Tretn Teaching Iara to Play Basketball

There are times I doubt myself as a Mother.  And then I remember:  I gave them the best gift possible.  I gave them each other.

Real Hero

-Brian Andreas (www.storypeople.com)

Four

Trent,

My firstborn, my love, the one who made me a Mama.

What can I even say to you, for you, about you.

You amaze me.  You astound me.  You humble me.  You. Are. A. Force.  A force of nature.

You are so ALIVE.  And so beautiful, you take my breath away.

Today you are four.  FOUR!

Four seems like such a leap from three.

Three was still little; almost still a toddler & four - well, four is KID.

You run SO fast & jump SO high.

You choose your clothes & dress yourself.  You like to play a game where I say I don't think you can get your clothes on by yourself & then you do.  You never tire of this game.

You are climbing trees & on top of the play structure.  You like to scare you Mama.

You are wicked-fast on your skuut & today me & Daddy gave you your first pedal bike.  You & Daddy practiced all day today, and even though it was hard & you got frustrated, you kept wanting to try.

Your love is HUGE & your heart is so tender.  You care very much.

The other day you yelled at Angel, when she stepped on a Roley-Poley bug:  "That's not OK! Roley-Poley's are our friends!!!"  Although at the time I asked you to use a softer voice & not yell in her face, I actually felt really proud of you for standing up for something you care(d) about in a righteous way.

I can tell your path may not always be easy, but it will always be yours.  The strength of your conviction is strong - and that is a gift.

You wear dresses & you fight with swords.

You love unicorns & you turn everything into a gun. (which drives your Mama crazy!)

You love basketball & you're actually really good at it!

You memory is amazing - crazy-sharp!

You are my absolute greatest teacher & I bow to you every day.

There is no greater privilege in my life.

I love you, Trent Carlo - as big as the ocean & all the creatures in it, with none missing.

Love,
Mama

On Fire

Trent:  What song is this, Mama?

Me:  This song is called 'I'm on Fire' & it's by Bruce Springsteen.

Trent (after a few moments & looking perplexed):  Where is he on fire?

**LOVE HIM***

The Oh-So-Much-ness

My last post was March 10th.
That means it's been almost 4 months since I've posted anything.
The interesting thing to me is that it actually felt like longer...
Like another lifetime...

I've been caught up in Life, or, as I like to call it:  The Oh-So-Much-ness

Oh, so much cooking; Oh, so much cleaning; Oh, so much making music by hitting one object on another object (and the related: Oh, so much defining what can & cannot be used as a drum/drum stick...)...

Just now, I am at the end of day 5 of a 7-day yoga intensive.
I have laughed, I have cried, the muscles & bones in my mid-back are talking to me quite loudly; I have not slept nearly as much as I hoped I would (though I fall asleep in in class during Savasana & Pranayama every day).

I am missing my boy *intensely*...

The Dad messaged me that they slept in this meadow last night.
So much sadness, so much joy; I ache.

And, each day, my belly grows.
Who is this new little one?
Will s/he ever know this Dad?
So much joy, so much sadness; I ache.

Oh.  So.  Much.

Love.

Taking the Mail Out

One Tribe Y'all

 

 Brings tears to my eyes every time...

Sometimes My Heart Feels Like This

Devotion

It it weird to be in love with a man I've never met?
I give thanks for this lineage every day...

{This Moment}

{Inspired by...}

20/100 (a Non-Bucket-List Bucket List) -or - I am A Work in Progress

1.  Birth at home with no one there but me & The Dad & Jamie (& maybe Trent)
2.  Produce (at least) 50% of what we eat from my own land
3.  Take a workshop with Ina May
4.  Catch a baby other than my own
5.  Girlfriend Southwest hot springs road trip/tour
6.  Assist for Manouso Manos
7.  500 Hour Iyengar teacher training
8.  Study with BKS Iyengar in Pune
9.  Fall in love without fear
10.  Look in the mirror without judgement
11.  Have all my metal fillings replaced with non-metal
12.  Hike the Appalachian Trail
13.  Learn Sanskrit
14.  WOOF (Italy, New Zealand, Chile...)
15.  Family trip to Africa
16.  Yearly Hawaii trip to visit Crazy Uncle Jim & the spinners
17.  Swim with whales
18.  Learn to surf (for real)
19.  Bees!
20.  Apprentice (to lead sweat lodges (and then actually lead them!)) with Tim

Would I really be incomplete if I didn't do any one, five, or all twenty, of these things?
I doubt it.
The point is to Live Big.  Live For Real.  Risk it all & Trust.
These are all just access points.  To love & enjoy this (precious) world; this (precious) life.

