Pink Coyote

At Cliff's Edge

It was nine years ago last month that I took myself to Big Sur for the first time. I disorientedly rang up my friend Swirly and asked her where she loved to go when she needed space away from it all, and this is where she directed me.

I'd had a second trimester miscarriage two weeks before I phoned her and those around me were worried that I would go up there and fling myself off of a cliff. Which, interestingly enough, was where I received the healing I required to move forward in the light, and in a new kind of strength that I'd never before experienced, alone.

Traumatic and blindsiding loss made me feel as though I was standing on a precipice. I packed some art supplies and my journal, and took the curvaceous drive up the California coast to the place where artists have been taking sanctuary for a hundred years or more. In many places the road comes very close to the edge of the Earth, reminding me of my fear of heights, my stomach flipping over as I snatched glimpses of the waves crashing on the rocks below.

The room I stayed in had nothing but a bed and a bathroom. No phone, no tv, no cell service. I painted, journalled, slept long hours dreaming of this baby spirit that had chosen to gift me with this experience before gifting me with motherhood.

On my last day there, I decided to stand at the scariest edge I could find on the roadside and rage out my grief-all of it-all the way back to childhood. I recalled what I'd heard someone say about heights reflecting fear not that we will fall, but that we will jump. I wonder if, for me, it was a fear of soaring...despite what was happening in my body and in my injured soul at the time. I remember feeling a tremendous comfort-that the sea was like a big bowl, a container that could totally hear and understand my rage, my disappointment and hold my tears for me. I grew louder and bolder, and still she rocked me softly. The sea lions below barked and cheerleaded. The turkey vultures circled overhead, not in wait for me to lay down and die so they could pick at my bones, but to take from me all that would become toxic if I held it inside. The scent of sagebrush wafted up and cleansed me. I can't remember a time where I felt more held and safe. I closed my eyes and felt the rubble moving under my unsteady feet, and learned to trust for the first time in my life. Tears of rage turned to tears of gratitude for my life, for all that was possible. I felt it for the whole world.

Often I am asked how it is I came to this work-to my connection with the Earth as a healer, and to the creatures. I suppose in some part, it began with this loss, and then an emptying. The void inside of me filled with light and I felt a strange commitment to want to give back to the Earth for the gift of being held when no one could hold me. I wanted to know I could always come here as if to an altar and find my illuminated self waiting at the edge, trusting.

It was lifechanging to discover that between just she and I, a relationship existed that could keep me in the light. That every part of her was rooting for me. Crumbling, barking, splashing, crashing...daring me to live well, to thrive, to be fully expressed.

I travel back every year to revisit the cliff's edge and to reconnect with my own light. Oddly enough, it only rained that year, and I visit in January or February, ritually. Twice I've been pregnant. Every time, I am rebirthed.

Fractional People With One Connected Heart

I had a completely different post planned for today, but things change.

I used to hang with a peculiar woman when I lived high in the mountains who told such good and long-winded stories, all at a mile a minute. One day when we happened upon each other spontaneously, as folks do in small villages, we spent the afternoon doing a tour of the many park benches in the village while her kids ran wild and we rubbed our big, fat pregnant bellies. We were due a week apart, me with Miles, and she with her baby girl. We were seeing the same midwife and had lots to review.

We got onto the subject of our ethnicities, which are both a typical American mix of a little bit of everything. I told her that I was a percentage of Native American and she told me that she was part, too. She threw back her head and guffawed her full, open-mouthed, potent laugh, and made a very good point about being only a fraction of a person. About her people being counted as a three fifths of a person to gain electoral seats. About how we were all once considered a fraction rather than a whole. At some point in time, she wagered confidently, "even white folk".

We made particularly female conversation that day, about feeling whole, walking whole, shaking off the notions that our little pieces really mattered at all. While both of us felt proud and connected to our heritages, and the trials our specific family stories spoke to, we decided then and there, babies in bellies, that we would not walk the road as a fraction. That we would embrace all. We recognized the suffering of all peoples at different times in history and opened our hearts in the clean mountain air to the teachings that any person would bring. To break the generational legacies of suffering, by leaving our own comfortable, familial stereotypes behind in order to truly open ourselves to healing, and pass that down to our children. It was a mothers' pact to expand our collective heartspace. In a strange way, it felt like setting our ancestries free on the wild wind so we could really experience connection to one love.

I heard that she had her baby at home about a week after I gave birth to Miles at home. We've not run into each other since I moved down the hill, but these lessons we shared I'll treasure forever. I don't think I even absorbed the full effect of our conversation until the last year or so. Finally trusting the truth of how we want to live this gift of life seems not unlike tree roots finding their way to a water source so deep that they no longer need to be fed by a hose.

We are all native to some place. The ancestors behind us all came from some connected people, and seem to share uncanny aspects of ritual and ceremony. Doing this work touches that sacred place, where we who love the Earth remember that time. The time before differences, before so many colors, shapes and sizes began to pull us apart from each other's hearts. It's a lovely time to be alive and to see the sameness.

To see the same full moon from each village and city around the globe.

To feel the heartbeat of the Earth and know that it is the Mother Beat, the one we all share.

 

 

Shop Sale and a Week of Rabbitses

There is a 15% sale in my shop, Animama, this week. It could be the perfect time to grab those things piling up in your favoriteses ;) Enter code SPRINGSPRUNG at checkout. This is me saying THANK YOU because I really can't say it enough. I'm so blessed you guys.

RABBIT MEDICINE BUNDLE: The Energy Behind Fertility

The medicine of this bundle is about the prolific creative and fertile power of Rabbit, and unconditional Self-love.


It contains:

*a pinch of organic tobacco, a traditional offering to the Spirits.

