Magical Thinking

One Small Act

Sometime during the past 8 months, I have renewed two very small things that have subsequently felt like two very big things in terms of their effect on my personal joy, comfort, and general sense of wellbeing. There have been more than these two things of course, and I will mention them in this post, but these two lead the way in how unassuming they are in spite of the impact that they have imparted in the fabric of my daily living.

The first easy peasy practice that I picked up again a few weeks into Covid Reality was to reinstate making granola once a week or so. So small and simple and easy that it barely merits mentioning. But nonetheless, I find it to be immediately satisfying and grounding. I loosely go off of this recipe because it is delicious and because in general I am just scrambling and working with what I have. The grounding bit of this is not the gathering of ingredients. It is the recognition that I have everything that I need and that I can almost instantly bring the component parts together to make something else entirely that manages all at once to be both humble and satisfying.

The other small thing is that early on in the pandemic I began ordering fine loose teas. Mostly black teas, an occasional Earl Grey for Maple and Chris, an exploration of Assams and Yunnans for myself, and the occasional Oolong thrown in for afternoon enjoyment. I order teas from an importer that I was introduced to long ago by my old friends and owners of Wonder State Coffee, with whom we would place massive bulk orders and who, I think, also recognize that there are some difficulties that no amount of coffee in the world can remedy. That is the time for a hearty cuppa of rich black tea to step in, preferably with some heavy cream and local honey demonstrative of all the love and care needed to survive yet another day. It has felt luxurious and simple all at once, and I have whole-heartedly enjoyed the return of tea making and drinking back into my daily living.

Both small things, right? Making granola, making tea. But they share a common element of Hygge that feels like very much the right thing to lean into during the endless days at home that are the current life and times. They provide comfort: a bit of slowness, some sensory satisfaction. My joy at these two renewed discoveries has me thinking a lot at the power of the One Small Act, the simple, doable, daily behaviors that have the possibility of shifting our entire trajectory, simply by adjusting our state for a few moments, or minutes, or longer.

This concept draws heavily on a teaching that my dear friend and co-conspirator on the path of personal an collective transformation, Rachel Peters, taught during our in-person Practice Wellness Community intensive in Wisconsin a couple of years ago. She called it the one-degree shift. What is the one thing that you can begin to do right now that is so slight and yet is just enough- one degree- to set you on an entirely different course than had you not implemented it? It will completely change where you are headed.

There are other activities or behaviors that I have implemented this year with this principle in mind. Daily meditation is certainly one. I have meditated with more regularity and frequency over the last eight months than I have in my entire life of practice. And this practice has shifted me. But it continues to be a daily choice and that is perhaps the aspect of it that is spilling over with more potency into other aspects of my life. I think that the concept of choice is central. There are choices that I make that dead-end me in terms of the subsequent choices that are born out of the initial one, and vice versa. And I want to make the choices that open doors, not the ones that predetermine me toward other, not so life serving choices. Examples of this are obvious, I hope, but to name a few… I am more served by the decision to not drink and to sleep more. To move my body and breath in big and meaningful ways and then to be still and quiet when it is time. To eat good food and to invest my time in the fresh air and sunshine. To wash and care for my body in loving and kind and life-serving ways. To make granola and hot tea for myself and my family. To write. To read. To orient myself around inspiration. To make my eyes new every day so that I can see the wonder of it all again for the first time. Like a toddler. Waking up to the world.

You see? My choice. Your choice. Especially during a time when the freedom and agency of so many of our choices are on the line. Maybe I am leaving this here as a reminder to myself. That One Small Act is sometimes the most Radical Act that we can make toward effecting meaningful and lasting change. In our own lives, yes. But I think that it is more than that. And that our agency to choose must be called to that. The impact of each little gesture, decision, shift, is affecting so much more than just our small sphere. If we are learning anything during the time of Covid let it be that: we are connected, that we matter, that our choices matter. Every small, little, everyday act, perhaps even more than any big and sweeping, potentially unsustainable gesture. Our sphere of influence is potentially vast. I want to live in that awareness.

*edited to say: listen. I know that I have been kind of emphasizing this whole thing around abstaining from drinking and to a lesser extent social media in the last couple of posts. But I want to be clear, I really have no moral thing around it. And I don’t think that I believe in any sort of absolutism- unless we are talking about the fact that the Republican Party is corrupt to its very core and that Donald Trump Has Got To Go… In general, I tend to think that my psychology does poorly with any sort of hard and fast rules and that the rebel in me, well, wants to rebel. Really it is just that I am noticing the way in which these activities make me feel like I am forfeiting an aspect of my freedom around choice. And also they sometimes make me feel like I am slowly poisoning myself. But look. Everyone is different. And everyone responds differently to different stimuli. This is in no way meant to be taken as some kind of dogmatic dispensing of judgment. Ok? Ok.

updating perspective

I haven’t been writing much lately. All of the days bleed into each other and more often than not I am engaged in some feeble attempt to distract myself from my nerves and anxiety at the uncertainty of this stretch of months. My thoughts often feel jumbled and scattered and clear insight is not keeping regular company with me these days.

My days are enjoyable enough. Filled with many things that I am grateful for and love wholeheartedly. But they are all so much the same that even my connection to gratitude for this life slips and falters. My friends seem to echo a similar sentiment. We are ok. But fatigued. So fatigued. And as much as I am trying to be mindful in these well-worn choices that make up these repetitive days, I am also subject to my own subconscious habits and tendencies, however sabotaging or not that they may be.

I have been shifting things a bit over the last month or so. I have been taking a break from drinking, maybe forever, in an effort to be in more conscious choice with my regular behaviors and not just pour a glass of wine or crack a beer because that is what I do in the evening. I have also been shifting the time of day that I meditate each day in an effort to not let that opportunity slip away because of being inconveniently placed. I now wake up and hand Wilfred to Chris (or Chris hands coffee to me or some combination of the two) and then head back upstairs for a seated practice as opposed to trying to squeeze it in during a nap and feeling guilty that I am stealing my attention away from eider’s home education. I’ve also been making a point to nap both days of the weekend, which I sadly missed today, and now am feeling the deep fatigue of the day’s earlier decision.

One of the things that I am convinced would support me in cultivating more ease within each of these days would be to limit my time on Instagram. I have a timer set that keeps me at an hour or less in a 24 hour period, but even still. Opening the app has essentially become a tick that lives in my body and not in my mind or heart and after that unconscious choice is made I am immediately removed from any additional choice by the content that waits for me there. Things that seem relevant or important in some way and are really no different from the clouds moving across the sky.

I finally did delete the app this weekend, albeit somewhat reactively. I had posted a picture to my stories of Chris getting a flu shot with a little reference to not having gotten one before but deciding to this year, blah blah blah. I had done something similar a few weeks ago when Maple and Eider got theirs and it was no big whoop so I figured the same thing here. Not so much. Total shit storm of comments and questions, primarily along this line: Why are you deciding to get the flu shot this year?

OK. Before I continue, I just have to be clear that in general, I am not at my best right now. And I tend to think that the same is true for most of us. We are uncertain and scared, lonely, and tired. And many of us, in many different and yet interconnected ways, spend an unprecedented amount of time and energy right now terrified that we may soon be stripped of the agency and sovereignty we have over our own bodies. It’s a tough time. People are dying. And the upcoming presidential election feels like it has placed the very soul of our country on the line. I am trying to keep this in mind and do my best to lead with as much empathy and compassion as possible for both myself and everyone else.

Sooooo. Having gotten a little bit of space from my surprise at how bold people are in asking personal questions on social media, I will do my best to do what I have always endeavored to do. Answer honestly, authentically, and with what is hopefully an effective balance of boundaries and vulnerability.

My family does not usually get flu shots. In an average year, I choose to focus on building immunity through foods and herbs and fresh air and activity and rest. This year… not an average year. And while we are still doing all of the immune building work per usual, I do think that a global pandemic is reason enough to adjust our family’s flu shot perspective. It needs an update this year. It is about more than just us and our health and how fine or not we may or may not be if we get sick with the seasonal flu or with COVID. And part of this update is about a community contract that we feel is important all of the time, and right now more than ever. And if the flu shot helps more folks skip an extra bought of illness this year, then I am more than happy to participate in that effort. Seems best to be managing for one less illness if at all possible, especially considering that each sickness brings another into question.

Which somehow leads right into the next question, kind of a 2 parter: Will you have your family vaccinated if a COVID vaccine becomes available, and oh yeah, wtf anyway vaccines?!?! Mmmmkay.

So, first. Absofuckinglutely once there is a safe and well-tested vaccine available for COVID-19 we will all be getting vaccinated. And here is the deal. I am not anti-vaccine. I never have been really. I do choose to follow a delayed schedule for my kids, some shots I wait on longer than others, but for the most part, I eventually ask that they get them all. I will still wait a while before beginning Wilfred’s vaccines, and then we will begin on a spread out and delayed schedule. And this is exactly what I mean by updating perspective. Vaccines, and the culture around vaccines and parenting has changed radically in the 15 years that I have been a parent. Vaccinating was incredibly taboo and often discouraged in the community of our early parenting years. And not without what was at the time incredibly compelling information. Now, there is more transparency and accountability around ingredient lists than there was when Maple and Eider were new, there is also new science that has debunked and put certain concerns to bed. There is of course still an inherent risk associated with vaccines, but no more so than there is with most anything. And we must choose to weigh for ourselves the risk versus the reward, but I do believe that vaccines are one of the miracles of modern medicine and that we are living through a time that only affirms that.

But listen! I have had to update, and update yet again over the course of two decades, my perspective on this. I have had to research, and then research again, to make sure that my perspective holds water and is not antiquated and out of date. That is how it goes. And as far as I can tell, that is how this whole being human business goes as well. We have to repeatedly be updating our perspective in order to prevent getting stuck somewhere that doesn’t serve us or the community or the culture or the planet. And as much as this makes so much sense, I also know that change is hard, especially when it comes to our beliefs, and staying in a space of receptivity to the possibility of on-going change, in a world in which we are being asked to update our perspectives continually, is downright hard, and at times straight-up exhausting.

But y’all. This is what it means to be awake. This is what it means to live an examined life. This is what it means to debunk the status quo over and over and over again. And if the world we are living in currently is not evidence of this necessity, then good grief what is it going to take? It is time to update our perspectives. It is ok to change our position on things. It is ok to admit that we were wrong back when we didn’t have all of the information. And even if we don’t yet have it all because we probably never will but at least we have more and that means that our perspective deserves an update. And I’m not just talking about vaccines and the flu shot anymore now am I?

All of this and more got me to do what I have been moving in the direction of doing for months and just delete the gd app. Not permanently. No. I still occupy that space. Just right now I am trying some different boundaries and keeping things on my terms. I’ll drop in and then bust out. Leave a little baby, yoga, yarn, vermont, body oil, puppy love and then dash back out. We’ll see. Maybe that will be the update in balance and boundaries that I am needing. TBD.

changing

I have written a lot in this space about identity and how many different identities often make up the whole of one person. I have thought, at length, about the ways in which certain aspects of ourselves can sometimes feel at odds with other parts and vice versa. About internal conflict, or the pull in one particular direction that can feel like it negates the longing of another part. It’s complicated. And I think, as we each try to know ourselves with greater and greater accuracy, it can quickly become infinite shades of grey as some parts want one thing and the next part wants the opposite.

I am not certain, but I don’t think I am here to talk about that tonight. I think I am here to talk about fundamental change. Or maybe evolution. And I am going to stop right there because I have been around long enough to know that sometimes the sense of deep identity change is more often a neglected aspect of self acting out as a means to be seen. It can be near impossible to tell the difference, especially when you are in the thick of it. And let me just be the millionth person to say, that we are all in the thick of it.

I am trying to pay attention and practice discernment. I really am. And either I am completely disconnected and deluding myself- possible- or something is shifting, more than per the seasons, and maybe even more than per COVID. But in all honesty, that seems like it could be really hard to gauge.

I think that I am in no way alone in this current soul searching. It seems like it may actually be weird for a great deal of personal considering to not be happening right now. But perhaps that is a little presumptive on my end… and really, I am not in any way qualified to speak too much to that.

