It was when we walked into the room packed with hundreds of people.
It was when the singing bowl called us all to silence.
It was when I looked around the room and felt grateful for the many people I knew, and the many I didn't.
It was when we sang together or recited meaningful words.
It wasn't when I shared why I showed up for racial justice.
It was when a brave woman of color spoke that THIS was the first time she'd ever been able to talk about hter experience as a Black woman in front of white people, and tears began to fall from her eyes.
It was when the room exploded in applause for her.
It was when the armed white supremacists lurked in the doorway, guns at their hips.
It was when I stopped to listen to the chatter of children in the room.
It was when I crossed paths with people I hadn't seen in years and marveled at life's patterns.
It was when we marched and chanted, eliciting jubilant honks and affirning fist pumps.
It was when elderly Black folks raised their hands as they drove past, saying, "Yes!" "Thank you!"
It was when people couldn't stop smiling as they filmed us on their camera phones.
It was looking into my partner's eyes, sharinga meaningful kiss, and holding our babies close.
It was when Oak, of his own volition, seriouslyabd enthusiastically cried, "Black Lives Matter."
It was when I watched our Black leaders tear up as we shouted louder and louder: "Black Lives Matter."
It was when Robby and I cried, too.
It was when Oak insisted on carrying his sign.
It was when we asked Oak how he felt afterward: "Good." What did he think? "Loud."
It was then that I felt it. I felt it in my bones. I am in the right place and time. As a white woman, this is my duty and call. White people, let's keep showing up. Silence is complicity. Be loud! BLACK LIVES MATTER.

New Lens

(an urgent invitation to my fellow white people)

my people: we need to go deep
into darkness under the skin - follow the
white rabbit through caverns of stories our collective
consciousness has constructed, the false
fortresses of aeons protecting our fragile ego -
look to the ghost we now only see through the
white of our eyes, the horror of our made-up history,
kept blank and tidy to buffer ourselves from
bloodshed, the rainbow of our fear we smear
across the Earth crying out its colored hymn -
white space     along the margins, we manage
white pages of a history incomplete, staged news -
this pause is to let the voices we stifled with
white noise ring in the silence.

let's start by raising a
white flag over no land, no place or people,
save our own heart waving in surrender
to a legacy we inherit but choose to transmute -
leave lying the bleached bones of hate on shores of
imperial pursuit, standing from our
white hot privilege seat to take up a new spirit -
rid ourselves of oppressive nebula layers of pain,
clouds of grief - cross fields of disparate matter
to touch mercy’s atonement and reveal the small
white star at the center, glowing dimly against
the Black of eternal spacetime, our honest ancestry - soaring to new cosmic horizons from which we view
our true natures, older than the universe -
our future, prismatic rays of light.

Refocus

The day draws down as the sun sets, the house quiets, and my littlest one snuggles close to me in our evening ritual. He reaches out, grasps my hair, gazes into my eyes, and compels me to let go of whatever keeps me from complete engagement. As I watch the movement of his eyes and hands, I am overwhelmed with wonder by the coming together of instinct and personality, bodily and energetic processes, individuality and interconnection, all in this microcosmic, nourishing moment.

Ten short weeks ago, we were so new to one another this way; now, the habitual rhythm is easy to overlook busy hour to busy hour. It just happens, like the growth of my baby I only notice in sudden spurts of surprise. He is growing fast, and so am I, thanks to his tutelage. Neither of us is the same person as we were when we first met face to freshly-born face. Who is this small being before me? I look into his eyes and dream of who he will be.

Then, I realize this is another distraction from the present person I have the opportunity to discover here and now. I refocus. I listen to his grunts and sniffs, smile as he smiles and softly speaks in his own lovely song, breathe deep the smell of his skin, and gently trace my fingers through his fuzzy hair. We look and look and look at each other. Who does he see?

I am humbled by the thought that he does not dream of who I will become - he happily accepts me here and now. He is teaching me to do the same. In innumerable ways, I am a stranger unto myself, just as my child is both intimate to my being's core and simultaneously someone I can never fully know.

