Hers was the only aura I saw without trying. Violet, like the energy of St. Germain, extending from the tips of her fur in soft flames. It was four years ago, and we were walking in the woods. I began our daily journey together distraught. My physical and emotional worlds were burning in a dark chasm I’ll call fear. It was February, that month that tests the limits of endurance. Within the span of a few short days, every heating system in my home and in my body went on overload. The ancient furnace in the basement stopped breathing warmth and started emitting the poisonous gas that silently consumes the oxygen of life. The wood stove followed suit, deciding to search down, rather than up, for air, filling the house in a matter of panicked seconds with thick gray smoke. Fearing flames, I rushed my children, coatless, outside with Daisy and called the fire department. Then, the pellet stove decided it wanted to play the same game, vomiting an over-abundance of fuel that caught a fire that decided to breath in, instead of out, filling the house, again, with gray, suffocating smoke.
Sometimes the world outside mirrors the world inside, testing our ability to heal and release to the point of near collapse. That February day, after I safely shuttled the kids on the bus to school, I desperately sought release. Daisy, my faithful companion and guide, calmly led the way to the forest. Although it would have been impossible for her not to feel the fires raging through me, she was the epitome of peace.
It was the walk of dreams, where time stands sentinel to bare witness. Sound disappeared into the blanket of snow and waited for me to emerge whole again. Yet, the air was electric, so alive I could feel each silent heartbeat I passed, and the Earth held me in reverence, as I walked her body in sorrow.
Each footstep brought with it a memory of the little girl afraid of forests and the secrets hidden in shadows. I wept memory to release her, and in my pure and open need, Nature held me in the full, unconditional embrace of love.
I can recall the moment my eyes turned down to gaze upon my guide and caught the purple fire of her aura. She had quietly, with the energy of pure love, led me along the path of peace until the forest outside replaced the fear-filled forest of memory.
This is the energy that filled the space when she passed 8 days ago. When her soul released from her tired body, peace took over, filling the sorrow that pervaded our home and bodies. My children stopped weeping and quietly entered the energy they saw mirrored on my face. In those moments after release, we were filled with the joy of her surrendering to pure love. “Can you feel it,” I asked them, “can you feel it in your heart.” “Yes,” they whispered as they clutched their hands to their chests. She was there already, always, our Daisy, restoring us to peace as she had some many times before.
It seems I cannot decide which house to claim as my own. This is clear in my dreams. Too much clutter leaves the residue of frustration and anxiety. Unstable walls and floors, the fear of collapse. Some nights I build palaces that rival Versailles. I walk gilded halls and call them my own. The rooms are endless, each floor more brilliant than the one before. I am a vessel of unlimited creation, before I crumble back into a buried fear.
Last night, my house made me uncomfortable. The bedrooms extended into living rooms without doors. The kitchen needed updating. There was a graveyard outside my son’s window. My own bedroom opened into a balcony of trees, and my heart filled with joy as I imagined waking to the ever-changing scene of wildlife, until I saw the gaps under the floor, and the futile attempts to secure a house against the elements that would inevitably pervade the constructed space. Who was I fooling? I could not live here.
Yet, I could not leave. This was the house I had chosen. It was mine. So, I began to clear the rooms, freeing them of the energy called fear. I did it alone, using my hand to feel the unwanted vibrations, my breath to clear the energy into light. There was no sense of discontent. I was not discouraged that each room seemed to hold pockets of energy that needed to be cleared. I simply did what I needed to do to make my house my home.
Perhaps tonight I will build a palace again. I’ll use my hand to paint the forest on the walls, upon the ceilings I’ll map infinity in stars. When I am done, when my hand is tired and my palace is complete, I’ll let it crumble. I’ll watch the walls recede into the body of the Earth, the ceiling dissolve into the heavens, and then I’ll know I’ve come home.
