Discover Top Posts Tagged with #winter cycle

The two of us

Im going to write about motherhood again, because I cannot not write about it. I never wanted or thought i’d be one of those mothers, who have the innate need to remind everyone they are mothers, have an obsession talking about their pregnancy and birth story over and over again. Yet here I am, sorry not sorry? I cant avoid that motherhood changed me and keeps changing me. I’m still changing at a rapid rate even though my baby is growing outside of my body now. Who the hell is that milf in the mirror, damn when did she get hips? what did my nipples look like before there was a baby attached to them? This aint my hair, what the hell happened to my hair?

I found a picture from my maternity shoot. The picture. The picture that I always stare at and get weirded out by. My maternity shoot was at my house, hair, makeup, photos all done by sister in law. All the photos are pretty, I’m doing various poses with my little belly in a gold dress, but one photo stands out from the rest, There is one where I absolutely dont look like myself, I look at it and have a hard time recognizing that it is me and it’s not because of my pregnant body. I keep staring at my eyes in the photo and they are not my eyes. My eyes are not that color, they are not that light. I have dark hazel eyes and the photo makes them look icy bright blue. I’ve never taken a picture where my eyes look like that. I immediately am taken back to when I first discovered I was pregnant. I knew before I could even take a test, before the hormones in my urine could register on that plastic stick. I knew because I looked in the mirror one morning and I looked different. I obessed over looking into my own eyes. They didnt look like my own eyes, they looked more complex, I quickly realized it was because there were eyes within my eyes. Two sets of eyes, staring back at me. I took a test 4 days later and I was positively pregnant. After that every day was a new discovery, like going through puberty again, but more exciting and not always embarressing to talk about with people. There were other instances where I believed that I was not in my own dreams and conciousness at times and I was somewhere else or somewhere new. maybe it was a dream my baby was having, maybe I was in a new dream place where mothers and growing babies go to while they syncronize their sleeping patterns. Even that doesnt stick out as much as the memory of the two sets of eyes looking back at me everytime i looked deeply into the mirror. The first time I looked at my baby she had blue eyes which is pretty standard for white babies, babies eyes change color, but stop at 6 months old. My daughter is 10 months old now, her eyes are done changing and she has the same icy bright blue eyes, that I see in my own in this maternity photo. My eyes went back to being one set and remain the color they have always been. I’ve taken lots of photos of myself since she’s been born and I can’t recreate that color my eyes have, in that photo. Sylvia has the same color eyes as her daddy which I’m thankful for, because his eyes are beautiful and piercing, icy, bright blue jewels that I get lost in. It makes me interested in having another baby, will i notice all these things again? Will I have these profound, secret, spiritual moments just between mama and baby #2? I’m not in a hurry to put my body through that again at this very moment. I like it being just the two of us, daddy makes three, but I’d be lying if I said I dont think about more children.

#writing #motherhood #old zinester #winter cycle

UNrest

Basically I am not gonna throw energy at the capital shit show, but I have pent up energy none the less, so here I spew. Fuck picking apart sides, I think the whole government should just be thrown away. Yes I could label myself to a certain way of political thinking, but I am also one who knows it’s not safe, practical or even necessary for me to speak on it. I don’t agree all the time, a lot of the time with other people who consider themselves the label that I use. Here’s some things that I do know about discussing politics... I believe that ambuigity has power. You are very privledged If I openly talk about my “political” beliefs, not everyone should or does have access to that part of me. I love the fact that a lot of my family and friends dont know where I stand and dont know my label. That way I am not immediently dismissed or judged, because I’ve chosen to that not everyone is entitled to know all of my beliefs and opinions. If you’re visably angry while talking to someone who doesnt hold the same beliefs as you, you are a discredit to your cause, you’re never going to change their mind, and you are giving that person more ammo to stereotype and hate you and your cause. Maybe you should take a step back and figure out if you are really trying to educate or help this person, or do you just want to be angry and reactive? have someone to blame? Do you want to feel smart while belittling someone to feel in power or control? Are you “pokin the bear” to avoid your own insecurities, fears, and subconicous issues? If you cant stand to be around people who have different political beliefs than you, can you claim to be a tolerant person? What does tolerance mean to you? Do you believe that people are mult-deminisional? That there are more to people, than who they vote for or what party they associate with? Do you believe that people who have different beliefs on politics than you dont deserve to be humanized? Do you believe yourself to be more superior? Are these people less than you, your party, or less than human? More importantly what does someone have to say, for you to be completely done with them? what are your boundaries? where is the line drawn?

