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✨Motherhood✨

My baby turns one tomorrow which is incredible, unbelievable, shocking, and insanely bittersweet.

A year. A whole year.

Motherhood is everything, and nothing, like what I would thought it would be.

It is THE thing- the biggest thing, the most holy thing. Blissful and incredibly hard and achingly, devistatingly beautiful. It’s the biggest teacher and screams about our mortality while holding hands with the timelessness that is being human.

It’s totally psychedelic. Insanely meditative. And some days rocks me down to the core, guts me like a fish and shines a flashlight on all the unhealed places.

I beg of you, please, if you think motherhood is easy- try mothering a sick baby while sick. Try mothering while your PTSD is triggered. Try mothering while in conflict, or riding an angst wave, or being worried about your own mother. Try mothering on no sleep. Everything feels like a breeze now.

Maidenhood’s moments of solitude and empty time seems devilishly luxurious now. To have a whole day in which you do… nothing. Unimaginable.

And while maybe I’d trade a bunch of things for three hours to drink a glass of wine and take a bath and not think about an endless to do list, I would never, ever trade this role. Ever.

It has lit every fire. It has warmed every soup. It is a cup of tea, it is my grandmothers smile, it is dirt and roots and wooden spoons. It is pure alchemy and medicine. Both the knife and the balm. It is bravery and tenacity and cotton and wood smoke. Picnic baskets and love letters and bones. Mothering has filled my bird bones with grit, expanded my heart 10 times, given me crows feet and a stronger spine. Mothering is beautiful- and I weep for it’s lessons. For it’s humbling. For it’s medicine.

I breathe for my daughter. The birds sing for her, the wind blows for her, the heart beat of the earth is her song. She is the universe with a crooked smile and baby duck blonde hair and a screeching giggle. Life meant nothing, nothing, until she showed up.

I pray and hope and wish wish wish that I get to live as long as possible, if only so I can keep living in this world with her. If only so I can keep smelling the top of her, keep catching glimpses of the wonder that lights her up.

She is joy, the is water and earth, she is shiny crackling silly sweetness with an ear shattering screech and dirt-stained overalls. Barefooted acorn hunter, lover of kitties and apples and laughing and climbing. The queen of fall and all things otherworldly. Spirit realm traveler and light being and mystic bird watching oracle. The love of my life. My love. My life. My heart. The keeper of it all. This tiny little Scorpio queen. I am awestruck endlessly by you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

#personal #motherhood

✨September 13✨

There are apples on our tree 🍎

The Buckeye pods are hanging off the ends of naked branches, the blackberries (what’s left of them) are rotting on the bushes and there’s a layer of crunchy leaves on the ground. It was cold this morning, requiring layers and socks and teeny canvas shoes on baby feet. Fall feels like she’s here.

We got back from symposium yesterday and it felt so special to be there again and feel the shift to Autumn. Like a deep breath and exhale.

At this time last year I was 34 weeks pregnant, a big round moon belly that would continue to grow for another 7 weeks. Now that same babe is nearly walking, nearing her first birthday, babbling and laughing and pointing, filling our life up to the brim with joy and love and lessons.

What a wildly transformative year this has been. How different, yet similar, life feels as we begin the slow trek into the cold time. Feeling so ready for crisp air, and rain, and making apple sauce, and soups, and the folding inward of fall and winter. Feeling excited to start my Masters Program applications this month. Feeling apprehensive about returning to work but also looking forward to a bit more financial freedom again.

I just can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I gave birth. I think I’m feeling ready to write my birth story.

#personal

I am here to say that even if you think you’re healed, there is always another layer to pull back.

My money trauma is lit up, screaming at me, and fucking grinding every gear in my body, my brain and my relationship. Like holy fuck. Holy fuck. (And for those into astrology- south node is just sitting all big and heavy in my second house of Scorpio so like 🙃).