I love what Misplaced Mama says:
"Manifestations comes from seeing all the flowers in front of our eyes right now. Saying thank you during each step. Throwing away our lists. Burning our vision boards. Destroying The Secret. The secret is this! Don’t keep any secrets. Say thank you and please while you’re at it. Enjoy the jeans with the holey crotch. Buy new ones when you can. Smile at the mess in the living room and stop looking in other people’s windows and wishing. Stop thinking about the life you always thought you’d have and live the one you got."

So, some gratitude, while I'm at it:

1.  Trent (Trent, always Trent)
2.  Living here
3.  Him & Him & Him
4.  Yoga
5.  Making my living loving people
6.  Still having friends I've known my whole life
7.  Water
8.  Growing up at Tassajara
9.  Living most of my life in places that get (really) dark at night
10.  All those who throw caution to the wind & do what they love (most)

Big Love.

June, July, August, September -or- Life is Good

Mama-Love

Wild-Haired Artist-Boy

Held

Blossoming

Grateful For

Unbearable Lightness of Being

Moooooooo

Big Guy!

Tender

Turtle-Friend

The Last Moon Before He Came Home

Mimi's

What Do I Really Know?

Pretty much Nothing, as it turns out.

Every time I think I'm starting to get it - this life, or my life, or being a Mama, or how to be happy, or whatever - figured out.  Well, to be kind, let's just say that's usually when all hell breaks loose.

Luckily I seem to be getting more adept at sitting in midst of chaos & letting it burn.  Burn up this crazy ego of mine that wants everything exactly the way I want it, and NOW.  Have I mentioned before I hate not getting what I want?  That I hate not getting my way?  That I can be an absolute child about having to consider other people?

Yeah.  Super-fun.  Especially since I'm the Mama now & there is an actual child in the house.  Also demanding to get his way, and NOW!

........................................................................................................................................................................

And, am I surprised that my child is intense?  Is prone to fits of rage?  Throws & hits & screams in frustration?

Nope.

He is my child after all.  And his Dad's.  And we are, neither of us, smooth & peaceful creatures.  We both carry in us that heat; that spark; that iron & steel.  We are instigators; lighters of fires.  It is only in the past few years I have even begun to discover the (much vaster) potential of water; of love; the power in being capable of flow.

For the past two years, Trent has been teaching me almost daily:  Open Mama, open...
Any place I'm rigid, he breaks me {open}.
His love is so big.  I am humbled.

Who am I that I get to be his Mama?
As Marianne Williams says:  Who am I not to be?!?

An endless journey into Not Knowing.  Trusting.  Learning.  And letting go...

How to Really Love a Child

More Words

Chameleon (He really gets into the 'eleon' part.  There's lots of tongue action.)
Cow (plus:  Mooo!!) - sounds more like 'tow'
Sheep (plus:  Baaa!)
Pig
Rabbit (ra-ra)
Basket Ball (ba ball)
Nurse (nur)
Pretzel (papow)
Baby
Sock (sa)
Mouse (mow)
Sshhhhh
Sleep (also, night-night)
Nose (no)
Eye
Mouth (mow)
Monster (ma-ma)
Monkey (ma-ma)
Music (ma-ma)
--Why, yes - it does get confusing :)
Donkey (da-da)
Duck
Chicken (chichen)
Banana (nanna)
Tomato (nano)
Potato (tato)
Bird (bood or caw-caw)
Water (wa-wa)
Up
Down
Boat
Train (choo-choo)
Tricycle (shisho)
Rain
Dark (da)
Sky (ky)
Toothbrush (titoo)
Bath (ba)
Pumpkin (pupaw)

All Mama can say is:  WOW!

Words

Trent's words:

Shoes (Shs)
Boot (Boo)
Ball (Ba)
Hi
Bye
Hey
Mamma
Dadda
Cracker (Cra Cra)
Dog (Da)
Uh-Oh
Water (Wawa)
More (Mo)
Hot (Haaaaaa)
Belly Button (Bow Bow or Boo Ba)
Pee Pee
Poo Poo
And, of course.....NO

If You Want to Change the World

If you want to change the world… love a woman-really love her.
Find the one who calls to your soul, who doesn’t make sense.
Throw away your check list and put your ear to her heart and listen.
Hear the names, the prayers, the songs of every living thing-
every winged one, every furry and scaled one,
every underground and underwater one, every green and flowering one,
every not yet born and dying one…
Hear their melancholy praises back to the One who gave them life.
If you haven’t heard your own name yet, you haven’t listened long enough.
If your eyes aren’t filled with tears, if you aren’t bowing at her feet,
you haven’t ever grieved having almost lost her.

