A Mommy Alone?

Finding my Way Through  the Days When my Princesses Are With Their Daddy

What is a mommy alone? I can easily see my-self as a mommy and an only parent. The girls have been thriving since Bearded Daddy left us. Some days have been harder, yes. But the big picture looks better. A calmer, happier mommy with dancing, singing and giggling princesses. 

The real pain are the days when the Princesses are with their Daddy. What am I supposed to do? What do mommies do, when there is nothing to do? Who am I, when I'm alone? 

I've been doing my "school stuff" on the lonely days. Spent hours with the dogs and horses. Met with friends and taken long showers uninterrupted. Not too bad, one might think. Yet it's devastating. Once you give birth your heart is bound forever. I never seem to feel complete anymore with-out the Princesses. I do feel happy and proud of the things I do alone or in the company of other adults. Yet the longing remains. 

There are only a few things that have the ability to tear your soul apart. One of them is leaving your crying children in the care of someone else - even when that someone else is their daddy. Everything in your being fights, your body aches as you drag your feet away.

When there are no children, what's left of a mommy?

Beyond sadness

Something in soul transcends sorrow. Maybe it's hope, sometimes determination and unwillingness to give up. I felt better yesterday, I feel even stronger today. Come what may, I will live, laugh, love and be happy again.

There is an immanent beauty in every moment. It is present in our moments of great joy and it's there in our deepest despair. I knew to look for it and survived. During these past months there have been moments of such pain I thought I would die. I might be traumatized for life, but I'm breathing, fighting, looking forward to the next day.

There is no quick-fix recovery here. Only the solemn knowledge that every time I draw breath, I heal. Kore went to the Underworld to become Persefone - to turn from a maiden to a queen. Inanna descended to the Underworld and cheated Death. I faced my own death and underworld full of shadows and fear already once.

And there are days when the entire world seems to bring solace. When after an entire day of rain there is a sunset more brilliant than any I've ever seen illuminating the wet pines - like a forest of glittering gold. A reminder of life's beauty in the midst sorrow and pain.

A Requiem for a Dream

One of my hopeless dreams had always been having a family of my own: a few children and someone to call my own. Someone to hold when I sleep and someone to smile at when I wake up. Someone to love through hard and happy days. Someone to share my joys and pains with. Someone who could share their world with me.

I never thought that would be possible. One lonely year passed after another on my own. I was happy. I rode the forests with wind in my hair, trained wild horses and learned magic. I remember a big wedding-party we held for my dear friends. I remember dividing the women to go and paint the bride and men to paint the groom and told them to share with the to-be-wedded the secrets of joyous shared life. I stood preparing for the ritual and realized I do not belong to either world of group - I would be alone for the rest of my life. To be the one who holds the broom is to be alone, I concluded.

What a joy, when I found not-yet-bearded-not-yet-daddy who seemed to want to be with me. I was already quite old and not used to people paying court to me. I missed the little red warning signs and fell right in-love. It is easy, when someone so openly and greedily confesses his love and devotion on every chance they get.

But as the years passed, I grew disillusioned. I was desperately alone for most of the time. The more I needed his companionship the less he would be there for me. Finally I gave him back the ring I had proposed to him with and told him that I felt I was living in a front. We seemed like the perfect couple, we looked happy outside but in the in-side there was nothing at all. I told him that this needed to change for us to continue together. He got scared and soon after that began talking me over to having another child.

These past two years of being pregnant and caring for both princesses have been the most difficult time I've ever had to face. It seemed like if he had ever felt any empathy for me - the last of these feelings died. He was full of commands and demands. No more "I love you"'s but "do you really need that", "do I always have to do everything." The simplest of things turned into fights because he would not see my point or even try. His speech was full of "you have to"s. To live like we did, I would have to take more responsibility. I would have to give up on my own wants and needs - we only had money for his.

No matter how hard it got, I tried not to complain. I felt it was unfair to share his wrongs with my friends. It felt completely wrong. I knew things were going the wrong way but I kept hoping that maybe, if I changed my attitude, maybe if I gave him one more chance, if I could start a day without grudge and talk to him, he could see it. He could see me - how desperately tired I was, how in need of someone holding my hand for a little while, someone holding my side and telling others to do their part in our household.