For me, it has been an easy and slow shift. I like this, I don’t like that. My enjoyment of the outcome justifies my dislike of the many parts of the process. And so on. I have been getting clear on some things. And slowly, and with some trepidation, admitting others. Until sooner or later, a part of me that once felt robust and everlasting is atrophying and dropping away.

And this is what it looks like to me right now. Or, I suppose, what feels most true:

I do not enjoy teaching yoga online.

At least, I do not enjoy a single part of the process of making prerecorded content for online use. Not the planning, not the setting up, maybe a little bit the teaching- to maybe no one- not even remotely the editing and multi-day process of uploading, and not the formatting and relocating to a useable landing space. I basically hate all of it. Yep. Once again with feeling: I fucking hate teaching yoga online.

LOL.

I'm sorry. Are you still here?

Cuz that is not entirely true. Interestingly enough, I love taking online classes. Or maybe it is just the access to teachers that I have only been able to see after managing extensive logistical and travel over the last near two decades. I am eating it up. Practicing more, and with greater focus and curiosity than I have in years. And in many ways, it has felt so good to just stand firmly in the seat of the student after having occupied the one of the teacher for so long. I have always been a little tentative about that seat and myself, truth be told.

OK. And hold on a sec. Before I go any farther, let me just be clear that I love teaching. And I miss it. And when the chance arises again, and I sincerely hope that it does, to teach to rooms full of moving, breathing, living, human beings, I am going to do it. I am. But in the meantime, I am going to let some of that go more dormant for me so that I can feed the parts of myself that have my attention, that feel good, and that do not kick me into a spiral of resentment and self-loathing.

So, what does that look like? Well, first off, I love teaching with Sam Rice and Rachel Peters. I feel beyond grateful for my work with them. They inspire me, they keep me in check, and they help invite the best parts of myself to step forward. It is 100% my intention to keep a regular rhythm with steady and seasonal Practice Wellness Community programs throughout the year. (Now is as good a time as any, to say that our next program begins a week from tomorrow, Tuesday the 6th. It is a 6-week community-based practice program, complete with Live weekly calls, meditations, and practices. You can find information about Steady at hOMe and register here.)

Also, I am loving the work of my Beautycounter business. It is inspiring and also straightforward and chock-full of the business mentoring that my entrepreneurial spirit has been longing for for years. I love the people that I work with in that world and I love the way that I do not have to be very tech-savvy and I love the take it or leave it attitude that is sometimes so challenging for me to access in the yoga world. And it is collaborative. I think that is for real the key for me. Shit can feel really lonely right now and recording a class in my basement to quite possibly nobody is not doing that part of me any favors. I like to learn and I like to grow and I really enjoy the clear way that this little- not so little- biz is feeding that for me these days.

What else? I want to spend more time writing. And continuously on repeat presence myself over and over and over again with myself and with my people. That’s it. That’s what I want to do. My time is my currency and I want to use it wisely. And meaningfully.

What this means right now is that these are the places you will find me engaged: PWC for any live yoga teaching. On my mat as much as I can be with Christina and Darren. Chatting cleaner, safer skincare. Writing. Home Educating. Playing. Making. Exploring. Being.

But there aren’t any other programs coming from me any time soon. I will get the Mama’s LOP up once I am through the slog of content building. (I do really believe in this offering which is good news for me weathering the slog). I will possibly find some inspiration to bring other offerings into being, but it is more likely that I will work with Sam and Rachel to pull together our existing and future content into a living channel or other accessible venue. Most likely, Mentorship is on hold indefinitely. Going dormant until it feels like an authentic and inspiring offering again.

Wow, what a long-winded update. Per usual. Thanks for sticking with me. I really do look forward to connecting however we can. In the meantime, please be well. Take care of yourself. And when you find that to be more difficult, please reach out. And please, please, please, VOTE.

fall dry out

As much as I am always hoping for a long and endless summer, it seems that the plan this year is instead an early fall. Which is beautiful, and cozy, and, incredibly dry. After an unusually dry summer, the beginning of this fall feels even more perilously dry than is typical. And, while much of the country is burning right now, in this apocalyptic reckoning that we are having as a nation within the immense reality of global climate change, I am, for now, going to turn attention toward how I respond to this seasonal dry out in the physical body and leave how best to respond to the planetary body to the folks who we should be taking our lead from right now in more ways than one: SCIENTISTS.

So that said, I am going to go a little bit off-script for this post and talk about skincare. I mean, maybe that is off-script? I hope not. For the most part, I feel like this space has just served whatever has my attention at the moment, and right now, as with most seasonal transitions, my attention is on wellness. And really, wellness has been on my mind steadily since March. How ‘bout you?

My doorway into the importance of skincare in overall wellness was, like a great many things in my life, through hatha yoga. Yoga led me to Ayurveda, which made clear to me in really accessible ways, the way in which the body is a mirror not just of the inner environment, but the outer environment as well. I am going to pause right here though to say: this is not an Ayurveda post. While this wisdom informs many of my personal lifestyle and wellness choices, I am by no means an expert. However, I am happy to point you in the direction of someone who is. Just ask!

So skincare. Specifically, skincare and wellness and oils. Again, gotta pause for a click. I am not sharing about essential oils here either. I have mentioned my use of them in the past, and I think they are awesome, yet incredibly personal and, occasionally, a little bit controversial. So! This is not that!

Gah! Skincare. Ok.

The transition of summer to fall, in many climates, is one from damp and warm to cool and dry. And often windy as well. Which, can really stoke the heat of summer in a way that burn the fire too hot. So hot that it can burn off all of our internal juiciness which can lead to an extra dry climate inside- one that before long is stagnant and slow to utilize its natural cleansing capabilities. The aim for navigating the transition for fall with ease should be to keep things mobile without losing our groundedness. Too damp and then we are heavy and sluggish and slow. Quick to break out or get sad or both. Too dry and we risk sadness of another sort. Disconnected and adrift and, dare I say, disenfranchised.

When the temps dropped this last week, and the mountain breezes began to pick up and turn dry, the very first thing I reached for was an oil. This is a beautiful oil that I use all year long, but that I begin to really lean into when the dryness starts to settle in. I will often use it as my moisturizer on its own, but more often than not I will mix it in with another moisturizer to uplevel hydration.

The next thing I make sure I am doing more of is cleansing with oil every time I wash my face. The cleansing balm, an oil-based superpower multitasker, is actually the first of two products that lured me into the Beautycounter world. (the other is the overnight resurfacing peel, obviously. lol) And while I still use the balm on the regular, when it comes to washing my face, I almost exclusively use this cleansing oil, and now, as the seasons change, especially. I love the shift, both internally and externally, that the simple act of washing my face creates but I definitely cannot afford to strip my skin of any moisture. This helps me gently cleanse away impurities without wiping away the lipids my skin so desperately needs.

I also immediately reach for a great Nasya Oil. Say what? I think at this point most everyone has heard of Neti, and for me, the two go hand in hand. Because what do you do after you cleanse? You treat and hydrate! Nasya is basically a nice snort of oil up your nose, sometimes “medicated” with herbs, and other times just oil is fine. This one is my go-to hands down. Bonus that it is made by a long time mama friend- think ogbb moo moo- and a current Beautycounter team member. Also, it bears mentioning here that Ayurveda is big on oiling your orifices, all of you orifices, to insulate and protect not just your immune system, but your nervous system as well. We try to make it a habit at our house of for sure oiling our noses and our ears, and well, the rest it’s kinda like an honor code thing. K? K.

In terms of heavy-hitting oils, a couple of times a week I try to make sure that I do a full-body self oil massage, called Abhyanga in Ayurveda. I have a massive bottle of Sesame Oil from Banyan under my bathroom sink that I funnel into an old 2oz tincture bottle on my counter for ease and accessibility and then massage into my still damp from the shower skin. I also love to treat my bod to this oil. Some folks put in on after dry brushing and let it sit and absorb for a while before showering it off and I am just gonna say that I do not have the patience to clean out drains full of rancid oil. More power to you if you do but I gave up that practice when I was pregnant with Eider and literally all that I could smell was our drains. Um, BARF. But, please, you do you and zero judgment from me. Seriously.

Oily body massage is something that I have done on all of our babes for the first few years of their lives- read: as long as they will let me. It is one of my favorite parts of each day and I swear Wilfred is my cleanest baby by far simply so that I can maximize the amount of that time that I get to spend with him. So warm and quiet and gentle and sweet. And really the perfect transition from tub to bed, in my opinion. This is the oil I am using on him, and often I’ll massage some into my feet while I am at it. Like I said, maximize. I love this oil though. Super hydrating without being in any way heavy or greasy. It is also my favorite gift for new mamas and babies.

In terms of body balms, I am huge fans of the melting body balm- it smells truly incredible and melts into oil, as well as the baby daily protective balm. I use the melting balm to manage all of the handwashing (keep washing your hands!) and more so now than even a week ago as fall kicks into gear. The baby balm has been my go-to for every skin maladie for Wilfie, from cradle cap to eczema to diaper rash to, most recently, scar mitigation. Two total heavy hitters. Without actually being heavy…

Alright, and last but by no means least, I have to include lip hydration. This has always been more akin to life or death feeling in the winter- ok obviously exaggerating but you know what I mean, right? How many tubes of lip balm have you found in coat pockets at the beginning of the season? Or not found in coat pockets and then had to emergency purchase while you were out? The suffering of dry lips is freaking real and I completely disagree with anyone who even attempts to tell me otherwise. Nope. Not a thing- For the last year or so, I have included lip hydration in my morning and evening skincare routine, reaching for a moisture packed lip gloss or conditioning lipstick in the morning and my absolute favorite balm at night- which was a part of Beautycounter’s Holiday Sets last year and fingers freakin’ crossed it makes a comeback this year cuz I’m down to the nub.

OK y’all! Thanks for sticking with me if you did. I know that this could maybe seem a little off-topic, but for me, this folds right into everything life of practice and wellness not to mention earnestly and wholeheartedly sharing what I love and what I have found to work well for me and my family. I really do believe that deep self care- physical, mental, and emotional- is a radical act of self-love. And that it is these small, daily, loving, and conscious acts that have the power to shift not just our state of being, but also to shift the narrative toward one that is connected and unified and ready to stand up in the face of inequity and injustice with purpose and humility. Take care of yourselves, friends. The world needs you. We need you.

homeschool details (grade six edit)

Yesterday, one their way home from Eider’s mountain biking group, he asked Chris where his favorite place that he’s ever lived is. And Chris said, honestly, it’s probably here. It’s beautiful and as much as we may feel isolated right now, that he likes Vermonters. Yeah, I can see that, was Eider’s response. So Chris asked if he liked Mount Horeb the most so far and Bear’s response was simply that he had felt really well connected there and like he had a great friend group. Such a simple answer. But without any charge at all and to me emblematic of a simultaneously subtle and huge shift happening for him.

I think I have shared before that Eider, while very social and outgoing, can also tend toward the melancholic. I watch this in him. Sometimes with worry, and at other times with frustration, but always with a lot of empathy. No matter who you are, adolescence can be rugged, and navigating big life changes- a cross country move, a new brother, a global pandemic, to name a few- in the midst of what can already feel like enormous change, well, it can be a lot.

I have been worried. I have been trying to figure out what I can do. I have wanted to get something right for him. He was just starting to make some friends and feel some hope in connection in his new home when we all turned within. He went from a little floundering to out and out sad. I mostly shut down homeschooling for him around April. We did the bare minimum. Which was… not much. I let him retreat into his xBox for a couple of hours every day, thinking that at least there was some semblance of connection for him there with people outside of our small family bubble. It hasn’t been my best parenting move, but also by no means my worst. I am definitely in some stage of internal negotiations with myself around how much video game time is beneficial in terms of respect and honoring and development of my son vs how much is aggravating already strong tendencies within him that lean toward frustration, anger, sadness, and well, melancholy.

So, anyway, I have been watching. I have also been scrambling to find a plan for this fall that is both honoring as well as inspiring and tends his natural curiosity, intelligence, and creativity. I do not know if it is for me or for you, but I am going to share some of the details of what we are doing right now. Because, honestly, not to jinx anything, but it feels just right. And if the little moment of conversation around place that Eider and Chris had is any indication, and I believe that it really is, a shift is happening for him. He is beginning to feel a new and real spark of inspiration and dare I say hopefulness rise up and I am starting to see it spill out. More than I have since the beginning of Covid- that is for sure. But I think just maybe more than I have since the month or so before we drove with all of our animals, and people, and stuff away from North Third Street some 15 months ago.

