Summer time and the fish are jumping

Sorry, the posts are few and far between.

I try and post something on my Musemother Facebook Page a few times a week, and there's also the Tao of Turning Fifty page on facebook for daily posts and inspiration.

The blog, well, it's on the back burner during this summer hiatus.

come back and see us soon! when the fall winds blow in....

happy trails, happy sailing

Musemother

Peace on the Inside

TPRF is doing a lot of great humanitarian work, and has an innovative program called Food For People. But recently they have expanded their Peace Education Program.

Watch this short 6 minute video about Peace Education Program in prisons.

musemother
www.jenniferboire.com

Poetry for Hard Times

Have you ever noticed that in times of need, or celebration of a life, people turn to poetry? We don't think of poetry often, most of us, (myself not included), or read it, but when it's time for a funeral, a baptism, a wedding or something momentous occurs, we need the intensity and beauty of powerful words sculpted into deeper meaning.

Reading the paper this morning, I saw this poem in a notice about a young girl's short life:


“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.” 
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Beauty,  isn't it?

So here's something beautiful you can do right now - look online for poems about things that matter. You'll find a ton of them. Do a google search by theme. For example, I have a bunch of middle aged poems on my other blog - wisdom for women, and poems for lots of occasions.

My other favourite source is Garrison Keillor's great selection: Good Poems. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/garrison-keillor


Here's one by Denise Levertov, a poet I discovered in a creative writing program:

Living

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.
The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

enjoy every minute of this lush, green summer!

Musemother

A Mom’s Salary

(written several years ago and salvaged from my computer for your reading pleasure).

SoulCollage Card

This week in the Social Studies section of the Globe & Mail I read a fascinating statistic: the average stay-at-home mom in the U.S. could be earning the same salary as a top advertising executive or a judge, according to salary.com: $134,121. Her real work includes the earning power of ten jobs: housekeeper, daycare teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry worker, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist.

Well, I’ve discussed that kind of salary with my husband, and it just isn’t in the budget. But it certainly made me feel better to know my actual financial worth. Now I know why I don't have time to go back to 'work'. It got me thinking about multi-tasking, and how that word doesn’t describe doing more than one thing at a time anymore, since I’ve turned fifty and can’t split my brain in five directions, but it still applies to the multi-job description of M.O.M.

Yesterday I was walking the dog around the block (they forgot that in the list of job descriptions) when I saw one of those corporate housewives at work in her garden. A nanny rushed out, portable phone in one hand. The woman gardening pulled off one earthy glove, and the chief executive took over, giving instructions and making decisions. I bet there are thousands of housewives in suburbia managing small armies of staff (usually part-time or on contract) to help us manage our little domains. For instance, on Monday, the Sears repairman was here cleaning out and hosing down the Heat Pump, while two more blue-clad technicians were vacuuming the air ducts and furnace; the man from Val Morin Pools was pumping stagnant water from the in-ground pool and a gardening specialist was spraying my bushes with dormant oil. I was rushing from backyard to basement to the front door, signing cheques and keeping the puppy out of their way.

Spring is here and my list of household projects has taken on a new ‘ampleur’. I put on my facilities manager’s hat from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. when I don the chauffeur’s cap to pick up two girls from after school dance class, then switch to the chef’s hat for meal preparation time, and retire after supper to an outside activity, choir rehearsal, and coaching session with singing and choreography, accapella style. Home at 10ish, my army sergeant voice booms out – all lights out now! After a quick toothbrush swiped over my teeth and a brief flossing (I am my own dental assistant), I turn down the covers and remove all the hats to entertain a short dialogue with my hubby (co-producer, co-author, co-manager and major salary provider) before succumbing to deep sleep (oh yes, there was also a brief interlude as child-psychologist after school with fifteen-year-old who is itching to go downtown and check out the club scene and has girls tattooing hearts on his arm at school. We need to hire a road hockey coach or enroll him in basketball for the summer: intense physical activity needed to ward off spring fever.

As I lie there, the birthday party planner kicks in: Kaye’s fourteenth birthday in two weeks and I’ll be away at choir competition. Must help her poor Dad plan for an afternoon pool party for 10 adolescent girls, evening sleepover for four ‘best friends,’ and next day drop them off at Bazoo for a pillow-making party. Tomorrow morning, must not forget the personal trainer will arrive (actually a close personal friend of mine who charges very low rates) to prod me into shape with a big ball and five pound weights attached to my arms…then I’m going shopping for leather furniture and a desk for the new home office I plan to create, to entice hubby to work from home within five years. Then he can really call himself co-manager. Soon he’ll be wearing ten hats, just like me. Then maybe I can retire.

Yep, now that I’ve run through all the jobs on my to-do list, I can sleep. Just wish there was somewhere to punch in and pick up that paycheque…. My hat's off to all you chief executive moms out there

So next Mother's Day, you can insist they give the Chief Executive a day off.

love,

Musemother

Right to Write

I am stepping into a new relationship with my writing . After my lovely retreat in Paris, where my writing coach gave me some deep questions to ponder, I decided I love working in my quiet room with the window on the lake, but I need to make some changes. My writing arm and mouse hand/shoulder have been acting up for two years now, and it was time to get a new computer and move my work into the office with a good desk, chair and ergonomic set-up. Done. Check.