Meanwhile he was preparing to kick me out of my home.

Eventually it was me, who told him to leave. I thought he needed to clear his head and get his priorities straight. He told me we would only be separated for "six months - maybe a year, but I see my-self coming back home" - and behind my back he was dating another woman and telling everyone else how we've been through for months already. It was not that he found someone else that made me angry. It was the fact that he continually lied about it to me. Came home to have sex with me. Grabbed me every time we saw. Had he told me right there and then that he was leaving me for someone else, I would have cried and would have been desperately sad, yes. Now I feel devastated and used.

His lies pile up on each other and his story of what has happened, how and why changes every time he talks about it. I fear that he's loosing his touch with reality. Yet even more I fear that he has always done that - always lied, always tried to come through flawless and clean. That he has never actually been present in the moments we've shared. That for him it was only a role-game that went sour when he realized he can no longer control me.

I feel like my soul has shattered to a million pieces. I do not know what to trust anymore. His world seems like a tangled web of lies. I'm left with questions that will never get answers. I'm left with a hurt so deep it will take me years to heal. I'm left with the realization that truly I will be alone for the rest of my remaining days. And that he will never see what he did wrong and that he will never even apologize. And the worst part of the nightmare is that he will be a part of my life for as long as I live. I will have to see him every second day as he picks up the girls or I take them to him. This will never be over.

This truly is a requiem for a dream - for my dream of someone I could hold when I go to sleep, someone I could smile at when I wake up, someone who would love me for who I am and someone I could love through hard and happy days. It was too good to be true - so it never was true.

An attitude of gratitude?

Spiritual storm survival guide, part 1.

What seemed to cause most pain during this break-up was my lingering hope of "getting him to understand." Over and over I tried to reach Bearded Daddy by writing or talking. He would not hear me. I told my-self that he had to see and that he would have to understand - and by doing so, didn't get it my-self.  If there had been a way to reach him, we would not be breaking up.

So instead of teaching him, I had to teach my-self. The only way to keep my nose and karma clean was to adopt an attitude of gratitude. So my meditation and scrutiny over my actions follows the method of karmic cleansing:

* Be grateful

* Act with love and compassion

* Check your motives

* Watch your attitude

* Forgive, forgive, forgive

* Don't give up

Most people don't seem to see what they are doing and how it affects other people. I can forgive them and treat them with compassion while still holding my ground firmly. Giving up anger and resentment will help me face them and my-self with compassion. I can forgive Bearded Daddy for what he is and what he does. I don't need to teach him or expect him to understand. He's probably never going to see things from my point of view nor the Girls'. To respect my own experience the only one who needs to see it, is me. From that view-point I can stand my ground without the need to prove a point, explain or complain or revenge any wrong-doings.

I can feel relieved and glad I had the years we had together. I can hold on to the gratitude I feel for having my sweet Princesses. I feel desperately sad for all the moments we could have shared during our years together with Bearded Daddy and some-what pity him for missing out. I can not choose for him nor can I be angry with his decisions. The only thing for me to do is to recognize my own needs, limits and desires and respect those. The two things I need to do are heal my-self and keep the Princesses safe.  Investing energy to anything else will be wasting it.

I can feel grateful for knowing the facts. As my beloved Sister said, knowing them gives me the possibility of choosing and deciding. As long as I was in the dark, I could grow false hope instead of determination and action. I long as I was in the dark, I could only hope and wait and blame my-self. Now I know. The bright Spring Sun is almost blinding - yet finally I see clearly. No more hope left for "us" or "family." The pain is almost unbearable but I breathe in it, pray with it and watch it turn into determination instead of guilt or blame.

I have always known I can not change Bearded Daddy. I had the idea that the only one I can change is me. And I did just that - tried to change my-self into a more suitable spouse. But without self-respect and dignity I was changing the wrong way - into less of me and more of an angry doormat.