Also preparing to go back to work and alllll my mother wounds are out and about, and tiny madison is literally dying inside me, as I face having to leave my baby. It’s silly because it’s only 3 days a week. Silly because she’ll only be spending a little time in childcare (and only with her grandma and aunt! Like???) and then the rest with her papa. My brain knows so clearly that she will be just fine and yet I literally feel like I’m going through a death process.

So much coming up around feeling alone and scared and abandoned and unsafe as a child and not wanting to perpetuate that with my own baby. Also knowing that mothers go back to work full time all the time and their babies are okay (though I will say it’s fucking poisonous and broken and evil that we have to leave our children in the first place but I digress) Also knowing in the long run this will be good for my mental health which will trickle down to my kid. But sheeesh. It’s fucking hard.

I don’t know what the point of this was really other than to say- there’s always layers to pull back and heal.

This Cap full moon got me like 🥴

Saturn has been grindingggg gears. Love the confusing teachings and hard truths he likes to smack us with 🫠 You’re supposed to just keep showing up, even if when you show up you’re like “Okay! I’m here! What am I supposed to do?!” Feels a lot like yelling into the void, and jumping from step stone to step stone with no clue where the next one is until you’re already standing on it. There’s literally no map or guide to where to go next, but there is a big old illuminated spotlight behind you that says, “Here’s how you got here!” Not very helpful in the moment but the reflection is important.

Hope everyone is hanging in there- he’s making everyone workkkk right now. The whole universe is just Capricorn/Saturn/Pluto energy 💀 feels like bones and mulch, yet we’re midsummer so we can’t go hibernate and hide. We have to just be- all hot and sweaty and confronted with reality and ready to rumble with ourselves. Lots of mirrors and reflection. Lots of old lessons coming back. Think goat with their antlers stuck in a chain link fence. This energy will be here in some variation until January 2023 and it’s already been here a long time (think Pandemic beginning 2020). We’re just in the thick of it while also swallowing the big purple pill that is America’s Pluto return.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense but if you’re feeling that wound up-bound up- stuck in the muck- I want to feel bad for myself but I know I shouldn’t- confusion- frustration thank Saturn and his retrograde and all the Cap placements 🪐 check your birth chart for where Capricorn and Aquarius lives, and also where your Saturn is. That’s where we’re being called to do the looking, thinking, and working. May the force be with you.

✨Mothering✨

I refuse to be hopeless. I refuse.

I refuse to be hopeless for my daughter, for my partner, for my parents, and for myself. I refuse to be hopeless.

Times are scary and the astrology doesn’t look easy or sweet upcoming but- the only thing we have that can’t be taken is hope.

I refuse to be hopeless.

✨I wrote this June 4th✨

Who knew, who knew- while being simultaneously so sure about life, things could feel so unsure.

How to be a rock, an anchor, a stable safe base for my babe with no idea what’s coming next. The path I’ve been holding onto suddenly disintegrating and collapsing before me and truly not knowing what’s next.

Deep trust, right? Deep trust? Didn’t I have to learn deep trust in my pregnancy, in my birth? Wasn’t that what I was touting- I trust my body, I trust my baby, I trust birth, I trust the universe, I trust that the unfolding it happening just as it’s meant to. Is that the test right now? Have you actually learned trust- that deep, deep, old wound- or were you faking it?

How to trust when my breath feels like it’s caught in my throat? How to trust when I feel frozen and need to choose to make some kind of movement, but the movement isn’t clear and the jump I thought I made was just a trampoline and now I’m back having to jump again?

Trust trust trust that it’s all unfolding perfectly. Trust that money is energy. Trust that the hard moments are just to bring us more growth. Trust that I’ll find some clarity soon. Trust.

✨June 8th✨

Is today and today I am really struggling to trust because yesterday I got another big ol’ blow to my trust.

There’s gotta be some answers somewhere yes? Today I tried to let my anger go as I harvested peas and calendula. Today I tried to sink my hands in the soapy dish water while babbling over my shoulder to the baby, and ignore the feel of that oil-slick mistrust in the back of my throat.