*a generous amount of mugwort, for eliminating disparaging inner voices, strengthening the feminine aspects and welcoming in the curandera or healer archetype. mugwort is a true Woman's herb and folklore tells of it springing up at the doorsteps of healers.
(Mugwort can cause allergic reactions in those sensitive to ragweed).

*a handful of dried rose petals, for love that flows from the 1st chakra all the way up to the crown, for softening the ego, bringing love to fearful places within, for sensuality, and sweet dreams.

*a hunk of tumbled rose quartz for unconditional love of the Self, which is required at all times, but especially when asking it to do miraculous, creative tasks. rose quartz is most commonly associated with the 4th, or heart chakra, and teaches the true essence of love. it purifies and opens the heart, reassures doubt, and attracts love to it. it is also said to transmute emotional conditioning and heal heartache.
when i lost my first pregnancy to miscarriage many years ago, a wise healer gave me a large rose quartz heart, which i carried with me and slept with until the grief began to shift and move through. i think of it as a soft, feminine healer, capable of great and fertile magic.

*Rabbit is well known for her propensity to create large batches of babies. from a creative standpoint, I experience Rabbit as the Keeper of Possibility. she deeply nurtures herself and her nest, gathering the energy needed to bring forth the wonders that are just waiting to hop and leap their way into her world. she opens herself up to the vulnerability required to carry the miracles. whether calling upon rabbit for physical or artistic fertility, it is important to note that she is well equipped, in body and Spirit, to succeed. she confidently maintains that she deserves to give birth to her deepest and most beautiful offerings.

 

Surrender

I get asked a lot about what this tattoo is a symbol of. Love? Harmony? Trust?

It's sort of all of those things, but I never find it simple to explain.

In 1998 I walked into the local Vermont Ave. tattoo joint with a copy of the Tao Te Ching in my hand and pointed to the symbol. I sat for about forty-five minutes while the artist inked and scratched the moving shapes into my left deltoid. This was a bold move for me, a tattoo on my arm; I'd hid the others below the waistline: the wolf's paw print in 1990 and the Warrior's spear in 1994. Earlier messages to my then self from my further-along self that I am still learning about. Funny how we reach back and teach ourselves from the future, isn't it?

The direct translation of Tao means, literally, the way.

Like so many things I've done, I have no real clue why I'm doing them until it manifests years later. I only know in the moment that it will be significant, though I can't say precisely why or how. Releasing and surrender have been big for me for a very long time, but I'd say that this year has been the token year of letting go. Letting it all go...

This piece, from the essay Surrender Into Mothering, by Chris Pritchard, says much of it for me:

What I know now about parenting is to "surrender." I've learned how childbirth brings with it self-discovery, self-healing, and adaptation to the new selves we become every single day of our lives. No one ever told me that, as an adult, I would keep on changing. I would have to move and flow with changes in myself, as well as all around me, for the rest of my life. No one ever explained that this process never ends, that it is infinite. Learning to surrender means learning to go with change. And change requires surrender.

From the first days of pregnancy, when the beautiful creature inside your body begins to puff out your belly and your breasts, makes you nauseated and tired, makes you have emotional depths and heights, radically affects your relationship with everyone around you, you are asked by this tiny new life to adapt to all these changes, If you resist you will suffer. You must give in. You do let go. You shed your old self. Perhaps pregnancy, more than any other period in a woman's life, enables her to understand the complexity of this requirement in life--to change and to adapt.

Pregnancy enables us to open a multitude of doorways--into ourselves, into our ancestral past, and into our future. Sometimes walking through these doorways can give us insights that can shift old patterns on this planet. The gift of childbirth challenges us to take nothing for granted, and to flow and to move like a great ocean, around any rocky obstacle.

 

I begin my fortieth year wiring in Coyote's way- to enjoy having without possessing, to revel in loving without boundaries, to delight in surrendering my defenses, to laugh when I might reflexively admonish myself, to freely release all that I create, to dance around the fire which burns up the old, to drink in breath without fear, to trust it all and take nothing for granted. To do less, to want less, to need less. To practice it over and over again.

To yield.

Whatever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

-Tao Te Ching

In Honor Of

Births

We will never remember dying.

We were so patient

about being,

noting down

the numbers, the days,

the years and the months,

the hair, the mouths we kissed,

but that moment of dying:

we surrender it without a note,

we give it to others as remembrance

or we give it simply to water,

to water, to air, to time.

Nor do we keep

the memory of our birth,

though being born was important and fresh:

and now you don't even remember one detail,

you haven't kept even a branch

of the first light.

It's well known that we are born.

It's well known that in the room

or in the woods

or in the hut in the fisherman's district

or in the crackling canefields

there is a very unusual silence,

a moment solemn as wood,

and a woman gets ready to give birth.

It's well known that we were born.

But of the profound jolt

from not being to existing, to having hands,

to seeing, to having eyes,

to eating and crying and overflowing

and loving and loving and suffering and suffering,

of that transition or shudder

of the electric essence that takes on

one more body like a living cup,

and of that disinhabited woman,

the mother who is left there with her blood

and her torn fullness

and her end and beginning, and the disorder

that troubles the pulse, the floor, the blankets,

until everything gathers and adds

one more knot to the thread of life:

nothing, there is nothing left in your memory

of the fierce sea that lifted like a wave

and knocked down a dark apple from the tree.

The only thing you remember is your life.

--Pablo Neruda

As my baby's final weaning days weave in and out in slow motion, nearing the crossing over point, I find myself thinking about my childrens' births. So very many new babies have come in this year, into the glorious tribe. And so many elders have passed along their memories and ways to us to hand down, across and down further still. I feel ceremonious and close to the bone about...everything.

