The Rumination of Motherhood

Be still and present to this moment.

Receive the teaching of the mystery held here and now.

Surrender yourself.

Breathe…Pay attention. All truth is found right where you are.

Familiar mantras float through my mind as I find myself sitting, legs crossed, in a comfortable chair in a quiet room. I breathe slowly, intentionally. Although distractions disrupt the spacious silence – thoughts of the chores still to do, grumbles in my stomach, the occasional scuffle of my two dogs playing – I continually return to attention, fixated on the sacredness of this moment. All my life, I have longed for the discipline to make space daily to meditate. At times, I have embraced this practice with dedication; mostly, though, I have half-heartedly tried and failed. However, for six weeks, I have paused a dozen times a day, found stillness, and relinquished the drive to move and act to surrender to the need to be present fully in contemplation.

As I sit, I look down at my miraculous instructor. In my arms rests the mentor I did not know I sought: my son, Oak, who is teaching me this new way of intentionality. I realize that I still have not found an ideal inner alignment that motivates me to meditation. But Oak reminds me, by inviting me countless times a day to stop whatever task seems urgent to my busy mind, to move through my days in a better way. He gently asks, with little cries and wriggles, to be held, to be fed, to be paid attention to. In spite of myself, with deep love, I sit, cradle him in my arms, put him to my breast, and breathe.

Little did I know the sheer demand of breastfeeding, of motherhood, before Oak initiated me. I could not fathom the way time would slide by, slipping into cycles beyond parameters, as his small body simply requested its needs and I fulfilled them.  The hours each week add up to entire days spent sitting, nursing, sometimes reading a book or resting my eyes, but mostly, marveling at the beauty of this earthy act of being present to Oak and his attention to me. Love beyond love. Perhaps that is the first, greatest lesson he is offering: we do not change out of duty or discipline. We cannot transform our life because we feel we should. We alter our lives because we are pushed beyond ourselves; we do it out of love.

The practice is not easy, because it is pervasive. I have not felt resentment, but I have begrudgingly scooped up my son in the early hours of morning and sighed in exhaustion as we sit together in the dark. I have felt anxiety as he puts his fists to his mouth and coos mere minutes after a feeding – he needs to nurse again? I close the book, turn off the stove, and return to the discipline. When is it time to be present? Always, here and now. He smiles as he falls into sleep and lets my breast fall from his mouth. There are no boundaries. This, always this, is a holy moment, the gateway to enlightenment. 

And this is the secret knowledge mothers have held for millennia. Not in temples or shrines, not by kneeling or folding hands or reciting rote prayers, but simply by opening arms and welcoming into our laps the need most present to us do we embrace the sacred. The ancient Roman goddess of Breastfeeding and Motherhood was named Rumina, “she who causes the milk to flow.” The old Latin word for breast is rumis or ruma; to ruminate means to ponder, to wonder, to pay attention to. Each comforting stroke of a cheek is a prayer; each thrill of delight in our child’s growth is an acknowledgment of the divine all around us. Our children are the instructors who illuminate the meaning of life; they create a space first in our bodies, then in our lives and hearts, that empties us of self-absorption. The rumination of motherhood leads us to the knowledge of how much we do not know. It humbles us to the messy, embodied work of true presence. It allows us to forget ourselves so as to remember who we really are.

A mother needs no mantra but the quiet, rhythmic suckling of a child near her heart. She needs no practice but the constant surrender of self to something greater: a small human being who will outlive her into a world she cannot imagine. The mystery is not so hidden, just disguised as the intimate, liminal relationship between mother and baby. Oak shows me, over and over, that no journey to a mountaintop is needed. I only need to be willing to accept his teaching – the invitation to the nourishment that comes in the form of caring for another. Be still, he asks, summoning me with the gentle drop of his eyelashes. Pay attention, he says, grasping my finger in his little hand. Let love transform your life. I breathe in, I breathe out. All truth is found right where you are.

His Birth

for Nicholas Oak Olivam

Firefly orbs            and         day lily blooms.

New moon, dark moon – waxing lunar face.

Midsummer, solstice sun – waning solar strength.

               A mystic’s map:                   dreams, and          an astral alignment of renewal.