A quick note on mountain biking before I jump into the specifics of curriculum and schedule. Eider is riding three afternoons a week with The Stowe Mountain Bike Academy. He did a little bit with them in the summer. And that was great. Great enough to entice him into further participation. However, there were enough out of state kids there to make him nervous at best and out and out stressed at worst. It is easy enough to practice distancing on trails and bikes, pulling up masks any time they stop for some instruction. But now, with just local- and quite a few newly local- kids in his small group, I think he feels easy, and excited, and inspired. He is loving these afternoons on the bike in ways that he never has before. He is coming home lit up in a way that I haven’t seen since a victorious lacrosse game, or a thrilling orchestra rehearsal. I am beyond thankful for this experience for him right now and I see it’s potential to only build for him as well as the way in which it is rooting him in his new place in such a way that perhaps nothing else could have. Or at least not with this particular poignancy and grace. And tell you what, it is much different to say yes to time on the xBox when your kid has been stretching himself on his bike all while spending meaningful time in nature. He even said that they had to scrap a plan to session a particular bit of trail when they happened upon a black bear. Cautiously observing for a bit before quietly finding a new place to skill build.

I

Love

This

(Also, a note to me. Right now as I work on this, Eider has brought his violin downstairs to do his practice for his family, something that doesn’t happen much these days. Most days he is in his room during one of Wilfred’s naps playing with his mute. Anyhow, it is amazing, and wow has he improved since the last time we were lucky enough for a family concert.)

Alright, so, some nitty-gritty curriculum details. Grade Six Style.

Two pieces of important information right off the bat: I am not a fan of many curriculums, and certainly not ones geared toward an entire grade. I am hodgepodge to be sure. Also, Vermont’s homeschool standards are ridiculous to navigate, especially coming from Wisconsin which is at the opposite end of the spectrum. I can see the pros and cons of both. Much of what I am going to include here is what I had to submit to the state August first. Sort of. lol.

Math: This is an easy place to start because we have a bit of a if it’s not broken don’t fix it mentality with math. It was a nightmare for us for years, basically, I get very bad at teaching anything beyond 4th-grade mathematics, so, thanks to a recommendation from another homeschool mama, we have been using Mathhelp.com ever since Maple was in 5th-grade math. Other than their, at times, difficult customer support, I think that it is a great program. Thorough without being overwhelming. In my experience, most homeschool kids always think that they are behind at math, and when Maple went to eighth-grade last year, a little nervous about this to be sure, she found that instead she was a little bit ahead and well enough equipped to add a second math to her schedule for the year.

Literacy/Reading/Writing: As I have discussed at length before, and no doubt will continue to for the foreseeable future, both Maple and Eider are Dyslexic. We had a phenomenal tutor in Wisconsin who used the Orton-Gillingham approach to great success with both of them. That said, there is no easy fix when it comes to dyslexia and more often than not it is a lense that affects all aspects of not just learning, but knowing as well. At this point, we use hardly any workbooks- thank goodness- save one. And that is the Explode The Code Phonics series. We have found these to be both doable and useful in a progressive way that doesn’t contribute to Eider feeling crappy about himself. Which is, in my opinion, the far more worrisome obstacle to navigate for dyslexics than delayed reading.

We also use Brave Writer programs for much of our reading, writing, and grammar study. This will be our second year using the Arrow guides for a monthly novel selection. I cannot really speak highly enough about these materials and the approach in general. They utilize a read-aloud approach, which is a backbone to our home learning culture, as well as copy work and dictation and a book club approach to learning spelling, grammar, and literary devices. This year, we are also adding Brave Writer’s Partnership Writing program which explores a different writing project each month. This month we began with Secret Codes. Additionally, we do a free-write each week, sometimes just a few fantastical sentences, other times a letter to a friend, and we also have Poetry Teatime once a week. Both of these are concepts gleaned from what I have learned from Julie Bogart of Brave Writer.

Also worth noting. This is the heft of our homeschool. We are, more or less, a humanities and literature family. Not so much a science or math family. We read. We listen. We talk. That is a huge part of our family culture. And it works well for us. I also really believe, in the words of Sarah Makenzie from the Read-Aloud Revival, if you are reading and having meaningful discussions, that is enough.

Science: Like I said, not really a sciences family. Or, more accurately, we are more drawn to the natural sciences than we are things like Chemistry and Biology, and more than anything, I am not one to force learning in a direction in which there is scant interest. I have learned that the hard way. More than once. Eider was in a couple of STEM classes last year with a local homeschool group and that was great, took the pressure off of me for sure. But that is not happening this year and I am not really interested in finding him something online. Last year, until Covid shut it down, he was in an outdoor program with Earth Walk Vermont. This, among other things, offers a great natural history education. We are hopeful that there will be something with them able to start up again in the coming weeks, but that is, of course, uncertain. It seems doable though, as they exist entirely outside, rain, shine, or snow.

So, at home for science this fall, we have decided to focus on birds. Simple and lovely. We have pulled out a book that we loved several years ago called The Wind Masters: The Lives of North American Birds of Prey, and in conjunction with The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, we are slowly and gently exploring birds, looking up any questions that arise and watching videos of various bird behaviors.

I also have him listen to Radio Lab kids a few times each week. Often the topic is something science-y, or cultural, or historical. I love this, along with a whole bunch of other podcasts that I will try to include here.

History: This is a big one. Eider actually loves History a ton and as much as the State of Vermont wants us to focus at this age on Vermont’s History, and we will, by taking advantage of the now online monthly programs available through the Vermont Historical Society, Eider also has a keen interest in World History. So we are digging deep and exploring 2 texts that I have had for several years: The Human Odyssey, 1400-1914, and 1914- through the present. We are also paying special attention to Black American History in our reading as well as our listening. We just completed Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You. This was a great introduction to what I hope will be, what really must be, a forever conversation. We also just finished listening to the NY Times 1619 Podcast and I think that continuing to utilize the podcast platforms for this particular type of educating of ourselves is ideal. Another podcast that Eider listens to each week is This Week in History. I highly recommend this as well as What You Missed in History Class. Both are excellent at exposing the histories that were certainly absent in my middle and high school education.

Arts: Our focus here is the Violin and Music Study. He continues to study classical music in the Suzuki Method, just recently previewing the first piece of Book 4, which feels like a very big deal. Seitz! Orchestra looks like it is off the table right now, in addition to any fiddling groups, but we are keeping the faith none the less.

We are also practicing drawing birds each week that feels fresh and low-risk. No big visual arts project at this point but some attention toward a particular medium. I am into that. When my sister visits in the next month, the two of them will do some tie-dying which is absolutely Eider’s speed.

Health: OK. This is awesome. Eider and I are reading It’s Perfectly Normal, and I highly, highly recommend this to everyone. I only wish that I had known about this particular series earlier, but I will start them off with Wilfred when it is time for sure. It cover’s literally everything, so, forewarned. We are a talk about it all family and it can still get a little edgy for us. I am into it. I am also trying to get Eider into the kitchen more by making something new, start to finish, each week. This week we made a fruit galette. Yum.

Jeez, are you still reading? I know that there are a few more subjects that I was supposed to submit on, but all I can remember right now is P.E. which personally I think is dumb and remember how I said that Eider is having a ball on his Mountain Bike? So, yeah, that.

As ever, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, or have something that has worked awesome for you that I need to know about. But this is what I’ve got today. Thanks for reading!

xxx,m

edited to say:

For whatever reason, writing this post not only took me 2 days but also totally took it out of me in general and I kinda scrambled to wrap it up. Something that I failed to mention at the time(s) of writing, has to do with schedule. We are, for the most part, setting aside 2 hours each weekday for homeschool. Not including violin practice or lesson, and sometimes including, but most often not, working through his list of podcast listening for the week. This schedule bit applies to me as well, and I am trying to get better on how I use my time as well. More boundaried with a better plan. Maybe I’ll share a bit about that soon as well.

not sustainable

On our first full day back in Maine, for the second time this summer, I was called by Maple’s school to let me know that I had until 3pm to decide if she would be doing the hybrid in-person school option that the district is attempting this year, or if she would be enrolling in the Vermont Virtual Academy for the entirety of her ninth-grade school year. I think that I have been plenty vocal about sharing my difficulty in navigating these decisions and hopefully, my concern for everyone else navigating similar ones has been clear as well. It has not been easy. When I took Wilfred into the doctor for his one-month checkup, I leaned hard into what she had to say regarding her impressions and opinions regarding the upcoming school year. She definitely expressed her doubts at the inconsistencies in monitoring actual viral exposure as well as managing for risk. But she also said that I could just let the school decide for me, that most likely the kids would be sent home sooner or later. This is really what I had been thinking and I was personally prepared to send Maple but also ready her for an inevitable return home.

When she decided that she was going to take the spot in Vermont Virtual Academy, I was both stunned and profoundly relieved. Relieved in part simply due to the clarity that she expressed in her decision, she said that at this point, as much as she misses the kids and the teachers, that she is much more interested in diving into her academics without disruption as opposed to navigating a hybrid and precarious in-person option. Y’all, I know that my 14-year-old is a bit of a unicorn in this regard. But she is driven and focused and determined to meet her academic goals.

So, home she is. Classes for the Virtual Academy begin on the 14th, a week later than the public schools, so that the kids can have a full week orienting to their platform and schedules and the functionality of their systems. I would be completely amiss if I didn’t articulate how relieved I am by her decision as well as grateful for our capacity as a family to support a fully home-centered life.

Which brings me to what the actual hell with homeschooling. Just kidding. It is not as bad as all of that. Maple and Eider are just radically different kids and where Maple is driven, Eider is often more distracted, or rather, more acutely interested in the world of video games. This is a hard one for me personally, as well as for both Chris and me as parents. Our kids didn’t have any media exposure at all for the first 7 or 8 years that we were parents. We didn’t even have an actual TV until just about 2 years ago. So, it is not exactly in context within the culture of our family to be gamers. Honestly, I kinda cringe and gag a little bit just typing out the word.

And yet and yet and yet… Who the f am I to shame him for wanting to do something he loves but that I don’t understand? So long as he is safe and also getting outside and moving his body, then what, really, is the problem? If he is kind and respectful and engaged, then I think I can probably relax my grip a bit. I know I have some personal triggers around this, but that is my shit to work with, not my kids.

Sometimes I have to take a giant step back and remember that this same little boy who loves to play video games also loves to play his violin, loves to ride his bike, and loves to play team sports. And sadly, for him and many kids like him right now, contact-based team sports are off the table along with group music opportunities. Which is a particular kind of sting when piecing together what exactly homeschooling looks like for us this year.

For Eider, homeschooling must involve a lot of engagement. Which is rough when it is mostly just mom that the kid gets to engage with. Every year I am adapting and adjusting our approach, and this year is no exception, just made rougher by the circumstances surrounding a global pandemic. To state the obvious. Additionally, I have quite a few hats on my head other than mother and homeschool mother, and our household depends in part on my capacity to keep those hats in place. So, this year, as of right now, I have devised for myself a pretty unsustainable schedule. I think it is going to work for a while and when it no longer does, which is more inevitable than usual, I will adjust. I just need to try not to disappear.

What I have done differently this year is to make more of a hierarchy of needs. Put the hats in order, so to speak. First, it’s gotta be mom. 3 kids. One is a high schooler, navigating big shit for the first time. One is a sensitive middle grader who is struggling acutely with loneliness as well as some inertia. And the third is the busiest and most danger prone adventure-seeking toddler that I have ever known. So, mom first. Then comes homeschool mom. Like I said, engagement for Eider is everything. In years past, I have set out to do a certain set of things each day/week and then move onto the rest of the day upon completion. This year, however, I am approaching it more in relation to time and purpose. So, we will take 2 separate hours on most days, 8-9am and then 10-11am, the time dedicated to exploring what we have laid out as our course of study for the year. (If you are interested in the specifics of that, I may get into it in a later post. This one is already getting quite looooong. But let me know and I’ll share the specifics.) So far I am finding that this approach of filling our time as opposed to completing a task is allowing for both of us to be much more present with what we are doing and less focused on how quickly or not we are accomplishing something. I am enjoying it so far and am safeguarding and prioritizing this time. And thankfully thankfully thankfully, Eider will be mountain biking with a group twice weekly this fall as well as hopefully returning to some iteration of his nature school one day a week. Thank. Goodness.