I needed to make a writing schedule I could stick to, that still leaves room for laundry, meals and exercise. Since this Monday, I have been giving myself two hours a morning to read/write/journal  and explore my various projects that have been simmering on the back burner – a long poem series on Georgia O’Keeffe, some stories and poems about my father, and a whole lot of other stories that need reworking.

Like the Russian dolls my son gave me in Paris, I have many layers inside of me, many talents and things I love to do. It’s hard for me to stick to just one thing. But I’m going to give this writing thing a good fighting chance. Reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, recommended to me by Karen Ely, is helping me understand that writing is also about listening. Listening in, letting the soul be called by the specific things in this world, the red-wing blackbird bobbing on a maple branch, the smell of the peonies on my kitchen table, the ouch of a stubbed toe on a metal chair leg.  Letting my inner ear hear, and transcribing what transpires.

Anyway here is what came out of my workbook about my new focus:

No to dizzy spinning busy-making craziness

Yes to Calm Center

Yes to my work space inviolate and Boundaries around writing time

Yes to Exploring relationship buildilng, developing new ways of being together and alone

Yes to long distance mothering and having faith in their ability to function without my intervention

Yes to allowing my energy and concern to be on my work, primariily

No to the habit of pleasing others first

Yes to solid “I” centered focus

No to being the little wifey

Yes to sharing creative energies andprojects with like-minded artists

No to letting all consuming volunteer projects online overwhelm me

Some items on this list scare me, and feel a tad selfish. I guess that’s a sign that I have a ways to go to value my own work, worth enough to make time for it and commit.

I’ll be writing the blog less frequently this summer, but you can join me on Facebook anytime, on either Musemother’s page or The Tao of turning Fifty page.

Enjoy the good weather – it’s bound to turn up soon!

Jennifer

 

What is the colour of your writing?

I visited the Musee du Jardin de Luxembourg exhibit on Chagall today, and aside from the sheer number of paintings and the work, I was struck by his use of colour. On my way out, I bought the magazine describing the exhibition and inside of it was a lexicon of the symbols he used (goat, rooster, couple, musicians) and the colours and what they represented.

According to one author, Chagall said, Blue is the colour of my soul. (Of course another author said, he just said that to blow off curious people asking too many questions). But I like that his soul had a colour.

I'm in the middle of a writing retreat, so I began to read more about Chagall, and it turned into a few pages about my own choice of colours, especially in clothes I'm wearing. It began as an inquiry in my journal about that woman who likes pink shoes and an orange shirt she hasn't worn yet. It turned into a discussion of colour and what it has meant to me at different periods. And the reasons behind why I haven't been writing lately.

So can going to an exhibit be a muse for your writing? or seeing a painter prompt a poem or a prose piece? Not that unusual, perhaps, except I hadn't thought of it on my own, the writing facilitator suggested it as an artist date with myself (a concept from Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way).

Reading it back tonight after supper, to a listener for the first time, I was pleased with the piece. Then Karen, the retreat facilitator said, I think you're writing again!

So what colour will trigger your writing? your creative juices? can you get outside your room or house and go for a walk and notice something you have never seen before, and get inside some inspiration from outside? what surprised me is that it doesn't always have to come from your 'imagination' or inside your head.

Dare to do something different, shake up your schedule, pencil an hour with your camera, mix up the arts a little, and allow yourself the freedom to find a new path, just for today.

that's all for now, from Paris,
Jenn/Musemother
xxxooo

Creative Life

Ah to read about Paris, Hemmingway, Frida Kahlo, Anais Nin, the golden era for me that was their world in between the wars.....and to be in Paris reading these books, hmmmmm, stirs the creative juices.

But if I was hanging out with surrealist painters and writers, today, in whichever arrondissement the current artists are sitting in cafes in, perhaps I would be bored to tears or find them wacky and weird.

Instead, we are making our own creative fun by walking the streets and bridges, Pont des Arts, Pont Neuf, going from cafe to cabaret, in three different quartiers, drinking cafe creme or rose, a little bubbly... It's very conducive to the fertile muck stirring a writer needs - to budge from her rut, her comfortable world, and explore the City of Light. Having conversations with cab drivers about the lousy economy and listening to Leonard Cohen dance me to the end of love.

Actually, it's very dark and rainy today, cold, a good day to stay indoors and read the life of Frida Kahlo, parts of which were in New York and Paris, rubbing shoulders with Georgia O'Keeffe and Andre Breton, Henry Miller and Anais Nin.

c'est tres sympa, as they say. To be moody and cold in Paris...next week I have a real writers' retreat booked for myself, a few blocks away, and maybe I'll tackle this O'Keeffe-Kahlo project that has been tickling my mind for a few days now.

