (see Wisdom for Women blog for some more musings on that). And I'm sure it's a subject I'll continue to write about.

A horoscope reading I had last fall advised me not to plan too much, or intellectualize too much, that the transmission of knowledge or information that I want to communicate will happen, will become clear. And so it has.

Right now, the energy of spring is calling me, bright sunshine and a sleepy dog that needs a walk. I want to stretch my legs (stiff from cross-country skiing this past Saturday), and let my mind wander. It feels good in my heart to know that I am living my passion, I am feeling my heart's quiet contentment, and I am giving myself the rest that I need when I am tired (yesterday it was all I could do to get the laundry folded).

My new motto may be: power naps rock!

Care about yourself, is what Caitie taught me. Take good care of you,

musemother

Requiem in the dark hearing music

This is my requiem poem for Michel, who passed from darkness to light on Saturday.

Give me bird song
to lighten the sadness
of the dark

give me rainfall
to sweeten yellow grass

give me long summer nights
and Danish choirs singing
in the light that lasts until
September

give me a woman in black
playing piano in an upper room
where we cannot see her.
let the melody and music
float down to us below
beside the crooked white house
with tilted stairs.

give me what is broken but true
for I have been a perfectionist
all my life and grew to hate
every song that didn't hit
the right notes.
I even refused to sing.

Now that my voice is broken,
give me bird song
to sweeten the dark.

jenn

Listen to the Birds! poem for spring

it's not quite Earth Day yet, but the birds in Montreal
are chortling, singing, tu-twhit-tuuing like crazy. It
almost feels like Spring. Oreo is listening to that red
cardinal whistling in the back yard.....

Listen to the birds/Earth Day

The prodigious wind doth blow and heartily.

Something is about to happen.
Listen, it calls you…
bright from within the shining …
glistens, whispers, wet, alive.

Speak, but from the wordless place.

This wind outspeaks the loud roadways
outvoices birds, bells,
the ubiquitious
chrome chimes.

The open sky above the field
echoes dump trucks’ rattle.

Overhead high clouds line up,
booming by. Dark over the lake,
coming fast

See the red-winged black-bird,
hear the willow breathe –
all that roaring wind
punching branches up and down.

This is the week, the day
it may happen,
the first leaves.

Listen to the birds, robins, crows
They speak from the wordless place.
Listen, something
is about to….

permeable boundaries indeed!

"Women have permeable boundaries" says the author of The Feminine Face of God. "Our bodies feel the irrevocable connection of the tides with our cycles of monthly bleeding." (I think I'm in the downward part of the cycle, even if there is no bleeding any more). Then she quotes several women talking about the difficulties of having a separate spiritual life and a marriage, where one feels 'locked in' or dependent on a husband for a sense of identity. "I don't know how to integate my inner life with my marriage, one person says, " I don't know how to find the balance between the separateness I need to nurture my spirit, and being close to my husband."

My spirit was greatly nurtured at a choir retreat this weekend, at a lovely sing-along around the piano, where our fabulously talented new director played all the songs we threw at him, plus a few more. Then he played a song from Godspell, By My Side, that I had sung long ago (almost 30 years). As I sang along with him, I felt something cracking down the middle, a little tiny earthquake of tears brought on by the feeling that comes only when I sing my heart out.

What an ache opened up inside! I went to bed, and soon was sobbing and trying not to make noise, cause sharing a room with three other women. Later I realized it was like the 52 year old turned and saw the 20 year old walking up to her. Some things haven't changed, like the longing for a pure love that soars up with open wings - sorry, can't explain that feeling of singing bliss. But coming home to husband and teenagers afterwards, drained and exhausted from 2 days of intensive singing work, I felt such a need to be alone, and to find that feeling again.

So the quote about permeable boundaries jumped out at me when I opened this book. It's partly a longing to be alone, to find that soul part of me, and yet quivering in my boots at this new open-heartedness, the prospect of living my joy out in the open? letting it fly, unstoppering the bottled up need for bliss and singing....

you see, we used to sing together and here I confess that my husband rarely reads my blog, and if he does he'll know what I'm talking about....we used to sing at our weekly 'satsang' gatherings years ago, in our young-love days. He played guitar, I sang and warbled folkie love songs by Elton John (Love is the opening door), Bruce Cockburn, Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mac.... we fell in love inside of the music-making.

I also remember what my twenty-year old zeal was like, and how love could not be limited to just one person, in my heart, in even earlier days. It had to be shared with all - massages, cooking, singing, cleaning, serving, giving....not limited to one person.

Yikes! I have opend up a can of worms with this singing -

Breath

Breathing is highly underrated.

Most of us do it without noticing, unless we begin to run and then run out of breath. Or have a chest cold or congestion, then breathing is difficult.

Today, in our Women's Centre class, we sat and listened to a body awareness meditation by Joan Borysenko, a little visit into the body to check in, see how we were feeling.

Fifteen minutes passed, it may have seemed long to some. I know I was aware of all the little children being picked up by their mommies in the daycare right next to us, their voices echoing in the hallway, happy noise. But mostly I noticed the energy lightly moving inside my arms and legs and back, and how calm everyone felt after the tape was over.

It feels good to breathe. It feels good to bring awareness down into the belly of the breath.

I think too much most days, and when I want to slow down, I sit and let my attention fall into the rhythm of my belly breath. It feels like wisdom, cause it's so nurturing and simple.

When my mind is racing, in panic mode, or just worrying about a list of things to get done in too little time, as usual, it feels like the last thing I have time to do.

But I do it anyway. With a stretch over the counter, or a deep intake of breath and arms overhead, or head down, hands dangling to the floor. Or just sitting here in my comfy chair with a dog on my lap. (Mollie is real small, a shit-zu mixed with bichon, a lovely warm weight).

So I invite you to check into your body, now, while you're reading this.

Take a long, slow breath in, and out.
Close your eyes for one minute. Give thanks.

We don't know how many of these we're going to get, do we?

Life energy circulates with each one. Yeah!

what else is new?

jenn

real women and compassion

Hi there, I'm not gone missing, just away from my desktop and laptop recently.

I have been writing about compassion and love for a while now, and god/ss decided to take me at my word and throw me a real life challenge, or two.

One of my good friends is journeying towards health through the cancer minefield, and a niece of mine landed on my doorstep, out of hospital on her way to the detox center, with a broken leg and a few other ailments needing medication, and a very big appetite!

So, I feel like a have a new baby in the house - it's very sweet, she is very sweet, and we get along fine. She sleeps a lot, eats a lot, and smiles a lot. Amazing, because I was expecting a very hard uphill battle.....instead I feel like I'm in a state of grace.