As friends plan new babies for next year and adopted babes dash into the lives of others, I am reminded of how sacred the mere act is. Dear Pablo is so right. We don't remember a lick of it. The rush of it. The story of the day.The brightness of the room, or the slick darkness of it. The peace or the chaos. I want to believe that our bodies remember even when our minds fail to. That we carry the minute and the moment with us, as our badge of honor to exist fruitfully and completely.

From the Attic

We're getting so close, and I'm feeling so very, very full.  Sleeping is getting a bit tight, I feel quite like The Tick, if you can remember that comicbook TV hero, squashed neatly into his tight blue getup, but me without the superhuman strength.

Tonite I'm painting, but reading some while the coats dry.  Tell me if you can relate to this:

"I'm sending you on a very lonely road. No one will ever truly understand you. They think they know you, but they don't know what you're thinking about, they don't know the feelings that you have, how sometimes even in a busy, crowded place you need to make certain contact, and to do so, you need to be somewhat withdrawn. That's why, in a social situation it's very uncomfortable for you just to sit down and talk to pass the time: 'Oh, yes, this and all that. Oh, isn't it wonderful, and my, I saw a beautiful chair in the store window the other day. And, gosh, the way they were dressed.' These aren't things you can relate to when you carry medicine.  So it's sort of a lonely road, but in the end, it's worthwhile. It's all worthwhile."

--Bear Heart, The Wind is My Mother

I think being a creative person is, too, like carrying sacred medicine. The mind and the heart engage a little differently than in some folks. And a lonely road it can seem to be at times.

******From the archives, exactly one year ago...*******

Ivy Tallulah, 11 months old.

How the time do fly.

 

I'm Just Sittin' Here 12 Days Old

 

Life with Ivy is good. She is a very easy baby-the only complaints she has are about gas and burping. Seems she can suck in quite a bit of air-perhaps her latch could use some work.  Easier said than done in the dark in the wee hours when it's just she and I tapping out the soft rhythms of the new mama/new baby dance when the world is silent and sleepy. I actually had to go online to try to find some new burping positions and to be reminded that it takes some time.  I love how tiny the details of life get when a baby is born...

I gave her her first bath tonite. She kicked her little froggy legs back and forth and I told her stories of swaying jellyfish and songster dolphins and she fell asleep as I poured cups of water on her back. She's a total goddess and I love it. I love treating babies like the sacred little buddhas they are-it makes me feel so honored to be one of their guides. It's odd to think of how babies come to us, in their own perfect time, not to be possessed, nor as our property-but to be guided gently into their individuality so that they can be healthy people in the world.

We chose her name, Ivy, because it symbolized climbing, a certain verdant growth-far beyond us -and because it had the feeling of a cool and magical forest where moss grows on all of the tree trunks and rocks, and little streams trickle through.

I keep finding myself saying to Miles over and again, "I'm so happy to be yours and Ivy's mommy!", and I'm sure he thinks I'm perfectly insane.

 

These are some little legwarmers I knitted for the babette yesterday-super easy, using organic cotton yarn that is beyond soft for as cheapo as it is.  I cast on 16 stitches and split them somewhat evenly over three 10.5 double-pointed needles, knitted 8 rounds then knit two together on stitches 1&2 then 8&9, then knitted 22 more rounds.  (I did knit two more together just two rounds before I bound off, but then I undid it because it wasn't easy enough to get them over her feet.) They're totally no-frills.  Might have been lovely with some stripes in other colors and the yarn does come in green and an earthy tone that actually grows that way. These things keep her little stems toasty, yet I don't have to wrestle every time she blows out her diaper-which is often.

And the most magical, proud magnadoodlerific moment of the week was this:

 

"Mawma, this is your big fat TB from when the baby was inside. And these are your stretch marks. And this is your VAGINA."

Can I hear an "Amen" ?

Introducing the Goddess of Turtlebottom...

 

Ivy Tallulah Campbell, 8 lbs 9 oz., 21". Born March 20th, 9:45 am, Spring Equinox.

She's here. My sparkling girl.

Her entry was not simple into this world, and had she not the spirit of a thousand hawks we might have a different story to tell today.  This child is, among other things, fierce, determined, robust, and on her very own path down her magical medicine road.

Welcome, my sweet goddess.  Yours is no job for a princess.

     

Still Waiting + Buffalo Magic

I thought it would be really cool if our babe was born on St. Paddy's Day (or Brandon's birthday last Friday, or this Friday, on the Spring Equinox), but clearly, that was not her magical day of entrance...so now I'm nailbiting a bit that she comes within the next few days or she'll be considered "late" and I just don't want to have to flag the questions and concerns of everyone who is anticipating her-including my doctor who is already throwing out terms like "non-stress test". I nearly jumped off the table today when he pushed on her head, which is definitely as far down as it can possibly go without me being able to hear her hiccups.

So we wait. And wait. We had so much going on with selling our mountain house and moving just before M was born and he was 4 days early, so I've never had this experience of restless anticipation before.  People were giving me horrified looks at the doctor's office today and one lady said to me, "You must be SO DUE right now".  Employees at the local health food store kept approaching me and saying "What?! She's not here yet?" Needless to say, we're all ready for her.

In the meantime, I'm working on some more little paintings.  I finally set up an etsy store, which is so long overdue and really, very fun to see come together.  (I'll link it here in the next couple of days when it looks prettier).

Brandon has been bitten by the creative bug of restless idleness, too, and has put together a blog to share his mad-scientist-carnival-gypsy jazz-meets-tom waits musical inventions and stylings. Always writing and creating music, he is, but a blog I thought I'd never see.  Yes, and very proud of him we are.

Here's the latest piece:

Mixed-media on 6"x6" cradled birch panel.