Until Monday, hopefully the sun will come out, we'll put on our walking shoes and shop for our baguette and fromage.

salut les mecs!

Musemother/Jenn
a  Paris (where there ain't no cure for love)

Empowering the Feminine within: A woman who follows her own heart

“The things women are most yearning for---such as deeper connection, spiritual awakening, self-expression, creativity, right livelihood, creating an enlightened world for generations to come---all require a new level of Feminine Power to bring them forth.” Jean Houston

A woman who follows her own heart has learned to listen to her intuition.

A woman who follows her own heart listens to her body guidance.

A woman who follows her own heart shares deeply, listens deeply, is present with others.

A woman who follows her own heart feels her fear, acknowledges it, but is not held back by it.

A woman who follows her own heart is always expanding, growing, learning.

A woman who follows her own heart discovers her true desires and interests.

A woman who follows her own heart is impatient to get started.

A woman who follows her own heart believes in herself, and her creative powers.

A woman who follows her own heart is able to say no, and speak her truth.

A woman who follows her own heart knows the value of doing nothing, of rest and recuperation.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that to go down and in is preparation for coming out and up.

A woman who follows her own heart is a source of calm, a balm for others.

A woman who follows her own heart leans inward in times of trouble, but is not afraid to ask for help.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that angels and guides are watching over her.

A woman who follows her own heart knows her own value.

A woman who follows her own heart accepts herself as she is, flawed but fabulous.

A woman who follows her own heart lets her children be flawed and fabulous too.

A woman who follows her own heart stands her ground.

A woman who follows her own heart knows how to be grounded in root energy.

A woman who follows her own heart lets go to the flow of synchronicity.

A woman who follows her own heart trusts the Universe and knows she is loved.

A woman who follows her own heart has a constant companion and Friend within.

A woman who follows her own heart reaches out in compassion to those who suffer, she has been there too.

A woman who follows her own heart creates an atmosphere of love and caring around her.

A woman who follows her own heart remembers where her Joy is.

A woman who follows her own heart laughs from the belly.

A woman who follows her own heart loves her body and knows she is beautiful within and without.

A woman who follows her own heart forgives herself for her mistakes.

A woman who follows her own heart is in love with Beauty.

A woman who follows her own heart is in touch with her feminine power.

Any woman who follows her own heart can learn to be this woman.

Any woman who is aware of where she is and how she feels, and doesn’t try to pretend to be something different, can be this woman.

You are that woman with heart, unfolding, becoming, and realizing herself as the goal.

Heart is the Hearth and Home of you. Come home to your heart!

Namaste,

Musemother

10 ways to spoil Mom for Mother’s Day (without spending money)

If you’re a mom, what would your favourite gift be? Mine would be free time just for me. Here are some ideas for gifts that don't cost anything, except a little loving attention.

You could leave this list lying around the week before Mother's Day or ask your kids to give you a coupon with one of these ideas on it, instead of spending money on a bauble or another coffee mug that will gather only dust on your shelf.

1. Make her some fizzy bath salts: follow these easy steps at http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Fizzy-Salts

2.  Give her a coupon in a home-made card promising to clean your room or do own laundry.

3.  Make her favorite breakfast and serve it to her in bed (Dad can help!)

4. Give her a foot massage. Don’t know how?  http://www.wikihow.com/Give-a-Foot-Massage

5. Having someone else cook dinner is a great gift! Pasta is easy…

6. Write mom a poem: a funny limerick, a short haiku, or make an acrostic with her name

7. Pick some wild bluebells and make her a spring bouquet. 

8. Remember her favourite colour and use it to make a home-made card.

9.   Make her a frame with pictures of her favourite kids (you!).

10.  Coupon for free babysitting for a spa day (idea from Dad, a whole day off!)

Happy Spring!
Musemother

ps another great gift idea for a mom in mid-life (in her forties or fifties) is the book The Tao of Turning Fifty, What Every Woman in Her Forties Needs to Know, which gives tips and exercises for self-care and mothering yourself!  www.jenniferboire.com

Quotes to help you Just Be Yourself

Let these words resonate and inform your spirit with the courage to be yourself:

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

 "We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."  – ee cummings 

Don’t bend, water it down, or make it logical; don’t edit your soul for fashion. Follow intense obsessions mercilessly. – writer Franz Kafka.

When I'm trusting and being myself
as fully as possible,
everything in my life reflects this
by falling into place easily,
often miraculously.
 ~ Shakti Gawain

What we need to know, we already know. It is not more knowledge that is needed, but more careful listening, more dreaming, more daring. It is believing in the possibility that the voice within our skin has an answer to someone else’s question, if not our own. – Jan Phillips, Marry Your Muse

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.  —Thich Nhat Hanh

Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are. —Rachel Naomi Remen

No one else has access to the world you carry around within yourself; you are its custodian and entrance. No one else can see the world the way you see it. No one else can feel your life the way you feel it.

 —John O’Donohue

Namaste and Happy Spring!