Those of you who know me, know I am usually kind and generous (hmmm) unless my patience is stretched, and then, watch out! But here is someone who is more fragile and vulnerable than myself, more challenged in emotional reactions because more brutalized, and yet behaving well under the circumstances. I feel very lucky to have found her again (she was lost to us for almost a year). And very grateful that she is back in one piece, and in need of our love.

So after writing that Women's Day manifesto, I find myself with a beautiful chance to walk my talk, and put compassion into action. Fierce protective love, overwhelming, achingly beautiful, caring love, patient, cooking and cleaning, serving love. Silent and strong love. Woman/mother/aunt/sister/daughter love.

My husband and kids are in on it too - we are all treating this love-starved woman with the best family love we know how. She's had a pretty rough nine months on the streets.

And my friend is also on the receiving end of a lot of care and love. And some chinese herbs, and healing stuff. Hats off to all who are helping him recover.

Gracious, our world needs healing! But the only place to start is here, now, at home, with those nearest and closest to us.

gratefully, in grace,

jenn

International Women's Day

Happy Women's Day!

Last night I watched a movie "5 in the Afternoon" about girls in Afghanistan after the Taliban, one in particular who would like to become first woman President of her country.

Throughout the film we are treated to girls' voices reading from religious texts, about how men should not look at women, that girls and women should not lift their veils or allow a man's lust to be provoked by seeing them, and how a woman dancing is sinful. If a man sees a woman's face uncovered, he hides against a wall and asks God to forgive his sin.

The power of the gaze has never been so conflicted.

There is no happy ending to this movie; the father won't let the girl study, let alone work, and he sees blasphemy everywhere in the 'new' Afghanistan. It's not very hopeful.

I do see hope for women gathering, uniting, and educating themselves when I hear of organizations like Peace X Peace, or 60milliongirls or Oprah's new school in Africa.

Much more can be done to get out from under the bushel with our light. Today in the Globe & Mail, a national newspaper, an anglican bishop says Christianity needs to rethink how it looks at sexuality and admits that 2000 years of male influence has skewered things. Now that is news!

We must keep faith in our own power, keep faith in our own bodies, in making our own decisions based on our own knowing. Every woman who believes in herself and speaks her truth adds to the force of the truth being known.

What is the truth? Our fierce, strong beauty and independent thinking, our sensuality and resilience, our belief in each other and in ourselves will carry us through.

Compassion, strength, intelligence, power, caring: these are all feminine virtues.

They can be masculine virtues too - if humans choose so.

Celebrate your wisdom: do something to soothe and uplift yourself and your world today.

in peace,

musemother

Poem for the day

Purdah

A woman kept in a house
is like a cuckoo in a clock.
Her breasts sing with milk
in the middle of the night.

All night the house blows
in the wind, a cradle
on top of a tall tree
or a ship lost at sea.

A man thinks he owns his wife
if she stays in the house
but once she shuts the door behind her
shuts the door on her children behind her
if she shuts the door of her mind
she can fly,
no longer under lock and key.

A mother alone in the house
is like a cat in a cage with two birds,
alone in the house with two children,
in the house without wings.

Her two breasts, two small partridges
rustle in their nest, escape
like two cups overturned,
two loose dice on the floor,
two blind mice running to get the knife.

At night the house does not rock
like a boat at sea.
It is rooted, stands still
like a woman chained to a rock
awaiting rescue, like a cage
rocking on its pole.

The dangerous woman in the veil
sings to the women in the moon
she sings to the old woman in the shoe,
she sings to a woman
in anything else, besides a house.

from "Little Mother"
(Hochelaga Press, Montreal, 1997)

Mothering Myself, too

How can I mother others (read, be gentle), if I can't mother myself?

The first mother-god in our life is our own mother. She appears flawless, beautiful, all knowing, all merciful, kissing boo-boos, wiping tears, untangling curls; until we hit pre-teen years, then wham! she becomes the hag, easy to find fault with - we don't like the way she does her hair or the way she dresses, the clothes she buys for us are uncool, her disgusting personal habits (in our view) gross us out; not to mention the embarassing hoos-hoos over the back yard in search of us at supper time or bed time or the fact that she sees danger lurking on every corner.

In my life, things were complicated by the fact that my mom suffered from the disease of alcoholism - that made the transition to hag come a little quicker. I was the eldest of eight, and harnessed into 'little motherhood' at a young age - diapering babies, holding bottles, feeding pablum to brothers and sisters, babysitting - were all par for the course. Good material for growing up fast. Yet shouldering responsibilities too big for my small shoulders.

When mothering my own children came along, I tried so hard to 'do it right'. Be that perfect mom. Huh! And of course, no one is perfect. I began to resent having the weight of responsibility on my shoulders again. Somewhere down the line I realized my own need for mothering was still unfulfilled - that part of me that hadn't really grown up yet.

So how could I begin to mother myself? Hmmmm, perhaps giving up on that perfectionism, not pushing myself so hard to be all things to all people, not taking on too many tasks at once (which causes panic, anxiety to set in, and mad rushing, which usually results in accidents or at the very least, too much yelling); slowing down, letting things come to me, letting go, not being 'in charge' all the time or feeling overly responsible for everyone in my life. Giving myself a break, taking it one day at a time. Ceasing the self-criticism, harsh self-judgment. Reminding myself that I am ok. I am enough. I am not perfect.

When I am hard on myself, I push the kids too hard. They react, I react, we all get a little crazy. They remind me, chill out, don't sweat it, Relax! They don't need me hovering. They are learning to manage their own time, get homework assignments in on time, get enough sleep, come home on time. (Time is a huge issue here, I'm noticing) I call them reminders. They say, Mom, we know what we have to do! Trust us. They actually need less mothering.

When I don't feel like a 'good mom', when I feel like I'm blowing up too often, talking with other moms is helpful. Having a women's circle is a god-send. Turning to my husband and admitting I'm not the superwoman I think I am is humbling but good for the heart. Letting down my armour, asking for help, sitting in meditation, practising yoga, coming back into the body.

Today, I am nobody's rock. I need mothering myself. Many people may rely on me for leadership, team participation, support, or just companionship and friendly presence. But today, my mother-ship is docked in the service bin. I need some time out for just me, for heart care repairs, for recovery from the mommy battles. Instead of tackling the list of things to do, I'll take a nap.

Snowstorm outside makes me want to stay inside where it's warm.

Breathing in, breathing out, resting, unlatching all the 'shoulds'; the navigational devices and compasses are on 'rest mode' while we wait out the storm.

Breathe with me,

musemom

Feminine Spirit

"For women, spirituality is less a hero's journey to a distant land than a finding of our center in a God who is present in the homely practicalities of day-to-day life."

