The Empress

My card for yesterday... (taken from facebook)

The Empress
She embodies all that is nurturing, clean and wholesome. Her powers resonate from her drive to create and care for life on a grand scale. She is in tune with Nature’s rhythm and realizes that life’s most pleasurable moments often stem from the simplest things. She is not afraid to enjoy herself and let loose, even to the point of being lavish. Abundance and luxury are important to her. The Empress is completely comfortable with her femininity and her sexuality. She is sensual, earthy, generous and likes the good life. Still, her driving force is a need to create and nurture, and fulfilling this need overrides everything else.



This is spot on for me and the day i had yesterday!

I splashed out and had a pregnancy massage from a complete earth angel... and an unexpected one at that!

A couple of weeks ago, I was referred to go to a 'pregnancy massage guru' and got a spot with him for yesterday. That in itself was lucky as from what I understand, he mainly teaches massage and doesn't do all that many himself.

I arrived at 1:30pm for a 1-1.5hr massage. We got talking about EVERYTHING and i ended up leaving just before 4:30pm! Wow is all i can say... not just about the massage though! I'm thrilled to have this man come into my life, and don't know how meeting him will impact on my journey but know there's something hatching.. and get this... He's a massage therapist of 10yrs who teaches all walks of massage, he's a counsellor, a qualified beauty therapist, a brazillian waxing instructor and most amazing to me... drumroll... he is a DOULA! WOW! We were on the same page completely with regard to women/pregnancy/birth/spirituality and it was such a JOY being around his energy and chatting with him about all we were both passionate about. Was one of those conversations that whenever it ended it was going to be too soon.

The massage was completely sublime too! lol! At the end of the massage, he placed one hand on my heart and the other on my belly. I felt a pulling sensation from my heart and he said "Your heart chakra is buzzing so beautifully". I queried what he was doing to make my heart have that pulling sensation and he said he was connecting my heart chakra energy to my baby. Bub responded with a couple of kicks... just beautiful stuff.

I left there feeling so Feminine, Powerful and Honoured and really aware of how much I need to stay present to and enjoy each moment of this pregnancy... rather than letting it go on auto pilot like i do at times. Each moment of creation is a blessing and i have a renewed sense of gratitude for the role I am playing as a nurturer in my baby's life.

So my focus today is Honouring and being appreciative of this power. I am grateful for the way so many things going on in my life right now are related to birth and women and creation... and the people in my life are all connected to this part of my 'being'. Thank you angels!

I'm going to have a Blessingway

Buzzing about the idea... now hatching what it will encompass! Joy! Bliss! Celebrations! Rituals! Connections! Spirituality! Sharing!

nesting and baby evils

I am a non-ironer. As in, I don't buy stuff that needs ironing and will wear something semi crushed without being bothered. The only thing I do iron is Jase's shirts for work. That is why I am struck with the realisation that what i did yesterday could only be described as nesting.
I got every pillow case we own out of the linen cupboard, (reorganised the linen cupboard while i was at it), and then proceeded to iron every one. Not just flat, but ironing the folds in too. Perhaps 40 of them? A little excessive I know... they've been multiplying while hiding in my nightmarish mess of a linen cupboard... but no more! They've been outed and pressed and now my linen cupboard is looking sublime :D

Today we went to a birthday party for a friend who turned 2. Got lots of pics but just love this one of Te Aroha.



My lil tomboy looking girly girl is giving such baby evils... she's a character. She's wearing an outfit I made for her too - well, I made the skirt and appliqued a heart in matching fabric onto a blue shirt of Julian's and it just so happens to go well with her Dora hat, so she's also colour coordinated. Something I struggle to manage :D

My journey so far

I believe we're all spiritual beings occupying a physical body BUT some of us know it, some of don't know it (or don't remember it yet?) and some of us choose not to think about the connection (perhaps to stay grounded in the physical experience we've chosen to venture on).

I consider myself to be very spiritually aware... but until a few days ago, I considered this a fairly fresh and recent development in my life, brought about by my becoming a mother.