The past six months I have been able to hardly recognize my-self at times. It seems like I have been fighting for my life and my survival as a self-respecting person. Now the fight is over and it is time to rest and heal. Let the thoughts of compassion and love flow back. I'm no longer threatened. I no longer need to be in pain, scared and panicking. I can fully see my-self and let go of the need to be seen by others.

And laying down the law can be an act of love and compassion when it is done to avoid further harm to me and the Girls.

Dealing with separation and loss.

My love-affair with Bearded Daddy had a tragic beginning - a fall of a beloved community and loss of friends on a heart-breaking scale. The first years of our life together were shadowed by the presence of my despair and agony, loss of soul and eventually depression. It took me four years to find and collect the lost pieces of my soul and become a whole person again.

There was plenty of magic at work and never have I been so happy to be a pagan. There is a multitude of books dealing with the loss of soul and recovering from trauma. Besides Starhawks Dreaming the Dark and Pagan Book of Living and Dying, I read through Caitlín Matthews' Psychic Shield and Singing the Soul Back Home and my ever faithful friend Francesca De Grandis provided me with the prayers and spells my numb soul needed to come back to life. (In her books Be a Goddess and Goddess Initiation - I've never had the honor of meeting this lady in person.)

Now I'm facing the loss again. This time better prepared by work I did previously. This time fiercely determined not to loose my life and my soul again for so many years. Yes, it is hard. Yes, I can feel the coldness of losing soul creeping up on me. Not quite being present, not quite being able to listen to people for all the inner talk going on. Loosing sense of self and the sacred flame within.

Yet it was me, who two years ago visited the underworld in a shamanic journey, found a glacier and Audhumla liking it clean. There, preserved inside the ice was - me. A huge part of my soul that had escaped during the break-up of our first home. I was the one who dug myself out, my fists bleeding, from the ice. I was the one who could fulfill and complete my-self. There in the underworld we danced and danced, until we were only one person. I came back whole and happy, finally together.

Now I'm confident with the knowledge that I will always find the pieces of me that might go missing. Some parts need to leave to be safe. The rest is tough and hardened like and old dragon. I sleep with one eye open, curled around the home and my children, protecting and guarding. I know Bearded Daddy has had six years to learn where the soft spots are, where to hurt and how to wound. Luckily I have also learned to keep them protected, learned to heal myself and like all snakes, repair the damage by being re-born.

The gift of the wild is within me - that which falls is never gone, that which dies is never lost - it is only hidden and sleeping like flower bulbs in the dark covers of earth waiting for the Kiss from Maiden of Spring. We go through our pain and suffering to come back stronger, wiser, more compassionate and ever more alive.

Am I sad? To the point of choking. Am I grieving? The world seems to darken around me. Am I hurt? I'm bleeding out. Yet within me is the wisdom and the strength needed to see this through.

The wind still blows - my blood still flows and within me the eternal song - calling my soul back home.

Surviving the Storm

I wanted to write "when shit hits the fan" on the headline. I suppose we're not there yet.

On Imbocl Bearded Daddy had an announcement to make. He was leaving. Well, technically he wanted me out of the house and out of his life. Me and the girls decided to stay and Daddy was the one who went away.

For weeks this has been too painful to write about. I have been keeping my-self busy with everything else - cleaning the house, doing the chores. Anything but thinking or writing. The analytic part in me recognizes the stages of grief: denial, break down, anger... I've been fuming with anger, crying my eyes out, rolling in despair and guilt, pleading, begging and trying to figure it out.

What has kept me up and running instead of crying and panicking is Will. I suppose this is one of those days when my true will hits the scales and is measured. Daily I keep asking my-self "what do I want?"
There are things I know I do want. I want my children happy and safe - untouched by the process of Daddy leaving and Mommy crying. I know they will me touched by it no matter what I do, but there is plenty I can and want to do right to keep them out of harms way. I want my own head and heart to come through this - if not in one piece, then in several, but I can't make grieving and bitterness my new home. They have their time, yes. But I don't intend to dwell in them.