What this does mean though is that the third tier is my work time. I am most often working at night after I have put Wilfred to bed. Most meetings I schedule are for 7:30 pm or later. I will give up one of Eider’s homeschool hours during the week for a meeting, but only one. I will occasionally schedule a meeting during Wilfie’s afternoon nap, but I am very discriminating about that as I try to block that time out entirely for my asana practice. And it is worthwhile here to note that this is perhaps my most top of top priorities. Right now I am practicing with greater duration than I have in several years, spending 75-120 minutes a day on my mat 6 days a week, thanks in big part to the online offerings of my forever teachers Christina Sell and Darren Rhodes. I am taking advantage of this time and prioritizing this opportunity in part because I recognize how temporal it is and also it is functioning as an absolute lifeline for me right now in terms of making any of the rest of the hats even remotely wearable not to mention functioning.

This means that in addition to working at night, I also need to work on the weekends, saving this time for writing and program design and content creation. It is not ideal. It is not sustainable. But it is functional for now. I have everything in my being set on the twin tasks of being as present as possible with my people why they are in my immediate care as well as creating ever greater and greater efficiency and generative function in my work as possible.

Speaking of which… Good grief, if you made it this far, congrats. Here is the prize. A little preview of the programs/projects coming down the pike.

Practice Wellness Community has one more program this fall. Steady at hOMe. A 6-week home practice course super similar to our summer Grow hOMe offering. Lots of contact, lots of content, and lots of support for cultivating your steady and meaningful personal home practice.

I have a new offering launching this coming week called the Life of Practice CustOM Design. Here is the description for that:

Life of Practice Custom Design is an opportunity to get clear on your personal practice aim and then hash out a plan to bring you into greater alignment with that aim. Sometimes, we all find ourselves stuck in a bit of a practice rut or slump, or perhaps find attention a bit too diffuse and drifting in relationship to a personal asana and meditation practice. An outside perspective and a little objective mapping can go a long way in getting you back on track, whether you are simply longing to rekindle the connection to self that a regular and dedicated practice can afford, or you are interested in crafting a plan toward personal progress. The custom design is here to help in both capacities.

In addition to LOP CustOM, I am also putting 2 courses together that will be available on my website this fall. The first is LOP 101, a 6-week course to start your home practice and the second is Mama’s LOP, a 4-week practice program for pregnant yogis. Both of these will be prerecorded courses available anytime and at your convenience.

Information on all of these will be live on the site soon.

Thanks so much for reading all of this. Good grief. If you are ever needing to connect over the very real-life tasks of just getting it all done, I am here. It is not an easy time. I have no desire to sugar coat any of it or create some false narrative on how to make it all work in idyllic and sustainable ways. It is not currently sustainable for me right now. And honestly, the relief I feel when I simply just admit that is immense. It is good enough for now. I think my priorities are in order and I am holding close to that. As Christina says: good enough is good enough. And sometimes, that is all it needs to be.

Lots of Love.

Take good care, K?

xxx,m

...winning

The other evening, while Chris was making dinner and I was entertaining the baby, Maple asked if we could listen to Iron and Wine. We will often listen to music together as a family while we prepare meals, which is a vast energetic improvement over the news, which is also, perhaps sadly, often on in our home as well. Anyhow, it had been awhile since Iron and Wine was on the playlist and it made all of us a little wistful and sentimental- those 2 older albums in particular where they really got every song right, you know the ones? “Our Endless Numbered Days”. I mean come on. The album title says it all. I think the other is “The Shepherd’s Dog”. Bittersweet and full of tenderness co-mingled with a touch of remorse at the fast slipping away of each perfectly flawed moment. I feel a lot of that in general and these days are no exception.

But there is this one song, Fever Dream, where the line goes: “I want your flowers like babies want God’s Love, or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come.” And it has been working and working and working on me. Like, for decades… I have been contemplating a lot lately what Wilfred’s particular place in our family constellation is. A birthday will do that to a mama. And just the retrospective, as well as looking ahead, nature of it all. It is so fascinating to me because he is such a focal point for every single one of us. Which is so interesting for a family in which he was unknown, unexpected, and absent in for so long. But as Eider is always reminding us, Wilfred is “The Best”, and I think that there are several layers to that feeling which to me feel important to remember.

I really do think that it is true that loving a baby is so intoxicating because it feels so close to God’s Love. Or whatever shape your personal sense of Grace and Wonder takes. For me, I often think of it in terms of the Infinite. There is really is this overwhelming sense that loving Wilfred, and really tapping into the energy of him as he is right in this moment is as close as anything that has ever landed me into deep connection to The Infinite. It is intoxicating and mesmerizing and holy. And before you go saying, jeez Meg! what about Maple and Eider and to that I say, there is a reason that we have in almost every tradition the stories about the loss of innocence that befalls each of us. The Christian Tradition tells it to us through the story of Eve, of course. Contemporary literature- my personal preference- tells it to us in the innumerable interpretations of the coming of age trope. I think that is one of the reasons that the YA Sci-Fi genre is so completely compelling. One of my favorites is the yarn in the classic Phillip Pullman series “His Dark Materials”. Lyra Belacua and the significance of Dust…

I digress! Maple, and then Eider, taught me this love and, along with Chris, we have been students of its origin and evolution these many years.

Which is perhaps the other piece of the story that I am hoping to convey today. Chris and I celebrated 15 years of marriage this past January. And as someone who is somewhat indifferent to the institution of marriage, I am by no means indifferent to the practice of long-term, evolving and abiding love. I was recalling the other day, that Chris and I picked our wedding date- over sopapillas with warm honey butter and whiskey “in the raw”- according to the phase of the moon. I felt very certain, at the time, of the significance and auspiciousness of what moon we were married under, and that it would be in our best interest to exchange vows and yoke ourselves to one another during a waxing full moon. I wanted us to be moving toward fullness, through all of the ebbs and flows, waxings and wanings, of our lives together.

I had forgotten that lunar call. But I think within that original intention a lot about our relationship all these years later can be well understood. We have set our course to be oriented to wonder in its fullness. Even as phases come and go and we each, all five of us, continue to grow and evolve and change. I think we set a course that was oriented within the context of a desire to stay in the flow of The Infinite. As it reveals itself to us in waves and over time.

I remember once, years and years ago, Christina giving a teaching in Warrior One about alignment being a tool of understanding that: “makes the unknown, known. And in so doing, brings the infinite closer” I think that is really it for me. Especially with love. The more I let love in, but perhaps with even more potency for me, let my own LOVE out into the world in the form of my friends, and peers, and family, and babies, the closer and closer I feel in each moment, to God’s love.

The other day, one of my student’s commented that she was really enjoying the way that I was working this theme of “winning” into my teaching during this time. I had been unaware that I had… which, my friends, is completely demonstrative of why I love teaching and mentoring and this dynamic current of learning that truly flows both ways. Anyway, I have been feeling into that in all ways, assessing her assessment for myself, and I concur. It is the theme that I am working right now. In all aspects of my life. Call it gratitude or giving thanks or taking note or glass half full but I am acutely aware right now of all of the many ways in which I am winning in my life right now. Despite the anxiety and the fear and the grief and the powerlessness that I can easily overwhelm me and often does, the more that I center myself in the field of open-hearted and open-handed love, the letting go of my heart into the Infinite, the more and more winning I am.

love to you.

x,m

some milky reflections

When Maple and Eider were little, and I was still in the long stretch of my early mothering years during which I nursed, and nursed, and nursed, almost uninterrupted for six and a half years, it was hard to even imagine life after breastfeeding. I couldn’t even think about it without tearing up- hello hormones- and I was certainly never very interested in weaning either of them, except perhaps at night, which I somehow managed to do with great difficulty around 22 and 30 months respectively. So well boundaried, meg.

Fast forward seven years post nursing those two and the advent of the arrival of another nursling and I was honestly a little bit indifferent about nursing. Maybe looking forward to it in some ways but in no way under any illusion that my bond with our little was dependent upon our nursing relationship. I think what happened is that in the seven years that followed the 6+ that we nursed for I woke up to the reality of the complexity and nuance of our relationships. As much as at times I may have felt like not much more than a pair of boobs and a steady source of liquid snacks, I was always so much more to both of them and that exists both in relationship to, and completely independent from, the fact of having breastfeed them.

My nursing relationship with Wilfred is both similar and unique to what it was for his big sibs. First of all, I do not use it as a way to put him to sleep. I maybe did for a brief moment earlier on when a) I didn’t know any different, and b) he was too wee to stay awake for longer than a feeding. Maple, and Eider as well, if perhaps to a lesser degree, I had no clue how to put to sleep without nursing. In fact, I remember when Eider finally gave up naps at 3.5, it was because one day we were lying down, and he simply popped up from my breast and said: “Mama, there is no more milky.” and then got up and left the room.

Not so much like that with Wilfred. I don’t really even have a memory of the last time he fell asleep at my breast. He certainly has before, but usually it means that he is overtired and I have kept him up longer than I should have. Even when he nurses in the night- which, yes, he is still doing once, or more commonly, twice a night- when he is finished he’ll pop off and make a big backbend in an effort to hurl himself backward into his crib. Back to bed please now mom. It’s a little bittersweet if I am being honest. But I am happy for his sleep independence. I think it will serve him well. I think it already does. He is certainly my most well rested child by far.

In the early days of nursing Wilfred, those first months in which it can feel like just about all you are ever doing, I would catch myself getting completely lost in my phone. I didn’t have an Iphone when the big kids were nurslings and honestly I cannot really recall what I did when they were at my breast. Maybe I read? I mean, what were my other options? No podcasts to listen to, I didn’t know what texting was, certainly no Marco Polo… I think probably I did then what I had to make a mindful and conscious choice around doing this go round. I simply hold my baby. And breath. I focus on my presence with him. Sometimes rubbing his head or his hands or his cheek. But I had to choose it, you know? I think maybe I even read something about babies knowing if you are present with them or not when they are nursing and from that moment on I was like: that’s it. THIS is it.

I’m not sure what the projected duration is for our breastfeeding relationship. Before he was born, I think I said something along the lines of not being able to see myself going for more than 2 years with this one. Despite what I know to be true about myself as evidenced per my older two. But now, I feel open and easy about the whole thing. We can nurse as we like and as serves us both for however long.

Which perhaps is a fine place to mention, that even though these relationships have been mostly easy for me, they have never been simple, and certainly not without difficulty. At times, quite a lot. Maple was unrelenting, we were constantly nursing. So par for the course for her personality. Eider was my efficient baby. Draining me entirely at each feeding. So much so, that I would build up such a supply that I ended up with mastitis on more than one occasion. Mastitis is horrible. HORRIBLE. And with Wilfred, I have had numerous clogged ducts, some that have taken more than a day to resolve. They are uncomfortable and hot and anxiety producing for me.

It is hard to breastfeed. But like many things that come with some great gain, it is not without some requisite pain or complexity, thrusting, again, the female body forward as a vessel in service of the growth and nourishment and safety of another. It is beautiful and it is wrought and I feel lucky that I am able to participate in the relationship, for the most part, per my own choice. From fuel into fat into milk into fuel again, and then body and marrow and bone and brain. The continuum of my body and mind and heart into those of my children. It is super sacred and incredibly mundane and I hope I can continue to practice staying awake for all of it.

Wilfred WON

I have a pie crust par-baking in the oven. I had thought I’d make an almond citrus cake or maybe a zucchini bread/cake hybrid with some kind of fluffy frosting. But when I realized that we would most likely be picking high bush blueberries the very day before Wilfred’s birthday, I saw that it was always supposed to be a blueberry pie.

Last year I missed all of blueberry season in the dream state of my perfect newborn. I missed apples too. As it should be. But this year, the blueberries are on my mind and I am so thankful to fold my family into the rhythm of what is ripe for the picking in our new home and with our new child by our side.

Berry Pickers.

