Rain and the Breath of God

It's pouring outside and my normally brown and dry state is lush and green and overgrown and full of the misty clouds of rainier places. Rain is one of the ways I experience the divine, one of the ways I connect to life and to the LIFE that is at the center of all life. I have been reading Philip Newell's Listening for the Heartbeat of God about Celtic Christianity, which was stamped out first by the Roman church and then more brutally when Britain took over Scotland and Ireland, and Puritans brought Calvinism with its emphasis on original sin and depravity into those places, seeking to destroy Celtic Christianity, which had maintained its connection to Celtic spirituality's nature mysticism and deep belief in the goodness of creation, of the body, of sex...Newell talks about Celtic Christianity's view of God as that which is the soul of all that is living, beautiful, good...God is in all things but also transcends all things. But the life of God, the heart of God, beats at each of our centers calling us toward our great CENTER. Perhaps that God-life in us is buried by a lifetime of selfish choices or distractions or wounds, but still, there it is, beating in concert with God, with all that lives, seeking to fill us. I believe this. I discovered it when I became a mother and saw God in my daughter's perfect, delicate face; in her joy; in her fierceness; in her independence. I discovered God in my own ability to mother even in the face of trauma and terror and abandonment. I am discovering this more and more. I am discovering that this God I had been told saw me as a sinful, hell-bound creature, this God who transcended all things, was actually loving me within my very own skin, moving through me, intertwined with my own bones and breath and blood, beating, living, moving in me, helping me to move more and more toward life, toward healing. I discovered a powerful, fierce, good, deep core I didn't know I had. And now, now, I am getting to enjoy that part of me rather than simply hold of for dear life as I mothered through ptsd and ppd. I am enjoying being a mother. I am not having to fight so hard. It's flowing. It feels as natural and life-giving as breathing. I lie next to SparkleEyes and we breathe together as she falls asleep. I feel her soft skin, her soft breath on my face. I share my life breath with her. She shares hers with me. And I think of God breathing, breathing, breathing life right into human beings as She created them out of the mud, out of one another. I think of God's breath mingled with mine, full of life, filling me with life, allowing me to breathe life into my own world as it gasps for breath. And I rejoice. (Read more about my summer travels and retreats here for more on what's been going on to move me into this joyful place).

Part-Time Hermit: It Rains Because I Love You

There's so much I want to write about, including my first camping trip with SparkleEyes (we went on our own while C. was on a business trip--and it was AMAZING!). I want to write about how much joy I am experiencing these days, how much I am loving spending every day with my little toddler. But time is limited and I am about to head out on another trip for my FTE scholarship, so I have been updating my "part-time hermit" blog instead, writing about how trauma has affected my spirituality and writing about some of the healing I'm experiencing. New post here. Hope you'll vist!

discipline

So I wasn't a big fan of the baby stage, partly because I was going nuts with ppd, ptsd, and the accompanying killer insomnia, but also because there's just not a lot of scope for the more abstract imagination. As I am almost entirely an abstract thinker, and baby care is largely about attending to really concrete details over and over again, I often found myself really bored, despite the fact that I had the most beautiful, delightful baby ever. Toddler-hood, though. Wow. I LOVE it. I am really suited for caring for toddlers. I love the work of figuring out what's motivatin my little girl, what's most likely to help her learn something, what's the best emotional response. I love figuring out games for us to play. I love having conversations with her. And I love disciplining. I really like trying to figure out what's going on in SparkleEye's heart and mind, what it is she's needing to learn, what discipline strategy is most likely to help her learn to respond to a situation more appropriately. Actually, there's lots of scope for the abstract imagination in figuring out the most loving, effective way to discipline a child--discovering patterns, thinking about theories, figuring out how a theory needs to be adapted for my little one, for each circumstance, thinking about all I know of my little girl--her disposition, circumstances that might be affecting her, my own strenghts and weaknesses. Really interesting stuff. And for me it's all a part of relating--lovingly teaching my child how to respond to the world around her in a way that respects herself, respects others, respects me, respects the earth...Anyway, I found this article, which looks at studies of the most effective long-term discipline strategies interesting. A lot of it repeats things I've already read elsewhere, but I'd love to know your thoughts on its finidngs and suggestions and/or to know what you use as a discipline strategy!