I recently picked up A Woman's Journey to God, by Joan Borysenko, while researching the Mother God for an upcoming class on Mary and Kwan Yin. It does my heart good to see her talk about women's spirituality being manifest in the day to day life, in the "home" where I spend so much time doing daily, practical (or impractical) things like cleaning up yesterday's hot water tank leakage, airing out the stinky cat litter box, or filling the house with the flavourful odour of beef stew simmering in a slow cooker all afternoon. Some days, it all seems so random; in spite of daily meal schedules, I can wander in circles all day feeling like I'm not getting much done, let alone living a life of 'spirit'. My goal is to get through the day, and the lists.

..."In the work world, where seminars speak of setting goals and objectives and then working relentlessly to obtain them, the apparently aimless exerse of walking without direction seems addled and unwise. Yet this is often an important theme of women's work and career stories. When we are walking Sarah's circle, there is no final destination. The process, the journey itself, is one of staying in alignment with what our own inner guidance is telling us. If we quit listening, we begin to feel anxious and inauthentic. The important relation to our own spiritual Self, and our relationship to God, suffers."

Joan Borysenko calls it wisdom and courage, not confusion, to wander in the 'don't know' space - don't know where I'm going, or what's coming next, or who I am. "It creates the space for something new to be born." How refreshing it is to read this. I am often in the transitional space lately, and it is comforting to know that I do not have to set goals, have answers, always know where I am going or who I am. Just trying to live in the present moment, in my body, paying attention to my intuition, to my gut feeling, to the feeling in my gut of butterflies or fear or nervousness or excitement, is challenge enough.

"Women's spirituality is about that presence (the wisdom and love we embody) as we walk through daily life, at work and at home, seeking the place of the heart from which healing and joy naturally flow."

"For women on a mission, coming into a balance of being and doing doesn't come naturally." (ie addicted to frenzied doing, burning out, we become dry and irritable and stressed vs calm, centered, relaxed) "The big question becomes, 'How can I get what I need without being selfish to others?'" (Borysenko) Maybe that is the burning question for ex-Catholics like myself, raised on a diet of Hail Mary's and good works, putting others first. Remember the oxygen mask on the plane - you need to put it on yourself first, then on the little ones.

I send out my prayer for connection with whatever is true compassionate love in the Universe, mother or father god; however that can manifest in my life, with the people I run into, spend time with, eat and play with. In the homely day to day 'stuff' of life that needs doing. I call out for patience and self-love, more compassion for my limitations, understanding how my being off-centre affects my family.

Mostly I pray to understand what love is, how to feel it.

Kwan Yin, mother of mercy, bring it on!


musemother

The sexiest man alive is a dad pushing a pram

Great class today at the Women's Centre on Mary Magdalene - at least I thought it was great! What a neat group of women- (in case any of them are reading, they are super intelligent, deep thinkers and great conversationalists!).

No really, we have fascinating discussions, all over the map from child prostitution to how sensitive our boys are, to the legend of Mary Magdalene voyaging to Provence from the Holy Land, to what appeals to us in a man, all under the rubrique of the Da Vinci Code topic.

Ok so the movie was not a blockbuster and the book was a murder mystery thriller, not a literary masterpiece: I loved both of them! They popularized a topic that many boring academic types have been writing about for years, and found an audience for over 40 million readers (and I don't how many movie-goers). It's been a personal passion of mine to read up on all the books, the goddesses, the gnostic gospels; some are more familiar, i.e. the Christian stories feel like my stories - Eve, Mary, the Madonna - icons that have looked down on me from various portraits or paintings all my life. How to revivify them as female, whole, sexual, spiritual, and human images? Breathe life and energy into the old myths.

Sacred Feminine - that's the mystery at the heart of this class, and at the heart of the huge interest in whether Mary Magdalene was Jesus's lover - like Krishna and Radha, Ram and Sita, the divine feminine and masculine seek each other's arms. Maybe that's what I want, we want, to find that connection with a divine lover within; or even a human lover, a kind, generous thoughtful husband/spouse/lover who will support us, adore us, wash the dishes, read the books we love to talk about, push the baby in a pram (talk about sex appeal!).

I'm rambling here. Thanks to all the friends and people who have told me they read my blog occasionally. Now if I can just figure out how to count all my visitors, I'll feel even more gratified.

Leave a comment will you? don't go by in a rush anonymously peeking....

cotcha!
musemamma

My Favourite Valentine

Was it the pretty young host of Global TV's Morning show as she accepted our box of chocolates and silk rose? was it Bernie St-Laurent in his cozy CBC Radio studio laughing in surprise at our Happy Birthday song (after the Valentine's love song) or the man working at Sky Services private jet hangar, blinking to hold back tears as fifteen co-workers flashed their cell phone cameras at him while we sang 'I don't why I love you like I do'.... or was it my husband's teary eyes as we sang to his 86 year old mother in her apartment?

There were so many touching moments over the week of Singing Valentines with Timely Affair Quartet, that it's hard to pick just one as the 'best memory'. We brought love and chocolate (and roses) to the workplace of four unsuspecting men, to a Veteran's hospital, to Canadian Tire, to an import office on Victoria, to an apartment in Westmount and a young eight year old and her Romanian grandparents in Beaconsfield. (Not to mention the trek out to St-Hubert and Chateauguay on Friday). We drove in one of the biggest snowfalls of the winter, and sat in traffic for an hour and a half singing at one point. It seemed the whole week revolved around singing those two valentine songs - even in my dreams. (The second one was "I don't mind, being all alone, when I'm all alone with you.") Songs from the forties that my mother knows and I had never heard of. Songs sung in four-part barbershop harmony by three experienced harmonizers and myself, the newbie.

One of my best memories is of singing in the car, or that is, listening to the bass, baritone and lead parts of Jean, Marion and Nicole, sing all the songs they knew! Gorgeous harmonies, gorgeous voices, deep and rich, melodious and true. The traffic may have been barely moving but we were flying high!

I can't wait to start again next year - and this time, I'm telling all my friends to order a singing valentine!


musemother

counting the days until spring

One breath in, one breath out. Surviving the cold. Frigid sunshine, blasts of humid cold bone-chilling pant freezing finger frosting cold.

Ok, I'm counting the days until warm air and spring. My niece, just in today from Halifax but originally from the West Coast, remembers February as time of new buds, green things. Huh! not in Montreal. We searched for a restaurant at noon, and she, without gloves or hat, and I with skinny suede gloves, anyway we both froze.

But to switch topics, the day began well. Yoga class this morning started me off on the right foot, sur le bon pied for my French readers. Breathing, stretching, holding a pose till shaking. Calming down and feeling the energy throbbing in the chest or belly. Kripalu yoga is about being conscious of where the energy is moving in your body we were told, Alright! I feel it. I hold it as long as I can. Then remember to breathe.

