Time for the Soul

Ah, yes...almost two months have passed since writing in this space. The reality of mothering is that time has changed forever. It's not that inspired moments have not occurred, but the time to reflect on and write about them have not.

It is certainly living in the present moment and breating in the impermanence of all that is....my little boy of a few months ago is sprouting muscles and doing better at finding his way without me.

This summer he has learned to swim and ride a bike without training wheels. His need for physical supports are lessening as he experiences more trust in his ability to be balanced or held by the water. My prayer is that his trust grows as he rests and runs in this greater world.

I welcome these new accomplishments and celebrate with him his joy and pride in these new ways of being in motion in the world.

Mandalas and Motherhood

Devote time to exploring the path of motherhood by attending Mandalas and Motherhood: Finding Our Path to the Center. The mandala, or sacred circle, is prevalent in many forms throughout most cultures. We often see it in the first drawings of our children—the circle and the spiral. Mandalas can lead the way to meditative practice, healing experiences and insight about oneself.Come let the mandala lead you!Spend a morning with crayons and coffee in conversation with other moms.

mandala courtesy of www.mandalavisions.com

Save the Date
Saturday June 3
9:30am - 11:30am
House of Menuha
801 E. 77th St
Kansas City, MO

Space is limited. Email jen@womb-wisdom.com or call 913-375-5335 to ask questions and/or reserve your space.

Unable to fix all hurts

Recently, my son has encountered something - we don't know what - that has sent his sense of self, safety and security reeling. He feels helpless, alone and scared. And he is making every waking moment of our life as a family close to unbearable. As the queen of fixing, I have tried everything - speaking to teachers and after school staff, trying to find ways to talk to Max about what he is feeling, creating a more detailed schedule for him to follow in hopes that knowing "what comes next" will help him feel more secure. I have prayed. I have cried. And I have lost my patience with him more times than I can count.

I am spent.

In my journey as a mom, I continually bump up against my inability to "do" anything. The hardest thing for me is to just be present to his pain, without trying to change it. Any mother would much rather get sick so her child doesn't or take on the pain so that don't have to. It's the protective instinct that makes us charge full speed ahead, without always reflecting.

Compassionate detachment is what I am encouraged to embrace. Can I love him fully and be present to this opportunity for him to grow? In surrendering am I able to recognize that I am open to the mystery of what he is going through? The early years were so occupied by physical needs - it was about basic survival. But we are moving into a new land as a family as Max confronts new obstacles that are not physical but are emotional and spiritual. Everyday I become more and more aware that my son is his own person.

I am continually challenged: when do I hold on, and when do I let go?

The Devouring Mother

That night, after Mary's house, I dream:

There is a couple who have been trying really hard to have a baby. I am walking down a street. Intuitively I know that some tragedy befell the baby and it is dead. Darkness has descended and out of nowhere this baby's mother appears and startles me. She has turned into a fierce red and black cat-woman creature. She is screaming. Pure rage. She grabs me and begins to dig her claws into me. I scream, "No, No, No."

Bob wakes me up as I am still screaming out. I have finally scared him. He held me as I cried - overtaken by the disturbing images of the dream. And even though I was safe, the whole world seemed shot through with her energy. He falls back asleep. I lay in bed rigid, my eyes wide open terrified of falling asleep.

The night sounds of Kusadasi are right on top of me. The gravel crunches as people pass by sounding ominous and loud. I am afraid to remain awake for fear that she lurks beneath my window. Irrationally I convince myself that the slightest curiosity on my part to look out the window will result in my death. She will devour me as well. I know she ate that baby. The black and red on her face. The red is the blood of all those innocents that she has consumed. I fear my flesh is not safe here. I write in my journal. There is nowhere else to go. I can write by the light of the street lamps passing through the sheer curtains. I want to make sense of this intensity that is coursing through me.

It can't be a coincidence that all of this female mother imagery is emerging. And then tonight I dream of the devouring mother. Her form in India is Kali. She wears a ring of skulls around her neck and she is black...the darkest of the dark. In my dream she is a cat, feline, an animal form almost always associated with feminine energy. Her fierceness haunts me even as I write and tell myself this was only a dream. Hmmmm...only a dream. I promise to never tell my child such paltry words in the face of the evil of a nightmare. Is that supposed to comfort me? Knowing that she is still out there? Or rather even more frightening - she is within me and waiting to pounce.

I remember when a friend told me after church one Sunday morning that she would like to travel alone in Turkey. She wondered if traveling with Bob would dampen the spiritual aspects of this journey. But now huddled in bed, I know he is protecting me by keeping me grounded. Everything feels so heightened in this moment. My ears are so sensitive that I feel like I am able to hear every sound - every single solitary sound. Few of them are familiar.