There is always going to be this omnipresent “OTHER” who is different than you and demonized in a sense that this other wants to kill their neighbors, destroy for no reason, hurt you and your family. no matter which side. politics will always prey on fear of the the “OTHER”. I used to be afraid of the other, especially only interacting with them via the internet. In real life, they arent monsters. I started asking them questions on why they believed the things they did and from there I could dissect and humanize them. I realized that most of their beliefs come out of place of fear of change, the unknown, the different. Some were not used to or uncomfortable not being in control or in power and lashed out because they have insecurities and control issues. Some have truamas they cant admit and acknowledge and it shows itself in unrational thoughts and beliefs that make them feel comfortable in their bias. I mean who doesnt have trust issues? Lots of people have gone overboard with not acknowledging their trust issues and ended up believing weird shit because they desperately want anything but the norm to believe. Some people just want to fit in or are a product of their enviroment and aren’t interested in journeying outside their comfort zone. Regardless, I think it’s important to humanize people, if we want to coexist together. Maybe you dont want to coexist with these others. That’s fine but realize that if you do choose that route, you’re not any different than communes, religious organizations and compounds, rich gated neighborhoods, and various other secular communities that come together to seperate themselves and live in a bubble, in their own world, and are sheltered from what they want to be sheltered from. Not coexisting with people who are different from you in any way political or otherwise always comes out of a place of privledge. Shaming others who have to try and get along, coexist, tolerate for need of survival in a capitalistic hellscape is not helpful, productive and what does it accomplish? further alienation, ignorance and more fuel for both sides to be combative and fearful towards each other? probably... Maybe younger generations that get shit for “caring too much about feelings” focus on feelings and healthy ways to accept and love themselves, because they can see effects of not being introspective and practicing self care. the mental health issues plaging the generations ahead of them are so blatent.

Take for instance and into your consideration, this simple situation. you live on some beautiful acreage in a rural county and there’s a snow storm, your electricity goes out, your phone battery dies and the temperature is dropping, you are a liberal or whatever left oriented...you go to your neighbors house for help and you see they have a trump flag flying, you’re nervous, but need help. turns out its an older couple, man and his wife and they feed you, let you use their phone, let you stay the night. Are you going to leave and tell them how you really feel about trump and his supporters? Is this a once time occurance and you plan to never talk or look at them again? What do you do when someone you claim you dont want to tolerate or someone you cant stand helps you? On the other hand when people give into fear of each other this could be a scary situation. As some people on this side, when scared, immediately pull guns on people on their property. Ok flip the script What happens if a camoflague wearing bubba needs help because of this snow storm. He goes to his staunch liberal rich neighbors. Hopefully that neighbor lets them in and helps them out just as the conservative trumpers did, and he would have to face those same questions as the leftists would. but again, when people are fearful of each other this also could turn into a shitty situation, where those frightened liberals pretend they are not home, don’t answer the door and call the cops on the struggling bubba. How the hell are we supposed to help each other, claim we are community oriented, claim we are the bigger person, claim that we care about our country, claim we are pro life, claim we are caring, kind and tolerant, if we fail to help our own damn neighbor. Fear is something to overcome. We need to overcome this fear of eachother. The enemy is not your neighbor, ya’ll need each other a lot more than you need a shitshow of a government.

My moral compass is... I dont give a shit what you believe, would you help your neighbor in a snow storm if they were cold and powerless? If the answer is yes, then you’re ok in my book. The government as of lately is having trouble putting the fear of it’s self imposed supreme power in it’s citizens. (per the mass amount of protests and civil unrest, how laughable and ignorant the president was. despite worrying, I believe the mass majority as well as the rest of the world couldn’t take 45 seriously) the next best thing for the powers at be to do to save their butts, is make us afraid of each other. The government can continue to go about their business, fill their pockets, work 4 months of the year, live their privledged lifestyles while seperating themselves from the rest of society. All the while, we, regular ass people that count on, depend on, and are most affected by the decisions the people in government make, are too busy and distracted by blaming and hating eachother to uprise against career politicans and their disconnect and detatchment to anyone who doesnt own a yaht or multiple vaction homes in the french countryside.

#old zinester #winter cycle #writing #bullshit #unpopular politics

The Light

As a species, we are supposed to live and thrive together. Fuck anyone who says you are weak if you are struggling without being close to your friends, loved ones and community right now. The first thing every single human does when we are born that is unique to any other animal is that we cry and scream. We cry and scream because we are calling out for others to protect, comfort, and essentially love us. It’s our first and most basic need when we come into this world. My newborn could not survive in this covid world without me, her mother, cuddling, touching, kissing, feeding and in general being as close physically as you can be to something. There were studies done in another country where they deprived babies of human contact to see the outcome. I’m too afraid and upset to view the results. I dont want to know a world where a baby doesnt know the warmth and smell of her mothers skin, the feeling of being surrounded by rythmic breathing and carressing or the immense natural nuturing ability a parent holds in their being . I remember my baby spent the night the first time away from me. I remember smelling her clothes and wanting to badly to both of us be naked cuddling in the warm water of the bath. I’ve never felt such a overwelming need to feel her close and her skin on mine. Any mother can relate. I remember contracting covid and crying because I couldnt smell my baby’s smell. the smell that only she carries, the smell I’ve been able to recognize since she first was born. As she’s gotten older It isnt as strong but I could still smell it on her neck or in her scalp, behind her ears. Luckily for me my sense of smell came back and I can now still faintly smell her unique little baby smell that for some reason is only known and recognized by mothers, the smell, you cant describe and even daddy cant smell, but to not go on and on further.... I guess it’s some kind of secret shared between mothers and babies.