Kept me in a smooth space all morning and afternoon, until I came home at 4:00 ish to see piles of newspapers, dusty table - in the sunlight the dust really shows - and 3 baskets of laundry waiting....cat litter, puppy needs out, sigh. I'm fine in my yoga class, alone in my car, typing in my home office, reading in my comfy chair....then life's little homely duties come tapping on my shoulder. Breathe in, breathe out. Counting the days till no more muddy floors and salt stained pant bottoms and boots. Till no more hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, nylon down-filled Michelin Tire type coats. Count your breaths instead of sinking into the blahs.

Just had to get it outta my system. Thinking about next class, and Mary Magdalene - now there's a worthy topic for next blog.

Syonara,

Being myself

I was leading a workshop on the weekend, trying to follow my introductory script, nervous because I had never lead a volunteer participation event like that - when my co-facilitator said something funny. I was writing down our "goals" on the black board (we were doing a bilingual routine on top of it). I automatically, without thinking, said, "Oh you should be a translator, you're so good at this" - and then I thought - Oops, I just forgot about my script about who I am - the facilitator, etc. and talked out loud something I was thinking casually. I was almost embarrassed, as if my slip was showing.

And yet, for a split second I was feeling natural, comfortable in my skin, as the French say (bien dans ma peau), and I just spoke without thinking about the effect on my audience.

A small moment of recognition, but an important one for me. Often, I find myself leading class discussions with the hat of 'teacher' on, or 'English and Mythology Major', or 'housewife' or 'menopausal woman'. I don't think those are my best moments. The book learning comes through, but the human presence is less. Less love, less feeling, less heart. When I talk to my kids, and put on the severe tone of homework-not-done reminder parent, there's not much love and it's very annoying to my teens.

When I forget my serious roles, and just laugh out loud at how happy I am cause my day is going well, or my singing makes me feel good, my daughter (14) looks at me, like "who is this person who's impersonating my mother?". I take my mother role too seriously, it seems.

So reading Eckhart Tole's new book, A New Earth, Awakening to your life's purpose, I was not surprised to read this : "Give up defining yourself-to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarly as a function or a role, but as a field of conscious Presence."

Makes sense, doesn't it? Years ago when I began to meditate, the Indian mahatmas teaching us about the ego, the self, and the bliss within, often used examples and stories to show us that who we are really is not the 'hats' we wear on the outside, but the consciousness within. One of the Indian guys used to call me "Jennifer the Great" when he saw evidence of the ego pushing its way around. Then when the heart was open, he'd call me "Baby Jennifer". It was a cute reminder.

Somehow, ageing, working, studying, mothering, I have become identified with my 'hat's. In those brief moments when I am brave enough to be myself, it feels very freeing to let them go, let the wind twirl them off my head. Be 'baby me' again.

When I allow just being me to be enough. "I am enough" without my hats on. I don't need to change to earn your love, or praise, or good thoughts.

It seems there are always more ways of being enough.

nameste,

poem for the dark goddess

Lilies

dream zooms me to a stone Virgin
in a field, on a mountain side.
her cloak is blackened by fire
she walks before me tall and stern
turns to look at me from inside
her dark hood. I am knees to
the ground trembling and scared,
ready to kiss her feet
or the tips of her fingers.

she tells me my sorrow is too
heavy, and I stutter, Why?
why do the babies have to die?
I throw them back, she says
like fish too small to catch.
she can't stand to see them suffer.

she smiles while I comb and braid
her long red-gold hair
awash in sunlight
in her dressing room fragrant with flowers.
she says, they bring me roses because
I'm tired of lilies

cc Jennifer Boire
Little Mother, Hochelaga Press

Singing for Valentines

I should have let you know, oh well it's too late now: my quartet was singing on Global TV this morning on the a.m. show - showing off our Valentine songs. Maybe they'll post it on their web site next week. Sweet Adeline's....

It's only been three weeks since we started practising - although the three other members of my barbershop quartet - have sung together for years.

What a treat - to start the morning with someone doing your make-up and hair! Then many sound checks, and vocalizing warm-ups, before standing under the bright lights and performing our two Valentine songs.

I love to sing - the tenor part is challenging but sounds so pure and crystal clear when the voice is 'on' and warmed up. With rich baritone, bass and lead singing beautiful harmonies, voices melding richly, it's yummy!

I love singing, have always loved singing, and pure joy comes out of it, when we get it right. It's good for the heart.

Have a lovely Valentine's Day. Give someone you love a treat and sing them a love song, straight into their eyes!

blushing,

musemother

Valuing the work I do at home

Lately, I find myself answering the question of what do I do all day by saying, I work at home.

That covers it all: volunteer work, organizing the women's circle speakers, preparing classes for Embracing the Feminine, driving my kids to and fro, walking the dog, laundry, housecleaning and meal preparation, phone calls to replace missing objects like telephones and remote controllers, fixing watches...anyway you get the picture.

It may not be paid work, but it is work that keeps me busy, that keeps the household running smoothly, and food in the fridge and on the table. Plus I have the pleasure of being here at 3:30 when my teens get home from school, to nod at them briefly as they pass through the kitchen.

I asked my women's centre class today how they reconciled mothering with feminism. I got some interesting answers. The thing that bugged these mothers the most was the lack of public recognition for women's work at home, and also their husband's assumption (and sometimes a mother or mother-in-law's too) that we have it so easy, we have nothing to do all day, since we have time to take classes and do yoga. That it's not seen as 'real' work to be a full-time mother.

I don't know when I stopped being mad at my husband for not being an equal partner in the child and house-care department - probably the same year he started spending his weekends skiing or golfing with two teens, or was it when he decided to pay for a cleaning lady? We do have a traditional set-up, in the sense that he works outside the home, and I work inside it. But my work as a writer and teacher (part-time) has always been valued too. And he knows better than to make snide comments - he knows how demanding it is to be a mom.

It's not the mothering part that I don't value - at least theoretically, I think it's the most important job on the planet - to raise kids to be kind, compassionate, helpful (ok maybe some of the time) human beings. But housework - or keeping a spotless house was never my goal, nor my mother's.

Maybe that's why the Greek goddess I am drawn most to is Hestia - not because I am like her, nor because of images I have of her - there are none - but because she made housework sacred: she kept the home-fires burning. In the days before electricity or coal, that was an all important task if you wanted a hot meal or heat in the house.

She was called Vesta in Rome, where the Vestal Virgins kept the perpetual flame alight, symbol of the heart of the Empire.
Within the home, the hearth was her altar, the fire having been brought in a torch from the bride's mother's residence to light their first household fire, and make a connection to the ancestors. Vesta or Hestia also symbolized the centre of the world and the innermost mysteries - the sacred space within. (Pamela Matthews, Goddess cards)

In order for a house to become a home, Hestia's presence is required. She symbolizes intactness or wholeness, the one-in-herself quality. (Goddesses in Everywoman, Jean Shinoda Bolen).