If you want to change the world… love a woman-one woman
beyond yourself, beyond desire and reason,
beyond your male preferences for youth, beauty and variety
and all your superficial concepts of freedom.
We have given ourselves so many choices
we have forgotten that true liberation
comes from standing in the middle of the soul’s fire
and burning through our resistance to Love.
There is only one Goddess.
Look into Her eyes and see-really see
if she is the one to bring the axe to your head.
If not, walk away. Right now.
Don’t waste time “trying.”
Know that your decision has nothing to do with her
because ultimately it’s not with who,
but when we choose to surrender.

If you want to change the world… love a woman.
Love her for life-beyond your fear of death,
beyond your fear of being manipulated
by the Mother inside your head.
Don’t tell her you’re willing to die for her.
Say you’re willing to LIVE with her,
plant trees with her and watch them grow.
Be her hero by telling her how beautiful she is in her vulnerable majesty,
by helping her to remember every day that she IS Goddess
through your adoration and devotion.

If you want to change the world… love a woman
in all her faces, through all her seasons
and she will heal you of your schizophrenia-
your double-mindedness and half-heartedness
which keeps your Spirit and body separate-
which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Self
for something to make your life worth living.
There will always be another woman.
Soon the new shiny one will become the old dull one
and you’ll grow restless again, trading in women like cars,
trading in the Goddess for the latest object of your desire.
Man doesn’t need any more choices.
What man needs is Woman, the Way of the Feminine,
of Patience and Compassion, non-seeking, non-doing,
of breathing in one place and sinking deep intertwining roots
strong enough to hold the Earth together
while she shakes off the cement and steel from her skin.

If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman .
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.
No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.

If you want to change the world… love a woman
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.

If you want to change the world,
lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.
Lay down your inner war, your righteous anger
and love a woman…
beyond all of your striving for greatness,
beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.
The holy grail stands before you
if you would only take her in your arms
and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.

What if peace is a dream which can only be re-membered
through the heart of Woman?
What if a man’s love for Woman, the Way of the Feminine
is the key to opening Her heart?

If you want to change the world…love a woman
to the depths of your shadow,
to the highest reaches of your Being,
back to the Garden where you first met her,
to the gateway of the rainbow realm
where you walk through together as Light as One,
to the point of no return,
to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth.

--Lisa Citore

This, That & the Other

My little music maker now plays the harmonica, and well.
(I'll try to post a video soon)
He just astounds me.  Every musical instrument he finds, he picks up & learns to play in minutes.  He is a genius - I'm sure of it :)

I liked the guitar & I am very into his drum playing.
But the harmonica, I think, is my favorite yet.
My boy can play the blues!

At the same time, my heart is breaking.
Aching.
I am sure of almost nothing these days.

(Trent just woke up in the middle of my writing, so I went in & we snuggled & nursed & I smelled his wonderful baby head & listened to him breathing & all was peaceful.)

In a world that made sense, The Dad & I - we would still be living together.
We would not hurt so badly around each other.
We would not scramble through the same damn maze, over & over again, only to find ourselves in the same damn dead end, with no fucking cheese.

Love, we are learning, is not enough.

I am praying more & doing yoga.
Reading Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

And, so, I have begun my yoga teacher training.
It is intense & challenging & full & bright & exciting.
I like being a student again!

What a beautiful, broken, blessed world...

Isn't he beautiful?

He is my Saving Grace.

Love

Of course I want more sleep.
Of course I want to just space out sometimes.
Or read a book.
Or go to the movies on a whim.
Of course I would like to be able to talk to my friend Jamie for 3 minutes straight without being interrupted by one, or both, of our sons demanding our attention for their own.

Of course!

And, yet...

I have never felt a love this big.
Love, in fact, seems an almost paltry word to describe the I-would-do-anything-whenever-however-whatever-no-matter-what-even-if-it-involved-severing-my-own-limbs-for-this-little-person feeling I carry with me everywhere now.

My heart will never be the same.
(thank G-d)