Recall the Bird of Spring who appeared to me on the the 24th of January. I have not forgotten her, nor have I forgotten how she appeared in the days before the 11th. She often watched in silent vigil from the bush filled with winter berries in the neighbor’s front yard, while I waited for Alex to get off the bus. You were usually inside.
There was the flock of robins, Dad said there must have been 20, if not more, outside his office. Did you send them after you came to him in a dream, telling him you were leaving? I already knew. How could I not? I felt you release the tug on the orange nylon that bound us together months before you finally let go. I knew last summer you were patiently urging me to take the lead, knowing well before I did that I was ready. In the heartbeat of 5.5 years, you showed me how to walk the path of love, and to take the lead. The last 6 months were a gradual letting go, your final gift to me in your physical form.
Oh, but you knew I would weep and rage. You knew I would cling fiercely to the memory of the brown silk of your fur pressed against my lips, and feel of home when I wrapped my arms around your body. You knew that I would miss the tug-of-war, the constant test of who was in charge.
You knew I would hold on, even after I let you go. So you sent me robins and hearts. I saw the love that you wore on your face everywhere, in the days before you left, and even more now that you have crossed the rainbow bridge without me. One thought, and you are back. I see the symbol of your love burned into snow, etched in ice on windows and carved into the lifelines of wood. I saw your love two nights ago, when you sent me the barn owl (whose face is a heart) in the cypress tree. I see it each time I remember your face.
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Your rebirth into pure spirit was my letting go. To become my own spring and bloom new. Even though I still shed the waters of sorrow, my garden is ready to birth strength. How many nights, as I was preparing to let you go, did I dream of a home, my home, surrounded by the rebirth of life? I woke happy, filled with hope. Filled with promise.
Even the 3 crows that caught my eye, circling the invisible wheel, made me think of the magic of birth and not death. You were the 3rd, though, in a close trinity of passings. My days and nights were filled with the numbers 3 and 7, even when they appeared with the numbers 10 and 11. The 10th was the day I knew for sure you were leaving, the 11th, when I opened the door to let you go.
On the 8th, two days before I decided it was time, I saw two robins. That evening I fell into dreams of rebirth. I played through the game of life, recording scores, which reduced to the number 9, the cycle for birth. I searched tables of food and ate. I took the driver’s seat and drove, with the top open, over a bridge where above me a green wheel turned. I watched my child (who looks so much like me) let go and felt only peace as he released his hold. I turned back time and became a young woman again. It was summer, 74 degrees (reduces to 11), and I was among a crowd of peers heading down a hill to swim. At the intersection of paths, I decided to walk alone. I went to the rocky shore, instead of the sandy, sun-filled beach, and stripped bare of my white shorts and flowered blouse before I lay my body on the pebbles and let the water wash me clean. Here, I felt freedom. I felt release. I shouted back, fearless, to the girls who taunted me, calling them out for who they really were. I swam away from the boys who followed my naked form through the water, and pulled my clothes over my wet body before I walked back up the hill, alone. Later, in another dream, a messenger hugged me and told me it was time to surrender. To let [you] go. So I did.
Remember the robin in my last post, appearing blatantly bold outside my window during the snowstorm? The only bird to be seen by my eyes that day?
Somehow I had forgotten her, amid the daily struggles of life this last week. Yet, she was there, a silent reminder as I opened my blog to write this morning, showing me that her message had come full circle. Yesterday, without thought given to my friend the robin, I reclined on a couch with my left hand cradling the orange energy of my womb, my right, the blue energy of truth held inside knots along the right side of my neck.
The robin, I am reminded on this morning as I watch another snowstorm fall outside my window, is the bird who welcomes rebirth each spring. She wears the color of creation without fear as an apron of feathers that spreads from her upper chest down to her lower abdomen, where it meets the purity of white. Here, in this lower region, she releases into her half-moon nest, a brood of sky blue eggs each spring. Her creation in the beautiful hue of truth.
When I saw the robin a week ago, my neck felt fine. But, as I think back now, it was a prelude of what to come, as soon after that last snowstorm, my neck formed a rope of knots connecting the base of my skull under my right ear, down into my shouldere where it wrapped into a pile of more knots.