This buffalo is all about allowing without forcing and abundance brought about by deep gratitude, and of course, the quest into the deeper, wilder self.

Until she lands, we're enjoying the fertile, creative time we have, knowing it will all shift for a while very, very soon.

Moose Mama

 

Mixed-media on 6"x6" cradled birch panel.

Here is another from the midnight oil series.  Just kidding, of course I'm not calling it that, but that's what it feels like when I'm up at two a.m. while the guys sleep!

Last night was a rough one. M's still coughing all through the night and we are administering remedies accordingly.  We went straight out to get something that actually works instead of Rite-Aid grape flavored garbage.  I can't believe I actually had that in my home.  Needless to say, I tossed it when we arrived home.  We'd run out of Umcka and homeopathic cough syrup, so I replaced those, and added some cell salts at the recommendation of Diane (aka still-no-blog-Diane) and hopefully he'll be on the mend soon.

Let's see, Moose is great medicine for me right now-it is primal feminine energies, the ability to open up unique and sacred energies and teaches us how to go into the depths in order to draw life and nourishment to bring forward.  Moose are very good mama-medicine.

It looks like today will pass with no baby to meet the world yet, which means she won't be my exact polar opposite on the calendar.  That might be best...xo

No Baby Yet + New Artwork

We have no baby yet. But something definitely feels different.  She's moving lower when it already feels like she is about two inches from falling out. I'm wondering if I'm going to glance down at some point and see her waving at me!

Poor Miles has a horrible cough, so we stuck close to home this weekend, trying natural remedies at first and then hitting the horrible Pediacare when nothing else would allow him to sleep for the coughing.  So it's probably not an ideal time for miss baby girlkins to be born yet, anyhow.

I'm up late in the studio, channeling aniticipation into some more little paintings.  I'm having so much fun with this series.  I've done most of them on wood instead of canvas, which is different for me.  I like the smooth surface of the panels and the fact that I don't have to tighten canvas before I can start working. It's amazing what I'll do when I'm idly waiting to give birth as opposed to when I have all the time in the world!

Ever since Wendy recommended Wolf! to me, I have been a huge fan of Sara Fanelli.  You can definitely see her influence below. Another great book I love which melds concepts of wild and urban is Coyote in Love with a Star.

Rhinos are associated with discriminating senses, ancient wisdom and solitude. They can teach us how to be comfortable in our own thick skin.

 

Mixed-media on 6"x6" cradled birch panel.

Perhaps there will be baby news sooner than later. I am quite ready to meet my elvish daughter...

Deeper Magic

"Love is the answer to most of the questions in my heart." Jack Johnson, Better Together

Remember how in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the stone table on which Aslan is sacraficed on splits by magic deeper than the witch knew of?

This is how I feel today- that I have been crawling on the ground counting ants about some things, discriminating each their flaws, just to be hit with the startling realization that I have access to all I could possibly need if I can just crack myself open a little deeper. To me, the fallen table symbolizes deep trust and the opportunity for grace if I can be awake enough. It seems more powerful than any fear, and much stronger and more resilient than mere courage. Like sacrafice made bearable by immense, immeasurable love.

My struggle today is with fear.  Not the kind of paralyzing fear that keeps me from taking risks or adventuring my way through life.  But the quieter, creeping sort that feels like something else in the moment.  Sometimes it feels of loneliness- that no one can face the tasks ahead but me. It seems, for the moment, that I have lost my way to the well which fills me up, not just with courage, but the love I need to get through it all.

It reminds me of the holy grail, in some ways. I feel lured to encounter a whole new adventure in seeing, if I can stand the feeling of being in an unknown wood, that is.

39.5 Weeks: Awaiting Little Turtlebottom

Though I'm anxious to meet my little girl, I don't want to rush her.  I'm officially due next Monday, the 16th, and I'm sticking close to home today mainly because M was few days early...well, four days before his "guess date" and I don't want to be waddling through Target and break my water in the tp aisle.  (Though I do need some things from Target...like tp...)

I'm painting with a late night fever again.  I'm not sure if it's because I wonder if I'll be able to make time for it after she arrives...  It's keeping me sane, actually.  I am up wandering the halls long after bedtime here just enjoying the peace and quiet.

This angel recommended a homebirth book (here's an untapped book niche one of us should jump on) that's out of print from Australia.  I snagged a library copy from amazon.com and we love it to pieces-apparently I got a super deal at about fifteen clams, but it looks like the going rate is about fifty.  It's called Welcome, With Love by Jenni Overend, and it's about a family who is preparing for a homebirth- told in the voice of young Jack.  Jack helps his dad gather wood for a fire, which they all sleep next to once baby is born. It's a nice realistic account of birth, as opposed to every other book we have where mommy disappears for days while the children stay with a family member or mommy and daddy appear magically with a baby and present it to the siblings.  There is even an illustration of mom leaning on dad, and baby's head poking out of her bottom region, as well as a picture of the placenta and cord.  Miles has been captivated by the story since it arrived. 

The first connection I made with this baby was in a dream in which I got to see her briefly in a piece of retro table tubing in a funky old trailer(!). She appeared as a sleeping, little baby turtle bathed in blue light.  I only got to see that she was safe and then she was gone.  The amphibious nature of babes in the belly fascinates me. 

This looks a bit rough because I snapped the shot while the turtle was still surrounded in liquid mask, but I like the way it's turning out.  At some point, I will have to share this cool stencilling technique I've been playing around with.  When I get the kinks worked out. In the meantime, I'm having lots of fun with the paint-on frisket. And saying "frisket" whenever I get the chance.

 

          Turtle detail.