It was some kind of blueberry perfectionist type-a magic y’all.

I’ve never seen a baby eat so many bluebs. Wow.

helping. both.

On this day last year, I woke up after a dream-filled and weary night, post-state-swim-meet extravaganza, with the soft and subtle pop of my waters breaking. It was early and I was surprised and yet ready, all through the day, even through the ebb and flow of momentum and the hourly administering of antibiotics that made it possible for me to stay home throughout. I was ready. A little nervous for the pain but so ready to meet and hold and love our babe.

All week long, I have been looking back on the memories of that day. August 7th 2019. I have been feeling so many feelings in the recollecting of my third and final birth experience. It has been my experience that this first birthday is when everything is as fresh as it will ever be again. There is a particular portal that Wilfred and I are passing through together now that we will not move through together again. The baby becoming the child. Leaving the depths of mama’s secure and all-encompassing embrace to head more in the direction of the big, wide, world of his family and the spaces beyond just us. It is amazing and wonderful and so sad and all the rest.

It is a threshold. One of the first of the many moments of letting go that parenting is. It is such a mix, you know? I want to be, as best I can with my each of my kids, and so especially when they are very wee, in this moment right now. This moment. This moment. And this moment. And yet, parenting is also keeping your eye on the long game, with a steadfast awareness of the individual they are being called to become.

The memories that stand out from the day are strange and random and lovely. I remember when the midwives arrived I was out in the driveway looking for Jeb who had wandered off and also gathering all of the flowers I could hold for a birthing bouquet to arrange for in the house. I remember how we were watching Parenthood as a family and we were in a scramble to finish the series before it left Netflix the following month. When I was still somewhat comfortable we watched an episode or two. I was trying to focus on that during the long duration of the midwives many and alternating attempts to put in a comfortable IV port. I remember, when Wilfred finally emerged how Jen, our primary midwife- who, as a side note, I chose from afar and only was with her for about 5 weeks and as many visits before our actual birth, and who could not have been better suited to us and me at this particular point in life and through this particular birth- was just in awe of how big and squishy his lips are.

So, I am happy-sad today. In awe of my memories of carrying, birthing, and meeting Wilfred as well as the wonder of this first year of getting to know him and see how perfectly and uniquely his little being is folding into the fabric of our family. I am so lucky and grateful to have easefully nursed another baby with my own body. Turning my body into his body and holding his growing self with my arms and whole heart. These days are so precious to me and I am also thankful to know that there is life after nursing and as much as I cling to this relationship, we will both be wonderful when it comes to a close, whether it is in this coming year or the next.

I think I am mostly sad that it will just be the 5 of us to celebrate the day. I wish his gran and his auntie and other far-flung, covid-trapped, loved ones could be here to share joy and hugs and merriment with us. And, of course, pie. I want to feed everyone who loves summer, and loves a leo, and loves the magical, unpredictable, surprise of life, all of the blueberry pie that they desire. This August 7th and all the ones to come.

We are all fans.

I love you Wilfred Thistle. And I love you Eider Atticus and Maple Louise, who dreamed him into being here with us just as much, if not more, than even I. And I love you Chris Newlin for rejoicing in the gift of this great remembering with me. We are the lucky ones.

de-funct

I want this to be brief. And yet I am not sure that it can be.

I’ll start here.

In the mornings, during most of our Covid-Life thus far, Chris and I wake with the baby and head downstairs for coffee and Wilfred time and the news circuit. It is basically an interface of joy/non-joy, but it keeps us real and oriented to life beyond our often idyllic- woefully sheltered- little mountainside. The news is grim. Through and through. Hopefully, that is in no way news to you.

There are many things that we should all be alarmed by right now. The federal agents occupying Portland and other cities across the country. The lag-time between Corona Virus testing and the arrival of results that essentially yields them useless. The anti-abortion legislation being pushed through in a shockingly high number of states. The glaring lack of leadership in this country in regard to the handling of any of it. Which brings me to the refusal of any governing body to lay down a hard line in regard to resuming schools in the next few weeks.

And why is this decision so fucking difficult? Why is it so hard for us to say of course we are not going to perpetuate the spread of this virus through the open conduit of our schools? Why are we willing to risk our children and our educators and really, every single person in the country?

If it isn’t clear by now, then, honestly, what is it going to take?

This easy decision is made so incredibly difficult because the schools and our complete dependence on them for: meals, childcare, connection, safety, and so much more, is the biggest symptom that we have of a system that is completely and irreparably broken, corrupt, and defunct. The kids have to go back to school because there is no relief. There is no more unemployment benefit, there is no more loan or rent forgiveness, there is no healthcare, there is no equity, there is no safety, there is no care. We live in a corrupt capitalist system that was built for the very few upon the backs of the very many and unless it affects their precious dollar then we are all, forever, on our own.

Today, we received an email from the local school district alerting us that the projected start date has been pushed back by 2 weeks. Further: “late last week the Secretary of Education issued a memorandum - Decision-Making for School District Operations During the 2020-2021 School Year - that delegates the authority for school district operations to Vermont’s school boards.”

There is no governance. The school districts are ON THEIR OWN. To me, this looks like a sick rendition of choose your own adventure. Emphasis on sick.

The other evening while we were walking up our road, Chris chatted with me a bit about what is happening in baseball. I have to confess, it was difficult for me to listen because I could really give a shit about baseball. But I think he said something like: they’ve started playing and already are canceling games because like 17 players on one team tested positive for Covid-19, despite being in almost complete isolation among themselves, receiving regular wellness checks, and, oh yeah, being super well fucking funded because they are major league fucking baseball. But they are still testing positive and, getting sick or not, helping to spread the virus around and around and around.

I am distraught. And not because I am as an individual particularly effected. We worked from home before, we continue to do so now. We homeschooled before, we continue to do so now. We had to pay for shit health care before, we continue to do so now. But just because we can limp through this disaster with our biggest wounds potentially being that of loneliness and a greater than optimal isolation, doesn’t make any of this acceptable. Maybe that is called empathy. Just a thought.

So, what to do???

If it were in my hands, which it clearly is not, I would start by closing everything down until the end of the calendar year at the very minimum. Yes, that sucks. But do we have a sense that there is a reasonable way to get ahead of this without doing so? We opened up again simply because the date that we had set for doing so rolled around. Not because there was any data to support it. We weren’t ready. But we did it anyway because nobody cares about you or me or any of us.

Yeah ok, so what about what that means for how sideways everything is going? Great question. My best guess is that it comes in the form of comprehensive relief for ALL PEOPLE in ALL CIRCUMSTANCES at EVERY LEVEL of need from a government that we aren’t even close to having in this country. It is not looking good folks. But like I said before if it isn’t clear by now that this country is broken in overt and subtle- but mostly overt- ways for every human living here save the few whose bank accounts were built on the inequity and systemic disregard we were indoctrinated into believing spelled freedom, then it is well past time for you, me, us to begin paying attention. The status quo has failed us all and it will only continue to do so on repeat forever unless WE STOP THIS BULLSHIT NOW.

So, if you aren’t fired up to vote in this year’s presidential election, hopefully before we hit the 200k death mark but that is looking unlikely, then it is time to begin educating yourself about the nation that we actually live in right this very moment. Stay awake. Pay attention. Use your voice.

Before I stick a fork in this bout of off-gassing it bears mentioning that the state of Vermont has really done quite well in it’s response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. I feel proud of this state and incredibly grateful to call the green mountains home. And yet, every time I head out anywhere- usually just the nearest swimming hole or hiking trail- I see license plates from all over the country, often in bigger numbers than the Vermont plates. And it makes me question any illusion of security or insulation that we may have built up as a state. Our case load has remained low. Outbreaks have been managed quickly and with effective contact tracing and I still think that schools should not be opening for in-person learning this fall.

process (details)

We rolled into Northern Vermont one year ago today. So surreal that arrival. Everything that led up to it, and everything that has unfolded since. It very much feels like we just arrived and that we’ve never not been here. Funny how that works.

A long, long, time ago, Christina said to me that I need to give it a year to have arrived anywhere. It takes a bit. Especially the older you get. That has held up here to be sure. And it is only after this first cycle of becoming in this new chapter that I am beginning to get a sense of who, and how, I am here.

During the years that we lived in Mount Horeb Wisconsin, I piece mealed a supplemental income together teaching public classes, the occasional workshop, and offering one-on-one private yoga instruction in my home. It was at times clunky, at other times incredibly joyful, and generally authentic throughout. When we were preparing to make this move, I was anxious about what was going to happen not just to the helpful amount of cash I brought in each month, but also to my identity and sense of purpose, and in turn, fulfillment, that I generate through a life relatively immersed in the practice and teaching of yoga.

Stepping away from public classes, in particular, was a big driver in my decision to get involved with the business and mission of Beautycounter, which of course has unfolded into so much more than that first desire- but that is another topic for another day. At the time, I felt most concerned about the loss of my private instruction, from a financial standpoint for sure, but mostly because I believe in that form of contact and offering and really did not want to see it disappear. It was as early as January of last year that I began to dream up the Life Of Practice Mentorship as a way of standing in for the private connection and instruction. And then the program launched in October, just under 2 months after the arrival of Wilfred.

Over the course of the last 9 months, I have gotten to know the Mentorship, how it works, and where it falls short. It definitely helped to replace some of my lost income, and it felt great to stay connected to a large part of my student body. I am so incredibly thankful for everyone who trusted me enough to jump into this project with me, even as I was quite clearly figuring it out. However, as time went on, it became clear to me that I was missing the mark in terms of what I wanted the Mentorship to really be serving. I also found myself spending so much time in the work of it that it wasn’t quite adding up to how I envisioned my best use of time or my presence in other areas of my life. It is called Life of Practice after all. And as I was finding less and less time for my actual life of practice, I knew that I needed to shift some things.

Also, in this same window of time, Rachel Peters, Sam Rice, and I have been beginning to make on-line offerings through our collaborative project, Practice Wellness Community. This work has been wonderfully inspiring and educational for me and also feels like another point of clarity in terms of how and where I want to be directing my energy.

It bears mentioning- maybe back at the beginning of this-(did I mention it?) that my top priority is my family and presence-ing myself with each of them. I know how fast this whole thing goes and I really want to stay in the now with these very little and not-so-little-at-all loves of mine. Especially, in this COVID-time where the option to leave and work for a few hours a week is off the table and I hate being a mom who is half paying attention to her kids and half trying to bang out some work. Even though I have always said that practice happens right in the muck of everything else- that is not quite what I mean. I want to be a bit less diffuse in how I show up.

Ugh, my goodness, are you still even reading?

Incredibly long preamble to simply say, at the end of June I am pressing pause on Life of Practice Mentorship through the rest of this year. I had originally thought about just taking a break until September, but I want the Mentorship to come back as something different and in order for me to get there, it will take some time.

However, I can give you a sense of what I am thinking about right now.

First of all, I want the mentorship to be 12 months long. And I want it to be much more community-based. In fact, I am playing with naming it Life Of Practice Community Mentorship. This is in part because I am realizing that replacing privates with an on-line version doesn’t really work. At least not for me in the way that I would like it to. I love connecting with folks one-on-one, but I think what we crave as home practitioners is contact and connection and I believe that has more possibility in a group. (I am scheming as to what personal support looks like right now, and I think something along the lines of Home Practice Consults. A separate offering. Something that serves as more of a touchstone for people’s practice depending on where they are at. Think, co-creating a practice plan.)

But I digress! So, as of right now, I am thinking 12-months with content looking like 2 group practices per month and 2 group meetings per month- both via Zoom. Think a few hours one day a week and that is mostly it. Everything will be recorded of course, but I am thinking that being there live for 50% of the time is a good aim if not a requirement. I am also planning on making a cut in the monthly tuition, with tiered options and different payment schedules for greater savings. There is a way in which I want this to have the cohesion and connection and consistency of a membership model, but with a more collective intention and vibe. Lol. You feel me? I am decidedly all done planning one sequence every week and hoping that it works for everyone. At this level, my hope is that less spoon-feeding of weekly practices is necessary. Which brings me to the next thing:

I am planning to create some pre-requisites for Mentorship. A year, after all, is a long time, and I would like for folks to have a baseline of home practice rhythm, if not fluency, before jumping in. One possible pre-requisite is the 6-week course PWC is offering beginning in July, Grow hOME. Y’all, I haven’t’ been this pumped about a course since I don’t know when. You can read more about it on the site, but basically this is the HOW TO of creating a personal home practice. From the very beginning. I am pumped I tell you.