Womb turns with awakening                           in morning.                                                        His birth begins.

Rushes like ebb and flow of currents pulled by celestial bodies –

                                                            labyrinthine pathways downward, earthward.

Breathe                  moan                     grunt                     silence.                                Expansive elation, and ache.

Suffering and joy. Clutch, release. Only this moment, dive in       

               Ocean of Unknown.                                                                                       The day stretches into two.

Slow intensity – hips sway side to side, measure progress by their circles –

                                                            time lapses in round rhythms of descent.

Deep healing cave waters. Open, throaty Oms –            primal energy                       grounding struggle.

               His father’s hands hold steady.                                                                     The sun hangs high, drops.

                                                                                                                         Sliver of moon cuts shades of hours.

Finally                   path of surrender illuminates. Fear flies at the holy dusk of wonder: the secret –

kill all knowing                     sacrifice fixation                   trust what has always unfolded despite you.

                                                            No truth, only a way to follow –                                this.

Space is only here-now, soft shadow and mystery and    pain –     bodies                    separating.           

                              Waters break and channel flows like moonbeams.

Push.                                                   Blood in swells –                                 stream of spirit

                              in waves of strong medicine from nameless matrilineage,

ancestors speaking walking swimming birthing                              beyond.

Black hair curls over crowning head –

fingers touch                        the miraculous.    

Portal opens –                                       Joy –                      Power –                Scream –    another

soft, long awaited cry           and                        Love.  His father’s hands place him – limbs, shoulders, lips

between my arms. Hearts beat, rest on one another.                                     Cord pulses, stills.

Luminous body born in night: pearl-white skin to purple – my own flesh in my arms –

not mine,               something                                                     eternal.

He looks up–                       dark-bright eyes see older than paradox.

Victory of the people.         Rooted doorway of prophecy.           Sacred extension of peace.

Fulfillment like the immovable sun, the steadfast moon – transformation like the tides.

                                                                                                           His birth begins.

Letter to My Child

My Child,

I have been unsure if it is possible to love someone, something unknown. But here you are, making space by stretching the dimensions of who I thought I could be. I have yet to see your face, though you’ve sent a wordless communication with the beat of your heart: “Here I am.” My body, the only home you’ve known, is roped to you by a cord of blood and flesh, a link that blurs the line of distinction between who you are and who I am. Even so, with so little tangibly apprehended, how can I know you? Even in this dark mystery, my devotion to you is absolute.

I was not sure it was possible to know myself, let alone to love myself. Yet the person I am responds beyond knowledge to the energetic pull of you. My body follows ancient maps to navigate your arrival, written in code language that has never been seen or understood in its entirety. In the center of my body is a vortex, an energy field where you lie; it warps time and space around you, realigning my whole being. I know you by these signs: the gradual transformation of my identity, shaped now by a different definition of autonomy; the expansion of my belly and emotional body; the new protective presences I sense around us.

Wherever I go, you go. The air I breathe is yours. The nourishment I take is yours. My rest is your rest. My heartbeat thumps in time with yours. How can we inhabit this body together so comfortably, perfectly held in the lap of destiny? How can we be said to be strangers when I know and love you more than anything I have ever known or loved?

We are all born into the world this way. In time, cords are cut and rot away. Heartbeats are not in rhythm. But what could sever the phenomenological threads of such intimate familiarity, save illusion or ignorance? These conditions are temporary constructions. By illumination, or by death, we will be born again into that Awareness that has known us all since the beginning. Each of us is ever held in an infinite womb of Light, where we have always been Love, and Beloved.

My body will soon confine you in too small a space, and you will break forth into this world, my love. Remember, though, that you never leave the other world. We will always have known one another beyond familiarity, suspended together in the dark and light.

Love always,

Mother

For Theo

An audacious sunrise announced the morning of your advent, covering the city’s night sky.

Pear trees bloomed like stars, clean palettes for the veins of light,

pink and gold and purple, that heralded your coming.

Buds were beginning on the dogwood and crab apple trees;

I hurried under them, stepping on violets and wild onions, as spring birds sang.