Musemother

Listening to Inner Calling at Mid-Life

Life's journey brings each of us face to face at some point with a search for meaning and purpose - perhaps we begin with one predefined for us by our parents/teachers or mentors. We either accept or reject this. We swim out into the deep waters of young adulthood armed with degrees and book knowledge, then sink or swim with our own hard-learned experiences, failed romances, achievements and ideals fulfilled or unfulfilled. Parenthood and career/work absorb us for twenty or thirty years and then Wham! we hit midlife. The satisfaction meter either glows Hot or Cold - Red or Green. Saying, keep on going this way, straight ahead or STOP. Pause. Rethink. Revise Strategy.

We ask ourselves, where am I on my map? Where am I on my journey towards those inner goals? A longing for a sense of purpose calls us once again, because the outer 'stuff' is now taken care of (or thrown into flux by job changes, health challenges, spousal betrayal). We are creatures of meaning. Not only doing, but being is important to us. We wonder, how am I doing? It's not only about my bank account, my RRSP, savings, success, but also, Where am I on the Authenticity and Satisfaction scale, the happiness and contentment with my life scale? 

Have I begun to pay attention to the inner calling of my heart? Have I begun to give back? Is there a passion that needs exploring, a reminder of my good ole days love for theater, singing, skiing or sailing? Or am I just too pooped to coop and need a bit of rest, some down time to recoup?

This journey to the Self and greater meaning involves not only caring for others, my family, mother, children, aunts, friends, coworkers, but also checking in with me. Have  I grown, developed my gifts and talents? Have I only worked and not played? (that sure makes me a dull girl!) Is my life balanced on the Wellness Wheel of Life (physical, mental, spiritual, body mind and soul). Is it time to take stock and realign with my Core Values, or find out what they heck they are?

Welcome to your mid-life transition! all those questions come up, as you face your own mortality (around age 50 usually). You look back at where you started - you try to gauge how much you might have left to do, or perhaps you simply release all expectations and collapse into complacency, or if you're lucky, deep satisfaction, in perfect flow. Optimal experiences abound - you've sorted out your inner conflicts, and you're feeling good about yourself, you're loving the grandchildren, and your leisure time. Quality of life is finally yours.

If this is not the case, ask yourself - have I listened to my heart's calling lately? What do I really love to do,what takes me into a 'flow' experience, out of time, forgetting about my self and problems? Then ask yourself, how can I make more room for that kind of experience in my life?

It might mean taking a new class, exploring a new hobby, or volunteering part-time to work with young kids, but it always involves lining ourselves up with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

If you feel drained, your psychic energy all sucked into doing stuff you hate - then midlife is a great time to stop, reflect, make changes, and bring more attention to doing what you love. Maybe it's time to build a creative life!

The book Flow outlines how a combination of facing challenges and growing skills is required at all levels of our life - at work, play, in family, with friends - to develop and grow happiness. It takes a certain amount of discipline to harness our psychic energy away from self-defeating negative thoughts and investing energy into creative pursuits that fulfill us. TV watching for instance feeds apathy, while gardening may bring harmony. 

We can better cope with stressful events, and create order out of chaos when we learn how to control our inner environment - our minds. 

So that's where listening to the Inner calling of the heart comes in. Discovering myself, from the inside, realigning myself with what I love to do, with my real internal goals (to be needed, to be loved, to give back, to be creatively fulfilled...) and getting closer to my gifts and talents brings harmony and unity back to my soul.

It gives meaning to my life and helps resolve inner conflicts, once I know what I want, and then take concrete steps to learn the skills or use my talents to achieve it. Following someone else's agenda for happiness will never bring me back to my own center, my own peace.  I need to discover what only I love.

What would you do, if you didn't care what anyone else thought of you? if it wasn't too selfish? if it was just for your own enjoyment? What did you used to love doing that you no longer do? Journaling about these questions will help you uncover the Inner Calling of your heart and help you find meaning and purpose at mid-life.

Namaste,

Musemother

April is Poetry Month

In honour of the Laurentians, where spring melt is glorious, and comes a few weeks later.

Spring melt

Everywhere a fine mist

a million drops rising

into spring air.

Freezing rain iced the roads last night,

layered trees in thin lace.

Now, morning sun tilts the snowwoman,

       head tilts onto ground

arms stuck in the leaning boulders.

Melting snow reveals a rock.

Geese wing northward
in small gaggles.

Spring runoff

from the roof races

my pulse erratic.

last night’s dream moving

up and up

a staircase

looking for You.

I wrote this poem back when the kids were little, and I had broken my leg skiing, so confined to the chalet while they hit the hills. I loved the sunroom in the chalet we rented then, near Ste-Adele and my alone time, writing, reading, lying in the sun stretching the wounded leg, healing and hanging out with the dog.

I later rewrote it, shortened it, took the Samurai Sword and it became:

Spring melt

Geese wing northward
in small gaggles.

Everywhere a fine mist

rises, million drops

lift into air.

Through the windows,

light erratic,

roof runoff spills

from the gutters.