 

It rained all day today, but not so yesterday. It was so sunny and warm! I was glad to take the outing to the local "zoo park" with Miles.  We didn't walk the entire park, but sat down on our bums and had an ice cream sandwich after we'd seen the couple of familiar faces we came to visit.  We buy an annual membership so we can wander in and enjoy the scenery whenever we please without having to make a big committment out of it. 

 

I'm not sure why this bear is playing with an egg box, but she had her head in it most of the time we were observing her! 

     

It's nice to see things blooming again! I know I can't complain-there were leaves on the trees here at Christmas.  I can hear my northern friends moaning and rolling their eyes.  I do take much for granted here, mostly because I haven't ever lived anywhere else and I suffer major wanderlust.

The rain kept us in today and when the UPS truck came, I ran out without much raingear thinking he was delivering my new printer and some Blick supplies.  Alas, it was just a wool puddle pad for the babe. *snooze!* I'm so anxious to keep working, my momentum is insane with the knowledge that I will be taking a baby break very soon!  Of course now is when I'm all fired up to paint!

I'm loving this print called "Ebb" by Melissa Moss and this little cutie bird by Ashley Anna Brown.  If either B or I were willing to give up one of our creative studios, there would be a perfectly good nursery to put these items in!  ...She's going to have to bunk with us for a while. :)

Day at the Beach

     

     

He who bends to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

                            --William Blake

Life is moment to moment more than ever for the Campbells these days.

What juicy joy did you kiss this weekend?

 

Miles loves sporting his Mati Rose Original tee shirt.  She has a cute entry up featuring a montage of babes wearing this shirt which we bought for M at the art sale that followed Squam Art Workshop in New Hampshire last Fall.  If you haven't heard of this magical, creative gathering, check it out!  Sessions are in June and September this year-treat yourself to some creative resources and downtime in the gorgeous NH forest on infamous Golden Pond.

My psc has been acting out lately, preventing me from making color copies and enlargements to create with-so after a bit of research, I chose a cheap HP all-in-one rather than the Canon that I think will do a better job of making prints of my work.  The HP will aid more in the process of creating, which is more of my focus at the moment.  It does use archival quality ink, so I may be surprised at the quality-I know so little about this sort of thing. If you are a printer expert, feel free to throw your $.02 my way!  Be sure to tell me if you use a model like this for printing your own artwork.

I may treat myself to the Canon later on down the line when it makes more sense-it accepts those lovely, thick, fine art papers that look so juicy when printed upon.  In the meantime, I need my copying and scanning capabilities!  I'm running out of time, here! 

I hit the jackpot at one of my favorite antique store haunts-a collection of 1950's cityscape postcards that I'm excited about collaging with under the paint.  The bright pastels are inspiring me as Spring draws near and they grey of winter is being chased away.  I am digging the way the yellow sun spills across our floor and warms the house.  Everything seems bathed in amber light.

It's been a rather lazy day-I haven't given one thought to alkalizing food (my new obsession), instead I've been eating comfort food (avocado and cheese sandwiches, bbq chips, buckwheat pancakes...)and lying around on my duff watching Sesame Street with Miles.  I did scrub the kitchen up and down this morning, which could be part of that frenzied nesting one does when babe is really wanting out.  It's a game of anybody's guess as to when this little elf is going to arrive!  Shall I start taking bets??

More Wild Soul, Please.

In birth as it is in any creative act...too much safety and structure scares the heck out of me. I think the thing I had to realize early on when my disorderly painting style began to emerge, is the fact that many people will not think my work is pretty or want to hang it on their walls.  It is not whimsical or particularly inspiring.  *sigh*

That being said, there is no real "purpose" to my work besides the act of doing it- which I find immensely gratifying, as in no strings attached.  But what came first? Purposelessness at the onset or necessary surrender so that it could be the ugly or messy thing it usually wants to be? 

I suppose that if I hung my hopes on people liking my work, I would truly starve!  Thank goodness my husband has paying work! Feedback is fun, but I do believe that, for me, it is not necessary in order to feel glad I did the work.  This is a relief.

I feel a certain wildness when I'm painting.  I make a strange face that is focused and not attractive at all.  I drop things repeatedly and spill things on the counter that I don't wipe up until I'm out of my trance.  I snack like an animal. I unconcsiously forget I'm not wearing painting clothes and wipe my hands on my pants, but don't care much in the end. 

Okay, that's not exactly wild, but I'm not functioning in my conscious body, and that feels different from how I normally operate. 

Giving birth to M felt the same way to me.  At home, there was no one badgering me to sign papers while riding out a contraction, no one securing wires and blood pressure cuffs on me while I was trying to do my hippy dippy Rainbow Relaxation.  There was no incessant beeping of monitoring machines, tapping out reports on little tapes beyond my door in a nurse's station.  There was no one looking at the clock and expecting me to perform and making me anxious.  And in that place of total surrender without expectation, my baby arrived: smoothly, harmoniously, very messily and right on time. Though I did yell out, "What time is it?" as soon as his slippery body was out-because who knows, he may want to have his chart read someday...*grin*. Important stuff.

 

That darn flash.  If I weren't burning the midnite oil to eek out time in the studio, my photos would surely appear a bit better.  But then, who cares, right? :)

"When there is too much predator and not enough wild soul, the economic, social, emotional, and religious structures of culture gradually begin to distort the most soulful resources, both in spirit and in the outer world.  Natural cycles are starved into unnatural shapes, lacerated with unwise uses, or else put to death. The value of what is wild and visionary is denigrated, and dark speculations are made about how dangerous the instinctual nature really is.  Thus stripped of authentic sanctity and meaning, destructive and painful means and methods are rationalized as superior."  --Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D, Women Who Run With the Wolves

36 Weeks: Full Moon Belly

 

We're getting so close, and I'm feeling so very, very full.  Sleeping is getting a bit tight, I feel quite like The Tick, if you can remember that comicbook TV hero, squashed neatly into his tight blue getup, but me without the superhuman strength.