It would be all too easy to make anger my new driving force - and some days it is. It has the absolutely great ability to get me through tough days and heartrendingly lonely nights.  But hate is like Sauron's Ring - it will turn on everything you love and make everything go sour. It is the panic-force when there is nothing else to sustain you.

Pain is a lot like fire. And right now I sit on Mother Kali's funeral pyre, watching the Goddess dance and laugh, allowing the cleansing heart-breaking fire burn away everything unnecessary, old and rotten inside me. Let the hurt come. Let the pain come. I keep pace with my breath and measure time with the dancing of the flames. This is not the first big hurt in my life nor is it the last. Living, loving and creating are all games of dare - eventually you're going to pay with the loss of what you love for all the happy moments. When you dare to love, deep down you know it will not last for everything lasts but a little while on this plain.

So I let the pain be and like the flames of the forge it burns through everything redundant and reveal my true nature and my true will. If I burn to ashes, if only charred remains are left, I let my children breathe new life in my old heart. Yet I know that the one who steps out of the flames is me, only better, more pure, more me and less a creature of habit and consequence.

I bear this in mind to keep my head straight. And when there is too much of pain, so much I want to react, I look ahead. In two years, how do I want my relationship to be with Bearded Daddy - he might not be my beloved but he will always be a father to the girls. How do I want my Princesses to grow up - tangled in a web of mixed emotions between me and Daddy or strong and beautiful. These are questions I need to answer now. These are things that will be shaped and defined right this very moment - weather or not I'm ready.

What steps out of Mother Kali's funeral pyre will either be solid gold or ashes to be cast in the wind. What the pain will make of me is a question of my Will. This is where my being will be weighed.

Whose body is this?

Becoming a mother meant giving up the mastery of my own body and becoming a temple for Creation. You'd think you get the control over your body back after giving birth. The child comes out and what's left is entirely you - yep, I would love it to be that simple.

My body has flexed and stretched in various ways - most of them not really flattering. I often feel of balance and still feel like my body is mainly a tool for someone else. It's a safe haven for Bigger Princes to climb on when she is tired or scared. It's a feeding platform for Little Princes. It is mainly needed and often used by - well just about everyone else but me.

I was utterly relieved by the words of Karen Maezen Miller in her book Momma Zen:
"For a long time after giving birth, I was sheathed in loathing and shame over my own body. You can be sure the child you deliver is yours, but the body it comes out of is not. ... I could not bear my nakedness, and I could scarcely bare my own body."


Gee! I'm not alone, I thought. Only months after giving birth to Little Princes our family went on a holiday with the in laws all the way to Tenerife. I told Daddy that I would rather drop dead than be seen in a swimsuit. I had not felt so insecure about my own body since my teen years. And I am a professional self-hater when it comes to how I look.

No amount of thinking "I can not hate the body that brought forth new life" did little to soothe the feeling of looking terrible. But I did find three things that helped.

First laughter with other mothers. It seems to be the best medicine to much of mother-hoods biggest sores. I am surrounded with loving, compassionate other mothers who are endowed with a healing sense of humor and a hearty laughter bright enough to make any self-doubt evaporate.

Second is the idea presented by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves:
"If she is taught to hate her own body, how can she love her mother's body that has the same configuration as hers? - her grandmother's body, the bodies of her daughters as well? How can she love the bodies of other women (and men) close to her who have inherited the body shapes and configurations of their ancestors? To attack a woman thusly destroys her rightful pride of affiliation with her own people and robs her of the natural lilt she feels in her body no matter what height, size, shape she is. In essence, the attack on women's bodies is a far-reaching attack on the ones who have gone before her as well as the ones who will come after her."


I can not teach my Princesses to love and respect their bodies, if I spend time hiding my own body and feeling disgusted with it. And I do look like my beloved aunt and my grandmother even - every day a little bit more. How  can I hate the body that so closely reminds me of the people I love - my own family?

And the third helping was an idea that I really need to do some spiritual work to reclaim my own body - that there is nothing wrong with it for me to say, look, I love my children and will nurse them, hold them, cuddle with them and still feel at home with my own body.