The energy held inside the knots seemed to tighten with each day of a week filled with surreal reminders of the cycle of loss. Within the space of a few days, two children passed in my town. The loss of a child, even if it is a child not well known to you, can unearth a well of emotions and memories inside of you. There is, arguably, nothing quite as poignant as this form of loss.
I will not enter into the details around the passings of these two children, as their stories are not mine to share. For me, and my family, they were triggers, as all death is, impacting each of us in individual ways. My son, who wears the open cloak of an empath, struggled I believe the most. That is his story, but I will share its effects on me.
My son, is in many ways my mirror. His eyes are mine, and when I look into them I see the little girl I once was. In his moments of struggle last week, I was brought back to that child inside of me as I watched his over-taxed body attempting to process and release an emotional burden that was mostly not his. I was thankful, in the midst of feeling heart-broken and helpless, that he did not swallow his storm, as I had so many times as a child.
What brought me to the couch yesterday, was that desperate need for release. My emotional limits were crumbling, but the rope of knots that held the right side of my neck in traction was stronger than ever. I thought about hiring help to release the tension, but it wasn’t until two of my friends, in separate messages, spoke of going inside, that I allowed myself to acknowledge what needed to be done.
Even though it was a Sunday, and I was sharing the space of my home with the rest of my family, I retired into a semi-quiet room to enter the energy inside. Here, as I channeled healing into my body, I found myself returning to that little girl named Truth.
“You were a beautiful child, so open to love.”
These words, I knew where not mine, but there was a part of me that cringed before I began to release. This was not a truth I held onto for long as I grew in this life. Instead of lingering on this notion, I let these words unfold into memories and the tears that come from release. Scenes flooded my consciousness, each one gently unraveling a knot. Each memory was a mere snapshot of a larger plot, but there were themes I could not miss.
Each memory was formed outside, where walls do not exist inside the expansive womb of Mother Nature. Inside these snapshots from my early life, I was welcomed by the energies of freedom, peace, beauty, magic and love. Each held my truth before it was changed.
For six months my body has held the tension of an attachment so strong its feared letting go. In many ways, our life journeys are all about letting go of our earthly attachments, those things that keep us bound and tethered, preventing our souls from soaring through the clear air of our truth. Yet, some attachments, those formed by love, are so fiercely imbedded into our being that we cannot imagine taking another breath without them. When the physical body leaves, though, love remains.
That is the concept that has held me up for the past six months as I have wondered each day if one of the greatest teachers and loves of my life will survive her next birthday. To tell you how she has transformed me from a life filled with fear to love, from dis-ease to healing and from the limited sight of the ocular, to see through the eyes of the soul, would take me hours that I cannot now count. She is still here. She will always be here, I know, even when she is not. We are bound together beyond the corporeal. Together we share love in the purest form.
What a gift it has been to share this part of my journey with her, to yield the leash and allow her to guide my hand. She is like no other love I have known, and I will, inevitably, miss her form when it is time for her to return to the home where all souls one day go. My face will miss the silky down of her fur, my eyes, the soft wisdom of her gaze, and my hands will hold onto the feel of her pull, urging me forward.
These past months, I have struggled to hold the finite limits set on life, to reign them in and never let them go. I have attempted to deny the inevitable giving way, even though my heart knows that together, Daisy and I have traveled the end of our life path together. The rest is bonus time. The gifts we have shared cannot be measured through time and its limitations. They will continue when her body returns to the earth. She was my guardian for 5 and 1/2 years of this life, and I have no doubt I will feel her love long after she travels across the rainbow bridge.
Today, as I struggled through a morning of inconclusive exams at the veterinary office, then brought Daisy home to watch her eyes hunger for food that her throat would not swallow, my body gave way the trappings of tension I had been holding. There were tears, there still are as I write. There will be more. That is how we heal. But for now, Daisy is still here, barking her guardianship for the surrounding world to hear. And that is enough.
