ElementalMom

I‘m spending a lot of time with my thoughts these days.

I know I keep mysteriously alluding to all this stuff in my life, and it’s not my intent to be opaque; I honestly haven’t figured out how to blog about some things, some things are too raw, some things are too private. But when that’s all that’s going on with your life, your posts dry up, then all your readers send you worried messages. I love you all, guys, thanks for the concern.

I spent this afternoon printing out images for a collage which is to be the focus for a creative visualization (CV) exercise. I’m a huge believer in CV; I’ve visualized myself into stuff before, both good and bad, and hey, if you watch "What the Bleep Do We Know?", you’ll realize that we all are performing CV all the time, just with varying levels of success and satisfaction in the days that we create. So anyway, we make these collages, to help keep us focused on what we want, on the images that are most powerful towards a most beneficial outcome for everyone involved.

This particular CV is about getting our house sold. The town we live in has been rough on me, and the last four years, frankly, have sucked a whole lot. Despite doing my darnest to bloom where I’m planted, this place has bested me two falls out of three, and left me bitter, disillusioned, and disheartened. I knew what I was getting into, so it’s not like there was a great fall or anything… it’s just been a really, really long four years.

So now, as you know if you read my other blog, we’re on the boat, living in the lovely San Francisco Bay. Already, I feel my energy returning, my spirits lifting, my heart returning to my body. And for some reason, I keep stumbling onto images of Hotei, or the Laughing Buddha. He makes me laugh, he makes me rethink, he makes me stop in my day and realize that yeah, despite my angst, I’ve got it good.

It seems I post more here about posts over there than I do actually write them, but I’m working on it.

Unschooling Nurture:

http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2007/08/unschooling-nur.html

Anyone paying attention will see that the above post is about me being pregnant. I’m not any more. Which is one of the big things happening that I’m not ready to blog about that I mentioned in the prior post. =) Thanks.

It’s been a long time, blog fans. I’ve been dealing with a ton of things I wasn’t emotionally ready to blog about, and they were all big enough that they kinda blocked out any other things I wanted to write about. So I’ve been having what singers refer to as “dark days”, where they spend their time being utterly silent, allowing their voices to rest.

Well, today, I’ve seen stuff I could not stay quiet about.

First, go read this article. Normally, I wouldn’t direct you to a Peggy O’Mara article, because I’m so pissed off at her antagonism towards EC, but this one is worth it.

OK, now go read this. And if you aren’t yet a member of PROTECT.org, sign up while you’re there. Oh, and since I’m on a tear, go watch this too.

So what’s the theme, here?

It doesn’t matter how much we love them. It doesn’t matter how much we care for and about them, whether we EC’d them, breastfed them and then provided them organic, locally-grown high-quality foods, coslept with them, put them in the carseats with the highest safety rating possible, researched their education options until we were cross-eyed, engaged only in positive discipline. It does not freaking matter.

They are under attack. Every minute of every day. If it isn’t for profit, it’s for sexual gratification.

Do I sound paranoid? Most likely. But I think Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s comments were clear enough. I do not think I’m exaggerating when I say that it does not matter what I do for my kids, if I fail to protect them.

Swimming lessons? Language, music, dance, art? Nope. Yello Dyno. Consumer awareness. And staying far away from people in white coats.

I have no wisdom, no great point. I’m as scared and as unsure of how precisely to make sure my kids are safe, as any other parent.

But I know this. I must not fail them.

Another fantastic poem came my way today. So here you go:

Grandmothers

Let me tell you about your grandmother
(No, not your mother’s mother, living in Houston)
I’m talking about Grandmothers.
The ones who survived the years of
twilight sleep and childbed fever
The ones who endured famine, poverty, war and witch hunts
The Grandmothers nobody could kill
because they live in the marrow of your bones,
endlessly renewed with the passing moon.
You’ll hear them someday
Maybe it will be when you sink down deep
below the pain
and move with your body
as it births your baby.
Maybe.
“She makes it look so easy,” they’ll say
“Like having kittens”
But you’ll know
It was your Grandmothers telling you what to do.
Or maybe it will be hard for you
so hard your husband leaves
and curses and cries in the hallway
unable to see you go on
while the anesthesiologist hovers by your shoulder
But one person never gives up on you
Your Grandmother.
You can almost hear her now
moving you, almost
guiding you
And I have to tell you something about your Grandmother
(Maybe she is a little like the one in Houston)
Once you get her talking,
She’s never (I mean never)
Going to shut up.

By Christina Wadsworth