Last night’s dream

moving up & up

a mobile staircase

looking for      

                    You.

and was published in For the Birds, my last collection of poems.

Happy spring all

Musemother

Gather the Women: Menopause and Mothering

SoulCollage(R) Card Multi-tasking Mom Raises a Hand for Help

If it takes a Village to raise a child, then it’s time to Gather the Women.

Yesterday in my Creative Circle class, six women, all mothers, were discussing how hard it is to make time for what you love to do, because it feels self-indulgent and selfish. That led to talking about how overwhelmed we feel with our own emotions at mid-life, our hormonal peaks and valleys, feeling stretched and distracted and having not enough uninterrupted ‘me’ time to journal, write, draw, collage, or just putter around in.

And that led to a story of a woman doctor with three kids who just up and left one day, and didn’t come home for six months. Now there’s a scary thought! It's perhaps the secret fear of every mother,  that we will fail at being a mom. I think the fact that women are putting off having children until our thirties, brings us closer to the perilous period of peri-menopause in our forties. Meanwhile, our children are still at home and needing us to chauffeur, cook, clean and supervise homework for them, which leads to moms feeling ‘on duty’ 24-7 with no breaks, and subsequent feelings of overwhelm. The ideal, multi-tasking ‘supermom’ hits a brick wall at peri-menopause (which begins in your mid-forties), and begins to crumble and crack at the edges.

At menopause, says Dr Christiane Northrup, the reigning expert on the subject, one of the most common needs women express is the need to get away, alone. I’d say the second greatest need is the help and support of other women.

Talking with other women about what really matters is very good for the soul, and very healing. I’ve been part of a woman’s circle for seven or eight years now.  We used to meet twice a month, and lately we’ve moved to once a month, two hours on a Thursday afternoon. We take turns hosting and providing tea, while we have a Circle Chat. It started when our kids were in high school, and we had less opportunity to meet other women while volunteering at school. 

How it works, is that each woman gets to talk about whatever is on her mind, whatever bubbles up from within her soul, for five-ten minutes; we use a crystal rock as a talking stick, so that the whole circle listens deeply,  holding space for her to speak.

This circle of women helped me keep sane and made me a happier mom. I don’t know how I would have gotten through menopause without having these women to talk to about what really matters.

I realized this morning that the discussion in my Creative Circle class yesterday about taking time for ourselves to do what we love, and what pushes a woman to the edge of leaving her kids and family in menopause, are two very related and very important topics.  It’s because we think self-care is selfish that we don’t give ourselves enough down time. Or we think it’s ‘frivolous’ to do something like writing in our journal or making a collage, or something that speaks to who we are, that feeds our creative woman’s soul. 

Some women hesitate to even mention it to their husbands for fear of appearing self-indulgent and less hard-working. Especially if you are a mom who works at home, and already feel guilty that you have time during the day while the kids are at school, so you fill it up to the max with volunteering and other ‘worthwhile’ activities, forgetting to leave yourself any time to do the things that fill the well, make you happy, revitalize and energize you.

Lately I am finding more and more articles and quotes that offer proof that it’s actually better for the people we love for us to take care of our own needs too, and put ourselves on the list. If you have a creative streak, that crankiness and irritability you feel may actually be coming from the need to get back into Flow, to express your creativity. Whatever the needs you have, don’t bury them in busy-ness.

When we truly care for ourselves, it becomes possible to care far more profoundly about other people. The more alert and sensitive we are to our own needs, the more loving and generous we can be towards others. — Eda LeShan

So back to Gathering the Women – when I meet with other women, when I share my feelings about what really matters to me, or just spill the beans about the crazy-making days when I don’t have a minute to breathe, or pee, or eat lunch….when I get a chance to feel heard and seen, and can take off the pretend mask of Perfectionism or Super-mom who has it all together, it saves my life. It probably saves the lives of my kids too, because my mood is brighter, I feel less cranky and irritable. I can give from the well, because my well is feeling rather full. I don't feel like throwing in the towel and taking a year's sabbitical from motherhood.

Can you recognize the symptoms of overwhelm before they explode on you? Can you lean on friends, hire a house-cleaner, leave the house for tea with a friend, make time to write in your journal or start a women’s circle? How can you give yourself a break, cut yourself some slack, ease up on the list of things to do and create some Creative Space for yourself? Begin by gathering other women and having the conversation about this hairy mid-life transition and the strain it puts on our mothering.

As a bonus to anyone who leaves a comment here, I will put your names in a draw for the book An Anthology of Babes, 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice, edited by Suzi Banks Baum. In this book you'll find 36 women writers and artists, sharing their stories, writing from their souls. You will find a circle of voices here.

Namaste, Musemother

an-anthology-of-babes

The Gifts of Taking Time For Yourself

Having a snow day here in Montreal, yeah! good for those moms who can't go anywhere and good for those kids who wanna stay home and play games or build snow forts, but boo hoo, my Creative Circle class was cancelled! We still had yoga this morning at my house, which felt like being wrapped in a white cocoon, the window and the lake outside are all white! The Green Spring we felt yesterday has been covered up.