Before I wrote this post, I walked into another room and the feather shown below dropped from the ceiling from an unseen source, directly into my path. Although it is small, there was no way I could miss it. As Doreen Virtue often reminds us, the gift of a feather is a sign of love from our guides and guardian angels. What a perfect gift for this day.
Perhaps the scene could have played out differently. In the light of infinite possibilities, of course it could have, but it didn’t. It appeared, if you will, almost as thought it were pre-scripted. The right characters were absent. The others, who needed to be there, present. I, unknowingly, had agreed to the role of the lead character, whether it be hero or villain, is a subjective matter.
The setting was a large metal building, devoid of natural air and light, aside from the wafts that make it through the heavy swinging doors when the players and their families enter and exit. Even though it was school vacation week, the place was packed with the energies of competitions.
My daughter was one of the competitors that day, and she stood nervously with 4 of her teammates, wondering if the others would show. Their parents, standing nearby, wondering the same. There was talk of a scrimmage and sharing players, the girls were, after all, playing against their classmates – girls from their school with whom they have played the same sport together, on the same team, in other seasons. But, this was just one half of the scene, and I was not privy to the conversations going on amongst the opposing team before the game.
By the time the whistle blew, my daughter’s team was still short a player, which meant they had to play at a handicap the entire game, requiring them to cover, together, more of the field, and their were no subs to give the girls a break. Although the other team may not have been aware of it, some of the girls were also recovering from illnesses. One from a stomach bug, my daughter, from a cold, a third was in the midst of a respiratory infection nestled inside her chest. At least 3 out of our 5 girls were not at their peak, and I, and other parents were wondering how they would hold up playing soccer for an hour with only one, brief, rest at half-time.
The other team, having known ahead of time that they would be short players, had pulled girls up from younger teams. They had 7. Enough for a full team, plus one to sub in. Seeing this from the side-lines, I thought for sure they would offer my daughter’s team their extra player, or, perhaps play a more relaxed game, a scrimmage, for fun and not points. Maybe 4 V 4. I heard other parents wondering the same. We were, after all, from the same town, our daughters friends and teammates from other seasons.
But, that’s not how the scene played out. We scored the first goal. Our girls were fresh and energized. By half-time the score was 6 points in the other team’s favor, and our substitute coach (our coach having succumbed to the stomach bug his daughter was getting over) was desperately trying to give the girls breaks by rotating them in goal. It was obvious to all observing, that the deficit of players on our team was causing exhaustion and frustration for our girls, who were now moving in slow-motion.
My own daughter, frequently admired for her tenacity and toughness, took a ball to the head and shook it off. Then, at about 10 minutes left of the game, I looked after and saw her limping. Her face was crumpled. Was she crying? That was the moment I entered the stage. The moment the mamma bear inside came out of hibernation. I had simply had enough. My daughter, my girl who was tough as nails, was hurt and no one else seemed to notice. The game kept playing around her.
I entered that scene in a blaze of heat, telling the spectators on my way to my daughter, what I thought of the game being played. Mothers agreed, including those on the other team. Including those who were married to the coaches on the other side. That was, though, before I yelled at their husbands. This bear was not happy. Her cub was hurt.
From the other side of the plexi-glass, I yelled to my daughter, interrupting the play of the game. “Get off the field. Get off the field.” With tears streaming, she limped, unassisted, off the field, while I ran around the perimeter to meet her.
To reach her, I had to pass the coaches from the other team, that was the shortest way to her. I hadn’t considered the barrier I had to cross. It didn’t matter. Or, it did. It seems it was meant to be. Here I was before 2 men, fathers of my daughter’s friends, whom I had nothing against before this game (have nothing against even now, just disappointment), raging my thoughts about their lack of ethics in the game. I won’t share their words, they are not, really, mine to share.