I am. So. Angry. And I don’t do well with anger. I hate anger. I fucking hate it. It feels stupid and uncivilized and it turns people into clowns. I hate fighting and yelling and name calling. I just. I hate anger.

But I’m angry and distrustful and now the path feels even more murky and yet im still smiling and dancing with my baby and counting the small hard green apples with her. Still sweeping the floor and pointing out butterflies and turkeys and baby fawns. Still roasting chicken and potatoes and making the bed.

Still being an anchor, still holding it down, even while each day feels so unsure. Still keeping my cool. Still building a beautiful foundation for my daughter. Still proud to say I’m a really good mom but phew is it hard to not be a goddamn trauma bomb.

What is motherhood but showing up in the mess with nothing but a heart full of love and a fierce belief that life- this whole life- is fucking beautiful and worth it? What is motherhood but showing up in the hardness over and over again? What is motherhood but finding God in the jig you do to Paul Simon in front of the record player with your daughter on your hip? What is motherhood but creating magic at your grandmother alter while Stevie sings in the background and you marvel at your baby marveling at the burning and crackling sweet grass? What is motherhood but the building of a home wherever you are? What is motherhood but the most sacred title in this whole goddamn messy fucking world?

Women are God. Mothers are God. May we all wash the feet of the women that came before us and the mothers that come after us.

#personal

✨Motherhood✨

6 and a half months in…

And somehow it still feels new. I still feel so fresh. Not quite a fresh wound or the pulse after a really long, sweet kiss. But maybe a healed over scar that’s still pink and tender to the touch, or the way your lips stay swollen for a few minutes after they’ve left.

Tender still. The beginning was like when you sink your fingers into the flesh of a clementine- sticky, sweet, wet, luscious, grainy, stinging the invisible paper cuts. It was a ripped open- stitched up vagina, the purple hollows under the eyes, the stretched out new heart mixing with a new body mixing with a new life. The new was so new, so personal not sex, not death, but something along those lines- blood and tears and oxytocin and elation and nothing will ever be the same and how beautiful is that and how scary is that and wow this is so normal and wild and what is life?

Now is the time after you’ve learned a new skill well enough that people stop cheering you on, excited to see if you’ll succeed or fail because they’re pretty sure you can skate by on the talents you’ve got- but YOU- you still feel new. Most days okay enough to clumsily play along, some days feeling like a fraud, some days you feel like each moment is a misstep.

It’s not scary anymore- still as holy but I think even we would get used to seeing Jesus. She has wobbly, sea legs and so do I. Sometimes making an egg and speaking to an adult feels like winning the lottery- other days I do truly feel like super mom with completed to-do lists and errands run and a happy, squealing baby.

It’s been my greatest achievement- this mothering for 6 months. Seeing the hardness and not running, diving in. Doing it. The endlessness of it and finding such pure, sweet pink joy that nothing else can match. Finding a resilience I thought I knew I had but in fact is totally different. There’s no end to the mothering, and to navigate not martyring yourself into that, finding the magic in that, is a gift.

#motherhood #personal #postpartum

Season 2 of Russian Doll is triggering alllll the mother wounds 🤣🤣🤣

✨Motherhood✨

Jupiter Neptune conjunction in Pisces has me feeling watery and teary (which isn’t on brand for Pisces necessarily- I think of illusions and Dreamtime and skipping through realities for both Pisces and Neptune). It’s windy AF here so we can’t be outside and my poor baby has been miserable all day. Had a session with D but Juniper cried (like real cries! My baby doesn’t cry!) and fussed the whole time so instead of being nourishing it just shot my nerves more. Been grumpy for days now. Overtired. Shot. Spent.

Finally decided to have a dance party to shitty Disney songs (my kid doesn’t watch TV but was intrigued 🤣 fucking Disney), she fell asleep, I let myself cry 3 tears and now I’m staring at the blooming apple tree while listening to “Tea Garden” music. Feeling better.

All of this is to say- movement shifts energy. Sometimes a couple tears and a dance party with your baby on your boob IS the medicine.