According to Bolen, taking care of the details of housekeeping is a centering activity for Hestia types, equivalent to meditation. A woman with a Hestia archetype gets a feeling of inner peace from what she is doing, just like a nun in the service of God.

Well, I'd like to call in that archetype, to balance the Artemis in me. Here's to Hestia and housework, and to tomorrow's little ground hog seeing his shadow....

best,


musemother

Women's stories

Have you seen Dreamgirls yet? I came out of there with tears in my eyes, after seeing a feel-good movie with an uplifting message about women triumphing over manipulative men in the dog-eat-dog world of music business.

That Jennifer Hudson can really really sing. I'm in a choir singing barbershop, and lately our director has been teaching us about feeling, singing with heart. I learned a lot from watching Jennifer sing her swan song, leaving the snake, and from Beyonce at the end of the movie, singing her Listen to me song.

Whew! heart and soul....when they join up with powerful pipes, it makes you want to weep.

What else made me feel good this week was leading a class with some outstanding women at the WIWC. We all are learning to embrace our feminine side - the power, the magic, the life-giving mothering intuitive compassionate energy that resides in us and wants to be heard!

I'm also grateful for my women's circle - six of us met this week and sat over tea, listening to whoever had something important to tell, a daughter in need of help, a mother distraught about making a man listen to her, women who think they need fixing at a fitness club - we all had stories to tell each other. Women's stories, your stories, my stories. The ones we tell over tea or coffee, and in the old days, a cigarette.

I am grateful for women who listen, women who open up and share, women who want to help. Friendships, tending and befriending, the little miracles of hugs and tears, finding support, succour, sweetness in the bottom of a tea cup.

Amen, and thanks to all you women friends,


musemother

Snowy peace

I never thought I'd be so happy to see snow!

It's been over a month since our last bit of whiteness on the lawn, and today glorious drifts are piling up.

Trees are covered in white, cedar hedges bending with the extra weight. And as long as one stays indoors, it's lovely to contemplate.

Peaceful....or is it just calm? Listening to Maharaji in Dallas on Saturday, he said something that peaked my curiousity. 'Calm is not peace.' When you see a landscape that is quiet, or you feel calm inside, that is not necessarily peace. At least not the same peace he is talking about.

Hmmmmm....it's true there is a question of presence, of the mind being aborbed and focussed, not just quiet. It hardly ever is quiet. Sitting in meditation this morning I felt peaceful, excited, tranquil, serene.....actually words don't do it justice, do they? But I wouldn't have called it calm.

On some busy days, with too many alarms going off about what to do, errands and phone calls and business sending me scurrying, frantic.....even a feeling of calm would do.

But the thirst in my heart is for more than just a calm day. You can be too calm, be-calmed in the flat waters with no wind, no movement, as Maharaji described it.

I think peace is something else. Peace answers the thirst of the heart for life, energy; it comes with a quickening of the heart, a light that dances in the eyes like the look a newborn gives her mother. Peace reaches deep inside of me and awakens me from torpor, from absence, fills my pores with presence.

Hmmmm. Let there be peace,

greetings,
jenn

musemother

Sacred Mind

more from Anne Baring's web site:

...beneath the levels of consiousness where our minds are separate and distinct are depths where they begin to interpenetrate until they eventually are enfolded with the undivided Sacred Mind itself....

"...awakening inside Sacred Mind slowly sensitizes one to the face that this Mind permeates every aspect of life. It is the medium within which we all exist, the mental field within which all minds meet.

...It is the awakening of humanity as a whole that is the current project of history; nothing less will satisfy the Creative Principle.

"I believe that this divine marriage of Individuality and Essential Ground, of the Masculine and Feminine, of samsara and nirvana is the dawn that humanity's dark night is driving toward. This is the dawn that, if successfully navigated, will unite human kind and elevate us into a form that has never before walked this Earth: a humanity healed of the scars of history...a people with new capacities born in the chaos of near extinction....

and when this moment finally comes, I deeply believe that, like all mothers before us, we will count our pain a small price. This birth is our gift to the Creator."

something to think about - aside from An Inconvenient Truth and the perils of climate change, global warming - maybe there is a purpose to this 'crisis' of planetary proportions.

namaste,

musemother

Why is the Divine Mother image important?

Researching material on the Divine Mother today, for a course starting next week, I found a wonderful series of excerpts from a book by Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey,The Divine Feminine. I type it out here for you because it struck me so profoundly that our dis-ease in this world at war has a connection to our longing for the feminine to play a larger role.

excerpt: "Why is the image of the Divine Mother so important? To answer this question, we need look no further than our experience of birth into the world. First of all, there is the experience of the embryo in the womb; the experience of union or fusion and containment within a watery, nurturing matrix. After the traumatic experience of birth and the sudden and violent explusion from this matrix, the prolongation of the earlier feelings of close relatinship, trust and safety is absolutely vital.

"Without the consistent and loving care of the mother in early childhood, the child has no trust in itself, no power to survive negative life experiences, no model from which to learn how to nurture and support itself or to care for its children in turn. Its primary response to life is anxiety and fear. It is like a tree with no roots, easily torn up by a storm. Its instincts have been traumatized and damaged.

"With the love of the mother and trust in her presence, the child grows in strength and confidence and delight in itself and in life. Its primary response is trust.

"Without this experience, life becomes threatening, terrifying. Without it the effort of living exhausts and dispirits. Intense and constant anxiety means that there is no resting place, no solace for loneliness, no feeling that life is something to be trusted, enjoyed; that it loves, helps, guides and supports us.

"Without this positive image of the feminine, fear, like a deadly parasite, invades the soul and weakens the body. Those cultures which have no image of the Mother in the god-head are vulnerable to immensely powerful unconscious feelings of fear and anxiety, particularly when the emphasis of their religious teaching is on sin and guilt. The compensation to this fear is an insatiable need for power and control over life.

"How hungry the human heart is for an image of a Divine Mother that would, like an umbilical cord, re-connect it to the Womb of Being, restoring the lost sense of trust and containment in a dimension which may be beyond the reach of our intellect, yet is accessible to us through our deepest instincts.

"....it is the image of the Divine Mother that heals and consoles, sustains and encourages; the image that awakens the feeling of trust and containment because it reflects our personal experience of our containment in the womb and our earliest human relationship.