Turkey is different from Greece. In Greece I spent my time lying nude on the beach relaxing, swimming, soaking up the sun. But this Turkey is another land.

The feminine energy oozes from the earth. The land is fertile. Everywhere we go there is fresh produce. Fields grow every crop imaginable. This land is a woman constantly giving birth. And yet the patriarchy of Islam is embedded as deep as the roots of the ancient trees. I am coming to believe that the men here are afraid of the power of woman...afraid of her mystery which is the power and mystery of creation itself. Perhaps the laws that control women's experience and daily lies are an attempt to compensate for such strong feminine energy. And maybe I have never experienced true feminine energy unmediated- rising up from the earth and holding you like a mother or devouring you like a monster.

I pray - Please God let me sleep without any more nightmares. I am aware that tonight I pray to God the Father. I want to be protected from the fierceness of the feminine - perhaps from the fierceness of myself.

At Mary's House a Franciscan Annoints Me as Mother

Wearing my blue sundress, I had felt that I was paying appropriate homage to Mary. We took a few pictures once we emerged from the darkness and into the bright sun. Looking back at the photographs (see previous entry) I look so exhausted. But in the moment I had experienced such intensity...the power ofknowing that in every part of me that I was standing on holy ground. And that ground could hold any feeling, thought or prayer that I brought to it.

A thin Fransican priest walked by. He looked Indian. At least I assumed he was Franciscan because he wore the telling brown robes corded at the waist with white rope. I smiled and he returned the gesture. He walked by again this time Bob was the one to engage him, "Hello Father." He nodded "hello". I went to the souvenir shop to buy a few medals. A proper Catholic can't leave a holy site without holy water or some chachka. I bought three medals...one for Grandma, one for a nun friend of mine, and one for myself. I felt it would help to reconnect me back to this moment whenever I felt far away from the holy ground of life itself. Turning around to begin our descent back to the car, the old Franciscan walked by again and again I smiled. This time he stopped and hesitated.
"Where are you from?" he inquired.
"New York City" I said.
"I'm just so pleased to meet you. Are you on a tour?" His proper British/Indian accent gave everything he said an air of dignity and respect.
"No" we both responded in unison.
"If you have the time I would love to speak with you about this place," he said"I felt so drawn to you two. There was something about you...some special quality. It was as if I was being called to talk to you. That's why I came back a second time and then a third. I am so glad to talk with you." He actually clasped his hands in front of him rather gleefully...like a little kid so excited he can't quite contain it and it spills forth in the smacking of his hands.

So we commenced listening to the story of Mary's House and how it came to be discovered. He told us he was a Cappuchin priest from India and this was his new assignment - Mary's House. His transparency made his spiritual energy emanate so freely from him. He was so thin reminding me of the Buddha and St. Francis. It was as if his body received nourishment from the air itself. Perhaps he didn't need the peaches and tomatoes that the rest of us devoured in this fertile country. In him I saw the spiritual body that St. Paul writes about made manifest. I was in the presence of one who had already begun to take that form. Fr. Tarvey lived somewhere between the mundane mortal body and the glorified one. His other worldliness seemed perfect.

As he told the story of Mary's House, every few minutes he would repeat one refrain "But it is more than the historical evidence, the archeological findings, even the human story...At some point you have to come to a point where you must take a leap of trust and faith."

In his storytelling I was led back into the darkness of the hearth in Mary's house. The candle flames dancing and swaying to a spiritual movement I could not see, but which reverberated through every part of my being - body and soul. The flames themselves danced up and down my spine.

At this moment Fr. Tarvey looked deeply into my eyes and smiled, "She knows more about this" and laughed. I was drawn to him and my skepticism was gradually subsiding. His attention made me feel called into some special place.

"This is Mary's House where she lived and mothered the early church. But it is much bigger than Christianity. The holiness here transcends all religions. This place is really about the love of the mother. And that's why you Jennifer may understand more of this leap than Bob...precisely because you are a woman. There are things about women - mystery- that men will never understand. Are you a mother?"

Smiling, "No, not yet Father." This was the second time I had been asked this question. What was it about Turkey that was making me interact with mother on so many levels. Calling out in a dream...standing inside Mary's house and here speaking with Fr. Tarvey. What was happening to me?

We prepared to go back to Ali Baba's car. I wanted to hug Fr. Tarvey but restrained myself. We thanked him profusely for his time with us. He gave us a handwritten card with his address and name on a piece of bluelined notebook paper. "What I need most are your prayers. I am very poor, but you my friends are very rich."