Deep breaths. Deep drinks of water. Dive. Float. Flow. Feel it all.

#motherhood #personal

✨Motherhood✨

And here I come crawling to my little corner of the internet where I can be more vulnerable than instagram.

Today Juniper had major separation anxiety. Like major. Probably because we were at my moms and when she would wake up from her naps, she was in a new place and it scared her (don’t worry- I always come running the second I hear her wake). This barnacle baby is not used to being away from her mama, especially in a new place. So anyways today- level 10 cling-on.

And it wasn’t bothering me, per se, but I couldn’t get down with it. I kept trying to stretch her tummy time by a couple minutes to get something else done and it wasn’t working. It wasn’t until I was in the garden with her that I finally gave in and accepted I wasn’t going to do anything that day but be her anchor, that I realized I was triggered.

And I started crying. I was triggered. Little Madison was super triggered.

How many times had I felt super anxious and needed my mom, and she wasn’t there? I have like a fundamental, fearful, loneliness wound that goes back ages. I remember being little (like 3 years old) and having a horrific, gnawing loneliness in my chest. And not just from the abuse from my stepdad. Like before that, beyond that. So many times I needed someone to be there (someone being my mom) to ground me out, and just hold me all day, and she didn’t and that fucks you up dude. It fucks you up to be left with big emotions, or scary moments, or hard days and made to deal with them without your mother. I remember being little and trying to hug mom and have her tell, “I don’t like to be touched” (because she’d been abused but holy shit- how do you not hug your crying kid?)

I was a horribly sad, horribly scared, exceptionally lonely and dissociated child. I don’t have it in me to go into it but… it was bad. Loneliness and feeling isolated and totally by myself was like a huge gaping hole that was there from toddlerhood (and before) until I was like 20. I remember being a teeny, tiny kid living in fantasy worlds because I couldn’t handle the giant black hole that seriously felt like it was trying to suck me.

And when I realized that, and I cried just a little for tiny Madison, it made it so much easier to surrender into this day, and this moment, because I never, ever want juniper to feel alone on such a deep level. I never want her to feel like she can’t cry, or ask for me, and I won’t come. I would rather have cling-on baby and get no dishes done, or bed made, or pump parts washed, or bathroom cleaned than have her feel that way.

Motherhood is such a huge, healing journey. It reveals all the wounds that you thought you’d healed and brings them forward to be felt and then transmuted and changed.

Grateful for this journey. Grateful for these lessons. Grateful to be mothering my daughter from a place of deep tenderness, humanness, and love. So grateful my arms don’t get tired of holding her. (And so fucking grateful to be an adult).

#personal #motherhood

underwata

existence

✨Motherhood✨

I have never done anything harder, or better, than mothering. And when I say hard I don’t mean bad (hard isn’t bad!) I just mean hard.

I have been in full time university while working full time and juggling an internship. That has nothing on mothering. Mothering is constant. It’s important. And there’s never been anything I’ve done with such high stakes. It’s like every second is the most important second… even while you’re sleeping. There’s not a moment to lose your shit. There’s not a moment to fall into drama or self-pity or gnarly anxiety (unless it’s 3:00AM and your baby is asleep) because more important than what you’re feeling in that moment, is the baby that needs a full belly or comforting or a shush or contact. Always. And it’s insanely important you respond and you do it right… you’re literally building up a human. You are sculpting their earliest and most important and profound experiences of what it means to exist as a human. You are teaching them if this world is safe, if their needs will be met, if it’s joyful to be here. Your nervous system regulates theirs and you are teaching them emotional regulation (which means you can’t fake it!). It’s all just So. Important. Constantly.

Mothering has been my biggest, most radical lesson in meditation, in presence, in surrender. It is humbling and truth bearing and messy and brilliant. I have never loved or cared about anything this much. I have never felt more responsibility to show up as my best self within every moment. I have never had this much patience, or cared about bullshit less, or cared about the big stuff more. The hardness of this, coupled with how sacred every moment of this is, is wild and a really crazy journey. To show up in the hardness over and over again, to have no choice but to be in it, and to do it with gratitude and reverence is a trip and a blessing.