So afterwards, over lunch, I picked up a book from my pile of books to read, since the driveway hasn't been ploughed yet: Finding the Deep River Within, http://deepriverwithin.com/book/ and re-read it, looking for an exercise we are going to use in class next week on Doing what you love. And lo and behold, the same message I just blogged about yesterday, came shouting back at me: "In order to take time-in, we need to choose it." Alone time without distraction is what author Abby Seixas calls 'time-in'.  Slowing down, watering the root of your soul with some down time, is so nourishing, but you have to make time for it.

Her point in the first few chapters is well taken - that until we recognize how pressured we are by the culture, how aligned and in synch we are with technological speed and multi-tasking (a computer term by the way), it's hard to disengage and slow down without feeling we're going against the grain. Usually it takes an illness or a deep sense of fragmentation or falling apart before we even consider slowing the pace (without feeling guilty). Unless you are a gardener, or a person who loves to cook from scratch...then you know what I'm talking about.

As far back as the sixth century BC, Lao Tzu was dealing with this 'running around', so it may not be something 'new' per se, the need to get back to a rich inner life:

There is no need to run outside

for better seeing,

nor to peer from a window. Rather abide

at the center of your being;

For the more you leave it, the less you learn.

Search your heart and see

If he is wise who takes each turn:

The way to do is to be.

Not surprisingly, one of the six tools for getting back in touch with that inner river within is Journaling. I know, I know, the excuses we all come up with...the feeling of never having enough time, or not being 'good' at it.  But just sitting down to untangle my thoughts, and hear myself muse out loud or on paper about what's going on underneath the ruckus on the surface is really healing.  It helps me sort through my feelings, and even begin to acknowledge some of those feelings. It doesn't take an hour, even ten minutes feels good.

Of course, the best way to make time for either journaling or time alone uninterrupted is to write it in your agenda. I just made a hair appointment for Thursday at 1 pm. Why can't I also write in 'meditation, 7:30 am, followed by Journal writing 8:30 for 10 minutes'. There, done. Morning is not always the best time for people (especially busy moms) to take time alone in. You can do it over tea at lunchtime, you can take a walk alone during a break. Or you can write in your journal before bedtime.

Get creative about feeding this deep need of your soul to have a long conversation with you!  You will actually find yourself being more productive, you'll have clearer vision, and feel less bone-tired, once you get in touch with that soul energy slumbering underneath your busy schedule....try it.

Take small steps and make it doable, so you have a better chance at success!

take care

Musemother

Women: What I learned from being sick

Having a cold or flu in winter is almost a ritual that gets repeated at least once every year, inspite of my best precautions.

I have all kinds of herbal remedies, and usually I don't stay sick for long, but this year I was travelling when the sore throat hit, and far from my tried and true flu busters.

No one likes to be stuck in bed, head throbbing, nose leaking, fever and chills running through their body. So I can't claim to have enjoyed that time in bed, although I did get a novel read in record time...but  I did get in touch with a valuable lesson.

With my head feeling like it's wrapped in cotton batten, ears plugged and chest phlegmy, it's hard to be grateful for being alive, but being forced to slow down did turn out to be a gift.

I got in touch with a deep undercurrent of tiredness, and was unable to get up and run around as quickly as I usually do. My brain still hasn't returned to 'busy mode', at least not with the same rapid response time I like to pride myself on.  I haven't been glued to my computer as much. The gift that was waiting for me was pretty low-key, and under the radar.  It was the gift of my own slowed-down speed, the going slowly itself became the gift.

Going slowly is not comfortable necessarily, when you're used to multi-tasking as I am.  But reducing my normal input level to one thing at a time is a blessing. I can begin to operate on a hum instead of a shriek. I can't jump ahead and plan three trips at once, or envision having the energy to go anywhere except be where I am right now.  Looking straight in front of me, I begin to allow myself time to breathe, time to enjoy a cup of tea, time to feel the hot water in the sink warming my hands, time to feel the softness folding the bamboo sheets, time to notice the bare grass at the side of the road walking the dog (yeah! mud and spring!). I just took a 40 minute nap, and slowly unplugged myself from the 'what if's' and questions about new classes, and creative ideas I should be developing....and just slept, curled up with my little shit-zu in my arms, belly to her back.

The gift of the present sometimes has to be forced on us, through illness, through breaking a leg, or just being extremely fatigued. We stop whirling, twirling and expecting miracles of our superwoman/man selves. It is possible, and even desirable, to do one thing at a time.

I invite you to try it sometime, even without the flu!

namaste,
musemother

When Women Were Birds Book Review for Women's Day

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
by Terry Tempest Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am loving this book. It's a bit of an autobiography, poetically written. The author begins by telling us her mother left her journals for her daughter to read, but asks that she wait until after she's gone. When Terry opens the journals, they are all blank. Every one on three shelves. The author's mother is a Mormon, from Utah, and apparently every good Mormon wife has two duties: to bear children and keep a journal. So this book seeks to uncover the motives behind her keeping them blank, and is also a poetic meditation (in parts) on what her mother's silence meant, and on the meaning of voice.