"This is why the image of the Divine Feminine is returning to us now, to help us recover not only our sense of trust in life but also the relationship with a dimension of consciousness that we have, in our drive to be in control of life, ignored.....

taken from the The Divine Feminine, Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey, a book worth reading!

musemother

Great Mother dialogue Essential Wisdom

Great Mother speaks to musemother about Essential Wisdom for Women

“Bring me your tired women” – she said, “your weary and weak.”

and the women were very tired – they were tired of working fourteen hour days; they were tired of schlepping children to daycare at 7 am and picking them up at 6 pm, of fighting over homework and of never having a minute alone with themselves, let alone their husbands. They were tired of changing toilet paper rolls and of picking up puppy poo, of being the only one who walks the dog and feeds the cats.

They were tired of PMS, hot flashes and sleepless nights. They were tired of driving their kids to karate, tae kwon do, brownies, cubs, guitar lessons, hip hop and ballet classes. They were tired of sore necks, bursitis and tendonitis from typing all day. They were tired from doing laundry at midnight and making breakfast at 5:30 a.m.

They had tried physiotherapy, acupuncture, osteopathy and chiropractors. They had taken supplements, joined a gym, cut out carbohydrates, walked and jogged and step-classed themselves to even greater fatigue, and Great Mother, all they wanted was to lie down on the floor and rest their weary heads…. Yes, even the hair on their heads hurt, and their ears were sore from hearing, Mommy I need this by tomorrow or I’ll get a detention….

And Great Mother replied…
Dear dizzy, busy daughters of Earth – yes, you do need to rest – you need to lie down on my grassy breast, or float in my salty waves – you need to give yourselves a break before you break a leg – or crack up in a nervous break-down.

Why can’t you rest? Why can’t you press the pause button? That is why I created meno-pause. You’re not paying attention – listen carefully please – you were not created to Do It All Alone – there are no super moms or superwomen out there –

Listen to what Ishtar, Queen of Heaven invented many thousand years ago – a Sabbatu, or heart’s rest at the full moon (or when you get your period). This is your turn to take a day off – Long ago, a sacred day of rest was created – the Sabbath- it is a sacred day, a day to refresh and renew your energy, a much needed, blessed rest, once a week – from there you can reset your clock, your energy and give out again to your family, your job.

Come home to me. Receive my gift. You may have all the gold in the world, but without peace in the heart, you will never feel fulfilled or at rest.

My peace I give to you – make yourselves a sacred space, a space of quiet, without distraction, in nature or in your room: light a candle, run a hot bath, or sit quietly in meditation, walk in the woods or listen to a babbling stream, take a nap, put on some soothing flute music, stretch your muscles in yoga, or lie in corpse pose on the rug - but these you must do regularly to feed the heart’s need for rest.

Find/make your own Sabbatu, for the body is your temple and the heart sits on its throne. Hearth and heart need a space to call Home,

My blessings always, Queen of Heaven.

as recorded by musemother


musemother

No more resolutions

There is a chain of ‘shoulds’ that I want to break free of.

So from now on, I release my self from following any of the rigid rules I previously held myself to, through fear and/or anxiety of not being ‘good enough’, or even a 'good girl', good mother, good worker, good exerciser, good meditator, good anything.

Contrary to all those coaches out there, my rebel self refuses to set goals for the future, preferring to set my sights closer to the present. My excuse is that the future is unforeseeable and change is the only constant. (However, I am booking a flight for Dallas for next Saturday….and a vacation at Easter….I guess that resolve is broken too).

Just for Today - is challenge enough for me.

One worthy goal might be to stay as close as possible to consciousness and bliss as is humanly possible - wouldn't that be nice? Also, remind myself that surrender and trust are necessities for success in this human endeavor, of being human that is.

How you ask? maybe by grounding myself in the experience of being alive, in gratitude and acceptance, in being real. I need a load of help to do this.

Usually, I break all my promises on a regular basis. I am impatient, bossy and anxious – my cries for help are inconsistent, if constant, as are my moments of forgetfulness.

Truth is, I would love to accept myself exactly as I am, with no firm resolutions or need to change anything (except perhaps for my judgment of myself). Perhaps then I might inch my way towards self-acceptance, body wisdom, simplicity.

Does anybody else hate new year's resolutions? Is anyone else tired of the subtle self-hatred that gets masked by the desire to improve ourselves all the time? Can we ever relax and just be?

What have you resolved to not resolve, today?

“Stay with the companions whose lips are wet with that water! Rumi advises.

Happy New Year,
Jenn





musemother

musing on the pause

Ladies who lunch and gab about their lives often talk of their menopausal symptoms. Today was no different. At our annual lunch, two of my best friends got together over Indian thalis and pakoras.

One of my friends, recently returned to work after burn-out, is still fatigued and not sleeping well except while on vacation, when she sleeps in til 8:30 a.m. What am I going to do when school starts again? she asks.

The other friend, also recently taking a break from work after burn-out, mentioned a naturopath had prescribed supplements to help her build up her adrenals. Thus we launched into a discussion of adrenal fatigue. Not too unusual in mid-life, and apparently common at menopause for women, according to Christiane Northrup, MD.

"Chronic stress over a long period of time leads to adrenal depletion and is a setup for menopausal problems. The stronger a woman's adrenals and the better her general nutrition, the easier the transition into menopause.....

Another source of fatigue: "Hot flashes are related to blocked kundalini energy and unused sexual juice. The kundalini energy begins to rise naturally around the age of forty, and it 'activates' the chakras through which it passes.

Any unfinished business residing in the lower chakras will make itself known during the menopausal years."
Women's bodies women's wisdom, Dr. Christiane Northrup

So there you have it. I have also read that sleeplessness is a side effect of exhausted adrenal glands. Rest, rest, rest, and eat well. Follow the simple-minded steps for wisdom posted earlier on this blog. Women need to be told what their instincts have been telling them for years....

take care of yourselves,
musemother

Happiness for 2007 will be....

"Living life should be a beautiful thing every day…living your life …with feeling. Not just to think of being alive, but to actually feel alive every single day." Maharaji

Reflections on the old year: We are such busy people, with so little time to let the snow's light fall in the window, to smooth and soften our bruised and harried city-people selves.

Here's where I relax....every winter, we retreat to the Laurentians on the weekends, to a stone cottage. There we build fires, shovel snow, ski. Read the weekend papers; catch up on book reviews, nap.

The silent snow, and stalwart trees are more present than television. Absolute emptiness, lack of activity is the only balm for sore minds and hearts. All week, we rush and bump, brag and bully, push, harass and drive ourselves mad. Then we escape here, to have long baths, eat out, make love, décrochez – hang up the phone, drop out, unhook ourselves from hurry, restrict the surfeit of stimuli fed to the senses in our city lives, reduce to a country diet, plain meals for the ears, eyes and skin; senses drained of excess partying, excess noise, traffic, horns, slush and rush.

Reduce the tempo to allegro; let the gentle waves of silence fill the cup inside, feed the hunger for aloneness, solitude, respite, rest. A stopped beat on the sheet of music, the little hat that indicates hold off singing here – stop – hold a breath or take a deep breath, whichever is more restful. Then continue.

