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.

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.