Tonite I'm painting, but reading some while the coats dry.  Tell me if you can relate to this:

"I'm sending you on a very lonely road. No one will ever truly understand you. They think they know you, but they don't know what you're thinking about, they don't know the feelings that you have, how sometimes even in a busy, crowded place you need to make certain contact, and to do so, you need to be somewhat withdrawn. That's why, in a social situation it's very uncomfortable for you just to sit down and talk to pass the time: 'Oh, yes, this and all that. Oh, isn't it wonderful, and my, I saw a beautiful chair in the store window the other day. And, gosh, the way they were dressed.' These aren't things you can relate to when you carry medicine.  So it's sort of a lonely road, but in the end, it's worthwhile. It's all worthwhile." --Bear Heart, The Wind is My Mother

I think being a creative person is, too, like carrying sacred medicine. The mind and the heart engage a little differently than in some folks. And a lonely road it can seem to be at times.

Neptune's Daughter

     

Months ago, when we found out that our little bean was going to be a girl, Miles glommed with all of his heart onto the name "Triton" for her, because he loves the solar system and Triton is one of Neptune's moons.  We tried to entertain it, even for a middle name, and to his deep dismay, we shan't be using it for our daughter.  We have a little party planned at a local eaterie this Sunday in honor of his rite of passage into big brotherhood and one of the gifts we gave him this week was a little Waldorfy Cuddle Doll, which he quickly named... you guessed it: Triton.

Today he wanted to take her out into the world and share her in his silky sling (hand-dyed by the amazing Wendy Cook).  He has been nurturing her and practicing all of his big brother skills since we presented her to him.  (She is a fair-trade cotton and wool Peppa Cuddle Doll and we got her on ebay, but they sell them at Down to Earth).  He got a lot of positive little coos from the grandmotherly types, but can I tell you, in that hat, everyone thought he was a girl.  Are boys who nurture that unexpected??  I have to ask.  Maybe it's his eyelashes...

It has been really fun preparing him for this change because he is so nurturing and STINKIN' SWEET. He tells us how much he can't wait to help with the diapering, holding and nursing (!) and it just makes it even more exciting that he's so into it.  There have been times where it's felt like this baby is more for him than for us.  I know I have a few who will fight for the right to this title, but I'm pretty sure I'm the Luckiest Person Alive.

False Alarm

 

My new best friend.

Last night I was in what I thought to be labor from about 2am to 7am.  It was really weird since we're 5 weeks out and my fears surround birthing in the hospital.  Sitting in the bath and resting with my thoughts for a while, I was able to get myself to that magical place of surrender and also decide with Mr. B and the midwife that we would stay in our comfortable home and give birth and proceed from there if necessary.  It allowed me some much-needed mental housekeeping that I couldn't have possibly done without being in the position of thinking "today's the day". 

Birth is, for me, a courageous act- one that cannot be put off until later, until the mental or emotional kinks are worked out, or until the timing is right.  I think this is what I love so much about natural homebirth. It requires the complete surrender to something beyond my control that I have to breathe, move, sing, hum and pray my way through-all done outside the realm of my conscious mind.  I have a friend scheduling her C-section for early March, we are due about a week apart. Oddly enough, though her idea of an ideal birth is pretty much the polar opposite of mine, we share many of the same sentiments.  For her, C-section is her preferred and most satisfying method of birth, but comes with risks and anticipations much like my own, just within a different set of parameters.  I think I've likened the birth of a baby to any creative act here before, giving your baby wings and bringing it forth into the world requires courage and surrender.  And perhaps love of the truth that it will be whatever or whomever it is going to be, and that we do not possess it so much as give it life and treat it as a divine gift.

My clean out yesterday had an, um...cleansing effect and that may have had something to do with her knocking on my chamber door a bit early.  I'm sticking with the same idea today, just have this notion that my body doesn't want a lot of heavy food or processed flours and the like.  Today, I heart split pea and barley soup (on the stove), steel cut oats with coconut oil and raw honey, lemon water, blackstrap molasses for iron (thanks for the reminder, Stevie), raw almonds, aloe vera juice, GoodBelly probiotics and all the green juice I can stand.  Strange timing, but this what my body is telling me to do. 

I feel my baby girl delightfully teasing me...knowing that I want answers, predictability...Aquarian? Pisces?  Silly questions entertain me while I play the waiting game....

Some Kind of Balance

 

all the leaves areALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN! andthesky is greyAND THE SKY IS GREY...

Have I ever shared here that it was our good friend Joe who made the infamous ham sandwich for Mama Cass? He was singing backup on her comeback tour and was staying in her flat (because in Joe style, he thought they were playing the Hollywood Palladium instead of the London Palladium and needed last minute accomodations...oops).  Did I also mention that he cooks often for us? 

I'm headed out to the market for cucumbers, steel cut oats and celery for a juicy clean out.  I think I ate too much sugar this weekend or something, my insides just don't feel right at all.  It was probably the dark chocolate covered toffee rolled in pistachios that did me in, oh, and the coconut chocolate chip cookies.  It was kiwi, fresh squeezed apple juice and dry toast for breakfast today and I'll do some more juicing and soup this afternoon to keep it clean.  Baby girl needs something heavier, though, so I may do a bottle of plain kefir before I leave.

I wanted to give a plug to another amazing women-owned and operated company, Holy Lamb Organics in Olympia, WA.  They made a custom-fitted wool and organic cotton pad to fit our baby cradle and they did a mindblowing job.  The pad sent with the Cariboo cradle gifted us (THANK YOU!) was a horrible thin latex pad, fire retardant (meaning: soaked in chemicals) and the search for something totally non-chemical was quite a task. Our wool pad is gorgeous!  I am really paranoid about chemicals around the babes and because we live in the most air-polluted region in the country, it gives me some sort of comfort to know that when she's not sleeping in bed with us, she'll won't be inhaling invisible fumes into her tiny lungs (infant asthma is very common here). 