The rolling rhythm of your descent pulled your mother down,

through pain and anger, past tears, into deep knowing.

The minutes shortened as she rocked you to Earth. Your father’s hands touched her power.

I watched her quiet solitude open a doorway for your quick arrival. 

She knew – you were close. The sun rose higher.

The time came. Finally, others understood, and your mother’s eyes burned clear

with sharp intent, a forceful gale of will that declared the moment.

Lights, hands, steady voices – a pause,

then the climb: head forward – deep groan – self and breath sacrificed – a channel stretched.

Then, rest. Your father held your mother’s hand. Then, the next push

that bulged and groaned and pulsed: blood and hope and promise, a whispered prayer

to your ancestors and descendants. At last, the zenith exertion:

the death of who your mother thought she was, the birth of who you are.

More hands, a twist of shoulder – a scream, splitting space-time,

echoing aeons of humans making their way to life –

and finally, your glorious dark hair breaking through in baptismal blood,

slippery body, plump and purple and pulsing, falling into cradle-arms.

The translucent blue cord was cut, but never the radiant rope of vibration

between you, your mother’s eyes, your father’s chest, everything.

Your cry, cosmic aria, collapsed the wave of uncertainty with sighs and joy and tears.

A flurry of flesh nestled you on your mother’s chest, in your father’s arms.

You came as divine gift of stars, strength, sunlight, stillness, spring.

In the quiet dimmed room after your birth, I looked at you and wondered, although I saw,

where you could have come from.

So perfect in your smallness, you drew a circle wide around all of us

who awaited you, fixed with love. Your cousin leapt in my womb.

You are fluent in the language of silence; you practice perfect presence.

You know what I do not remember, what I am taught again by your simplicity.

You are your mother’s hair, your father’s sternum, their eyes and skin,

your grandparents’ heart, your ancestors’ delight, your descendants’ life.

I hold you, messenger from beyond the veil – sacred guest – embodied promise.

A New Center

Until this past October, I always wanted my stomach to be smaller. My physical self-awareness has been characterized by the balance between Skinny and Fat, Acceptable or Not, Small or Big.

As a first-grader, lining up next to other girls, I took note of the way their bodies and my body fit into our uniform skirts. Some girls seemed barely able to keep their skirts up, they were so lithe and slender; others, whose shirts bagged a bit around the waistband, seemed to need some extra room. My belly wasn’t the biggest, nor was it the smallest, but I noticed that, depending on how I stood or sat or sucked in, I could fall on either side of the divide.

Looking back, I see a happy, healthy little girl whose eyes were so bright, no one was looking at her belly.

In junior high, I used to do two hundred crunches before bed each night, hoping to trim my tummy for that future occasion when I might bare some skin in front of my peers. The glances of guys and the acceptance of other young women – who, I presumed, would only want someone attractive near them – motivated my efforts.

Looking back, I see a twelve-year-old in the throes of early puberty, blossoming into a curvy woman. She is so tender and beautiful, she defies the dimensions of any midriff.

College brought new confidence in everything I was – that is, everything outside the solar plexus. I still did not ultimately trust myself; I could only trust others’ judgments of me. My core remained weak, and I only held criticism of its softness. I learned true vulnerability in the arms of my future husband. He felt the full circumference of my spirit and ever encouraged me to expand.

Months ago, something happened inside of me that brought fundamental change to my life. In darkness and mystery, in the very center of my being, a new life was born. He is still small enough to hold in my hands; I will have to wait until June or July to finally look into his eyes. The center of my world has shifted to rest on this child, my child, a person I have never even met but with whom I am already desperately in love. This recalibration of my consciousness colors everything differently.

My body has begun to follow ancient maps, written in a language I will never know, that direct the growth of my body as it makes way for this new life. The transformation has brought challenge, but has overwhelmingly beckoned my enchantment. The beauty of this evolution has redistributed the weight of importance in every part of me.

Namely, my stomach. I once longed for it to be small and flat. Now, I want the whole world to notice its protrusion! Once upon a time, I reflexively sucked in air when a friend reached for a hug; now, I stick out my middle in hope that someone will touch it and exclaim with excitement. I once worried about the ways my diet would improve or worsen my appearance; now, my concern is to increase the number of centimeters I measure so that my baby is healthy. For the first time, I am happy to take up space in this world because it is for such an evidently precious purpose.