There will also be one or two pre-requisite offerings available from me in the fall. Either live or hopefully- if I can get it together- an evergreen option that lives as an onboarding course for Mentorship. Not each thing is a prereq! They will just each count for it so that when we begin together in January 2021, we are starting from a place of connection and common foundation.

Before I wrap it up entirely, two more things. Those of you that know me well most likely share with me a deep love for words. Their meanings, their potency, their power. I have spent a good amount of time recently considering the particular words chosen for these programs: Life Of Practice, and Practice Wellness Community. The common thread of course is the word Practice. Which, to be sure, means a good deal many things and in connection to the work in the sphere of yoga I really interpret it as: Meditation (with the inclusion of Mantra and Pranayama), Movement (of all sorts but with an emphasis and commitment to yoga asana), and Contemplation. This last piece gives attention to studentship and the ways in which we are in consideration of the teachings and the study and the practices of Yoga as they apply to our lives, and hopefully as they inform a well lived life rooted in ethics, equity, advocacy, and humility.

Practice Wellness Community embodies the pillar of practice and then adds to it two more in the form of how we are caring for the whole of ourselves through conscious choice and action, in addition to reminding us that we are not alone in our efforts, nor should we be. I love considering these names. Why we chose them. How their significance unfolds and evolves over time. I’d love to hear what they mean to you as well.

Alright! Now, go register for Grow hOME.

xxx,m

Practice.

This little berry lover is 10 months old today. Oh to be a summer baby.

In the midst of everything else that is going on in the world and especially in this country this week, I am still taking time to savor his littleness and the sweet wonder that is the lens through which he is experiencing life thus far. As ever, the content of my days continues to be my best teacher.

I have been reflecting specifically on the learning process this week. Mine in particular and how that relates to my understanding of how others learn in general. I too, like many white persons striving to be good allies to People Of Color within a system built around their oppression and my supremacy, have been scrambling to do better in whatever way I can. Right now this looks a lot like trying to inform myself to the best of my ability. And while this is an imperfect undertaking, it is still of immense value. Which is circling me back around to, again and again, Life Of Practice.

There has been a lot of traffic on social media in the last week that is both important resourcing and information dispersing as well as incredibly overwhelming. Yesterday, a friend of mine shared a post by a Woman Of Color commenting on how white women should stop purchasing and reading White Fragility because Robin DiAngelo is herself a white woman, and wouldn’t those dollars be better spent in support of POC writing? Being a white woman who just recently began reading this book, I had a response when I read this. One sharp enough on my end that were I not in the practice of checking my reactions, I might have scrapped this educational endeavor. DiAngelo is an expert in the field of educating White People around their own White Supremacy, Inherent Racism, and White Fragility. She is also cited and resourced for her work in diversity training by many other writers, educators, and activists in the POC community. In terms of white people endeavoring to understand their role in conversations centered around race, I think that DiAngelo’s work is an incredibly useful place to begin. I also think that learning new things is difficult. Especially if you are someone who wants to get it right, do a good job, succeed, or appear to know what you are doing. Which, if we are honest, is most of us. Which, again if we are honest, is beside the point.

So, what I think I am coming to understand, is that being an ally is a practice. Like most things. It is not asking that I somehow show up knowing what I am doing, proficient in my own ally-ship. Instead, the ask is to simply show up and do the work and learn from my mistakes and more than anything, stay engaged.

Life of Practice is a moving target. By the very nature of being living. There is nowhere to arrive. There is simply the consistent and earnest effort to do our best, improving upon mistakes we have made in the past. To be mindful of how we show up and compassionate for ourselves when we fall short without excusing away any harm that we may have caused when we didn’t yet understand what we were doing. That is the ongoing preparation that is studentship.

In this same vein, I am taking a step back from Life Of Practice Mentorship at the end of this month. While it is work that I feel passionate about, the time required to offer what I would like to be offering is eclipsing the time I have available for my own life of practice. I am sacrificing my own studentship in support of other people’s and anyone who is currently in mentorship with me can perhaps feel my own internal drift as I bargain my availability within all of my various roles. I don’t think it is going away forever, or even for very long, but I am certainly pressing pause, perhaps for the remainder of this year. I will be focusing more on my own practices, writing, family life and home educating, as well as collaborative teaching with Practice Wellness Community. (Our next program, Grow hOMe, begins in July with more information as well as registration details coming later this week.)

And I am wanting to cultivate more time for my own education around racial wounds. In particular, I am very interested in the work of Resmaa Menakem and his book: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathways to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. My teaching partner and mentor, Rachel Peters and I will be discussing this work in weekly learning “horse shoes” beginning next week and if that is something that you too find yourself interested in, feel free to email me and I will send some details your way. For transparency’s sake, I will share that I am also leaning into initiatives to Defund the Police, more information about that can be found here.

Also this week, my teacher Christina Sell, is offering a contemplation and prayer during which she will read a list of almost 200 names. In her words: “And, of course, the list stretches back centuries into the founding of this country with the enslavement of Africans. There is no way to bring any one of these people back to life, to heal the rents in the fabric of their communities and families that their deaths have created, or to adequately make amends for the damage that has been done, although there is a good case for reparations. We can, however, say the names of the victims with reverence, respect, and remorse for the ways we, individually and as a culture, have failed to value, safeguard, and nurture their lives.” You can register for this here.

As ever, thank you for reading. I am hoping to show up in this space more in the days to come.

xxx,m

Learning.

Alright. I am going to do my best to be very brief. Like many White Americans who are learning how to be good allies, I have been trying to understand how not be silent in relationship to current events in general, and the brutal murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans by police officers in specific, while simultaneously not centering myself and my whiteness in any way within how I participate in this conversation. I imagine that I am overthinking everything considering that I have already committed to getting it wrong in favor of doing nothing. I am someone who generally processes things out loud and often in this space, and I have been feeling my own absence here acutely. That combined with an obligation to my networks and the few folks whose ears I have to at the very least share where I stand and what I believe is important at this time.

First, we began conversations about systemic racism, implicit bias, and Black Lives Matter, in earnest in our household in 2016. I am very thankful for this foundation presently and I would be lying if I did not say that I feel a degree of pride in how informed and thoughtful my kids are on race in America, especially Maple, whose understanding and articulation in the conversation far surpasses my own. And of course, I wish that I had begun educating myself and my children about race from the very beginning and the very fact of my lack of awareness around this speaks to a lifetime of perpetual privilege.

Second, I am under no impression that these family conversations had in the privacy of our home are anywhere close to being enough. We are each of us a part of a very real living history and our actions are writing the story about the part we play whether we see it that way or not.

Personally, I have been trying to clarify my understanding of my work in the world within the domain of self-care and in what ways self-care is foundational and intersectional with community and cultural wellness and global connectivity. In my heart of hearts, I believe that the power of a regular meditation and contemplation practice is not just personal but is in fact political and reaches to the very ends of the globe. It is imperative that we as human beings have direct access to our source of compassion, empathy, and love, and I believe that self-inquiry and the quiet practices of self-care are some of the best access points.

I have been letting these be the guiding principles in how I show up: Listen, Learn, Donate, Act, Educate.

So, here is what I am reading or listening to right now and in the days to come:

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem

How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, I also have his new board book for littles, Antiracist Baby, on pre-order.

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Other resources that I have experience with and highly recommend are Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad, as well as her Good Ancestor podcast; Skill in Action by Michelle Johnson; Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. Maple’s top recommendation is Cry The Beloved Country by Alan Paton which she read for a homeschool book club a couple of years ago and which she says helped her in initially understanding systemic racism.

I am also staying very close to the wisdom of my teacher, Christina Sell, and am attempting to follow her lead on most things.

To help facilitate my own learning and education along with that of the Practice Wellness Community, Rachel Peters and I are holding virtual open circles centered around discussion of My Grandmother’s Hands.

In an effort to keep donations moving, I am donating at least half of all tuitions from the Saturday LIVE Group Practice for the month of June. Information for that can be found here.

This is where I am at right now. And just to be clear, I am a student in all of this. I am imperfect and also slow to learn. But if I believe in anything right now and always it is in the importance of taking a stand against injustice and inequality in all of its forms which includes the insidious ways it has roots within my own unconscious. I am here for the work, even when my voice is quiet. I am learning. I am stumbling. I am getting up again. I am becoming.

lost rites

I was really hoping that when the weather shifted to warm and green- minus the swarms of black flies, what the fuck- that much of the morose mood would lift and some familiar feelings would be restored. Instead, what I am learning is that when the seasons shift to one in which we have loaded many of our community and cultural celebrations, that the sting of our isolation and removal from the flesh and bone of each other’s lives is even more acute and close to untenable.

We, like so many of you I am sure, receive email after email from school and sports teams and orchestra and summer camp letting us know what won’t happen, what is pushed back, what is canceled, how we will make do, and what we can hope to expect. It is loss after loss after loss. And while our own daughter, who has only been in school for a year is not too sad about missing eight grade graduation, she is feeling some very big empathy for her classmates for whom the ritual and the rite are embedded in the story of their educational journey. As a homeschooler turned school kid living in a new state she has yet to make big friendships in our new home. But she has mourned the loss of swim team as though it were her closest pal and the prospect of that not happening for many more months, I know is filled with its own kind of heartache for her. She is a chin-up kind of a kid though and has poured herself into her academics and staying as physically fit as she can with the absence of her preferred pursuit. I do think that we will most likely pick up a buoy that she can use over the summer for some distance swims in the lake, and that will be amazing and inspiring and I will still miss screaming “Go Moo Moo” from a hot as hell pool deck.

Eider on the far opposite hand, we have long had to keep over busy in order to steer him clear of the sneaky edges of depression. He has often played multiple sports in a season, has been in both classical and folk ensembles, and spends a full day each week of the year in an outdoor ed program. This summer we had applied to send him to summer camp in Southern Vermont for 3 whole weeks in addition to some local sports camps and we, and especially he, were looking forward to all of it. Without these pursuits, Eider sinks into- like many eleven-year-old boys I imagine- the endless abyss of video game obsession and it takes every ounce of attentiveness on my part to not devolve into vilifying him for his interests. I am a work in progress with this to be sure as I attempt to unwind my own judgment and bias and just let the kid do something that he has some passion for a stretch of time each day. Stop stop stop over-thinking it for crying out loud Meg. (On a side note, I was just learning about some recent studies that indicate that screen time is not so linked to anxiety and depression as we had once thought and that it is rather the time on social media that is the real culprit- especially in middle school-aged girls…)

Anyhow, the struggle is feeling extra fucking real and I am over the sideways Corona reality and then some. I want to see you in person. I want to get to know my neighbors. I want my mom to come visit and hold her grandkids. I want to leave my house to pick up garden starts this week and not feel gripped with nerves days in advance. It’s a lot people. And I for one am going to let it be a lot and here is me saying to you that you can let it be a lot too and you don’t need to get used to anything but you do need to wear a mask and as messed up as that is, it is more messed up not to right now. K?

And to all of the high school seniors out there missing your graduations and all of the glorious not quite adult frivolity of that last summer before things change forever, nothing anyone can possibly say is going to lessen the loss of this time for you. I am so incredibly sorry for all of it and then some. Your virtual graduations are poignant and completely suck and it is ok to have all of the different feelings about all of it. Perhaps the only solace for anyone in the midst of everything is that we are not alone in our grief as so often feels the case. Right now, the suffering and the pain and the loss are widespread and linked and while not exactly comforting, there is perhaps something in that for us to rest in.

at home, 2

Maybe there will be a whole thread of these at home posts, yes? It seems to me, that as this all continues to unfold, that we will all be here for quite some time. As someone who is often always at home anyway, I find this incredibly difficult and can only imagine what this adjustment must be like for those of you who have not always just been at home.

There are lots of things to say, but I think that most of those things in this moment belong in my personal journal. What I am chewing on for sharing in this space, which, as ever, is far from fully formed and will be spit out here just as in process as anything, has of course everything to do with home life, home school, home practice.