I sit here in the lazy boy armchair watching snowflakes falling, bowing down the boughs, for at least 30 minutes without feeling the need to move or change rooms. Here, we cultivate lack of movement, and raise it to a fine art. Here, the balsams are a balm for splintered souls.

Wishing you a restful new year, and happy new beginnings in 2007, along with a poem from last December, inspired by Mary Oliver.

Ice on the Lake

Black and grey rocks, the quay
mantled in white. This night dips below
zero. Wild ducks have left the gentle
waves. At lake’s edge, thin sheets of ice
tinkle, almost mute.

December empties lake and sky
of colour, fills them with snow-light.
And something nameless contents itself
with its own reflection.

musemother

Solstice Greetings

Winter solstice

Happy Christmas, Kwanza, Hannukah, Festival of Light: today is the shortest day, and the beginning of the return of the light. The sun will stay a few minutes longer every day, until it lengthens, incrementally, into summer once again.

It’s also about Christmas trees, wrapping presents, kids going nuts with exams and then whoopee – 2 weeks off school. Yikes!

Usually it’s a hectic, crazy, too-many-parties time of year. This time I’m pacing myself; my shopping was done last week. Miracle! Still lots of time to wrap presents, for some of the 20 family members on each side. Our first party has come and gone; we danced like crazy, had a wild time, drank some great wine and survived the morning after. One down, only five more to go….

You wanna know what’s on my Christmas list? Besides diamonds and pearls? No really, simplicity would be good. I started in November by cleaning out my cupboard of old work clothes. I haven’t worked in an office in over 12 years. Why was I saving those suits with shoulder pads?

Second on my list, living in the moment, having an awareness of joy seep into me. My deepest desire is to feel that I am being guided with every step. That would take a lot of stress off. To know that I’m always in the right place at the right time, if I can slow down enough to appreciate it.

This morning I sat with an intention, a prayer, to let go and trust the higher power. Inside this frame, this container -- what is holding me? Can I let myself be rocked inside the empty space, hear the channel of breath rising and falling, echo of the great wind that breathes me? Help me let go, lose the fear, feel the love.

I have a companion on the path, a guide and I ask him for help too. He says love is stronger than fear.

He also says, “If you want to increase your blessings, start counting them.”

I wish you all a multitude of blessings!

Happy Return of the Light!



musemother

Body Guidance

"For healing to occur, we must come to see that we are not so much responsible for our illnesses as responsible to them. ...see it not as the enemy to be 'curecd' but as an aspect of [our] own inner guidance that [i]s trying to direct attention toward health enhancing changes in [] life."
Dr. Christiane Northrup, M.D. Women's Bodies Women's Wisdom

This amazing book came into my life by accident, as wisdom sometimes does. My aunt Betsy had sent it to my mother for Christmas. It sat on the coffee table, and I couldn't take my eyes off the title.

This was about 10 years ago I think, and I doubt if my mother ever had a chance to read the book (she wasn't interested at the time) because my sisters and I nabbed it. Since then I have lent it out to many women. One woman got a second opinion about a hysterectomy and ended up not having or needing one because of this book.

It led me to teach a journal writing course called Writing the Body a few years later, incorporating some exercises I learned from a workshop with Marion Woodman (i.e. having a dialogue with your uterus) with some ideas of Northrup's. I love the idea that our bodies' connection with the emotional system is so linked, so metaphorical. Breaking a leg meaning 'having to stand on one's own two feet', for instance. Breast cancer linked to too much giving, ie breasts = nurturance.

My own connection to my body seems to be blocked at the neck. I've been taking yoga classes for about ten years and although I am still a beginner in the asanas, I just started a daily practice to keep me grounded and in touch with the belly during the day. Being conscious, or mindful as some people say, requires a lot of practice. It's so much easier to live in your head!

Inside my body are so many emotions, ignored, not wanted, neglected or denied. The emotions stuffed down 'there', eaten in haste, swallowed in shame. Listening to the belly wisdom or body guidance, is about getting in touch with what is there, about letting it be, not trying to push it away, or run from it. It catches up with us anyway, in back spasms, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, chronic shoulder and neck pain, arthritis, a myriad of messengers begging us not to live in denial of our feelings.

I believe it's harder still to live with the illnesses that are a consequence of too much stuffing down.

I notice how my belly tightens when I'm hearing something that makes me anxious or afraid. Breathe into it. Stretch into it. Accept what is.

Take it easy, I remind myself. Don't sweat it. Breathe deeply.

Then I also remind myself, my body guidance will not become natural and instinctual overnight.

Fill the belly bowl with breath, let it out, and release.
one more time, now...

peace,



musemother

Belly Wisdom Sweetness

If I could be my own healer, what would I do? Maybe lie down on the ground and just breathe, or listen to a flute playing on a recording while a chanting voice hovers in the background.

Maybe let my cat come and lie down on my belly.

Or maybe do some yoga, and get in touch with my own belly wisdom.

What does my belly (or deep feminine soul) have to say? It might invite me to

- stay inside the channel of breath
- feel the corridor of energy up and down my body
- feel the life energy inside the body temple

Inside me is a home for thought, a temple of self-knowing; my belly is a womb carrier, a soul belly bowl, a child-maker cell cooker, a sower of seeds, reaper of blood, life holder bird watcher, cloud bringer, wind no wind breath mover, compass of compassion, place of gut vision.

She, belly wisdom, echoes back distress or acceptance. Anxious yearning or presence of love.

Breathe into the belly-heart beat.

Laugh into the heart of the belly.

Find home base, here, deep inside the breath. Here, she is at home.

I am at home, in my body. Mind focussed, light on, feeling peace, acceptance of my shadow and pain, breath moves up into my heart from the belly, and up into throat, and higher. All the centers light up, root to crown.

From crown to root, all my centers lit.
I hug my body to the bone
and breathe my heart smile into my belly of peace.

That is sweet.

luv,

musemother

The soul of sexuality

“Imagine living in a culture where sex was a sacrament rather than a sin!” Dr. Christiane Northrup

Imagine Eve embracing the snake...

“Kundalini is a special kind of energy known in many cultures... Kundalini is said to be hot, fast, powerful, and large. It exists within the earth, within all life, and within each person. …Yogis spend lifetimes learning how to wake up their Kundalini so they may experience enlightenment. Success causes a surge of super-heated energy to travel through the body, firing the nerves, dilating blood vessels, and altering the nature of reality. Sounds like a hot flash to me.” Susun Weed, New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way

“Orangutans do not go into menopause. Chimpanzees do not need extract of mare pee…. Only in human females does the fertility program shut down years before death.” Natalie Angier, Woman An Intimate Geography

“Sex is the mysterious binding energy that keeps the electrons spinning around the nucleus. It is the energy of God and spirit expressing itself in ever-changing, ever-evolving physical form...