A week ago, something pretty crazy but cool happened to me, which I will post about some other time, but it that made me reflect on my life so far and all of a sudden I was struck by how odd things I did early on in my life were very spiritually based.

When i was old enough to swim (about 6 or 7) I didn't swim in the pool like the other kids... I did this 'weird' but unbelievably relaxing thing where I'd do laps and laps of the pool with my legs in lotus position of all things! I'd start at the shallow end (of a home pool so it wasn't all that deep) and let myself sink to the bottom while exhaling with my eyes closed, and then I'd use my hands to propel myself upwards and forward a little bit to get a breath of air before continuing with my exhales and inhales for the length of the pool, then back and forth for many laps.

I absolutely loved being in the water and doing this, and like all kids, I'd spend hours in the pool, regardless of whether it was hot enough to swim or not doing this odd 'exercise' for hours every day through most of spring and summer. I have only just realised that what I was doing was a form of meditation and that the way I was regulating my breathing was facilitating a bodily connection to my soul.

At many times when I felt misunderstood by or upset with my parents, I can remember longing to be in the pool, just chilling out doing my laps! I thought I liked swimming, but really it was an escape that obviously relaxed and centred me. I can even remember the first weeks of swimming each year, and how hard it would be hard to maintain the lotus position for the hours of laps I wanted to do because I was out of practice... What a weird kid hey!

Added to this odd way of passing time, I also found a great deal of pleasure doing headstands! I first practised doing headstands with a pillow for my head to rest on, and I'd then push my legs up so they lined up with the wall for support. Gradually I developed the balance and strength required to stay in the pose for 20 minutes or more... and at this point moved away from a wall did my headstands with a small cushion without any supporting walls for my legs... and instead of doing standard headstands with the legs fully extended, I'd put my legs in the lotus position first and then do the headstand! I guess at this time I would have been about 9 or 10. What an odd kid, hey? It's no wonder my parents never 'got' me!

The lotus position and headstand exercise weren't the only yoga exercises I'd do... although at the time i didn't know they were yoga. I had found a diet / good health type book of my mum's which had photos of some exercises for flexibility in it, and the depictions of various yoga poses were the ones i picked to learn.

There's the first instalment of my reflecting on my journey so far. There's more to come so stay tuned :D

Hilarious!

Found a very funny ebay auction linked to on another blog and the description is hysterical! Read it here.

Birth birth birth

This story made my day!

I am on a big birth tangent at the moment.



My friend gave birth to her second baby girl yesterday - she was born at home, into water and into her mumma's arms. What a beautiful and precious way to start life. This is the second friend of mine to birth this way in the past month... I'm so thrilled for them both and their families of course!

A bit over a year ago I participated in a research group discussion related to the spirituality of birth and menstruation and today I just received an email of the finished report.

It has blown me away reading over what I said in regards to my two experiences of birth and what they have each meant to me. I guess I just forget it most of the time, but my birth experience with Julian shaped me so much into who i am today...

I am going to ask for permission to post some of it on my blog. It is so central to my journey as an earthy spiritual mama.

I will update later if I get the ok.

Marrying my 4yo

Well... I'm no longer in Julian's sights as a potential future wife (phew!) but the way he told me today was fairly unexpected!



We were sitting at the exit to the shopping centre waiting for Jase and TA to return and he didn't want to sit next to me on the bench...

I teased him and said "Don't you want to sit next to me? I thought you wanted to marry me, the least you could do is sit next to me!"

to which he replied (laughing at me and shaking his head!) "Nooooooo, I don't want to marry you!"

"Oh you don't want to marry me anymore? How come?"

"It's disgusting!"

I was laughing too at this point thinking he'd worked out that the idea of marrying his own mum was a bit out of the question...

"Is it cos I'm your mum that it's disgusting?"

"No mum... MARRYING is disgusting!" as in, my son thinks it's gross for a guy and a girl to hold hands or kiss. He often says YUCK when Jase and I kiss, even a quick peck.

He went on to elaborate that marrying is for bum bums.

It just cracks me up that our conversations are like this already. I had no idea it would start so early.