I had to pass into the field, briefly, to reach my daughter on the other side of the barrier. The game played on, my daughter’s side now playing at a 2 player deficiency. I felt like I was in a dream, or a nightmare. Was this for real? Was this really happening in the town I lived in, with people I knew and were friendly with? Was this what I should be expecting from a children’s sporting event meant for fun? There was no fun being had well before the second half was being played, but the game had continued until the end. I had heard whispers from parents behind me that the points earned were counted toward the final standings. Was this the reason why we were not offered that olive-branch of good sportsmanship. Really!?
My daughter, when I reached her, was sobbing. She was hurt and embarrassed, as I would have been at her age, for her mother’s display. Only, my mother had never played the role of mamma bear. There was that part of me that was not remorseful. It is there still. I was pleased with my strength. Pleased that I had taken the role of fierce defender in a crowd of whispering protestors. I was unsupported, yet I stood my ground. That is not something I have always had the courage to do.
Would I do it all over again. Absolutely. Do I have regrets. Not really. That’s how the scene played out. I think there was something to be learned by all. Sometimes waves are needed to get the boat to the shore. I’m an idealist. I have a low tolerance for perceived injustice. I believe that true victory is played through the heart, and sometimes the win is worth giving up.
Knowing how the scene would play out, of course I would do it differently. I would have asked, calmly, our fill-in coach and the coaches on the other team to explore other options. A scrimmage instead of a game for points. To share members from the teams. To play for fun and not for the win.
I am listening to the gurgle of rain as it slips into crevices in the earth and the eaves of my porch roof. The sound is gentle and soothing, fitting for a cold fall day with weather that makes you want to nestle under covers and dream of light.
I can hear the wind too, along with the blue jay, who both on occasion break through the steady pattern of rain so their voices can be heard. Inside my house, the furnace hums in the basement, reminding me of warmth, while the clock ticks away time. Just now, a flock of geese is harkening winter through the gray sky, but it soon passes.
Sound. Its vibrations bare the spectrum of extremes. I am trying to understand how our bodies learn to love and hate the music of sounds. How some sounds fill us with light, while others make us recoil in fear or loathing.
Over the past several weeks, I have born witness to the impact of sound on my 9 yr. old son. We are, it seems, living on the edge of extremes, any sudden variation in tone tipping the emotional weight of endurance inside of him. We are living in the breath of rain before it falls, wondering when each sound will shatter the surface of his body.
Because I understand what my son is going through, doesn’t make it easier. I don’t have the answer to peace for him. I cannot step inside his moment of intensity and turn on the silence he craves. Sound cannot always be stopped. Life must go on. Pets need to bathe themselves, meals need to be eaten.
When I was a child, my sensitive body would often recoil from unavoidable sounds. At night I would toss restlessly in my bed, stuffing pillows over ear plugs in an effort to block out the song of crickets outside my window and the chaotic symphony of my sister snoring in the bunk below me. During the daytime, it was usually my stepfather’s habitual sounds that would trigger me, tying my stomach into knots of swallowed rage. The piercing dissonance of his whistling, the near-constant clearing of phlegm from his throat…it was nearly insufferable for my young body.
Now, I watch my sensory sensitivity mirrored in my son, whose tolerance is even more fragile and volatile than his mother’s. I understand his suffering, but the magic cure to help him is eluding me. I learned early to suffer through sound by silencing my own voice. I see the irony in this as I write. Perhaps this is why I welcome, in some ways, my son’s outbursts of frustration with his noisy environment, knowing too well the consequence of swallowing voice.
I want to show my son that sound can be a balm. I want to show him how to push aside the barrier of resistance and open the door to joy, which is always waiting. Yet, this door is not always easy to open, I know. Sometimes, when I listen to someone chewing food, I can reach his or her place of inner joy, and my body will fill with the soft prickles of shared light. Other times, though, like my son, my skin recoils in irritation, and I find myself clenching my muscles in frustration. I am still learning that there is always light to be found within sounds. That we can reach that space between rain, or that space between the chewing of food and hold onto the silent music of peace.