The world is just like that. We can dream of what it will become, but the only way to the future is through this Now. Who are you, new world quietly breathing? What do you see when you look at me?

The Pond

"Pink fish! Swim, swim," he remarks in a singsong voice behind me.

With my back turned to my child, I smile to myself at his innocent choosing of the wrong color to describe what he sees. "Orange fish - those are koi," I think to myself. But before I speak aloud my correction, I turn to glance at the fish resting at the bottom of the shallow pond. Peering into the water, I stop short. I look more closely.

Sunbeams play through strands of aquatic flora and algae, splaying in a cloudy rainbow of ripples. The fish are tricky to spot beneath the disturbed surface and many layers of light. When I focus fully on the fish, watercolor wisps against black, I realize that my child is right - at this point in time, from this perspective, they look undeniably pink.

When presented with a fresh insight that offends my former understanding, I too quickly decide I already know what is right or wrong about it without looking again. Even when I think I am holding an open posture, sometimes I notice I have decided what I am about to receive instead of gazing anew at a seemingly-familiar person, perspective, or circumstance. More often than I would like to admit, I shake my head and smile smugly, comfortable in my false security.

My boys offer countless daily opportunities to look again. In looking again, I realize I am actually not looking *again* - I am looking for the first time at a particular arrangement of elements and energies that have never been quite like this and will not ever repeat themselves exactly. Oak shows me that dump truck rumblings sound like thunder, and he isn't afraid to name the emotions I'm experiencing with initially intimidating but enlightning clarity. Ronin's eye color is ever-changing, some days the rich blue of a perfectly ripe blueberry, others a deep forest green, still others gray like the edge of a summer storm. Some mornings, I am aware enough to wake and honor my little ones as intimate strangers, containing multitudes, who I have a precious chance to meet.

What if we could greet every other this way:
I have never seen this YOU before.
What color are you?
What is your name?

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other"
doesn't make any sense."
-
umi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Noticing how I feel questioning what I believe I know - startled, anxious, afraid? surprised, delighted, awed? - brings me to the threshold of true attention. Practicing genuine presence helps me to see more clearly, which in turn leaves me humbler and kinder. Each moment becomes a treasure and challenge, glinting like a rose-gold scale in wet, green-black waters, mine to discover and allow to recalibrate my perspective as another tiny glimmer in the miasma of possibility.

Louisville to Orlando

A rainbow of balloons ascended into the air over myriad-colored crowds. Thousands of people walked together, toward one another, across a sky now clear of the storm.

I followed at the end, a straggler, my baby against my heart, both of us breathing the warm freshness of descending evening. Ronin craned his neck, looking in every direction, as we walked past people holding hands and talking and crying and laughing and singing, people pulsing and gathering and watching and holding, people emblazoned over and over with the word: Love, Love,  Love.

There were so many gathered that it was impossible to hear the remarks made at the center of the bridge. Then, suddenly, a roaring applause rose like a wave through the throngs and assailed me with noisy jubilation. No words were needed.

We stood over the river waters, united as people who approached from all sides to close a parted sea, washing away the threat of evil. Friends and strangers waved and embraced and sang. Lanterns were lit and released. I paused with dear companions to marvel at the sky, its own rainbow flag of Light.

In the twilight, children played and laughed. My baby boy rested his head on my chest. The darkness teemed with the resonance of possibility.

Always Enough

Today began in exhaustion. Ronin, Oak, and I have all been awake since 4:30am - Oak has been sick and having night terrors and Ronin is, well, a newborn. It's also my first, full day solo with my boys.

The past few days, I have created a lot of fear around not being, or being able to do, enough as a homemaker. I was resolving this fear with the closed perspective that I was just not going to be able to take good care of myself, I was going to fall short, and the boys' needs were simply not going to be met - that was that. No need to be falsely optimistic or upbeat. My exact words to Robby when he asked how I was feeling about his return to work were, I'm not proud to admit, “Well, it's going to be f***ing hard. That's about all.”