I think I became a mother at the right time. This was my time to gain this knowledge and responsibilty as a giver of life. When you feel that first kick you get an inkling of this cosmic understanding of what it means to be a mother, but then with all the pain of giving birth and you open up, you are fully immersed in this other worldly, I guess even, goddess state. You, your baby, your husband, all the people in the room, we are all one, we have all been here, we have started here, mothers are the portal into our world, our deminision. Motherhood is as closest anyone can get to sharing yourself with another person. Motherhood is a new and different intimacy, very different from he intimacy shared between your partner, more naturally powerful, where it hits you immediently, inexpilcably, and undoubtedly. Yes we can talk about the father’s involvement on how and to the effects that the miracle of babies happen, but can that be a long and powerful, spiritual conversation? I dont know, I cant say, I can say i’m open to it, But it seems so difficult to ignore this transparent magic of the mother. How can anyone avoid the expansive change and all the intricities of the transformation that the mother goes through, our bodies are battlegrounds to birth a hero or heroine, that has made it into this new world of possibilities, joys, wonders, beauty. And dispite never have trained or experienced in giving life, mothers immediently know what our baby, needs, wants, the specific ways to comfort and nuture this new being, we’ve never layed eyes on before. If that doesnt sound like the work of a goddess, I dont know what does.

#old zinester #writing #winter cycle

The Dark

My first winter under the title of mother. I’m a stay at home mother, in the time of corona. Our house and property is set up for social distancing, I have no vehicle, besides the one my husband and me share that he has to drive to chantilly every day. The area is beautiful. deep blue mountains that in the morning peek out in a mystical fog and in the evening contrast orange and pink skys. Running rivers near by that we pass and stop at to see old friends fishing for rainbow trout. Still all conversations revolve around struggling. There isnt a lot to look forward to in general in the winter and especially now, because of covid. All my coping mechanisms are set aside. Its too much stress and risk, to try and go to the spa, get a massage, pamper myself. We cant leave our homes and really relax or exist somewhere around the company of others without perking up when we her a cough or a sneeze. So I’m trying other things...creating things, getting lost in campy romance novels, taking many baths a day. I’m lucky that baby daughter keeps me preoccupied and focused. The holidays have finally passed and there was joy and excitment leading up to them, but during seemed like a harsh reminder that this virus has changed people and society, even little podunk hollers where we dwell, sometimes for the good, as in being more vulnerable so that others can love and know you better and of course the bad where, you and others are angry or stressed that there is very little in our lives that we can control, communicating in these mediums isnt enough, loneliness still sits with you at the end of the day. The cold of winter still lingers, The quiet and stillness of the season still is behind our window curtains.

I wish I could say i had a good holiday, the first holiday with my daughter, but it wasn’t. I’m thankful we ate good food and we were around some family, there are little sweet moments that stick with me. Still stress clung to me, whenever we had to go back to the grocery store to find some ingredient we had forgotten, or the want to give and send gifts and not being able to because of the financial debt hole we are stuck in from covid. Threatening IRS letters, We had an ice storm a week before that took out our power, which left us throwing out a lot of food, and causing tree damage to our house and only vehicle. I am still thankful we have a stockpile of food and of course we were able to buy more food, that we had a place to go when the electricity went out, that we are able to be close to our parents. I’m just wondering if we will ever feel like we are thriving again instead of just surviving. I laugh cause, I have had my own fears in the past about made up scenerios about society collapsing. How was one to survive? I should learn how to grow food, forage, practice animal husbandry, build, homestead. I am proud to have obtained these skills, but the thought never crossed my mind in these situations that people wouldnt be able to be around each other. I can handle the homesteading, it’s the lack of community not being able to be physically close to each other that is the most challenging in this collapse.

#old zinester #writing #winter cycle

The Winter Cycle and confronting the Shadow

I have 45 drafts of my writing on this tumblr. I’ve just gone throught them and cringed, laughed, recognized cycles, and have announced my victory over all the bullshit of my old self. It’s new years, time to reflect and purge, burn, drown, and bury all the shadows of the past you that haunt you and keep you from sleeping at night.