I will begin with homeschool. The governor of Vermont just announced on Thursday that school would not resume at all this year. Which in effect, pushed the working return date from April 15th all the way out past the end of the school year, June 15th. That is 2 whole months. Not that you needed me to tell you that. Which, tells me that we are in this mess for the long haul and that the energy of mine that is tied up each day in how long this will all go on anyway is, again, wasted energy.

Maple seems built for this type of schooling. Schooling-at-home. Completely independent and autonomous. She checks in with her class online each morning and then just gets to it. Making more work and projects for herself as she sees fit. Per the nudge of her science teacher, she is also participating in some homeschool 4H groups for more learning opportunities. For fun.

Public school. At home.

As I shared in my last post, Eider’s homeschool rhythm is much the same, however now we are beginning to really feel the deficit of the out-of-the-house activities that broke up much of our week and provided him with contact and connection to his community. His struggle in particular right now makes me aware of how immense this to home transition is for so many, especially those of you whose children’s classes have not moved on-line. The younger kids who are perhaps trying to navigate the abrupt transition to learning from Mom or Dad. That is not an easy transition, even if you were preparing for it. Like I said, as a 3rd grader it took Maple a good 6 months to detox the classroom before we were able to venture into at-home learning. It was tense. Especially because at that point she and I were both bought into the idea that she would, that she could, fall behind. In retrospect, we should have been focused primarily on her emotional and mental wellbeing as we so radically changed gears. We got there eventually. Thanks in big part to her life-long propensity to craft and create all the livelong day.

and on online meetup for Bear…

So, that would be my big piece of advice for all of the suddenly at home schoolers. Just relax about school. There is enough other bullshit to be stressed about right now and no need to add that to the mix. Your kid is not going to fall behind. Focus on creativity, read aloud together, spend time outside, play. And maybe give them a math worksheet once a week and have them do a piece of copy-work, but beyond that… just be together. Our kids are going to be fine so long as we, as their parents, manage our stress and the rhythm of our days in ways that take each member of the family into consideration.

Ok. Moving on. The other interesting piece has been to watch all of the yoga move online. I understand the economics of it, certainly. When we moved to Vermont last summer I needed to move my teaching online in order to maintain any income. So, I get it. But I cannot help but reflect on this movement to recreate the yoga classroom or studio space in our own living spaces. And it is not just because of social distancing- this has been a trend of the last 10+ years, it is just now that everyone is doing it. I think it is great in terms of access and maintaining connection as well as the viability of beloved yoga spaces across the country, but I cannot help but feel like we are also missing the mark a bit.

When I began taking yoga classes in the late 90s, and on through 2005, I understood taking class to be the way to learn how to practice on my own. It is how I was educated from the very beginning. In the summer of 2001, I was a fire lookout on Bear Mountain with my at the time boyfriend, a copy of Light On Yoga, a long list of postures- all in Sanskrit- call The Practice, and a thick mat that I would throw down on a piece of plywood. Every day, I would get on that weird surface and work my way through those lists, looking up the poses as I went, all the time listening for the voices of my teachers to come alive in my head and point me in a direction.

From 2002-2004, I lived and taught in Tucson Arizona and three times a week would go to what was called “open practice” where I slowly learned how to do my own practice on my own mat while others were doing their’s. Again, recreating the voices of my teachers in my head. It was many hundreds of hours of practicing in this way, in addition to moving across the country away from my yoga home and any regular public instruction, before the cues that I could remember about how I was supposed to feel in any given pose bleed into my own experience of what I was actually experiencing and the wisdom that I could impart from that.

That is perhaps just a really long winded way of saying that it has always been about cultivating and exploring a home practice for me. It has informed my primary approach in teaching and fueled my passion for group practice- which I think of as the bridge between class and home. It is how I have attempted to instruct in private lessons as well as on-going mentorship. And it is why, my online programs are still centered around building the muscles for taking ownership and agency of your own practice. Learning to trust the voice of your own wise teacher.

All this to say, mentorship begins again this next week. And with a few changes to the previous format. I am hoping to allow for more opportunities for personal connection and community among the larger cohort. I want to see the ways in which our experiences can inform ourselves and one another into deeper insight and wisdom. I am also efforting to streamline my delivery of information and support so that we can focus our energy on content and caliber as opposed to navigating computer-based systems. There is an updated description over on the Life of Practice Mentorship page if you’d like to learn more about what this is going to look like. I still have a bit of space open for the April- June term, and with options to extend into July and August.

So, if you would like to explore a life of practice without exclusive dependence on the screen, in the privacy of your home and your own heart, I would love to serve you in this way.

I think that is it for now. More soon. xxx.

at home

Just about everyone that knows me, knows that I rather stay at home. If I can figure out how to do something at home, whether it’s practice, work, educating, then that is what I am going to do. I will put off any and all errands until the last possible moment in favor of never having to leave my house. Occasionally, I will venture out to connect socially with others but chances are I have had enough of that by virtue of the few classes I would teach or the activities that I need to shuttle my kids to and from. I have been so looking forward to being on a nice size piece of land again so that we can really sink our roots into all of the growing potential here. I have missed having a great big garden that we can spend hours in at a stretch.

One of the most difficult pieces of our move to Vermont for me has been Maple going to school. It has, in many ways, been marvelous for her. And yet it has been a strain on our relationship to be sure and hard on our family as a whole as we attempt to find integration with her home half of the time and gone the rest. As I have suggested on social media in recent days, having her home all day every day during this time of social distancing and in my mind appropriate levels of pro-active caution and care, has been an unexpected source of joy for me. She is such a naturally inspired person that as she unfurls again into our collective space she is stretching her creative wings into projects and explorations that I didn’t even realize how much I had missed.

Every day, she has strapped her baby brother onto her back and headed out to the woods to check the maple taps that Chris and Eider and she put in last weekend. (Better late than never and with surprisingly more yield than we had been anticipating- boiling begins today.) She has also been practicing yoga every. People, my kid who has told me through her entire life of me on my mat on the regular right in front of her that yoga is dumb and definitely not for her- has been practicing every day, for often around 90 minutes at a time. WHAT?!? I am lucky to get 30-60 minutes on my mat right now with my mobile, busy, baby. Next week, her class begins remote schooling via chat platforms and we shall see how that shifts what is happening now. She loves being a student and is looking forward to getting back to it. We shall see what that looks like soon enough.

Eider and I have also been sinking into a better homeschool rhythm than we have in ages. We seem to be more productive and efficient without the usual disruption of gearing up for a class or activity out of the house. We have also been taking the time each morning before we begin our lessons and once Wilfred is down for his first nap, to do a brief (and yet exultant!!!) meditation together. These feel like a few wins on the home front for sure and they are filing me up with a solid dose of hope- which indeed feels like a balm during difficult times.

Ok, so I do realize that this post so far could come off as pretty obnoxious to some. I do not want to paint a picture of things being all rosy over here like we are somehow separate or more insulated than most from current events. We are not. Chris is still post-op and that is stressful as we navigate the cancellation of all foreseeable follow-up appointments. We are still anxious and scared every time we send him out with our grocery list in hand. We are worried about our own immune systems as well as those of our far-flung family members, especially the 60 and 70-year young crowd. We are worried about what will happen to our small, rural, community when the wave of Covid-19 arrives and we find out how well prepared our local clinics and hospital are. I am simply attempting to stay connected to gratitude and self-care as best I can. In many ways, this is what all of these many years of practice have led to and I feel the gravity of how I respond during this time in my very marrow.

I am also comforted by recent posts from my teacher and friend Christina Sell. She has written recently on the more meta topics of being ok in the big sense even when we may or may not be ok in the immediate. This has always been a conversation that soothes me and now is no different. She also just shared some wellness tips from her daily habits and Kelly’s wisdom from Chinese Medicine and those are on point as well. Additionally, if you haveb’t checked out her recently launched podcast, I would highly recommend you do so. There is wisdom and insight to be had there for sure. Those of you that have been studying with Rachel Peters, Sam Rice, and myself, will recognize many of the daily practices Christina refers to and I think we can all get a sense of how very vital they are in times like these for our immune and nervous system health. These daily habits are the ones we should be leaning on right now.

I have also been incredibly bolstered and supported by the large group of women that I work within Beautycounter. The team that I am fortunate enough to be a part of has been busy reaching out with kindness, compassion, and a sweet dose of levity as they continue to guide their networks in supporting personal wellness in healthy and safe ways. Honestly, it is one of the saner communities that I have ever been a part of and for that I am grateful.

My next session of Life of Practice Mentorship begins April 1st and I continue to be inspired and bolstered by the one on one work with these individuals. I feel so honored to have the opportunity to offer support and guidance as people navigate their own life of practice and what that means to them, and indeed this work feels more important now than ever. I do have some limited space available for this next deep dive into on-going mentorship and I am making it available at a reduced monthly rate for folks who are suffering financial strain and setbacks right now. Please let me know how I can help and together we can figure something out. There is a simple and clarifying application process that I can send out to anyone interested.

Alright, on one final note for now… Something quite light. But also maybe not. You decide. Some of you may know that I lost my wedding ring back in November or December. I really don’t know. My postpartum mind was all over the place and it could just as easily have flown off my finger as I could have set it someplace “clever”. It has felt like a horrible loss, even though it is just a thing, and especially as it came right before our 15 year anniversary. But over the last few months I have been working with an amazing independent jeweler in Milwaukee to make a new ring to take the place of the old. Not replace perse but renew in a way I think. Anyhow, we have finally landed on a design and I am over the moon about this little bit of sparkly reminder of commitment and abiding love headed my way.

It’s the little things folks. Finding joy where joy is to be found even as we navigate what indeed may become for a time our new normal. Thanks for reading this far. It means so much to me. And please do not hesitate to reach out. I would love to hear what you are doing to stay connected during this time in your own home. What is bringing you a bit of joy or hope? What are you doing for your own self-care and that of the other members of your family? How is your relationship to service and/or purpose shifting during this time? I’d love to hear. And as ever, stay connected.

xxx,m

create, create, create.

I don’t want to jinx it, but this sunshine is really making me think that Spring is on her way. In spite of the several feet of snow that still sits on the hillside outside this window. But I feel it. Like a great shaking loose of all of the woes of winter, the next new becoming is on the horizon.

I don’t even know what happened to February. I think maybe I got the flu, or Eider had it, or we both did and were just trading it back and forth in an attempt to one-up each other for a few weeks. At any rate, the month passed like it was simultaneously full of nothing and deeply productive. A total paradox of time. Maybe it was that extra day. Or maybe it was the first Mercury Retrograde of the year. Whatever it was, it is hard to recall now, but I do know that the start of March has been an improvement on the start of February, and the start of February was an improvement on the start of January, and well, at this rate, I will for sure take it.

Time continues to mesmerize me with its signs and symbols. It’s such a construct in many regards and yet I seem to have fully drunk the Koolaid. Today, for instance, is Wilfred’s 7 month birthday. 7 months on the 7th. Kind of like a golden birthday of sorts according to my Aunt. At any rate, I just cannot get over how much I love having him here and am amazed at the fact that we have already known him for as long as we have while at the same time having known him forever and a day if that makes any sense at all. He fits into our funny family just right and it is such a wonder to watch him develop within the sweet embrace of all of these caregivers. What an absurdly lucky little fellow.

I have begun dipping my toe into some more of my regular, pre-baby-number-three activities and it is fun to feel both myself and also so new. The biggest thing that arises as I circle back to myself is simply noticing all of this freed up creative energy that had been consumed by the holding of space for the possibility of Wilfred. Turns out there was a lot of energy involved in holding the door open for him as long as I did. And as much as I really do love newborns, and babies, and little kids, and well shit, after that last go-round I think I even love pregnancy, we are all finally here now, no more babies for us. So just wow at how much work it was for all of those years just keeping space available for his potentiality. And now he’s here and even though I am tired and consumed by all of the tasks of the present, I can feel the surge of some other freed up energy and it has me a little bit giddy.

