7 Random Hatha Mama Moments

1. My third daughter was born in the cul. I remember being confused when my bag of waters was bulging out of me but then Celia's head was born into the bag, under water in the birth pool in my bedroom. I will never forget the joy when she was first born. Paul was in the pool with me. He was supporting me from behind and my other two daughters were looking on. The midwife snapped pictures and I birthed my baby right on to my chest.

2. My third daughter is laying next to me in bed, breathing the sweet sound of childhood. She's nearly 5. She is still my baby. I sit with the laptop and type this out.

3. My father worked at a nuclear power plant and once when I was in highschool he came home in a paper suit after being contaminated. They had taken all his clothes and scrubbed him raw. Later, he sued them because it was the company's fault and they're team of lawyers would make my dad feel like shit every time he went to court. He would come home and say...I just want an apology. He never got one but did get a lame settlement that probably just paid their bills for a few months.

4. I saw a number of Quetzales in Guatemala. They are the most amazing birds. In fact, somewhere I have a lifetime bird list where I keep track of all the birds I've seen in the wild.

I've seen ptarmigan in Alaska and nearly every raptor in North America. In the early eighties I worked on the border of a Condor refuge and got to see a live California Condor in the wild.

5. This is my oldest daughter's EIGHTH year in the Nutcracker. I worked back stage today and will work all weekend. She's totally psyched because the winner of "So You Think You Can Dance", Sabra and the runner up from Buffalo, Neil are doing the Pasa Doble at this production.

6. I once visited a friend who was dying. I was alone with her in the room and I didn't know what to do. She was drugged and not "in" her body. She wasn't really conscious. I talked to her and then held her hand. I then started rubbing and caressing her hand and she flinched and tried to pull her hand away. I guess even unconscious she was able to get her point across. Stop touching me. I have an aunt who's biggest fear is that she'll lose her ability to communicate and someone will think it's a good idea to do some pet therapy with her. She hates animals.

7. Two days ago I was at a teacher's meeting at the yoga studio that I'm working at. I'll be teaching three classes. I can't believe it. When I choose the name for this blog, I was nervous that it might be presumptuous. I wasn't a yoga instructor, I didn't have a regular home practice. I just knew that it was where I wanted to be. And now I'm here. I just made space for it.

My new friend at Living Out LOUD shot this challenge of 7 random moments at me. Thanks Mango Mama.

Doula Joy

Today I reconnected with a beautiful couple and their new baby. I was invited to attend the birth of their daughter and they each truly touched my heart and made me better some how. I'm in general, awed by the power of birth (see my dear friend's post for a great description of DOULA) and each birth I'm honored to attend brings me closer to the divine, sweet nectar of our GOD, present in each of our hearts, made real by love and witnessed in the creation of life. I honor birth and thus am a doula. With loving kindness I want to be in this world and assist to make loving kindness present at the moment of birth. I want to lead the genuflection at the miracal and strength of women and the birth process.

Namaste' I say.

This beautiful couple has gone on to become loving and kind and dedicated parents and they teach me in the process. My world gives me so much. And I trust in all that comes into my path, open to all that God is, I make space for that, the truth.

Asato ma, Sat Gamaya.
Tomaso ma, Jyotir Gamaya.

Today I pray for Irus, Gregor and Ariel.

Training the Yogini

Saraswati the Goddess of
Creativity, Language.
Protect this thing that I’ve
Cultivated, Learned

This thing so precious, so fragile
The connection to the divine through
Art, Music, Words and Clay
You’ve taught me, the mother
Who wouldn’t choose an
Earth Mother name
Concepts, Love
That are the essence of
Being a householder.

With joy I make my house a home.

This weekend was the EIGHTH weekend of my yoga teacher training. I have two more weekends left, including the graduation weekend. This was a tough weekend. The magic is gone and now it's just grinding through. We are very busy, practicing and doing and getting things done. There is lots of reading and writing and practicing yoga. And I just want to sleep and dream and meditate and get to know my mantra, play with it. I guess there will be time for that.

The teacher training this weekend focused on restorative/gentle yoga, teaching kids, relaxation techniques and the final asanas of the series of asanas that we are using... loosely based on Sivananda but a little more flowy and feminine/receptive. During the restorative part I was reminded of my yoga practice during cancer treatment. Last year at this time I was dealing with third degree burns from radiation. I've come a long way in a year but still I can be brought right back to some of the trauma. I was telling my class about my experiences with yoga at Gilda's Club. I was bald and I would take off my head wrap during yoga and be bald. It was a bold move because I didn't go bald in public at all except during yoga. During relaxation my yoga teacher put her hands under my neck and did a nice pull and massaged my bald head and I remember the tears and the emotions from that sweet gesture. I love yoga and being in the NOW but want to find the balance between the now and healing from the effects of my past.

joyous links

When I was a freshman in college, this is going BACK now...20 something years ago. My sister came to visit me in my dorm room. We were partying and I may have ate some "bad" mushrooms and I was tripping from the effects of these "off mushrooms". (Some fungus spores can do that...you have to be very careful!) Anyway, I remember that I was going off on a thread of consciousness...spouting the idea that everything is connected. I mean everything; we are all connected by something...to something. That there are links and connection. Everything is linked together. All people, thoughts, things, animals, plants, planets and emotions. Everything is linked and everything has an effect on everything else. It was an adolescent expression, I'm sure as I had very few life experiences to bounce this concept off of. But, I got something. I understood a fundamental concept.

I may have forgotten to honor this in my life of recent and now I see it clearly. I see the connection as a connection to the only thing that is REAL. Call it what you may...God, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, Jesus, the great consciousness. THIS is what connects us and IS us. The only reality beyond the body, mind, the thing that carries on when we die...the god consciousness. This is what holds us together linked by fate and circumstances and karma and whatever you want to call it...call it the web of life. What you do, think, feel are is connected to everything.

When I first moved here I heard the name...Eileen S. all the time. Everyone I met who found out what I did (birth/breastfeeding stuff)said I had to meet this woman. Today I had breakfast with her. I have dropped into this beautiful group of woman and am meant to be here doing exactly what I am doing. Thankfully I made space for the world to simply fall into place around me. All is well.