So Tobias Has A Brain Threeless and I'm Pregnant
Life feels like it's speeding up--anybody else feeling this? When I say life, what I really mean is significant change.
Sure, my life has had a bunch of shifts in the last few weeks, not least of which is finding out that I'm pregnant and on track to have a small babe sometime in September, but it's everywhere.
Yesterday, I found out that an acquaintance died climbing Mt. Hood on Tuesday. I think about Miha a couple times a year and usually see him at the company Christmas party, we go dancing afterwards in a group, he's just a lovely, fun man. Then on Tuesday, out of the blue, his face pops to mind...a memory of us dancing after the last Christmas party and feeling like he was such a good spirit. The next day, Tobias tells me he's dead.
It was like a baseball to the head. What a fucking tragedy. Full stop. Where'd that one come from? Of course people die on mountains all the time, but what are the chances of an experienced climber falling on a well established route in a seasoned group? I've climbed that exact route before and found myself retracing the steps up and down the hogsback trying to visualize where he fell.
Another school shooting in Florida. Another seemingly endless debate about people being the problem not guns, but no real discussion into how to support our communities so that folks are feeling like they belong, like they have a space to be seen and recognized.
Both grandmothers are dealing with challenging changes in their health. One has cancer that is increasing in symptoms, the other has neutropenia, cause unknown.
It's difficult to find the right words in times like this, when my laundry list of challenging changes is not dissimilar to what many people are experiencing as well.
When Tobias and I were married 5 years ago by Mayan shamans in Mexico, they told us that the planet was on a trajectory to rapid divergence. One one path, the people who held the energy of love. One the other, those who chose to live in fear. Though both would simultaneously exist on the earth, it would become more polarized so that people would become almost oblivious to the parallel vibration. Almost like two realities existing side by side. The reality of fear and the reality of love.
The way they described it felt both hopeful and tragic, mostly because I was curious which vibration my family and people I love would choose.
Having lived a great deal of my life in fear because of religion, karma and culture, I also knew that a deeper part of me has always gravitated towards love. To its boundlessness. To its capacity to soothe and heal and hold anything it encounters.
I remember being on a run down Brunner Rd as a teenager, full of angst and questions about what life was to hold. As I ran, worry and wonder bouncing in my mind, I recited I Corinthians 13, feeling like somehow, the answer was there.
Also known as the love chapter, this passage speaks to the covering, all encompassing quality of completeness that comes from love. To my 17 year old self, this was a compass bearing. Regardless of what came, what changed and what fell away, this love was bigger. It held my fear and said, it'll all be ok. You may not completely understand how, but it's actually all ok, RIGHT NOW.
If I were to mind map my life from this moment back through time to discover what got me to where I am now, these words would be near the center, calling me into an embrace where I can hold myself, others, and the world with an open heart and a gentle touch.
Of course practices have developed in my life along the way--rituals and rhythms that create a vibration and space for love to flourish and take root in me. Yoga, music, meditation, dance and writing offer me a place to reflect, balance, experiment and express how love is moving me. And these practices in turn have brought relationships and friends that walk this path of self-awareness and evolution in such a nurturing and affirming way.
So when change comes to rock my world, I have a web to lean into.
Tobias has expressed that he is scared right now and feeling alot of fear and I can bend towards him, knowing that there is more than plenty love to hold those emotions and ultimately give them a place to ebb and flow into the next sensation that arises.
Trying to hold back the tides of change is a sure recipe for suffering and one that many of us know all too well. And even though I am sure that Tobias will recover from this adventure into brain threelesses, the truth is, that our bodies will die at some point. Every single one of us...and this is something that we can lean into, that we can embrace and hold with gentleness and love, knowing that change is a part of life on this planet.
Instead of pushing the changes away, I can draw them into my heart and surround them with light and tenderness, knowing that it is alright NOW. Whether my body is changing and growing new life or someone else's is growing a tumor, everything is still fine, because Love never fails. It is big enough for all of it.
So when people ask me how I am doing these days with everything going on, I honestly say, "Surprisingly well, thanks!" Maybe some folks think I'm not really acknowledging the reality of my life right now, maybe others think I'm lying, but I really am good. Sure I cry and I feel the uncertainty and the shock of the unexpected, and at the same time I have a cozy nook to cuddle into and be rejuvenated, inspired and held by.
I hold you all in the highest light, and thank you from the depths of my heart for your warmth and love during this time. May you be surrounded by the divine love that is the true nature of us all. May it bring you peace.