At 9:15 this morning I made myself a second breakfast for no other reason than that I was hungry. The smoothie I had blended two hours earlier had already left my stomach, and it didn’t matter that there was no one else in the house to cook for (unless you count the always eager dogs). Actually, it made the idea somehow more appealing. I had the freedom to make whatever I desired. Denise and Meadow Linn’s cookbook was already sitting on the counter, and instead of grabbing the fast-fix of an apple or hummus and multigrain chips, I flipped through the pages of the Mystic Cookbook.
I stopped at “Super Hero Pancakes,” and began gathering ingredients. Instead of melting coconut oil in the microwave, I scooped it into the cast iron pan (as they suggested) and watched it infuse the air with the energy of the tropics. I squeezed fresh lemon into the almond milk and stirred the egg in a ramekin before I whisked the liquids together. For a brief moment I rued my lack of spice grinder to mill fresh wild rice flour, but told myself an equal amount of brown rice flour would do just fine. And, it did.
The alchemy of food
Again I relished the alchemy of mixing, whisking this time the dry with the wet, until I was satisfied with the results. No need to worry about over doing it, everything was gluten-free. The cast iron sang when I poured circles of batter into its well-oiled surface. The creamy fluid spread, and I layered more on top, then watched as tiny bubbles surfaced from my pancakes. The second side always cooks faster, and I gathered my fork, one of my daughter’s fancy plates, maple syrup, and poured a mug of chamomile tea.
My Second Breakfast
I dined in perfect peace, savoring the meal I had created for myself, while thinking about who I would choose to share my meal with if presented with the choice. I thought about how most of the more conventionally popular choices didn’t interest me. I wanted to dine with Denise and Meadow Linn. Especially Denise. Don’t get me wrong, I think both mother and daughter are fabulous, and both share that unique energy of pure, humbled, yet strong spirit, but my soul craves the sacred mother-energy that Denise embodies.
So, as I ate, I imagined the warmth of Denise’s beautiful soul filling the space of my home and blessing the food she had helped me to create with purpose, love and intention. I imagined the conversation we would share over our meal, and the joy that would infuse the space inside my home. And I smiled and ate my second breakfast.
It started in the cafeteria, that place where cliques converge onto tables, their masses growing with popularity and spreading down the length of the tables like poison ivy beside a stream. Voices happier than a bubbling brook. Twenty-seven years ago you would have found me sitting at different table, those ones quarantined to the periphery, beside the other outsides not considered cool enough to dine with the masses.
It wasn’t always like that. Twenty-eight years ago I was cool enough to eat where I wanted, even though I wore my self-confidence in a fragile shell around me. That was before it was broken almost beyond repair. You can find the story in the book My Other Ex: Women’s True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends. I’m not going to narrate here. Instead, I’m going to tell you about the cafeteria I dined in last night.
There I was, standing in the center of the floor dressed in skinny genes and a fitted t-shirt, my hair long and straight, my smile wide and unwavering. There was no doubt in those clear blue eyes that covered the room with ownership. I looked more like my middle-school daughter than my former self.
“He likes me?” I asked the friend closest to me, “Maybe I’ll go talk to him. Maybe I’ll tell him I like him.” We were talking about a beautiful boy in our grade, and I was sure he could be mine if I asked.
I carried the crowd down the hall, my hair waving to the students behind us as we made our way to our next class. Social Studies. I kid you not. Sometimes Spirit is so obvious you can only laugh, which is what I did when I woke this morning and reviewed my dream. Nowadays the class would be called Integrated Arts, I believe, but back in my day we called it Social Studies.
Perhaps I should be frustrated that I am still healing that insecure girl still inside of me, but I’m simply grateful she’s able to heal. I judge my dreams by their content and their emotions evoked. Last night felt like victory, not because I was about to win the heart of a popular boy and the admiration of my peers, but because I had the self-confidence to express myself in full, unbroken glory.