So I turned to my ever-helpful friend Francesca de Grandis's book Be a Goddess. Her prayer "A Prayer that You May Love Your Body and Be Cleansed in Spirit" worked wonders. The prayer seems to capture everything that I needed to feel at home in my own body again.

I am the Goddess's beloved.
My lungs take in Her breath.
My veins run with Her red.
Blessed are the feet
that have walked my path
of trials and pleasures.
My hands are Her hands.
I am God as surely as
I created the universe at the beginning.
I need bow down to no one
nor before any deity.
My body is Her body,
glistening with the sweat of Stars.
My tears and my sex are Her gifts;
I bestow these as I will.


Goddess within and without,
fill me with the light
that exposes evil;
fill me with the light
that evil flees from;
fill me with the light
that illuminates me in my hiding,
that I may come from hiding
and bathe in the joy of the light.

In my darkest moment I wondered about the possibility of ordering a burkha on-line to hide my figure - to hide my insecurity. So there definitively was a need for light that would illuminate me in my hiding before reaching the point of no return in my escape from being seen.

And as an after-thought - everything I deeply love - my children, my horses, my dogs - seem to depend on me to be a source of positive, assuring energy. It takes a brave, self-assured mommy to rear calm, out-going and happy kids. And it takes a calm and assertive pack-leader to manage both horses and dogs safely. (And yes, I love the Dogwhisperer). Both of these tasks are too important for me to try and cheat my way through them. And they are way too important to fail. So I have all the reasons in the world to love and respect my own body as the body of the Life-Giver, the Great Mother Goddess.

Are mommies allowed to be a little wild?

"Becoming a mother changes everything," I was told on endless occasions when I was expecting Big Princess. Well-meaning other women were inquiring when we were going to give our dog away, advising me to quit riding and hiking in the woods.

"There will be new things that are actually important" said a next-door lady after inquiring on my intentions regarding my horses. I would have quite happily ripped of her head or at least big hand fulls of hair for saying that - pregnancy hormones + someone being an disagreeable = not good.

I did (and still do) my best not to follow their advice. I rode with my beloved Uppa all the way to seven moths of being pregnant, and spent several nights during winter and spring (=freezing cold) sleeping in a lean-to. Only weeks before Big Princes' first birthday we did have to put our beloved 14 years old dog to sleep, but only a few days of mourning showed that we need a dog in the house. And by Big Princes' first birthday we found Iitu.  Before Little Princes was born we even outrageously got a second dog, Louhi.

There has always been an untamed spot in my soul. Well a huge chunk rather than a spot.  I need my share of the silent song of a forest, wading in deep snow, riding-trips and stable work to feel even somewhat like a human being. So every now and then I simply abandon my Princesses with their Daddy and run away with mixed feelings of pure joy, relief and guilt.

I suppose the idea that you need to reject everything you are in order to become a Real Mother has sunk in a bit too well. Yet I know with utter certainty that after a two-hour riding trip I will come back a better mother. A more happy and relaxed mother. A wild creature more capable of dealing with the entrapment of housework and the large-scale demands of children.

When my princesses grow up a bit, there will be a vast amount of wilderness they can explore with wild and untamed  Mommy. Sorry worried and well meaning other women - I think we're better of this way.

Celebrating MidWinter!

To day is Talvennapa - the day when the back of the winter is broken and the wheel of time begins to turn toward spring. We've had a real mid-winter storm here. Last night it snowed about 20cm and today the wind has been tossing the new snow about like a rascal child enjoying a snow fight.

As I am sit here writing the night begins to fall. Tree trunks seem to grow dark and the air itself becomes blue. The last rays of the setting sun have passed beyond the hill west of our house. The twilight will last for almost an hour.

Bigger princes is sick with some sort of pox - she's covered with itchy red spots. Here festivities will include mainly eating and watching Tinkerbell's movie. The little princes grew her very first teeth during the week before new year. Her festivities include the new found art of crawling backwards on the floor and biting into things.

I hope to steal some time to journey between the worlds sometime in the evening. These times of change seem to open up a door between the worlds. And the winter wind seems to carry an invitation to flight with her.