What a shame that I have not always recognized that I take up space for a precious purpose: to walk the planet as a beautifully embodied, abundant gift that anyone should be grateful to receive.

Already, I have let old patterns slip into my passing thoughts. Will my uterus shrink quickly enough so I can fit properly in a bridesmaid gown? Will applying lotion daily be enough to prevent stretch marks? I am not yet perfect in my perception of myself. But I am trying to teach new habits through the marvel of this miraculous time. I proudly post pictures of my baby bump. I gently hold my stomach as I speak tenderly to my baby, to myself. I focus my questions on how I’m feeling, not how I think I’m looking, and determine my well-being according to this standard of health. I look at pictures of women who, standing courageously naked in the face of Judgment, bare their stretch marks and sagging breasts, their bony shoulders and knobby knees, their soft stomachs and big booties, their slender torsos and love handles, their straight lines and their curves, their breadth and their depth…and I take note that I am awed by their beauty. I rarely look long at what they may deem to be flaws. Instead, I am captivated by their radiant smiles, shining eyes, and the wonder of their whole being, rounded and full, taking up just the right amount of space. I can even begin to gaze at myself with such effortless grace.

And when my baby comes into the world, crying and longing for his mother, he will not notice that my belly is too big. He will nestle into the wonder of flesh against flesh, basking in the warmth of coming earth-side. He will find my receptive arms a perfect cradle, my breasts an ideal resting place, my belly the center of all comfort and care he has ever known. The balance between Acceptable and Not will be perfectly achieved in my relinquishment of striving for it. When my stomach eventually recedes to a newfound waistline, I wish for my ontological focus to expand indefinitely. The radical acceptance of Who I Am, for the sake of my child, myself, and the world, will be the self-awareness that centers me most fully. 

Lessons: To Be Human

I put to words some of my innermost fears. Then, I re-wrote the fears as hopeful invitations (below). I want to transmute the energy of my thoughts for my, and the world's, betterment.


Release the rigid thought that you are too small a part of the universe.

Open to the expansive, unfathomable realms of worlds you are.

Become someone who chooses your manifestation at each unfolding level.

Honor the common yearning for connection: to move at the pace of being human with other people.

Forgive yourself for thinking you fall short of your narrow, self-defined human standard.

Relinquish saying this: “I am not doing it right.”

Free yourself of the assumption that you have failed or will fail to be good.

False humility projects an environment that stretches only to the expanse you think you can be.

Live into harsh, frank, disappointing weakness.

By your inconsistency and inauthenticity, build a bridge to all other people.

Feel empowered to bare your vulnerability in small and big ways.

Welcome yourself into the possibility of belonging. 

A Pilgrimage

Thoughts from a contemplative pilgrimage through Louisville, KY, to see the ordinary more fully as it truly is.

FOUNDERS SQUARE      

The chiming Cathedral bells sound ominous in the cold morning air. I stand in the center of Founder’s Square, watch the waking city, and imagine a time not so long ago in this place when trees were the tallest forms and the noise of birds beginning their day deafened the ear. I imagine native people, the ones who called this land home for thousands of years, gathering to bury their dead. The river must have sounded so close, like the roar of a world just-beyond. Perhaps the forest thinned in this spot, offered a patch of light and a panoramic view of darkness. On a misty morning like this, as they whispered their prayers, turned the earth, and lowered still bodies, could they have guessed that Europeans would come to flatten their burial grounds in a mere few hundred years?

The ideals we suppose upon which we are founded – hope in a New World and, presumably, a better one – were never manifest. This square is a lie; the world was not made new, or better, by covering sacred spaces with asphalt and steel. One cannot build progress on the bones of the dead, nor fashion an image after something that never was. The ghosts of another time are more real than the mirage of this metropolis.