Aham Prema.
Sure, my life has had a bunch of shifts in the last few weeks, not least of which is finding out that I'm pregnant and on track to have a small babe sometime in September, but it's everywhere.
Yesterday, I found out that an acquaintance died climbing Mt. Hood on Tuesday. I think about Miha a couple times a year and usually see him at the company Christmas party, we go dancing afterwards in a group, he's just a lovely, fun man. Then on Tuesday, out of the blue, his face pops to mind...a memory of us dancing after the last Christmas party and feeling like he was such a good spirit. The next day, Tobias tells me he's dead.
It was like a baseball to the head. What a fucking tragedy. Full stop. Where'd that one come from? Of course people die on mountains all the time, but what are the chances of an experienced climber falling on a well established route in a seasoned group? I've climbed that exact route before and found myself retracing the steps up and down the hogsback trying to visualize where he fell.Another school shooting in Florida. Another seemingly endless debate about people being the problem not guns, but no real discussion into how to support our communities so that folks are feeling like they belong, like they have a space to be seen and recognized.
Both grandmothers are dealing with challenging changes in their health. One has cancer that is increasing in symptoms, the other has neutropenia, cause unknown.
It's difficult to find the right words in times like this, when my laundry list of challenging changes is not dissimilar to what many people are experiencing as well.
When Tobias and I were married 5 years ago by Mayan shamans in Mexico, they told us that the planet was on a trajectory to rapid divergence. One one path, the people who held the energy of love. One the other, those who chose to live in fear. Though both would simultaneously exist on the earth, it would become more polarized so that people would become almost oblivious to the parallel vibration. Almost like two realities existing side by side. The reality of fear and the reality of love.
The way they described it felt both hopeful and tragic, mostly because I was curious which vibration my family and people I love would choose.
Having lived a great deal of my life in fear because of religion, karma and culture, I also knew that a deeper part of me has always gravitated towards love. To its boundlessness. To its capacity to soothe and heal and hold anything it encounters.
I remember being on a run down Brunner Rd as a teenager, full of angst and questions about what life was to hold. As I ran, worry and wonder bouncing in my mind, I recited I Corinthians 13, feeling like somehow, the answer was there.
Also known as the love chapter, this passage speaks to the covering, all encompassing quality of completeness that comes from love. To my 17 year old self, this was a compass bearing. Regardless of what came, what changed and what fell away, this love was bigger. It held my fear and said, it'll all be ok. You may not completely understand how, but it's actually all ok, RIGHT NOW.
If I were to mind map my life from this moment back through time to discover what got me to where I am now, these words would be near the center, calling me into an embrace where I can hold myself, others, and the world with an open heart and a gentle touch.
Of course practices have developed in my life along the way--rituals and rhythms that create a vibration and space for love to flourish and take root in me. Yoga, music, meditation, dance and writing offer me a place to reflect, balance, experiment and express how love is moving me. And these practices in turn have brought relationships and friends that walk this path of self-awareness and evolution in such a nurturing and affirming way.
So when change comes to rock my world, I have a web to lean into.
Tobias has expressed that he is scared right now and feeling alot of fear and I can bend towards him, knowing that there is more than plenty love to hold those emotions and ultimately give them a place to ebb and flow into the next sensation that arises.
Trying to hold back the tides of change is a sure recipe for suffering and one that many of us know all too well. And even though I am sure that Tobias will recover from this adventure into brain threelesses, the truth is, that our bodies will die at some point. Every single one of us...and this is something that we can lean into, that we can embrace and hold with gentleness and love, knowing that change is a part of life on this planet.
Instead of pushing the changes away, I can draw them into my heart and surround them with light and tenderness, knowing that it is alright NOW. Whether my body is changing and growing new life or someone else's is growing a tumor, everything is still fine, because Love never fails. It is big enough for all of it.
So when people ask me how I am doing these days with everything going on, I honestly say, "Surprisingly well, thanks!" Maybe some folks think I'm not really acknowledging the reality of my life right now, maybe others think I'm lying, but I really am good. Sure I cry and I feel the uncertainty and the shock of the unexpected, and at the same time I have a cozy nook to cuddle into and be rejuvenated, inspired and held by.
I hold you all in the highest light, and thank you from the depths of my heart for your warmth and love during this time. May you be surrounded by the divine love that is the true nature of us all. May it bring you peace.
Aham Prema.
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