 

I was one step away from buying materials and making my own, but when I found HLO, I was glad to not have to add one more lofty ambition to my list of To Dos.  If you go there to replace your chemical pillow with a pure wool one, tell them I sent you :).  Oh, and no sheep are killed to make their wool products, they strictly shear. Plus they're a zero-waste company and that makes me so giddy.

The To Dos are piling up, so I made a list on the opposite page of To Bes, just to make sure I am creating equal room for things less do-ey and aligned with pure joy.  Otherwise I've been trying to stuff every moment with "important" tasks.  I have to remind myself that stringing beads with no purpose, reading for fun, choosing great music, and taking naps are balancing to me and deserve to be given more time.  If only I could remember this when I'm not pregnant!! Seriously, every book I own is a how-to!  I need help.

Off we go on a beeauu-full (M speak) sunny CA day, to market, to market, jiggety jig.

   

A happy boy on a trike in unusually wet, yet predictably warm California weather.

I'm working on a new piece, which is funny because I have had a dry spell that seemed to last forever.  Now that I have just over a month to go before our daughter is born, a wildfire has been lit under my butt and I'm feverishly fussing about in the studio, applying paint and paper in symbolic layers of what is unfolding within and without.

As I mentioned in my last post, birth of any kind must be done on one's own two feet.  I got a lesson this week that was rather painful, and it came of my own choice.  Oy, gevald! I am rather notorious for putting my foot in my mouth and collecting more opinions than should be allowed by law, and that is where trace humor ends in this story.

More and more I am realizing that this journey is just my own.  Community, and the sometimes false senses of intimacy that accompany it, is comforting when parties are comfortable and light.  Yet, this week, as a subject of a deeper nature surfaced, I realized too late how mistaken I 'd been to assume that vulnerability could exist in a conflict of ideas.  I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, as how can I expect vulnerability and trust to prevail in a culture that promotes, by leadership example: secrecy, self-defense, privacy and individual rights over truth, healing and conscious action?  If I sound bitter about this, I'm not.  I believe these things have merit when not born of a shadow or fear.  I'm observing how these values seem to play out in some relationships.  The affair left me feeling rather lonely, as the choice to speak out was mine alone, and I alone had to experience the consequences.

Whenever I feel lonely on this path, Bobcat is here to teach me how to be solitary without feeling alone.  It is also trying to teach me when to speak, how much and to whom.  This is a very hard but important lesson for me to continue exploring.  Ted Andrews says, "What may be white to the Bobcat person can be mistakenly perceived as black", and I would have been wise to consider that possibility this week. 

Messages keep coming through for me to seek out what is hidden and to trust my own senses, and this is also the medicine of Bobcat.  Preparing to become a mom again, I can feel my instincts stirring more loudly and seeking a voice, standing up like cautious fur on the back on my neck and the points of my ears.  I am beginning to feel a little restless, for my own birth and for protection of those ideas and actions I value most, especially with regard to the wee ones and their fragile first experiences on this plane with us.

Striking a balance among all of these contrasting feelings and concepts has been challenging this past week.  I want to think of myself as one who is respectful of others, tries to forego judgement and creates lots of room for empathy for what others must be going through and yet takes worthwhile risks to deepen an experience.  It is the part of me that sees what others may not that I have a rough time navigating through and then communicating.  The reverse side of this sweet-smelling card is sounding like an arrogant, know-it all, and possibly hurting someone's feelings to boot.  I suppose all I can do is keep on seeking to gain clarity and direction... and a good dose of humility.

At the bottom of it all, being alone doesn't feel uncomfortable like it once did.  I am surrounded by loving friends and family, but in my heart, I know that my strength must come just from me and my lessons are my own to learn.  Learning to see in the dark is my journey.

  

Bead by Mamacita.

Thank you, for honoring me and remembering.  I feel totally adored!

Six weeks out and counting.  I am wishing, hoping, praying, holding space for the ability to give birth in the manner that is sacred and affirming to me and knowing that it is my privilege to do so.  Birthing a baby, a book, a piece of art, must always be done on one's own two feet.  And so I go forth, only fearing those who would stand in my way and not the birthing process itself.  That I feel divinely in sync with!

Many contractions that are getting a bit more uncomfortable, but nothing to fret about.  It is excellent practice for slowing down and breathing deeply, the kind of business actual labor calls for.  So I guess I'm getting a bit of a head start!  Do I sound anxious?  I think I'm a little anxious in this moment.  Not about contractions with no meaning, but about hospitals and doctors who aren't in the practice of hearing women who intend to homebirth. 

I will distract myself with making dinner...anyone have any good cheesy books to recommend?  Got any girl names you love and want to share??

xo

32 Weeks and Nesting

 

most definitely in "the pudding club" today. 'scuse the limp-wristed, washed out remote shot. 

"Being Pregnant" AKA

living in seduced circumstances

rehearsing lullabies

to be in the pudding club

bow-windowed

wearing the bustle wrong

up the pole

Irish toothache

infanticipating

baby-bound

belly up

heir-conditioned

full of heir

in the family way

declaring a dividend

storked

a bun in the oven

From Mother's Nature: Timeless Wisdom for the Journey into Motherhood

 

And the Mother of the Year Award goes to my dear friend Christine, who has pumped enough breast milk to get her 8 month old daughter through the next few months in order to begin trying to conceive another baby!  Her husband just had to go out for another freezer.  This milky mama was diagnosed with MS just after Mari was born in May of last year and is being urged to complete her family sooner than later.  Here is the darling Mariko over the holidays:

 

Seems like the whole world is having babies right now!  I hope that she has good luck, please send her a positive thought!

