There you are in the car….

Grandma has passed away and you are on your way to her house to gather with family, wash her body, prepare her for vigil….. your 5 year old asks you: How did grandma die? You think back to last week’s post. You have a few immediate thoughts:

Ok, so I get it that its a good thing to be open with my children about death…. but what do I actually SAY??? I mean, would I say uncle Bob was murdered or George died in his sleep? Or that grandma’s heart stopped beating??? Won’t this worry my kids? How do I translate adult truths into something age appropriate? Do I tell them some schlock-ey thing about how they’re in heaven now? Or that death isn’t actually real?

You’re on the spot. and it’s important stuff.

You know your kid is going to remember this and what you say will either soothe or warp him. You wonder what the right thing to say is. You are already charged up just with being so close to death yourself…. You worry about saying the wrong thing.

Well, I’m here to tell you…. you can’t say the wrong thing….

if its true….

I mean, children are smart, especially when it comes to reading their parents. If you cover up the truth and just give them culturally sanctioned fluff, they’ll know it on some level. They want the truth!

So, what’s true about death?

well…… as you know, it’s hard to say. One thing I know for sure is that it is a mysterious journey.

I also know it is a powerful teacher.

In Mexico they celebrate the dead at the threshold of Fall and Winter. Here in N. America we have the remnants of a similar celebration at Halloween, but in Mexico they really go all out with altars and all night vigils, masks and processions.

Rudolf Steiner talks about the Rainbow Bridge….. about how when we come into the world we come in across the Rainbow Bridge and so I assume, according to him, we cross back over it when we return…. That story really works in our house. My four year old can really grock that, and there is something sweet in it for me too. Death is not a stranger. We have all crossed that bridge before. I find that comforting.

In the Bahai tradition bodies are supposed to be buried, returned to the earth to build her fertility…. I also find that idea comforting…. and my daughter loves thinking that her dead cat is becoming the hydrangea….. and that brings me to the other thing I know about death:

Its a celebration…. personal, intimate, and communal

Take a moment right now to get clear about three things:

• What do you KNOW about death? In its most raw form, what can you say for sure?
• Find one story or tradition about death that you find comforting or inspiring
• Think of one thing you can do to honor death as Winter approaches (Halloween) as well as when it actually comes…..

Now you know what to say…. just start saying it ~ even before you need it. Children feel safe when something feels familiar. Make your death story a part of daily life and when the real thing comes along they will already know the truth….. have added their own wisdom along the way and be comforted by your simple 3-part family tradition.

Share your ideas, insights, and musings in the comments!

Until next week’s worry,
Krista

This week’s WORRY: How can I lessen the morning chaos?

You’re trying to have everything set for the day before your partner leaves you and your new baby for the day, or maybe you are struggling to get your four year old to eat breakfast…. Perhaps you feel so rushed its hard to breathe, or maybe you are just grappling with a general sense of disorder in the morning…. Whatever your particular situation, you sure would love to have more peace in your morning routine.

There you are sleeping….

… laying still, silent and immersed in a deeply inward state of consciousness. As dawn approaches, you slowly, cell by cell, return to the lightening world and open you eyes…. It is a gradual and imperceptible shift….. and yet, we think we should hop out of bed and jump into light-filled action…. just like that.

Its kinda like when you take a cold pot of leftovers out of the fridge and put it on the stove. The food is cold. The pot the food is in is cold. Its just a big ball of cold cold cold-ness…. You turn the burner on and nothing happens for quite awhile. You get frustrated and turn it up to high….. and likely burn the bottom of the food and get frustrated…. kinda like morning times.

Ok, so here’s the thing:

Transitions take energy…..

When we are in the zone of an experience we flow in the stream of momentum. It is effortless and we feel a sense of ease, maybe even joy, or simplicity….. It is easy to forget the energy it took to get into that flow, especially when sometimes we are flowing between similar things… and then we hit up on these times of flow-less-ness and we wonder what’s wrong with us, or what the heck happened….. Why is it that only some transitions are hard? Well, there are lot’s of really personal reasons, but there are some universals too:

Bigger Transitions take more energy than small ones…..

…. and take extra time and care to traverse. I mean, when you are heating up fridge leftovers you’re not just taking them from room temp to warm…. that would be a lot easier…. Yes, it would still require energy, but a lot less. So what does this have to do with morning chaos? Well imagine if you woke up and took the leftovers out of the fridge and let them come to room temperature before trying to heat them up…. You might even want to put the cold food into a clean pan from the shelf instead of the friger-rater chilly one. That way you will need LESS ENERGY to make the transition. It won’t be such a big leap…. and it would feel less chaotic and more doable.

Here are the two most difficult transitions human beings ALL face daily:

1. Dawn
2. Dusk

During these times the whole world is transitioning from stillness to action and from action to stillness. Our bodies have big shifts to make (all kinds of chemical changes occur), and we wonder why things get a little hard and crazy at these times….. As a culture we drink coffee to assist our emergence and alcohol to assist in our winding down. And they can get us by….. but there is a cost.

You can make these transitions, and what follows after them, much easier by doing a few simple things:

1. be rested: go to bed early enough that you can easily wake up 2 hours before we have to leave home
2. be present and connected: take a moment to sing or recite a verse to name and honor the transition
3. break it down: identify smaller shifts within the big shift – daily morning traditions

At my house, little ones need to go to bed at 7pm in order to awaken refreshed and renewed at 7am. We big people need to be asleep by 10pm to get up happily at 7am with our children – pre school starts at 9am. We sing a little morning verse when our children awaken in our big family bed… greeting their fuzzy dreamy eyes with a song of welcome and reflection…. and a reminder that we are at an important transition into daytime…. Here is our verse. Use it or find your own:

We smile, and laugh, and tickle and talk about breakfast….. You might be tempted to skip over the verse-thing. Perhaps thinking it is dispensible….. less practical etc. But really, the verse is the most important part of this 3-part prescription. It’s the worry stone part. The part that works a little magic. Its the part that we try to do even if we don’t do anything else!