Fr. Tarvey's words had connected with a deep inner urging of mine to be a mother and to experience the greater love of the Mother that is ground of our being. This time at Mary's House had not come to an end. It appeared to be an opening and far from finished.

Ephesus: A Trip to Mary's House

After showering the decision was made to hire Ali Baba and his son Murat for a tour to Mary's House high on a hill outside of Ephesus. In addition to Mary, Artmeis worship had been very strong in the same wooded hills and mountains. Murat refers to our destination as Mary's House...not the House of our Blessed Virgin Mary or anything else appropriately pious. I like that intimacy. It's simply the house where Mary lived after fleeing Jerusalem. Without the trappings of piety and worship, I almost feel like we will be greeted with fresh bread when we arrive.

The onslaught of tour buses in the parking lot greet me and I am a little disappointed to say the least. Ali Baba stays in the car and Murat walks with us. The building itself is quite small. A nun dressed in a light blue habit stands at the entrance welcoming visitors and pointing to the sign which lists the different times when mass is said and the various languages spoken. She seemed sweet, slight and frail - the way I have often assumed Mary to be.

Entering the first room, I am enveloped by the coolness and darkness of the space. The hushed quiet reverberates. In the center of the room is the hearth. Along the wall hangs a row of metal trays filled with sand for lighting candles. It's ablaze with flickering candles. Bob asks if I want to light a candle and I follow him to the tray.

As I lit my candle I prayed for MaMere, my maternal grandmother who passed away a few months prior. The flame crackled reminding me of dancing with Fourth of July sparklers in my backyard as a kid. I bend forward to place my candle in the sand. As I rest the candle in the sand, I sense of presence and chills run up and down my spine. A powerful energy moves through my body and tears come to my eyes.

The power of standiing on holy feminine ground coursed through me that day. I was held in Her embrace.

Meeting the Great Mother: Notes from Summer 1999

The overnight ferry from Naxos to Samos was packed when we boarded around 11:30pm. I didn't know how we would find a space to sleep. People were sprawled everywhere. Bob carved out four seats for us and I tried to sleep on the floor in front of the seats, building up mountains of backpacks and towels into a makeshift mattress. The air was stale with the smoke of hundreds of cigarettes. The hardest thing for me to handle while traveling in Greece was the smell of putrid smoke.


I must have drifted off at some point because I awoke from a deep sleep with Bob shaking me, "Stop it Jen...stop."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"You're dreaming...You keep yelling 'Mommy! Mommy!' "
"Nuh huh."
"Yes you are."

Usually when you are awoken from a dream you remember some fragment - but I had no recollection of any of it. There was no way I could have screamed out for Mommy. It just didn't fit. I was 30 years old traveling with my partner to Turkey from the Greek Islands. Bob was adamant about my screams. As I sat up and climbed into the chair I wondered what was bubbling forth from such a deep dark place that I wasn't conscious enough to recognize the cries as my own. I'd been in enough Jungian analysis to know this was a big one....

From the moment of that dream, I felt different. I had entered another space and realized time unfolded differently in this new place I inhabited. North was no longer North and South was no longer South. Feeling a little disoriented and lost, I was getting ready to journey in a mysterious land.

After dreaming for ten years about traveling to Turkey, I had always hoped my experiences would be memorable. My dream on the ferry announced some greater mystery that was waiting to be revealed. The voice that I cried out with for mother came from a deep place. I was pretty certain that it wasn't my mom back in Kansas I was yelling for with such intensity. Even at this early moment in the journey I knew it was the Great Mother I needed: the one who holds the whole world in her pelvic floor. What I didn't know was why I was calling for her.

Still Thinking About Maiden to Mother

As a society we do not hold the mother as she finds her way through the place in between maiden and mother. This is far too grand a transformation to do it alone. And yet, for so many of us we are left to feebly grope in the darkness.

We are unindated by society and its messages that make it harder to find our way home to ourselves. As a friend said - "We are expected to go back to work, look the same - be thin and all together."

It is as if nothing happened and yet our entire beings have changed. No one wants to know our story now that the baby is here. It is a vessel experience. I am the container for Max but who is containing me? That is where a community of women can hold the sacred space for each other -honoring our moments of despair, hopelessness, joy, and euphoria.

I too was born when Max entered the world. I was not a mother until I pushed him through the walls of my being and he emerged wet, slippery and screaming. In that moment I knew it was just the beginning.