Things are looking good for us to have a homebirth with our little Stellie star, and my mind is a whirling blender of how to prepare for it.  I wasn't as prepared last time, not having any experience with it, but this time around I'm hoping to make it not just comfortable, but really special as well.  I've also been juicing vegetables like crazy and I feel great.

I'm lovin' Gentle Moon for supplies like Mastitis Compress herbs and some of the lists at motheringdotcommune from mamas who homebirth regularly.  I plan on soaking some pads with comfrey root tea and freezing them for help with my sore bottom parts when all is said and done. Afterease is on my list, as well as some other postpartum care items from Wishgarden.  We used the herbal cord care product with Miles and his little cord healed up really fast with no issues whatsoever. Arnica gel, Rescue Remedy cream (for the ring of fire!), liquid chlorophyll with mint, coconut water (which surprisingly mimicks the composition of human blood plasma), some Merry Mother tea, vitamin water, raw honey and herb balm, and soup made by someone other than me (!) will be on my list for birthday, too!

Birthing From Within is still my favorite prenatal book, with the Sear's Birth Book running in close second.  Both give realistic accounts of what is at risk and what is to gain by having fewer interventions.  I can never say enough about the Sears-they just know their stuff, and they advocate gentleness, which we can always use more of with our births and children, in my opinion.

I now have the time to read and start thinking about any new fears that might be coming up this time, which is so strange.  Every birth brings a new set of thoughts and dreams, and though it is the most magical and exciting time I've ever experienced, it also challenges all of my control issues, each and every dirty one of them.  I have anxiety each time I go to the doctor, because unlike last time, homebirth and non-interventional choices are frowned upon in the facility I go to.  I literally have to come home and drown myself in Peggy O' Mara and Ina May Gaskin to center myself after the ordeals.  Some might ask why I even bother going to the OB at all.  That is one of my control issues-I want to see for myself that all is going well according to western expectations because it fortifies my decision to birth at home.

As I was hippying out to my yoga dvd this morning, and lying quietly in svasana pose, the soothing voice of Shiva Rea instructed me to:

SR: Now focus on your crown chakra.  Imagine a melting sensation down over your forehead.  Relax your nose and the sides of your tongue...

Miles: Hey! This movie is not about tongues and noses!

Thank you, Prenatal Yoga Police, for the feedback.

Namaste!

Would Ms. Gifty Please Stand Up?

I posted before Christmas that I was pining for a bead-not just any bead, but a Mamacita bead.

What should arrive in my post box on Saturday but this?

 

What a wonderful project to begin the week with!  I intend to string it right away! 

So, who sent this amazing gift to me with no note?  Which one of you mysterious sirens is honoring me this way?  THANK YOU....until you reveal yourself!

Week 27: All Belly All the Time

 

Now we're all hacking and sniffling over here.  It hasn't kept us from creating photographic shenanigans.

 

If I could only find my feet, I know there is a mighty fine pedicure to show off down there somewhere.

And...

*Listening to Elvis croon holiday tunes

*Searching for baby names and ending right back where we began

*Inhaling creme brulee cheesecake

*Making last minute gifts for mail-out

*Staying up far too late!

*Writing letters to baby

*Sneaking Willie in to snuggle with me like a little pit bull radiator

*Saying tearful goodbyes to loyal and amazing clients

*Tossing our cookies

*Enjoying green baby things over pink

*Recycling paper bags for wrapping paper, stamping them with doves and swallows

*Watching hawks do their swirly dances in the sky

*Hatching new projects before I finish the last

*Sleeping propped up on pillows.  Or not sleeping, as it were.

*Planting seeds for 2009

  

I want to attack this child with kisses every moment of the day.

The ultrasound went very well yesterday, and I do not have the rare and dangerous vascular disorder my doctor was afraid of on my placenta.  Thank goodness! There are two strange looking "lakes of blood", which are funky sacs filled with fluid on the underside of the placenta that faces her head and chest, which the perinatologist felt were completely non-threatening.  My placenta is marginally low-lying, just like last time, but is about 2mm from the birth opening, and is much more likely to move away from it as pregnancy progresses, than toward. Whew!  At this point it's unlikely that I should face a placenta previa, a condition I slightly brushed up against when I was pregnant with Miles.

Yes, it is a GIRL!  He was able to confirm that indeed she is a she and that presents me with joy and anxiety galore. I had this mostly unconscious fantasy that having another boy would mean a pretty easy and similar experience to what I've already had.  I'm sure I was just bullshitting myself, because no two babes are the same! But it was the story my mind had spun for me. Now here I am looking at 6 giant sacks of wonderful boy things that are tagged to be shipped to our favorite boys (and I indulged in some really nice stuff back then) round the country and it seems a bit metaphorical that this new experience is going to be totally unique.

Having a daughter brings up all sorts of things for me.  Many of which I've sifted through before and some of which are brand new thoughts and fears. I want my little mermaid to have so much more confidence, guidance and security than I had.  I want her to be the tallest tree in the forest, or at least much taller than we are.

I'm creating a little altar for her to begin naming my hopes and anything else that comes up between now and forever as her mother.  So far I've placed her ultrasound photos on it, a teeny little crocheted hat made by the amazing Gina Garoogian, and a beautiful Indian jasper heart I picked up from a gemologist this weekend- which I clutched all the way to my appointment yesterday.  I'm pining for this piece, which is one of the loveliest mama jewels I've ever seen.

It finally feels like I can take a deep breath and embrace this new little being wholeheartedly.  Ahhh...