Every year on the weekend of the Summer Solstice I pack my backpack and head out to an organic farm co-operative for the Wise Women Solstice retreat. In the 4 years that we have lived here I have always made sure that I make it out to at least part of this weekend of blissful women wonderfulness. This year I asked our oldest daughter, Beena now 11, if she would like to join me since, after all, she is almost a women. Her eyes were so full of light as she exclaimed " really??!!! YES!!". Her next question "mama, can I ask questions?"
You see, one of the things that Beena loves...more then nearly any thing else, is to sit with women, listening to conversations and asking all of the millions of questions that come to her creative mind. Her questions are deep and soulful, sweet and innocent, wistful and adventurous. She was beyond ecstatic to spend the afternoon/evening with all of these wonderful women who welcomed her with open arms, honoured by her inquistiveness and enthusiastic spirit.
Sharing this special, sacred time with our daughter made my day!!! heck, made my.....life!!??!! I have dreamed of doing these things with her when she was a baby...building the bond of our women connection. Strengthening her roots as she comes of age. Giving her confidence and faith in female relationships by inviting her to take part in an event such as this, where women and girls of all age, sizes, walks of life get together and celebrate our similarities and our differences. Having soooo much fun just being together. Relationships that grow year after year. Relationships that share laughter and tears....and food!! oh the food!! It never ceases to amaze me how phenomenal the food is when we all get together. Maybe we should rename the even the Hungry Women's Food Gathering!!lol
It was such a gift to be able to share this magic with my daughter. I am beyond grateful.
♀~base camp~♀
♀~Beena planting her tree~♀
♀~mmm, Greek salad for the feta queen~♀
♀~drumming to start an evening of music~♀
♀~a few of the stops along the fairy walk the Beena helped to create...enchanting lite by candles under the light of the moon~♀
My hiatus has been rejuvenating in so many ways. I have spent more time with my kiddies reading, playing and exploring, wrapped up another awesome year of homeschooling (although, really we don't ever stop learning☻), recovered from the craziness of renovating this house and remembered what it's like to have a wee bit of that illusive thing known as time. I have spent time with amazing friends, planted my beautiful garden, read many blogs that have inspired and moved me...sometimes as a lurker:), spent time sewing...those curtains and muslin I've been holding onto forever became this......
...super fun belly dance costume with a big bustle skirt and bloomers! We have spent many hours talking about our future and have decided to move back to this little hamlet of awesomeness a place of summer sun and many beautiful friends. Dad-E-o has wonderful work and we get to have access to things that have been unavailable to us for the last 4+ years(like a pool, arts, culture and oddles of home learners to hang with)
I am excited to be beginning my Birthing from Within mentor-ship training and can't wait to begin mentoring Childbirth Preparation classes with my dear friend T!
I feel inspired and excited about life in general and am learning how to be patient in a whole new way (and here I thought I had the patience thing down..hA!)
((sigh)) it has been an eventful 6 months! I am excited to be back! To share the tidbits that float around my mind with you and to take part in the beautiful exchange of connectedness that can magically occur through this crazy piece of technology.
I've realized something about myself. Well, re-realized actually. I am a very busy lady. A very busy lady who is, inside, much more like a slow cooked meal or a well steeped chai. I like to take my time to do the things I love to do. I like to MAKE the time to do the things I love to do. Somehow, lately I've felt like I have no time at all. Like I'm running all day and still 10 steps behind....or 1000 steps, depending on the day.
So it occurred to me...I NEED to re-prioritize my life. To find the time, make the time to do the things I love. To have conversations on the phone with the people in my life instead of dropping an email or facebooking them. To write (like, with a pen/paper/crayons) in my journal and play my guitar. To snuggle in bed with my kids rather then running upstairs to finish up some "work" on the computer. Really there are sooooo many things that I could do with the few moments in the day that are found between meals, outings, lessons and chores. There is magic here, between these walls.....between this earth and sky. And me, Jenn, Melodious Mama is on her way to discover it. I'm saying goodbye to bloggersville and journeying onwards, ready to explore the unexplored, to re-explore the sorrowfully neglected. So, to all of you I say goodbye for now, until we meet again!
I must share my excitement....I just can't keep it to myself!! So, my dear friend A makes an announcement at dance class that there is going to be a Tribal Fusion belly dance workshop happening on the coast in March. Ooooooo, I say, who, where, when??? Ariellah she say.....Ariellah?! Really??!!
Okay, I tend to watch a fair bit of YouTube. Tribal belly dance videos specifically, and miss Ariellah happens to be one of the few dancers that I really enjoy. She does gothic belly dance, which, while it is not quite my thing, is still rather striking. The way she moves. Her expression and choreography are amazing! So, needless to say I am tempted, REALLY tempted to go. Just to top it off, A lets me know that if I can't afford it I can go along with her as her "helper". She manufactures tribal belly dance clothes and imports jewelry from the far reaches of the earth and will be the only vendor at the event...a vendor in need of a helper.
So here in begins my struggle. You see, I have never been without my Sweetie Boy. The longest we have been apart was last year when I took a day long workshop 5 minutes from my house. This is entirely different. I will be 5 hours away. Gone from early Friday until late Sunday. Now, Sweetie boy is super secure and LOVES being with Dad-e-o. Heck, on weekend I'm not even aloud to get the wee one out of his car seat...."Daddy me out, Daddy!" okay, okay, I hear you. Not only that but he rarely nurses (well, except on days like today where I swear he thinks he's a newborn again!) only a few time a day, and he doesn't nurse during the night anymore.
The truth of the matter is that it will be harder on me then it will be on him. So, after days of deliberation and consultation I have decided...........