My quiet moments with him were precious when he was a baby and continue to be now that he is a boy. I love to read to him and nestle in the bed together singing songs off key. I have always played with him differently than his father. It is not a rowdy and rough type of play. It is quieter and more solitary. I was never a rowdy physical kid - how could I be expected to give that to my son? I can only give him what I have.

A hero in birth

Everyone is a hero in birth, Campbell states in The Power of Myth, displaying the wonderful complexity and instructive ambiguity that so often blesses both his writing and his speech. The act of birth, he goes on, represents a tremendous psychological as well as physical transformation, both for the child being born and the mother giving birth. The child moves from the condition of a little water creature in a realm of amniotic fluid into an air-breathing mammal which ultimately will be standing.

For the mother’s part, she is not only undergoing physical hardship, but she is also giving herself over to the life of another. Both are key components of any hero’s quest. Motherhood is a sacrifice, Campbell writes, and she is embarking on what will comprise, at least for some extended period of time, an important facet of her life’s work. But Campbell says that birth is not just a physical act. The mother is also undergoing a metaphorical transformation from a maiden to a mother…a big change, involving many dangers. The ways in which she confronts and maneuvers through those dangers, the paths she chooses to travel across that threshold, are part of her own spiritual birth, and represent her own individual hero’s quest.

Jospeh Campbell
The Power of Myth
painting: The Great Mother by Durga Bernhard

Breath and Birth

Breath can bridge the space between contracting and relaxing. It’s no coincidence that we are asked to use our breath to help us in birth. The breath – prana, chi, spirit – can help us to stay grounded as it also lifts us to meet our next challenge in the birthing process.


Inhale.
My body has held and formed Life.
Exhale.
And given Life back to itself.

Birth Thoughts

Birth is a very special event in the sexual life as a woman. It is a time when you are transformed: you become a mother; you give birth to another human being. This great opening of the womb happens only once or a few times in your life…Your womb is the seat of your deepest feelings.

Janet Balaskas
Active Birth

Opening is hard. Uncertainty is our companion. Fear is understandable. And yet, the call of Life asks that we allow ourselves to experience the fullness of birth. In this great opening of the womb, we are raw. Our animal nature will prevail if we let it. We squat, we howl, we rut. We are fully in the moment and wholly consumed by the force of Life that takes over our bodies, our souls, our minds. In birth our power as creators is made manifest.

We participate in a profound transformation. We are giving birth, but we are also being born. Our cries in labor herald another birth – that of a new mother coming forth into the world. We, too, emerge from the fleshy folds of the Great Womb. We are wet with her juices and breathless in this new land.

Once we arrive at this moment, there is no turning back.

Giving

A woman is a vehicle of life – life has overtaken her – a woman is what it’s all about: the giving of birth and the giving of nourishment. She is identical with the earth goddess in her powers and she has got to realize that about herself.

Joseph Campbell
Power of Myth

Giving birth. Giving nourishment. Before our children were born did we have any idea how much we would give? It’s hard to feel akin to the goddess when covered in spit-up and branded with dark circles under our sleepless eyes. The constant clamoring for every ounce of our attention is exhausting. At times we question whether this is really giving at all or rather the taking of our very being. It’s precisely the tug between giving and taking, being and doing, laughing and crying that cultivates a fruitful growing place. Our most painful and challenging moments are just as important as the tender and joyous ones in making us fertile ground for our children. We are not asked to dictate the shape, color or texture of their flower, but to be the soil from which they can take root and grow. Understanding the dualities inherent in motherhood and embracing the many forms they take in our lives is an important step in honoring ourselves and the goddess power we possess.

Max's dream

Max came running into our bedroom yesterday. It was 6am and still dark outside. He squealed with joy - "Mommy I had a dream!" Now for the past three years he has told me when he has a dream, but whenever I inquired he never could remember any details of his nocturnal journey. Yesterday was different. Some psychic shift must have occured because he couldn't wait to tell me that "Daddy was a fireman and he let me do the water on the fire. I came running inside and Nani and Popi and Uncle Ryan were all there. I told them to "Come! Come!" This was my son's first conscious dream. I am not surprised that even in his dreams his dad is the hero wrestling with the elemental forces of nature: fire and water.

This early morning conversation has me wondering why we first remember our dreams. And what does it mean? Is it a shift into consciousness about our deeper selves? Or do we begin to remember only because we have started to forget about who we are. Our dreams are then the thread by which we make our way back to ourselves.

Does Max realize that he is the hero of his dream? And if he doesn't, how will I help him to know it?

Cultivating Hopelessness

Pregnancy is a time of waiting and hope. No one ever tells us it is an opportunity to be hopeless. But it is a good time to practice cultivating hopelessness.