The author is also a bird watcher, and her grandmother initiated her into the love of birds. She met her husband through this as well. Lots of bird imagery. There's also a chapter about the secret writing of women, a coded calligraphy that only women used in China, to communicate with their life-long friends, which reminded me of the book The Secret Fan.

Some of the book is a bit political: the author is an activist involved in saving the wildlands and red rock area in Utah, and one of her efforts to help out was a putting together a small book of testimonial essays about the land from well-known authors, that helped sway the Congress to reconsider the rewriting of the Utah Public Lands Management act. A whole chapter is devoted to this, which although interesting and part of the author's life, did not add to the poetic text about her search for meaning in her mother's journals, except, I suppose to illustrate her need to find her own voice.

"Mother gave me my voice by withholding hers, both in life and in death."

"My mother's journals are bleached...
My Mother's Journals are clean sheets.
My Mother's Journals are white flags of surrender."

The author explores in layers the meaning of the blank sheets, and tells us in the meantime her own story, her own love affair with birds and words. In the end, she decides, "there is comfort in keeping what is sacred inside us not as a secret, but as a prayer." And seems to make peace with the white pages.

It may be an attempt to solve a mystery, but in the writing, we learn lessons about the power of a woman's voice, about mothers and daughters and granddaughters, and about the power of song, and flight.




View all my reviews

Mothering as creative, Connecting to the sacred feminine

Review of Mothering from Your Center, Tami Lynn Kent

Reading this book was a wonderful confirmation of my own mothering experience.

Eventually, every mother is torn between two things – and following the rhythm of her children and babies, and having her own time and space to work on any creative projects or work. Author Tami Lynn Kent has found a way to combine the two, by energetically getting in touch with her creative center, and surrendering to that flow. She is a women’s health physical therapist, energy worker and writer, with three boys and lots of practical experience with finding balance in home life.

In her first book, The Wild Feminine, Tami Kent provided visualizations of the pelvic bowl, as she calls it, and stories of her healing work with women’s pelvic traumas, as well as an exploration of the feminine energy system. This new book goes along the same lines, but especially addresses pregnancy, birth and mothering. She focuses on the pelvic bowl as the place of both physical and creative space where we “gestate and birth our creations”.

Kent calls mothering an epic journey, a spiritual quest, a ‘sacred process akin to the soul journeys of a shaman”.  And we mothers know that it calls up all our strength and courage, and pushes all our buttons too.  What I love best about this book are the practical tools offered, the know-how to restore a connection to the feminine center, and discover how to mother from a centered place. I especially enjoyed the visualizations and energy medicine exercises.  It’s so good to learn that mothering can be energizing rather than depleting.  That’s a message I wish I had read before setting out on the journey to mothering.

I have always known that as mother I am the center, the hearth, the tuning fork for the rest of the family. Tending to my own center and balance, however, demands time and patience. For example, Kent advises women get more rest during the first few weeks of postpartum time right after birth. Let the housework go, or hire help and see how close to home you can stay, as if on retreat. There is a big self-care component in this book – an honouring of the reality of being mother. Most days it is hard, physical work, and emotionally draining. Tami is not prescriptive, however, and leaves it up to the reader to make decisions from the wisdom of her center – about things like sharing a family bed, nursing vs bottles, and replenishing the well. There is no one right way of doing things. 

I know this book could have helped me negotiate a smoother transition between time for me and time for my babies, without feeling guilty or resentful, and without feeling the constant need to be ‘busy’. As the author rightly says, the challenge is that we don’t know how to slow down and follow our own inner rhythm, especially for those mothers who may be staying home for the first time after working at an outside job. Sometimes we keep over-busy to avoid our sad and mad feelings.  Kent chose not to return to work outside the home right away, as did I, because as she says, “My child had called me back to my center, and from the center I eventually wove a life and work-family balance that would support us.”  There are lots of great chapters like “Taking care of You: A Loving Daily Practice” with self-care rituals as simple as drinking a cup of tea without being interrupted, resisting the urge to multi-task and letting the kids sit quietly or play nearby until her tea is finished.

This book addresses all women, those who haven’t birthed a child, those who co-mother or are step-mothers and adoptive mothers. Any woman who wants to reconnect to her Creative Core and her feminine self, find the energy connection with her child and strengthen it, will benefit from reading this book.

“When in the midst of a challenging mothering moment, instead of reacting to what is happening, I focus on finding my center and feeling my feet on the ground. I breathe deeply into my connection to the earth and bring more flow into my root…From there, I may be able to better comfort my child, deflate a conflict by taking a different approach, or engage the situation in an entirely new matter.”

Wouldn't any woman want to learn that? Ultimately, a woman needs to connect with her own body and inner guidance. To learn how to mother from the potential of her own center.

Read this book!