I envision dark eyes, long, silky hair, silent breath lingering here. I see faces, past and future, turned toward this moment with dependent curiosity. The choice to place myself here as a witness holds the promise of reconciling the gap between where we have been, or what we have done, and where we are going, or what we are creating. My aching heart, wracked with sorrow at suffering long past, offers me the chance of healing. Although I cannot resurrect old bones, perhaps I can hold them in the light, one hand clutching the talismans, the other reaching out to the rushing potential that courses through this moment, this air, my veins, this holy ground.

CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION

The gold stars that adorn the ceiling of this sanctuary, though beautiful to behold, are flat representations of reality. The walls are painted to look like blocks of limestone and marble, but are, in fact, artificial simulations. The structure is one of glittering opulence, but little substance.

The Church: a grand façade, a spectacular temple of jewels, metals, and stone that craft an empty chasm; a cold, lifeless void in which human flesh is made to seem unsacred.

When I was seventeen, the priest who once offered me my First Communion held aloft to his congregation a new, solid gold chalice and paten. Each parishioner stood in thunderous applause at the just and proper display of devotion. This extravagant piety violated the truth I understood the Eucharist to be. I felt my little remaining faith in the Church crumble like clutched hosts.

Eucharistos: “gratitude.” Communio: “mutual participation.”

The pull of hungry bellies and empty pockets, of forgotten people and neglected neighborhoods tugged my gut as the cup and plate gleamed. Imagine how many starving children that cost could feed. Was this what Jesus meant to tell us when he said, “Take and eat; this is my body” – to show gratitude by squandering the poor’s money on precious platters? Did he mean us to fixate on his lifeless body, or the Living Body?

As I approach her statue, I gaze upon the pristine face of the Virgin, her eyes cast skyward, her foot gently resting on serpentine evil. Although such depiction makes her seem otherworldly, the truth is that she was as fully human as I am. As a young woman, she felt a child press upon her inmost being. She wailed, pushed, screamed, and sweated, and her flesh ripped as she birthed her son. She nursed him, disciplined him, held him, worried for him, took pride in him, watched him, grieved him, and loved him in all his humanness.

Jesus learned a thing or two from his mother: he touched the blind man, kissed the leper, held the children, ate with tax collectors, walked with fishermen, hanged with criminals, suffered for those he loved.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Teach us toward holy embodiment.

BALONEY ALLEY

The soft, tiny feather I found swept into this musty corner behind the west façade of Fourth Street Live! is breaking my heart with its fragility. Everything is precious, worth touching carefully like the miracle it is. The dust of this nook coats the alley, the pavement, the sign that reads “SERVING LUNCH DAILY 12:15PM-1:00PM.”

I want to paint the wall between Fourth Street Live! and the back of the Cathedral. I want to craft a mural for the folks who line up daily for a lunch at this little soup kitchen. I want to study their faces, mix my palette, and paint a radiant scene to capture the wonder of each one. I want those humble people to behold the blossoming masterpiece and their reflection in it. I want the earthy glory of every person in the queue to come pouring out onto that divisive canvas as a reminder of the humanity we can see, but keep hidden for convenience.

Someday, I want the wall to be demolished to rubble. I want people to destroy it because they have realized it shields them from their friends and neighbors on the other side. I want the Cathedral Lunchroom to close for lack of business. I want Hard Rock Café to practice its slogan, “Love All, Serve All.” I want Fourth Street Live! to represent truly the life that thrives and struggles in its sacred intersection. I want no one to slip through the cracks.

Even in this dead-end alley lies possibility, soft and waiting to be found – a feather of hope.

AFTER MERTON CORNER in the CATHEDRAL PRAYER GARDEN

This tree is beautiful, its layers of papery bark peeling back in rhythm with the seasons. I sit in its dappled shade and watch a man who is sleeping on a bench in the sunshine. Cars irreverently whiz by; the drivers are irritated by their delays, feel victimized by the beat of traffic lights and congestion. They do not see the man tucked beneath his scrubby cover. In their haste, they do not see the way the light casts his features into a dazzling vision of grit and beauty. They do not see the circle of pilgrims who have been bearing witness to their city all day.

They do not see the young woman looking at a man from under a tree, or him looking back. They do not see the small smile he slips me. They do not see the fact that he is, under the veil of dark skin, shining like the sun.

This, and this, always this is a moment of pilgrimage, of epiphany.