I admit that I ask questions that are stupid and I’m too lazy to look up things like...Can you see your shadow in the snow? But I think about shadows, death and darkness a lot in the winter. I dont think it’s scary, I think it’s the type of thinking that is aligned with the cycles of nature. Creepy shadows of skeleton trees in your window. The longest night passes in december, it seems like the dark lasts forever. Alot of people die in winter and not just as a coicidence, but because winter is lonely, hard and dark. In the world in my head...Winter is for battling the shadow in yourself. You see, it’s too cold and dead to distract youself with outside matters. It’s snowing and you’re stuck inside, bored and you start to get introspective. Old wounds and hurts find their way back in your brain when everything is still and there is nothing to be done, but stay warm in bed and dwell. The skeleton trees outside your window have to face their shadow and the fact that underneath their bountiful bushy leaves and foilage they are a vulnerable collection of bare twigs and branches. frozen water penetrates them and weighs heavy on them, breaking little parts of themselves, but luckily the roots underground that you can not see are busy. Keeping them alive monitoring where stored sustainance should go. The roots, the roots, the roots. bless those roots and our roots, Acknowledge your roots, what keeps you going when everything is dark, cold, and barren. When you see yourself immobilized by the sheer nature of winter, do you distract yourself or reflect on the parts of yourself you may not like, but are stuck with. Can you learn to be still with them? Can you learn to accept them? Can you love yourself fully even though you are sometimes a flawed, terrible, monster or agent of chaos and destruction?

In these times maybe people reflect on faith or look towards others for validation, they may even lash out about their life and situation to loved ones, or they could be reduced to a puddle of self pity. I have been all of these people, but this year I’m trying really hard to love and accept myself all of myself and mostly importantly my shadow self. looking inwardly at my shadow self, I see all my old destructive habits and faults, but I also see little girl me, who doesnt know what I know now and is just trying her best, without a lot of help or direction. She doesnt have the bags under her eyes or the beat up farm hands I do now, she is young and precious. And when I see little girl me, I see my 9 month old daughter, shes learning how to be a person, learning everything from me, so in turn i need to keep learning so that I can keep teaching her. I see these little children and realize a lot of the things that I did that i feel guilt or shame about was because I wanted attention, I wanted to feel loved, I wanted to feel less lonely. I didnt have the coping mechanisms or the understanding of healthy relationships that I do now. So I give little me and my own baby girl unconditional love and acceptance. Because I think most people can agree that all children deserve love, period. Aren’t we all someone’s child? Me and my daughter and human peoples in general are always going to make mistakes out of emotions like jelousy, and lonliness, anger, panic, discontentment and that never ends in lifes, but we can figure out why we did the things we did. Accept that everyone goes through things like these and has these unpleasant emotions that can lead to unpleasant thoughts, and actions. The fact that you are feeling sorry, guilt and shame about whatever happened means that you have become wiser. You are not that person that made that mistake anymore, Congratualions are in order, you have ascended and bettered yourself from that shitty person you were and in that moment in time.

So in short, face that shitty stuff, own up to it, Realize you’re not that person anymore, and look, at least you learned something new about yourself, your wants, needs, boundaries, desires and what have you. I talked to my significant other about my shame, guilt, and embarressment and it brought me closer to him. True intimacy is vulnerability. And knowing my faults and shortcomings, he still loves me unconditionally and loves me for all that I am, bugs and all. We had amazing sex after our sob fest. I want my daughter to know unconditional love and I will make sure to give it to her through all the hard, embarressing and challenging phases of her life, so that she may find the unconditonal love I have with my friends and partner in life.

I think we are supposed to face, accept and love our shadows in winter and after all the introspection, deep thoughts, dissecting of traumas, purging of things that dont serve us anymore, we should be filled up again. Meaning a holiday party that goes on for a full month. Viking style is what comes to mind the most, A huge wooden dining hall lit only by a huge hearth and lots of candles. the coldest, darkest month of the year is the setting of this great party and feast, that starts on the solstice and doesnt end till the middle of january. The old ancestors had it right. Before capitalism all you did in winter was live off your year’s harvest and stayed inside with loved ones, drink, be merry. Nothing urgent was or could be done until you could work the land again anyways. the only priority was keeping everyone warm, fed, loved and sane during this time of year. I hope there is a cozy winter party hall in my future. Here’s to the new year and surviving the winter. May we try and keep each other warm with our dreams and words of love, understanding, and acceptance this winter, so that we may be able to celebrate, hug and party out the cold and darkness together next winter.

#shadows #writing #winter cycle #old zinester

14 June 2016: 1200 Phew that southerly headwind was hard work (good washing drying weather!) I enjoyed the bright winter sunshine and a short sharp ride; stopping to watch some big waves at City Beach...and selfie! My legs were heavy after Sunday's ride & yesterday's run so no Strava medals, but I added a couple of 1km sprint repeats without recovering HR to keep the intensity high - maxed out at 206bpm! The 'Sufferfest' zone on Strava.