There were quite a few things, projects, pursuits, and the like, that I put off while I wondered if we’d have another kid. A part of myself was on hold, I kinda hate to say, and now it isn’t and well, that’s cool. So, what to do? I guess, in the words of my friend and mentor Rachel, it’s time to really lean into the me that I am becoming. And what is so cool about being older now, at least for me, is that I already have a pretty clear sense of who I am and where my interests and passions lie, so now it is just about devoting more presence in those directions. Feels good to know I can give myself to this next chapter and not be scared in the same way, and just not hold myself back out of fear of lost opportunity anymore. I dig it.

I’m not really sure what the point or the particular thrust is of this post. Just to say, I am glad spring is on its way, I can see the work that I have done up to this point- even that which took place in the darkness and the difficulty of winter and my early postpartum season- and it is wonderful to see that there really is something being born from those efforts, even if at the time they felt futile. I am happy to be mothering. I feel lucky to have the opportunity to keep growing in that space, parenting so many different ages now that I really have to stay present inside my self and with each of them and that challenge feels like such a gift and when my vision is clear is the very essence of my life’s dharma. I am happy to keep teaching and working with such inspiring and motivating people. I’m learning all of the time and have so much room to grow and maybe for the first time ever don’t feel so overwhelmed by the prospect of that.

So much more to say and share but I’ll leave it at that for now. Thanks for being here. It means so much to me. xxx,m

Savor is the name of the aim.

Blog Birthday.

Yowsa folks. This little blog turned 5 this past Saturday. It is hard for me to wrap my head around all of the content that lives in this modest wee corner of the interwebs. It’s a lot. Five years worth. Eider was not quite 6 and Maple was 9 when I began writing in this space. So very many things have happened in that window of time and it feels good to occasionally look back through all of it from this point further on, from the future sort of, and love on my old self with a bit of empathy and forgiveness.

While things were quiet in this space, I was busy enjoying a weekend full of teaching, connecting, and practicing in community. Our trip to Madison was great. I felt more than a little bit rusty in my public class teaching skills. Choppy and awkward at times. But even still, I felt very much like myself, inhabiting a context that is meaningful and resonant and purposeful for me. And in many ways it felt appropriate to see myself out of rhythm with the flow of teaching in that way. I simply haven’t been doing it. So much of my teaching right now is one on one, and much more coaching oriented. Which I love and am super thankful for. But damn, I do miss teaching to a group. Like, a lot. And I miss the richness of my own practice. I have never been able to understand how anyone can teach yoga when they do not practice- seriously, I hear it’s a thing- and that was in even starker relief for me this weekend. While I haven’t not been practicing, it has certainly been with a much different tone than typical and the creative and generative impulse that is often the current of my time on my mat looks a little more like simply trying to breath some life and awareness into my postpartum, tired mama, sleeping bits. When the well is empty, what have you got to give?

Yesterday, my boys and I flew down to Florida for a week of sunshine and family time- seriously missing Chris and Maple who needed to stay home for school, swimming, work… life- but seriously thankful for this chance to rest and reboot. The sun. The beach. A baby on the beach. There really is nothing better. And I have a bit to chew on while I’m down here which seems typical and appropriate for me at this point. I go to the sea to clear my head and restore or recreate my vision. It works for me.

The themes that I am sitting with that came up for me on the trip back to WI primarily have to do with identity. And a little bit about sacred space. I think my struggle with living into my full identity will most likely be a life long one at this point. I continue to find it difficult to be in relationship with all of my parts in a balanced way, without one atrophying as another thrives. And as basic and somehow mundane as it may seem sometimes, I miss the part of me that moves through the world as a yoga teacher. It is a part of me that holds a lot of potency for me. It has kept me on my game in terms of my own self-work more effectively than anything else in my life. Helps me stay straight with myself. It is wild because that is the part of me that really came into it’s own during all of the years that I was longing for the time with my small children to be back, and now that I’ve re-entered that long-short season again, I miss what I had cultivated while I was missing it. Ha. Guess that makes me human.

Anyhow, I miss teaching. But I miss especially group practice. The group context has always been the lifeblood of my practice. So different than being on my mat at home alone, nothing much like a public class. And it certainly benefits from both. It is in many ways born out of public classes and made better and deeper and more poignant by time spent alone in the laboratory of my home practice. I believe that all of the spaces that we practice in we make sacred, but the spaces that we practice in together we make even more so. It has held our laughter and our tears, bore witness to our triumphs and defeats, and watched us hold each other as we fall and as we rise up again. I am super into all of that. And I am ready, more than I have been, to begin the work of cultivating the group practice community in my new home as well. More than I am interested in serving in the public class domain, even though I love that too, to be sure. But my time is a commodity, more than usual, and I am interested in these deeper conversations. I am interested in the unfolding Life of Practice. That grows and shifts and evolves as we do. So, maybe more of that to come. Let’s see.

Just some thoughts in motion. More to come, I am sure.

remote

I am reading a very enjoyable book right now. Slowly. So slowly. I would love to be reading it more, along with a modest stack of other reads on a variety of subjects. Fiction, of course and forever, homeschooling, yoga, business, and a few of the other topics that seem to be the blend in which I steep. Well rounded, that is for sure. But I’m not reading anywhere near as much as I would like, or writing nearly enough either for that matter. A lot of that is simply the season of life that I am in right now to be sure. But there is also the cumulative effect of a series of unanticipated events that have landed me in state of being that is certainly not my best. I am feeling quite unsettled, the ground of being that I generally am anchored if not within, but certainly close too, feels distorted at best and absent at worst.

The first little hit was just before the New Year, when I was contacted on 23&ME by a half-sister that I was unaware of. That apparently my entire family was unaware of. I have a creative family constellation, as many of us do, with 3 older half-sibs that I more or less grew up with and then 2 younger full siblings. The whole concept of “half” is just weird and never feels quite right, and yet that is how it is spelled out so I guess, there you go. In this way, I have always been an oldest as well as a middle, a bit of a bridge between 2 families. Needless to say, none of us were very surprised to learn of this older, seventh, sibling, and yet the news is still unsettling. Made more so, in my opinion, by the disappointing- but sadly not surprising- way in which my dad responded to this information.

I am not close to my dad by any means. Ironically, in some ways, as I am the kid for whom he was around probably the most during my childhood. But as an adult, I keep my distance, having learned that his ability to discredit my experience and distort my reality to suit his own are just a few of many qualities that one might say are that of a sociopath and well, I value my wellbeing over any relationship that I wish I had. I can hear my dad’s wife shouting- even as I type this- “Fake News!”, and well I guess that is simply too bad. May I be the one Abene who says it like it is without fear around what someone else thinks about me. Even though keeping up an image is perhaps the singular teaching I remember from my childhood with him.

Anyhow, I was disappointed in his response. I found it selfish, and insensitive, and… remote. But like I said, not surprising. Earlier the very same day that our “new sister” contacted me, I took a call from my dad and his wife (note! I spoke with them before I heard from her- I heard nothing from my dad since she contacted me, which as a mother is fucking horrifying. the first thing that I would do would be to check in with my kid to see how she was after receiving such big news. but that is not how my family plays. my dad instead spoke with another of my sister’s about trying to draw me out about the whole thing, see if I would tell him of my own accord. Draw me out!?!? Did you read that? What the actual fuck??? If any of you reading are a parent and are considering that drawing your kid out about something is going to be a better idea than being forthright and compassionate, then please, just go.) Anyhoooooow…. The phone call was as brief as ever and highlighted by her criticism of how honest and exposed my writing is in this space. Um, ok? If anyone reading in this space needs me to spell it out for them, then we are most likely not a good fit and I really do not mind if you move along now. She is theoretically related so I may not get so lucky there but one can hope. Because this space is about honesty. It is about authenticity. It is about vulnerability. It is about doing the good work of showing up in the fullness of your truth even when it is ugly, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it is difficult. Especially, when it is difficult. And I’ll tell you what, it is everything to me. The truth is the singular thing that I value above all else in all of my relationships but first and foremost with myself. It was hard won and I have no plans to get rid of it. It is difficult enough to maintain and stay in the light of to begin with let alone when the people around you are questioning your resolve and criticizing your intentions. Here is a hint- do not make those people your people.

Blegh. Enough of that. And all of that to say, I began the year feeling unsettled. And reminded of how remote my dad has always felt. Days later this feeling was highlighted by the very physical feeling of being remote when the boys and I broke down on a stretch of wild highway with zero cell reception and plummeting temps. It was scary, even in the face of all of our bravado in the moment. We were out there for about 2 hours, barely pulled off the road enough to feel safe, when the highway patrol finally arrived and gave us a ride home after radioing in a tow for our car. It was a bummer. But honestly, I am glad that I can check that off my list as it has been something I have been a little nervous about ever since we landed in this remote part of the world. And especially in old cars in the winter. It did stir me up a bit though. Left me feeling exposed and vulnerable in not particularly growth oriented ways. And in ways that have unfortunately become a theme for the month.

Back in the fullness of summer, when we were new to town and I was heavy and slow and ready to have a baby, we got connected with a local chiropractic office. It felt good to be prioritizing support and self-care, and honestly, has become a natural way in which I land in a new place. It is a value to me to know that there are professionals who are supporting my relationship and connection to myself and my wellness. I have enjoyed having someone check our spines from time to time and certainly assist me in navigating the days leading up to as well as following, Wilfred’s arrival. While it is not necessarily a knock my socks off experience, it has been steady and reliable and a good place to land.

Recently, when I was going over my credit card statement, I saw a charge at a local grocery store that I did not make. I contacted the store and they reviewed their surveillance videos and identified a woman that works at the desk at the chiropractic clinic. When the police called and she was brought in, she confessed to stealing my information and swore up and down that it was an isolated incident. I have been sitting with this for about a week and a half, now having just yesterday spoken to the chiropractor who owns the practice. Mind you, not the doctor that we ever saw for care. I finally called her back after reviewing messages she left for me multiple times in which I never heard an apology. Not only, is the woman who stole my information still employed there- fine, but that’s a freakin’ felony- she has requested she be able to contact me and apologize. I can only imagine that her desire is born out of a want for closure which in my opinion is absurd. Sometimes you don’t get to have closure. You get to have regret. And regret sucks. It’s painful and it’s ugly and it is in no way my job to alleviate this woman of hers. I owe her nothing. The whole thing is absurd to me. And so incredibly disappointing. I generally give folks the benefit of the doubt and trust them implicitly. Until they show me that I can’t, and, well, then I don’t. Forgiveness is one thing. Forgetting is quite another entirely.

At any rate this is an incredibly long post, one in which I am sure folks will be critical of. Wondering why I am sharing so much- or perhaps if I am simply using this space to vent. Either way, it’s my prerogative. But I would like to hope that this is serving a little bit more than that. If only to reveal part of what my current process is around a state of being that feels tattered and shaky. My nervous system is feeling raw and exposed and I am working through some feelings of betrayal that seem to run a little deeper than I was aware. Coupled with the particulars of my current life circumstances, I am feeling lonely and disconnected and often sad. And while there is something to be said for reporting back once I am through the muck and mire of this time, I am hoping that by sharing from in the thick of it that I may serve something of even greater importance. We don’t need to always just hear the “have faith I made it through the darkness and you can too!” tale of healing and recovery. Sometimes we need the “hey I’m hurting too and this shit sucks for real AND I see you” tale of survival and perseverance. I, and you, are not simply worthy once we have made it through the night and to the bright dawn of the other side. We are worthy now. When shit is ugly and it would be more comfortable to stuff it down and look away, but we don’t.

So, in the spirit of staying connected to my better angels, here are a few of the things I am doing to help me stay the course back to myself and feelings of trust and safety and hope and grace: I am scheduling my work and study time so that it doesn’t spill over into all hours of everything leaving me worn out and empty. I am resting more and eating regularly. At the guidance of my mentors I am reinstating the insulating practice of Abhyanga on a daily basis. I am on the hunt for a new therapist locally. And just as I am scheduling work, I am likewise scheduling play and enjoyment. Library story time with my littlest and more read aloud time with Eider. Walks up the road with Maple and through the woods with Chris. Reading and Writing and Knitting for my own pleasure. And time out of the house just me. Maybe I’ll take a yoga class and get right with myself on my mat at the instruction of someone else.

Thanks for reading this far if indeed you did. And please know, I see you. As you are is fine. Even in the messiness and complication of living a good life. No need to hide your hurt or your shame or your disappointment. I can take it.

xxx,m