I later realized that, by believing in advance that I wouldn't be enough, I was attempting to avoid disappointing myself. After processing my feelings with Robby, I released some of that rigid negativity. Of course this transition will be hard and I'll fall short, but there will be good in it, too, I affirmed, and I'll have moments when I feel I have done well. I remembered that I have autonomy in how I receive my experiences. I attuned to my more naturally positive posture - rather than deciding how anything would be ahead of time, one way or the other, I would honor each moment holistically and resist assigning “Pass” or “Fail” marks to every hour.

Despite a rough start, the boys and I still had a pleasant morning. We took the new dynamic in stride. We made a brief venture to a park and had fun. Miraculously, probably out of sheer exhaustion on everyone's part, even nap time (my most dreaded time of the day to navigate solo) began relatively smoothly. Oak crashed in his bed with little effort on my part shortly before Ronin fell asleep. This happened around 12:15pm. Score! Beginner's luck! Then, both boys slept 2 hours. Holy moly. The universe granted me the extra sleep I needed desperately. Mama nap achieved. What a gift!

I heard Oak waking up and went to grab him, leaving Ronin sleeping in the big bed. Oak was still so drowsy and motioned to lay on the bed with his brother when we came back into the room. I laid him down - I thought he and Ronin were both waking up shortly. Nope. They both conked out again, side by side. What were the odds?

Then...Oak rolled over in his sleep and took his brother's hand. They snuggled for almost another full hour, both boys in and out of sleep only to physically reconnect with the other before drifting off again. It's a wild, cosmic feeling to look at two little beings so in love with each other and realize, "Wow...I made both of those." Yet the words of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran reverberated in my soul as I gazed at them sleeping:
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."
Nevertheless, my heart exploded with wonder because these two clearly belong to one another.

The sweet surrender of my children and their gentleness to one another granted their mother some grace today, allowing me to learn by example the balance between releasing expectations AND trusting in abundance, simultaneously. I couldn't have planned or perfected this joyful experience of presence by anticipating or prejudging it. I can only receive it, and the countless difficult and pleasant moments to come, with gratitude and humility as they arrive. I can only tenderly embrace my days like my boys embrace one another, as companions and teachers...beloved brothers.

I was afraid of being too tired to cope with today; I realize many more days like this will come and that they will not always go well according to my hopes or plans. I will not always cope. However, I can try to release my hopes and plans to be guided by my children, as The Prophet suggests:
“You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

Oak woke up, snuggled into my chest, and said in his sweet, not-yet-two lilting voice, “I wuv you, Mommy.” Then he bent forward and kissed Ronin's forehead: “I wuv you, Ronin.” Trusting that there are hidden gems of restorative beauty along the way, both glittering jewels and diamonds in the rough, will keep me walking forward in the dark. I will never be enough...and yet there is somehow always, always enough.

Love Opens

LOVE OPENS

In the last trimester of this second pregnancy, I closed up. The physical and emotional demands were more difficult than I expected: running around after a toddler and meeting his emotional needs while feeling constantly uncomfortable in my body, managing blood sugar levels, and surfing huge hormonal surges that left me exhausted by myself. Going out in public most likely meant I would attract attention and comments from strangers about my large size, emphasizing my own insecurity and discomfort. I really did not want to be around people, even my dearest friends and family, because I could barely take care of myself, let alone give to my relationships.

By withdrawing my energy, I felt I was conserving what little I had to give to my family and myself. To be well, I believed I wanted to be closed off, locked away. I put my life on hold. I didn't reach out to friends, make outings, or attend events. Each day was punctuated by a fixation on baby's arrival because, once he came, it would all be over...wouldn't it? I ignored the persistent, internal question, “What will that truly change?”

I felt something happening at a deep level as I withdrew: other channels seemed to close off. I lost my perspective and patience easily. I felt less creative. I was less likely to be friendly to a neighbor or curious toward my son and husband. I was mentally and emotionally stopped up and stagnant. Instead of giving to myself, I realized in the last week of pregnancy that, by turning so fully inward, I was actually taking from myself by not allowing my life to flow. Instead of better loving myself and others, I was becoming bitter, despite my best efforts to stay aligned in seclusion.