Musemother

website for Mothering from your center

Youtube:  Video with Tami Lynn Kent                                                                        

When life slows down to a crawl and you don’t want to get out of bed

(this is a story about not wanting to write)

Is it February? Is winter not over yet in your part of the world? In my landscape, it is whiter than white, blowing snow, blue above the clouds, a little sunshine sparkling on snow, drifts and piles of white everywhere, and a crisp coldness. Some days I find that invigorating, and head out to the frozen lake (Lac St-Louis is really part of the St-Lawrence river) and cross country ski, especially when there is fresh snow covering the ice.

But some days, like one day this week, the cold, the clouds, the constant bundling up and trying to stay warm got me down. Or maybe it was my immune system fighting off cold or flu germs (I have been sneezing a lot). All I wanted to do was stay in bed. I had planned a writing day. Actually, it seems to go with the territory, that when I plan to work on my stories, resistance comes up and I suddenly feel a huge weight on me, inertia sets in, and I can’t get motivated. I want to hide under the pillows and sing, woe is me.

So I lit a candle and got out my Native American totem cards, picked four cards and wrote in my journal. Put on some soothing music (Bija, my favourite heart-beat like pace of sound), and hunkered down on my bed to write out what the cards said (great advice, always). Then I pulled out a book I’m supposed to review, (Mothering from your Center) and read a chapter on birth energies and did the visualization of my creative center, and whoops – before I knew it was writing, making notes on the book, on my experience of energetically releasing two previous miscarriages from over 23 years ago. My passion came back, my interest in writing, my mojo was back. I had a productive day.

There is no magic cure for inertia, but what I found worked (yesterday, then again today) was just snuggling down into it. Of course, I work at home, so it’s easier for me to stay in my pj’s and read a book. Today I pulled out a collection of erotica, short stories, excerpts and poems and before I knew it, I was hotly inspired to write - jumped up to the computer and revised one of my old chestnuts (stories that have barely survived my total ignoring of them for over ten years), and actually sent two stories out to  literary journals. It helps that they accept email submissions, so I didn’t have to get dressed and go to the post office or the nearest mail box, or look for stamps.

Now that is way more than I have done in over a year, in fact, the only things I have sent out are to a once a year story competition, and I remind myself not to do that anymore – I haven’t published any short stories yet (well, one, in a parenting magazine), and so submitting to open ‘auditions’ if you will is more productive than sending a one-off to a competition that 500 other writers are sending to.

My secret was just to keep moving – to pick up a book, to just put a little oil in the machine,  get the motor running, purring a little, before stepping on the gas and taking her out for a ride. I’m still sluggish, even more so after eating lunch and now my digestion system is slowing me down, but here I am typing up this blog post, see I didn’t even know it was going to be a blog post until just now. And I am working again. In spite of inertia and slug like slowness.

On a day where you feel as slow as molasses in January, even if it’s February, take it slow and easy. Put one foot in front of the other, pour yourself a cup of hot tea, and hunker down to it. Gently. You can do it!

Rise and Dance with One Billion Rising on V-Day

If you haven't heard already, tomorrow is a very big day. Very Big V-Day manifestation to end violence against women, organized by Eve Ensler: http://www.onebillionrising.org.

Our women's circle in Beaconsfield, near Montreal, was having its monthly meeting tomorrow anyway, so we are going to Dance along with everyone who is Rising. I plan to play the video Break the Chain and learn the moves - we'll watch it and Dance together in Seemeen's living room! We also love Parachute Club's Rise Up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNIdqu7crW8  watch it here.

This is a global event, and somehow I feel very excited about moving my body for the sacredness, for the blessedness, for the protection of every woman and girl around the world.

If our energy dancing together can affect anything, even if only attracting a lot of attention to the sad reality of rape and violence against women, it will be a good day.

Here's a poem I love about being danced: (If you want, you could read this out loud to a group of women, as a way to participate in V-Day).

We have come ...by Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced

not the pretty dance

not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance

but the claw our way back into the belly

of the sacred, sensual animal dance

the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance

the holding the precious moment in the palms

of our hands and feet dance

We have come to be danced

not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance

but the wring the sadness from our skin dance

the blow the chip off our shoulder dance

the slap the apology from our posture dance

We have come to be danced

not the monkey see, monkey do dance

one, two dance like you

one two three, dance like me dance

but the grave robber, tomb stalker

tearing scabs & scars open dance

the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance

We have come to be danced

not the nice invisible, self conscious shuffle

but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama

shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance

the strip us from our casings, return our wings

sharpen our claws & tongues dance

the shed dead cells and slip into

the luminous skin of love dance

We have come to be danced

not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance

but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath & beat dance

the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance

the mother may I?

yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance

the Olly Olly Oxen Free Free Free dance

the everyone can come to our heaven dance

We have come to be danced

where the kingdom’s collide

in the cathedral of flesh

to burn back into the light

to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray

to root in skin sanctuary

We have come to be danced

WE HAVE COME

So now it's your turn: to Dance!

Musemother

www.jenniferboire.com