#motherhood #personal

✨Motherhood✨

I get intrusive thoughts about dying since Juniper was born. I get scared I’ll get into a car accident, or I’ll die of a heart attack or my liver will go out or I have lung cancer festering from when I used to smoke American Spirits. When I was walking in Armstrong Woods with my sister-friend we stood under a giant redwood tree and a fist closed around my heart as I imagined a sliver of wood falling and puncturing my brain through my eye. Seriously. I think about getting murdered or falling and smacking my head in the shower or tripping down my stairs and breaking my neck. The resounding thought right after is “What would my baby do?”

She wouldn’t get breast milk. She’d have a trauma before she can even talk. Who would cuddle her in the way only a mama can? Would the people that would care for her and love her teach her about her cycle correctly? Would they massage her with coconut oil? Would they say affirmations to her or keep her away from scented candles and make sure to never equate body size to worth or say “good food” or “bad food”? Would they give her mental health days when she was a teen or make sure she got sun every single day or teach her emotional regulation? Would they try to meet her eyes and smile every single time she tried to interact? Would they know she likes it when you hold her hand and kiss her fingers? Would they rub her head every night while she’s falling asleep? They would try but no one loves you that much unless they’re your mom.

So I drink Berkey filtered water and don’t smoke cigarettes even when I feel like my heart might stop from anxiety. I eat grass fed beef and butter and pasture raised eggs, and don’t drink caffeine and I walk everyday. I try to drive more safely. I don’t drink to excess. I take my vitamins. I try to breathe deep. I pay extra for the the organic, local sticker and wipe my counters down with apple cider vinegar. And I beg to whatever little bit of fate is out there that they’ll continue to pretend they didn’t hear teen me asking to die because all I want now is to live; because I am so scared of leaving her motherless.

#personal #motherhood #postpartum

✨Motherhood✨

Motherhood is all encompassing. And I don’t mean that in an “I’m lost in motherhood” sense (in fact I feel the opposite- I’ve never felt so newly born OR myself) but in the sense that becoming a mother has fundamentally changed my relationship to, and the way I interact with, the world. There’s not one element that remains untouched or unchanged and as I navigate that, I can’t help but wonder why we don’t place more importance on the incredibly intense and important portal that motherhood is.

I’m not saying go out and get pregnant so you can have a total overhaul of your existence- PLEASE don’t do that. What I’m saying is how do we expect women after pregnancy and childbirth, to remain the same people that they were before? I am not and I feel it tangibly. Things I ignored before, I can’t anymore. And things that fit, no longer do. And things that held importance, don’t. And others are so much more important and bigger.

As I poke my head out a little more from my postpartum cocoon I realize that nothing will ever be the same because I am not the same. Growing and birthing my babe, grew and birthed a new me.

#personal #postpartum #motherhood

✨Motherhood✨

Today I turn 26 and I keep forgetting it’s my birthday. It doesn’t feel like my birthday- it feels like my born day. I had my birth day about 3 months ago. THAT was my birth day. That was the day I felt most fully myself. I think we’re celebrating the wrong people on our birthdays... just saying. Mamas should be getting cakes and flowers.

I get melancholic on my birthday- in fact I’ve always hated them (except my 22nd birthday. That was an intense good important one). I’m not melancholic today- just tired because my babe is going through a sleep regression. Excited for a bowl of ramen and a Moscow mule tonight at dinner. A little anxious about figuring out healthcare. Hazey as I sit in the sun and dream about the garden to come. Strange because 26 feels much different than 25 (old).

My bestfriend brought me a birthday present- a soft peach sweater that’s perfect for breastfeeding. I am grateful. And feeling loved. And tired 💗

#personal #motherhood

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mieko kawakami | the guardian, august 2020

allisonrw96

“Wild Pear Tree” by Kaveh Akbar from Calling A Wolf A Wolf

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