A few nights prior, I healed a piece of that girl (now younger than in the cafeteria dream) in another dream about a boy. Again, I looked a lot like my daughter, in fact it was as though our souls and bodies were merged. There I was inside a car, nestled into half-sleep in the backseat beside a boy my daughter likes. Outside was a lake of water from which I had just been rescued.
“I love you,” the boy whispered his kiss into my young body before I slipped into a sleep of bliss.
I can’t tell you why the boys in my grade school never “loved” me, I can only tell you of my longing to be loved. Like my daughter, I was a pretty girl, but I wasn’t walking inside a body filled with confidence. I was a child who wore the clothes of rejection since birth.
Before that ten-year-old girl felt the joy of being loved in my dream-state, I had another healing experience. A week and a half ago, I was at shamanic workshop and traveled to the belly of Earth with Huascar as my guide (to read the poem I wrote about this journey, please visit the post A Journey Back to Self, and found a little boy hiding inside the black body of a cave. Before the entrance was a phallus, standing tall and proud. We were retrieving lost pieces of our souls, and although one (including myself at first) might think I should have found a girl waiting for me, I had found a little boy.
Sometimes we forget that balance is a body of light and dark, a body of yin and yang energies in equal portions. That little boy represented lost confidence, and he/I was ready to welcome back that masculine energy that holds the phallus erect and the voice strong. I needed to reunite with that lost “boy,” before I could return that beautiful broken girl to a body of unwavering love and joy.
She asked me if I cycled with the moon, and I thought Soon. Julianne Victoria and I were talking over FaceTime as she interpreted my Vedic birth chart which was filled with this source of divine feminine energy. In a few days I would be turing 41, and as a birthday present to myself I was having my IUD removed. Julianne’s reading was also a gift. I had won her contest for a free reading after guessing her age. The number had come to me instantly, as through channeled from a higher realm. It was meant to be.
Harvest Moon Emerging from Clouds
I still remember the day when my mother put me on the pill. I was 18, and dating the young man I would one day marry. She came into the living room where I was reading, holding a paper bag filled with condoms in her hand. Days later, I went to the local family planning clinic for my first gynecological exam and came home with a compact that held a plastic coated clock of birth control bills. I popped those tiny drops of hormones religiously, everyday, following the hands of the clock, until my husband and I decided to start a family when I was 29.
Moon Speck at Sunset
After “trying” for 3 or 4 months, I became pregnant with my daughter, whose face appeared to me like a full radiant moon inside my dreams one night. I felt wholly complete as my moon child grew within me. Ours was a fierce hold, so strong it took the hands of forceps to rip us apart. I like to think, though, if I had listened to my body and my daughter instead of fighting the push to be free under the urgings of the doctor, her birth would have been a different story.
Moon Daughter
Instead of going back on the pill after my daughter’s birth, I got fitted for a diaphragm. A rather messy, unpleasant alternative to controlling the probability of birth, in my opinion, but we knew we wanted a second child within a few years. Our son took root in my womb sooner than planned. He was an anniversary baby, and we had forgone the use of the pesky diaphragm for the occasion. Some might say he was an “oops,” and I’ll admit I cried when I realized I was pregnant. I wanted him, just not so soon.
Moon Son
My son’s life was an easy gift. There were no months of “trying” to conceive, and no weeks of morning sickness like I had experienced with first pregnancy. Even his birth was easy. 45 minutes after we arrived at the hospital, he almost slid out of my body. It was only after his birth, that I began holding him tight. My little man from the moon.
The Moon and her Shadow
Now, nearly 11 years after the birth of my daughter and 9 1/2 years after the birth of my son, I am experiencing another birth. The IUDs that I had willingly inserted into my body to curb the growth of a birth for 9.5 years have been removed, permanently. I will not return to the cycle of an artificial tide. Mine is a birth back to self. Back to the energy of the moon, and the rise and fall of the life-blood of her. As by body bleeds free, I feel whole. I feel complete. I have returned to my mother Moon.
The Light Behind the Story 