...............drum roll please..............
to go! I am sooooo excited. I start making plans to spend all dance free time with my soul sista Jess, ecstatic to have a night out in the big city. But as I'm going over all these plans I begin to think, maybe, just maybe, there is some way I could spend my time more wisely. I mean, if I' going to be spending time away shouldn't I be doing something functional?? something logical??
So I start looking into doula training programs in the area. I have a whole shwack of training and workshops under my belt but I'm missing one bit of certification that I need for this job for a government funded organization that will pay for Doula's for young mama's and those who don't have the funds to pay for a Doula themselves. I REALLY want to work there, and they have been patiently waiting for Sweetie boy to be old enough that I can leave him with Dad-e-o to attend births.
Well, as I'm driving Dad-e-o back to work one afternoon (we share a truck right now) I ask him what his thoughts are on me choosing to take the Doula training instead of the dance workshop. It's a bit more expensive, I explain, but it will mean an income for me in the not to distant future AND I can add it to my bushel of certificates when I apply for midwifery school a few years from now.
He turn and looks at me....trys not to laugh.
What? I say....am I missing something.
Apparently so...He goes on to say, in a VERY sarcastic tone, that I don't deserve to have things for ME, and that how could I even think of spending money on myself...lazy, good for nothing, selfish women... by now he IS laughing.
What? I just...well I mean, I thought that if I had to choose one the Doula would be more logical!
He looks at me again, seriously this time. "Do both.....if you had to do one I would say go dance...go do something for you that has NOTHING to do with children. Refuel! You deserve this!"
Honestly, the though NEVER crossed my mind. I so rarely spend money on myself (not that we have money to spend). There is always a child who needs a coat, or a truck that needs a part, or property tax that needs to be paid. There is never money left over for mama. Let alone money for me to take 2 workshops, both things I LOVE with a passion.
The rest of the drive I could barely contain my excitement. I kept looking over at him with this stupid grin on my face like I had just won the lottery or something. The truth is I feel like I have. I feel appreciated, like he actually sees me. Sees everything I do for our family, all the sacrifices I make out of love for our children. He is saying thank you, and I will say your welcome...and I will go, with a heart full of gratitude!!
For those of you who have been reading for a while you will remember that our house is for sale. (new readers~ my first few posts talk a bit about this if you feel so inclined to read back) After months and months of ceaseless labour our finished home was placed on the market....and there it has sat. We took it of for a few weeks to take care of some banking business and last night we re-listed, lowering the price.
Dad-e-o and I had a great conversation after our realtor left and the kids were tucked in. The question we mulled...What are we going to do? What do we want?
We've been kind of avoiding both of these thoughts. Just enjoying this time of quiet and the break from such heavy work. We've briefly checked out listings, but there is nothing we're interested in.
When we first started working on our house with the vision to sell held steadily in focus, we planned to build when we sold. We weren't just planning to build any ol' house but a passive solar straw bale home of our own design. And while we built?? we planned to live in a yurt and enjoy the simple life. We wanted to become a self sufficient as possible...a huge garden and green house, chickens, goats...maybe even horses. We wanted Dad-e-o to be able to build a shop/studio on our property and create his art at home. We wanted to live as minimalistaically as possible and build our house by bartering with friends and trading with other folks who would become friends. We wanted to reduce our mortgage to nearly nothing so that we can actually LIVE our life and take time to do all of the things that we dream of doing.
As our house came nearer to completion we realized 2 things. (well, many things actually, but 2 more predominant) 1. That building a house ourselves while homeschooling and such was a LOT of work...maybe more then we wanted to tackle at this point. and 2. that we couldn't afford to buy vacant land because the bank wanted us to finish our house on what we consider to be a totally unrealistic time frame. We wanted to build our house slowly...without the stress of dates pushing us to burn ourselves out.
So we decided to look into buying a house on acreage...a relatively finished house. The thing is, every time we look we get this feeling like we should just turn off the computer and do something else. Like we are somehow missing the other part of the picture.
We were sitting last night, in the living room, Dad-e-o putting fresh strings on a few of our guitars, me nursing sleepy Sweetie Boy, ponder the questions.....what do we really want?
Are we going to buy some house that doesn't need a tone of work? A house that will essentially keep us right where we are....in a place that doesn't equate to our life style. A house that leaves us with an "affordable" mortgage. A house that is so conducive to this typical western way of living...a way of living that we will settle for?
Something just feels wrong about that.
So then maybe we should just stay here? This house has been transformed into something that is not only esthetically beautiful but energetically as well. We have used as many "green" building methods as we could. We designed it so that the energy of a large family could flow through it in a calm manner, where there is a place for everything. It is on 3/4 of an acre in a beautiful neighborhood close to all "amenities". This house is nicer then anything we can afford...granted we can transform a hole in the ground into something breathtaking in a matter of months BUT....
we need to keep moving forward. We need to keep our vision in our minds. We can't just settle for mediocrity because the market is slower, it's easier or because our vision requires work. Something else that I've realized is that I actually LIKE work..really hard work that keeps you so busy you don't have time to be bored or idle. Work that propels you towards something, manifesting the vision with your own 2 hands. There is something so soulfully rewarding about this kind of work.
As our conversation moved and shifted we came to realize that on sooo many levels we NEED to keep our focus on our vision. Every time we try to shift our focus to a more "normal" picture it just feels wrong. And so we went to bed with a renewed inspiration...we may not know exactly how, but we will manifest our vision, with our own 2 hands....well, with our own 12 hands.
(and more when our new babies come home...many hands create light work)
(You can scroll down to the bottom of the page to turn off the music and listen to the video)