It is the attracting energy that binds every part of the universe. …in the broadest sense, sex is spirit seeking expression in physical form." from Mother Daughter Wisdom, Dr. Christiane Northrup

“The clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers to be precise…twice the number in the penis.” Angier says a clitoris’ sole purpose seems to be to give a woman control over her own sexuality. Woman, An Intimate Geography

Sex and spirituality are both acts of love, according to Thomas Moore in The Soul of Sex. “Affection is one effective way to resolve the dualism of body and spirit….Affection is the process of making love sensual…giving sex the soul it needs so as not to become aggressive, manipulative and empty.

“When spirituality and sexuality come together, like yin and yang, like husband and wife, we discover our lost security. We find the vertical life, the electric axis on which deep sensation runs into lofty spirit…” (sounds like Kundalini to me)

Sex and spirit: body infused with spirit, energy, light: LOVE equals Limitless Oscillating Vibration of Energy.

Think of that next time you make LOVE.

peace,

musemother

Sacred Sexuality and the feminine

some unrelated or related thoughts on women's sexuality:

Kundalini is the snake energy coiled at the base of the spine, or 1st chakra. Eve married the snake....initiated into her sexual being/nature.

Borysenko says menopausal women in a hot flash are awakening kundalini energy.

Pinkola Estes’ likens a woman’s heat to her intense sensory awareness that “includes, but is not limited to, her sexuality….There were once Goddess cults devoted to irreverent female sexuality…not derogatory, but concerned with portraying parts of the unconscious that remain, yet today, mysterious and largely uncharted.”

I love her story about Baubo the belly goddess who spreads belly laughs, and cures Demeter of her sadness. Pinkola Estes says arousing the libido through dirty jokes can help break up a depression… Baubo made Demeter laugh by wiggling her hips in a suggestive way. The funny thing was, she had no head: her nipples were her eyes and her vulva was her mouth; from it came juicy jokes. (Women who run with the wolves)

The throat and the vulva are linked in eastern medicine. Two mouths, one above, one below. The one below speaking a different kind of truth, something elemental, natural, of the wild nature.


more tomorrow,

musemother

The Wild feminine

A wonderful book I lived with for over a year by my bedside and as my bible, is the Women Who Run with the wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

I love her descriptions of the wild feminine - that hungry soul who is 'famished for a life that has meaning and makes sense', who has such creative urges that living in ease and comfort can make her feel like she is living in a famine.

"If a woman is supposed to be lady who sits with her knees kissing only each other, if she was raised to keel over in the presence of rough language, if she was never allowed anthying to drink but pasteurized milk...then when she is freed, look out! Suddenly she may not be able to drink enough of those slow-gin fizzes, she may sprawl like a drunken sailor, and her language will peel the paint off the walls. After famine, there is a fear one will again be captured someday. so one gets while the getting is good."

When creative spirit is thwarted or locked away, a wild woman becomes sad, like a wild animal kept in a zoo, no matter how pampered and fed. "Too much domestication breeds out strong and basic impusles to play, relate, cope, rove, commune..." Pinkola Estes calls these women 'instinct injured'.

A woman like this gives herself away and cannot recognize her own needs.

Pinkola Estes analysis of the Red Shoes story leads her to suggest it's overlaid on top of a matriarchal story about the onset of menarche and the taking on of 'less-mother-protected life'. Amazing, that colour red - symbolizing a woman's first blood, birth, and/or miscarriage. I have to re-read this chapter! Full of interesting information that I underlined the first time round.

Anyway, three cheers for the wild feminine! She will not subsist on crumbs, on little sips of fresh air. She will not be stifled, nor held back. "The wild force in a woman's soul demands that she have access to it all." We have adapted to captivity, but it does not suit us. Our instincts may have gone underground, but they are still steaming hot. Our bodies carry the ancient memory of being free, of feeling safe to be a woman, of being strong, sensitive, loving and fierce. All in one.

I, myself, am tired of living small, tired of squishing my 'freedom fighter' into a shoebox. I ache for all the women who are kept indoors, underwraps, who must serve and serve and never have a voice. It seems a small thing, to voice one's opinion without fear. But that voice rings out loud and clear, and clangs a bell in someone else's ear, who has the ears to listen.

I'm raving a bit here, loosening up the tight strings. While my daughter nurses a muscle spasm in her shoulder....from striving too hard, doing too much, already a little perfectionist in training at 14.....

good night,


musemother

Awakening compassion

Many of us, through different religions, have developed an image of God, perhaps as an impersonal form of divine creative energy, like the big bang that birthed the cosmos, or as a benevolent parent-- father or mother (more usually, stern father).

Throughout Christian history, God is painted as a Father figure, but the essence of his concern and love is often presented in its mothering energy as a breast offering milk, in the form of the Madonna.

I prefer not to humanize the God energy in any particular way, but having been brought up Christian, my habit has been to pray to Our Lord. So now I add Our Lady, to balance the masculine image with a feminine one. My most intimate connection to the divine presence is through meditation, through contemplating the stillness in motion, or the source of life within, which can be felt inside the body, and has no gender.

But the idea of god’s gender sticks – which is why the Tao appeals to me. It is interesting that the ancient Chinese called the Tao the Mother of the universe – as well as saying it was nameless and formless. In her book, A Woman's Journey to God, Joan Borysenko quotes a well know Taoist woman philosopher Dr Zhang I Hsien (known as Lily Siou) as saying, “Female and male, called yin and yang in Tao, give joy to each other. They support each other and give life to the next generations… A universal law of Tao is that when the yin is complete, it gives birth to the yang. When yang is complete, it reaches satisfaction and gives energy to the yin; yin is the mother of yang. Both reach the fullness of their potential and give birth to the opposite.”

I find it useful to set aside trying to figure out whether God is male or female, and imagine these powers as feeding each other and birthing each other in the great swirling spiral of light and dark matter that is the universe, continually growing and expanding, dying and creating new life.

In the meantime, I am developing a love of feminine images of the sacred, in whatever form and from whichever culture. They are mostly new to me, so carry no cultural or religious baggage. My current favourites are Our Lady of Guadalupe from Mexico and Kwan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion. Perhaps this represents what I need most in my menopausal journey right now – compassion towards my self, more rest, less judgment, less demands made on myself, and more understanding of my limitations.

Do some research on your own dear readers, to find a mother god image that speaks to you, or attend a class I am giving in January at the West Island Women’s Centre on Embracing the Feminine, sacred symbols of motherhood.

Email me for more information, if you like.

Jennifer




musemother