I then came across profound words by Ina May Gaskin, the preeminent American midwife. She writes that in the thousands of births she has witnessed, she has noted a direct correlation between the relaxation and release of women's other bodily sphincters and the opening of their vaginas in birth. Simply keeping her jaw unclenched and her mouth open can help a woman dilate more easily and quickly, for instance - so can sitting on the toilet, a place where she is used to relaxing her bottom. But this isn't all: furthermore, receiving or offering words of affirmation and love also allow women to open. Hearing her partner tell her she is loved, expressing her own gratitude to those helping with the birth, and feeling the safety and security of a caring space allows a mother to give birth with less pain and more joy.

The body has its portals between the inside and outside. So, it would seem, does the spirit; these portals of connection and integration enable our relationships and creative processes to unfold and flourish. Fear and threat close them down, which makes giving birth - or living a meaningful, generative life - a struggle. But other energies open them wide - most powerfully, love. Love eases, inspires, instills courage. Love allows us to be permeable and soft to life. Love requires us to be engaged and integrated with others. Love cannot flow if we close ourselves. Love is a verb, we often hear, and its direction is outward. Love opens.

The revelation came like a full-bodied flash from my mind and womb: Love Opens. My whole pregnancy, I found my life aligning more and more to connecting with people, putting ideas into action, and letting myself be led; it was impossible not to feel that my child was responsible for the palpable energetic shift. He infused his nine months in utero with dynamic, expansive possibility. But my own struggles and fears kept me from leaning into the current of what emerges when I surrender to life's flow and what is being created through but beyond me. Around and within, my withdrawal had caused pain. Now, I understood I had to let go. This was the lesson I needed to learn to give birth to my second baby: to open up wholeheartedly without fear of not having or being enough. Love is motion that simultaneously draws together and expands beyond conceivable limits.

When the day came at last when Ronin began to make his arrival, I was ready - ready to be led. I held back from nothing. I tried to receive each rush joyfully in the beginning. I played and danced and made love with my husband. I turned my attention away from the discomfort and tuned into my delight. My husband held my hand to keep me grounded as the intensity built. I made long, low “Om” tones to bring down my awareness into the pain, which I could endure without suffering if I didn't resist it. I let many hands - husband's, mother's, mother-in-law’s, nurse’s, midwife's - hold me, steady me, cool me, clean me, reassure me. I listened as my husband, my rock, told me again and again softly, lovingly, “You can do this. You are doing this.”

There were moments I felt the resistance within me rise and threaten to close me up: when the pain became all-encompassing, my self-doubt reared, or I succumbed to distractions from the present. I felt the temptation to create distance from the people and circumstances near me by believing my supporters could not understand my pain. That bitterness turned in my mouth a couple times. Nevertheless, I returned to the mantras that illumined the truth that I was held and deeply connected. “I love my baby, my husband, these women.” The words allowed a path to unfold in me, through me: “Relax.” “Open up.” “I'm going to get HUGE.” “Love opens.”

And, of course, soon and smoothly enough, I did open. As I began to push, I recalled the refrain that came to me as I painted Ronin's mandala: “Down and through, up and out.” I had made it down and through my body's process of opening, so now I ascended with vigor to push my baby out. I knew just what to do with my body because it told me. An intense push sent my womb waters spraying in a sudden burst that elicited surprised laughter from my caretakers. I heard all around me, “Good job! Oh, wow! You're doing it, you've got it, Mandy!” I felt my baby move quickly down and through and then, with a gush of blood and a flurry of limbs, Ronin came up and out onto my chest, over my heart. I met my husband's gaze in elation. I smiled as he took a picture of us. I cried, “We did it!”

And, through the portals of joy and collaboration and compassion and intention and perseverance and hope and mystery and great, great wonder, Love Opened, within and all around.