And this is not related to anything in this post, but I just came across this blog entry on resources for new moms who have suffered sexual abuse. It looks helpful. Thought I'd post it here in case it might be helpful to any of you. I know what it's like to be a new mom suffering from ptsd, and I'd bet that there are a lot of women like me suffering from ptsd as a result of abuse (though mine was not primarily sexual) who have never been diagnosed and don't even realize that's what's going on, don't even realize it's affecting their ability to function and parent.

More words of wisdom

So, speaking of the "fullness" of this motherhood experience, I just had one of those lovely joy moments. I'm in here working on my blog for my summer project after putting SparkleEyes to bed and I suddenly hear her yell at the top of her lungs, "MAMA!!!!" I go into her room, and there she is standing up in her bed, totally calm. She cocks her head up at me and in her sweet, sweet voice says, "Hey. What's Up?" I couldn't help but laugh.

Oh...I can't imagine anything, anything, anything more totally wonderful and delightful than this little being I get to call my own!

Being a Part-Time Hermit

I've written some about the scholarship I got and the project I'll be doing with the money this summer--in brief I'm working on understanding how trauma has shaped my spirituality and especially my sense of God's absence in my life. And, of course, I'm seeking some healing. If you'd like to follow my journey, I'm writing about my project here. Info. about the project is at the beginning of the blog, so you'll need to scroll down as I already have a few entries up!

Ranting...

I am wondering today why it is that moms have such a hard time talking about the fullness of their experience--good and bad. It seems that many blogs I come across either seriously romanticize having a kid, only documenting the beautiful moments, or primarily document the difficulties of having kiddos (there are a few exceptions, of course). Why are we moms so threatened by the totality of our experience? Those moments when we stare into our little one's face and see all we've ever wanted there, feel like the world stops for a moment while we breathe in sheer goodness and joy and delight...but also those moments when we think, "Oh, my. I HATE this. I hate having to care for this little being right now. I hate how complicated life is. I hate how much less space there is for me and for my relationships, my interests" (or whatever your particular brand of that moment is). I feel like very few things have made me a better mother than being able to be open to the fulness of my experience, knowing how to understand and process my negative emotions so that I don't ever lash out at SparkleEyes, but not denying them or silencing them or acting like those moments are shameful or somehow less a part of good mothering than the ideal, joyful ones. I actually feel angry when I read "mommy blogs" that only document the joys. It seems like such a dis-service to other moms and to ourselves. I'm sure some of this (or maybe a lot of it) is my own sadness at not having had a joyful post-partum period, and certainly part of it is an immature part of me that would feel better about my own experience if I didn't have to see others' joy when they're with their newborns. Still even now when 99% of my life with SparkleEyes is delightful and joyful and easy and natural,it feels deeply important to me to make space for my other feelings too, to make space for me in my joy and my anger and my growth and my regression--all of it--to not just turn myself into some idealized image of what it is to be a mom...and it feels vital to me to be honest about all parts of my experience for other moms out there who are reading me and trying to make their own way through this journey, trying to accept their own experience of mothering. If we can't be honest about the journey, I wonder what's the point of documenting it? (though I imagine there are some moms out there writing primarily for their kids to read later, in which case I can understand not writing about the less than ideal parts...but why blog rather than keep a private journal, I wonder?) Or maybe it's a way to write into being what we hope to be...I don't know, but I find it frustrating. What do you other moms think? Why do we have such a hard time acknowledging and writing/speaking about our less than happy moments (or for those who tend to be more on the "this sucks" side, being fully open to the parts that are joyful)? What's that about? Or is it just that some of you really do mostly just find parenting joyful and easy?

Cute cute cute!

Well, SparkleEyes is supposed to be sleeping. Instead she is acting out her favorite books. C. and I are enjoying hearing her recitations as we sit in the other room. My favorite so far is her adaptation of Lauren Child's I Am Not Sleepy And I Will Not Go To Bed:

"Sometimes Mama and Dada try to put me to bed. This can be very hard because SparkleEyes likes to stay up late. SparkleEyes likes to stay up scribbling and bouncing and most of all chattering..."

So adorable she is! And how right she is. It is, indeed, very hard to get that little one to go to sleep!