Mom thoughts =)

Well hello there.

I'm a mom now! Baby Girl was born June 10th, at 11:11pm, after 24 hours of labor. I never anticipated that the longest day of my life so far would go by so quickly.

My little one on the way home from the hospital, at a day and a half old:

And yesterday, at 2 and a half months:

Since I had my awakening, I've run quite often into the concept of love, for myself and for others (OOOBviously). Love for myself was always difficult for me to comprehend. Not sure why. The reflective nature of "love for the self" wasn't easy. I had trouble turning inwards. And now that I'm writing and thinking about this, I realize that it's intimately linked with my difficulty in sticking to a meditation practice. Trouble turning inward. (I just had an "aha" moment when I realized the link between meditation, love for self, and recognizing God. They can all be described as "turning inward." Something so simple can show you so much, and yet it's not so simple sometimes, is it? And yet, it is O_o You're right there, after all. Just see yourself.)

ANYWAY. My point. Since my daughter was born, "Love" has become a concept I am understanding more and more. Yes, it is absolute delight in the totality of this little creature, but it's more than that, more than "delight". It's total acceptance. And yeah, you see these two words thrown around a lot. But that's because they are TRUE. My daughter shits on my hand while I've got her diaper open, I smile at her and clean it up. She won't go to sleep at 3 in the morning and I'm near tears with exhaustion and frustration, I pick her up and can't help but love how warm she is. I'm running late for an appointment because I have to feed my daughter? You can wait, my baby needs to eat. (For context, I HATE being late, no matter what it's for. But for Baby Girl, I'll make the whole world wait and not blink an eye.)

No, I didn't bring you here to sit through a diatribe about how much I love my daughter. (But yeah.....she's pretty great.) The point is, I love my daughter the way God loves me. Completely. Without judgement.

I can't help but think of Jesus when I think of this relationship. He called himself the "Son of God." People assume he meant the literal, biological "son" of God. But, that's not the case at all. He only meant that he was one small part of the whole, created by and reflecting the whole, as a child does his parents. Didn't he also say that we are all children of God? I don't understand why people ignore this.

It's also said that we were created in God's image. Yes, of course, as ENERGY. What a vain, narrow-minded race we are to think God has two eyes and a nose, lol. The patterns of energy that make up our own bodies also make up the whole of the energy of the universe. We reflect that energy, we share it, we ARE it.

Anyway, I've come to believe, or to be honest, to realize, that love is a necessary component of life. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to live. If I didn't love my daughter, those 3AM wake up calls would go unanswered because I just wouldn't care. Of course, I would MUCH rather sleep than get up again to try to figure out why she's screaming this time. But I love her. So up I get. She would be a filthy, malnourished, terrified little girl if I didn't love her. Pretty dark and scary not to be loved, I'd say. How do you think you'd get along if your mother didn't love you? If your friends didn't love you? If God didn't love you?

On a less fanatical note, there are three things that matter most to me right now; creating things, spirituality, and my daughter. So rather than keeping the three separate, I think they need to be brought together here. They make up my one life, so why keep them separate? =P

I've slacked HARD in the last 2 and a half years trying to get my Etsy shop up and running. Now, I'm actually taking more complete steps to get myself set up there. Slowly but surely. And actually taking it seriously. I don't have anything up there yet, but there are many ideas and several works-in-progress. I figure I got time, right? lol. Life is short but there sure is a lot of it to live ;)

Empty now but a couple pairs of earrings up soon: www.thesilvercord.etsy.com

love

At the center of every want, every pain, every fear, is nothing more than the desire to feel love. Love for yourself, and both from and for others. It is the most profound desire, and the only one which should be heeded.

Straightening up

The farther I go on this journey, and the stronger I get in yoga, the easier it's been for me to straighten up from time to time, spiritually and physically. The problem was, though, I had been reminding myself of the two at separate times. But then I realized, the body uses energy to strengthen itself, and it gets that energy from the reserves that you provide it. When you realize how deeply ingrained the spiritual energy is in the physical energy, the body itself, you see that raising the spiritual energy raises the physical energy as well. It is all part of the same system. I picture it as strings running all the way to my core, and then pulling outward in all directions. The energy lifts itself this way, from the core outward. Go ahead and try it.

How does it feel?

I spent the last two or three days cleaning the main two rooms of my house. We're not close to being finished yet, but already, it is the absolute best thing I have ever done for myself. All of a sudden I feel like I know what the hell I'm doing. And I've already begun to feel the effects, present and future, of this blog. And that is a very beautiful thing =)