AND when we don’t do it for awhile (which is the part of doing it that no one mentions) the return is always so comforting and beautiful…. gives wandering from the path a raison d’etre….

That’s the rhythm of life…. in and out of practice….

and the returns are delicious.

Here is our list of things we do every morning. We group them into sets of three and use a little bell to initiate the doing of each:

1. morning potty
2. comb hair
3. get dressed

1. eat breakfast
2. make snack
3. get shoes on

Human beings love repetition especially when facing Big Transitions like morning time…. Having a simple verse that sets a rhythm into motion, along with enough time to be spacious, can change a battle zone into a harmonious time of family connection. It can bring our slumbering selves up to room temperature – a much more comfortable place to start the warm up of your day.

Share your verses, and traditions in the comments!

Until next week’s worry,

Krista

But I didn’t….

This week’s WORRY:

Am I working too much while my children are so young? Am I a bad mother because I WANT to work? shouldn’t I just want to be with my children all the time? Shouldn’t they be enough? Why am I so selfish? If I could wave a magic wand, would I wave away my need to work? Should want to?

This week I have been thinking about the marketplace….. images of sandal-ed feet walking through narrow isles teaming with oils and textiles, handmade trunks and rugs filling broad inviting merchant tents….. My hands fingering the contents of my bag – maybe some eggs, or perhaps jewels…. or maybe I have a cart with jars of honey, or sauerkraut….. Or maybe I carry my invisible trauma healing tools, or songs and stories.

What am I doing with this “working” thing? Where is the “I shouldn’t work?” voice coming from? I mean, didn’t women from time immemorial WORK?

Yes, women in traditional societies certainly did work! What’s different is they worked together, not always on the same thing at the same time, sometimes on their own thing near each other…..

We seem to swing back and forth between the poles of doing it completely alone and doing it all together….. with no space for ourselves. We get stuck in one for a generation or two and then shift back.

I think of a favorite quote from Phyllis Chesler writing about her experience becoming a mother, “I need to be left alone,” she writes, “By someone.” A feminist mother’s admission that becoming a mother had flavored her feminist independence….. made it a dependent independence.

Being left alone….. by someone. This is the motion of a living system, of a resilient social nervous system. So, mama gets time alone too. Her someones hold down the fort so she can. she is given space – by someone……
by someone……

Brings me back to the inherent giving and receiving of the marketplace, to the give and take of family life and the hard lesson that it is OK to receive as a mother. That I can build a tribe, a community, a village that supports me to be with and without my family…. and even when I am away, they are a part of that…. They are the fabric of my away-ness, making it possible and making it joyful to return.

This week I am learning that resilient motherhood is not about doing it alone, or perfectly, or even well….. it’s about being ok with receiving, even when I’m giving. Whether its giving as a teacher, wife or mother…..

So, here’s how I am opening up to receiving this week…..

1. I am asking for just the right pre-school for Fia
2. I am also saying yes to extra baby holding hands.
3. I am going to spend one of my “work” mornings doing something creative…..
4. I am also going to look for someone to help me with all this computer work that sucks my mama energy and get back in the kitchen which nourishes, grounds, and enlivens me…….

What are you opening up to receive? Leave it in the comments – let us all learn from each other!!!

Until next week’s worry,

Krista

This weeks WORRY:

What should I do, Oh my doG, I am soooo cold, what am I supposed to do again? My whole body aches…… but if I keep nursing on that side won’t it just make it make more milk so it will never ungorge? I feel so horrible, should I just go get antibiotics? Its not so bad, maybe I can go to work…… what am I supposed to do again? “partner-majigger” can you look it up online? MASTITIS.

I had some personal experience this week when mister-baby-head stopped nursing so much at night (yippee!!!????) and left me with a big fat, hot, streaky, engorged and oh so tender boobie. After a little more worrying, I finally surrendered and:

sent said partner-majigger to the store for:

fresh ginger clump
head of cabbage
Echinacea tincture
whole food vitamin C

and then did this:

took a long hot bath
ingested 1,000 mg whole food C and dropper of echinacea in water (twice a day is good)
WENT TO BED…… not later, not if it gets worse, but NOW
hot ginger compresses
drink drink drink
nurse nurse nurse (in different positions)
try the husband hoover maneouver
express express express (you can balance it back out later!)
magical Cabbage Poultice (in between nursing and expressing – just put a leaf on your boob to soothe inflamation)

and reminded myself:

I only need antibiotics if:

My fever is rising. OR
I am feeling progressively sicker as the hours go by.

Mastitis can turn into an infection and then an abscess, so do be careful and use your Soft Animal intuition about when to get outside help.

My recent bout flared up in the night and after a day of slowly-decreasing  bed-ridden whiney delerium, I felt the clouds break at dusk. I felt so much better I realized how sick I had been…. maybe, I wasn’t just a pathetic loser-mommie….and my mastitis had completely subsided by the next morning….. Every couple hours I felt better so I knew it was ok to avoid antibiotics, but if you do need them…… you can always recover with healing foods…… but that is another story.