There are so many unknowns in pregnancy. Will the baby be a boy or a girl? Will he be healthy? Will she be strong? Will I be a good mother? In confronting the mystery of what is unknown we instinctively tack on our hopes to this child growing within us. Sometimes it’s hoping for what we didn’t have as a child. At other times it's for what we did.

The hope gives makes the fundamental uncertainty less frightening. There’s nothing “bad” about it. It’s natural and understandable. And yet, Pema Chodron, the gifted writer and Tibetan Abbot, challenges us by saying that “Hope robs us of the present moment.” It’s an interesting exercise to ask ourselves – what does it feel like to bring fewer hopes to our pregnancy? What does it mean to stay in this moment just as it is? Nothing more and nothing less.

Darkness of Waiting

For the darkness of waiting of not knowing what is to come
of staying ready, quiet and attentive,
we praise you O God

for the darkness and light are both alike to you.

Janet Morley
All Desires Known: Inclusive Prayers for Worship and Meditation

My Annunciation

After hanging up the phone with the nurse at the doctor’s office, I burst into tears. I sobbed with a vengeance. Bob wrapped me in his arms, all smiles and excitement about this new life that was beginning within me. I just felt terrified and alone and unprepared having always imagined that the news of pregnancy would be delivered in a more joyous and controlled context. You know one where I was prepared, ready and waiting. Instead I was totally caught off-guard.

Bob held me as I wept and he laughed through much of it. (This is when the father of four children can provide assurance and support.) I just knew that nothing would ever be the same in my life. I had always thought I would become a mom when I was ready and when I "had it more together." Hmmm...Guess no one ever has it together enough to be a parent.


In the painting by Botticelli of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel kneels before a blue and salmon robed Mary. Her body is contorted and twisted - seeming to move both to and away from the messenger and his message. When I pointed out my reading of the painting at work, the woman who brought the book in said "But Sister Wendy describes it as Mary swaying in awe of this great event."

I think there is less wonder and more dread in Mary's response. Sister Wendy has obviously never found out that she is pregnant and unmarried...in a loving and committed relationship, yes... but still aware of the possibility of being stoned. That figure of Mary was full of ambivalence. How could someone not see it? It seemed like an honest response to me. I mean how could anyone approach pregnancy without feeling some ambivalence?

Mary was swaying to the reality of a new vision she was not strong enough to embody. Before a seed roots and begins to take form there must be moments of chaos.

Maybe Mary had difficulty seeing herself as a mother also.

Darkness and Light

Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.
May Sarton

On the other side

As my son turns six, I am aware that I appear to be clearly "on the other side" of my transition into motherhood. Although I continually face new challenges, I am no longer unsure about my identity as mother. Oh, but I vividly remember those early days, which for me stretched into years, when I no longer knew who I was and had no idea about who I was becoming.

Looking back I can see clearly that I was in the midst of an awesome rite of passage, but at the time I just thought I was inadequate and not adjusting well to being a mom. Once Max turned three, I knew that my very being had undergone a complete shift in identity...and eventually I felt at home again. For some time (three years I think) I occupied what the anthropologists call the "liminal space." It is the period of time in a traditional rite of passage when the inductee has been separated from his/her community and has not yet been reintegrated with his/her new identity. Liminality is the in-between space of "no more" and "not yet."

Many of us, as new mothers, feel this tenuousness. We know somewhere deep within us that it is much more than sleep deprivation. We whisper about this feeling to other moms on the playgrounds, we search on the internet late at night to look for answers, we read books, we cry and sometimes we completely fall apart for awhile. We have this sense, even as the joys of being a mother are being revealed, that a part of us is dying. We live in this dual reality of dying and being born at the same time. We hunger to be known, heard and held.

It is my deepest intention that these words and the community that will eventually form around them will be a sacred place for all of us to honor this profound journey we have undertaken.

Birth is just the beginning

It is not until our baby is born that we truly understand that the birth is just the beginning.

-Myla Kabat-Zinn
Everyday Blessings

Womb Wisdom

Grounded in the belief that motherhood is a sacred rite of passage, Womb Wisdom invites mothers everywhere to be in conversation about the journey. Just as we bring our children to maturity, so too does becoming a mother offer us special opportunities to grow as individuals.

This process – giving birth to ourselves as mothers – unfolds over days, months and years. Womb Wisdom holds that sharing these experiences in all their variety and nuance more fully engages us in the rhythm of life.

Womb Wisdom is committed to offering encouragement as we name and embrace this unique, yet universal, path