MOTHERLY WISDOM - WEANING

Milkies out of a cup - Bye bye boobies!

Today I decided to wean my youngest, Louie. After thinking long and hard about this descion and seeking advice, it suddenly feels right. But also a tiny bit sad too. We have been been bossom buddies for 21 months now. He has curled up in the crook of my arm and nestled into the soft warmth of my milky vessels and nursed contentley to sleep, in times of thirst, after scraped knees, in times of insecurity and for sheer comfort. I would relish in the quiet time of this nurturing practice and the pulse of feel good hormones that would flood my body each time. I feel very very blessed to have had a breastfeeding relationship as it's something I personally had always wanted when dreaming up my life as mother. 

Mamas boy for life

Like all things in life, change is inevitable and holding on tight with resistant white knuckles will only cause pain. My life changed when I got sick. Lack of sleep and breastfeeding a toddler while running after his older sibling is hard enough as it is without the added stress of a depleted body. And that is the crux of why I have decided to wean. I am depleted. With no reserves to cling onto when I'm unwell and the broken sleep night after night was not serving me, him or my family anymore. It is still hard though.. I feel that sense of loss and my little boy being one step closer to his independence. Snipping at those apron strings takes a great deal of strength and compassion for yourself. Motherhood requires a lot of sincere compassion as it's a constant rhythm of pulling in and letting go. Inhales and exhales. Breathing in your child's distinct sweet aroma that only a mother knows and breathing out as they run full force down the grassy hills. Breathing in kisses on rose bud lips and breathing out their first day of school. We pull them in, we let them go. It's as natural as the moon sweeping in and pushing out the tides. Surrender. 

One cute bottom doing some water play

Change. It's a good thing. And in the end we must question if we are truly holding onto something for the good of the child or for our own benefits or fears. I feared disconnection from my son as we moved away from our breastfeeding relationship but what I got was a happy little boy who has found great joy in his new found curiosity away from mamas milk. And we now have endless cuddles and new ways to show our love for each other. Our bond is stronger because I chose to look after me and to trust my body. I see that as a gift to my children, to show them respect for oneself and stepping out of my own selfish needs to nurture the entire family.

Astrid xx

WHATS YOUR WORD FOR 2015?

My fearless flyer. My teacher. My daughter

Time is a natural part of this human life. We live in the now and at every moment we leave behind a past and move into a future. Every second can be used as a time to reflect and to change. The new year brings a great opportunity to reminisce on the year that has passed (where did it go?) and how we would like to shape the year ahead. 

One year ago I stood under stark florescent lights in a long line of hungry, suppressed and struggling people. A man in front of me stood barefoot, smelling of urine, weed and oppression. The two guys behind me bantered about their latest stint in prison and the crack they had smoked that morning. I stood in my middle class white clothing holding my baby and asking myself what the fuck I was doing here. Why had I let my family get to this point of being so broke we had to collect emergency food parcels. Tears sprung to my eyes and then I felt something shake inside of me and break open like an earthquake splitting the earth apart. An enormous amount of courage and determination burst out of my brokenness. 

No more. 

This was the last time I ever allowed my family to get to this place. I prayed to God for change and a pathway out of this. Something shifted. A calm flowed over me and I knew what I had to do and what was ahead. 

The sun is streaming through my new little apartment, casting light into dark corners in the City of Angels today. Fresh produce is stacked up in our fridge and my family is happy, healthy and for the moment at peace. A year on and life is very different. It has been a long road, with a lot of hard work and sacrifices have been made. I think about standing in that line often, as it reminds me of where we have come from and what can be achieved with a shift in your mindset and some self education. Every single moment in life can be either met with "woe is me" or "teach me". Every emotion can be fought against or we can be kind to ourselves and take a quiet space to nurture those hurts and breathe compassion and love into them. However, some shitty, cruel and relentless suffering happens in this world. I would like to acknowledge those who have very little choice and have been born into war, unfathomable poverty and who are at the hands of broken, evil humans. I will never understand the pain and suffering that these people must endure. All we can do is look to those who are trying to carve out change by rising up against the warped ideas of power hungry individuals. It's the Nelson Mandelas, the Gandhis, the Malala Yousufzais, the foster parents, the environmentalists and all those wonderful souls who are working towards a better, more peaceful world.

These inspiring people got me thinking about what my word for 2015 would be. I have decided it would be COURAGE. To have the courage to take risks, to go against the norm and be fearless when it comes to going after my dreams. To have the courage to be honest with my family and ask for their help when it's needed. To be courageous and speak up more for myself and those who need a voice. Courage is deciding to step off that cliff of uncertainty and fall into an undiscovered ocean of challenges and opportunities. 

What is your word? What will you be threading into your year?

Wishing everyone, all six billion and something souls on this earth, on this damn beautiful mess of a planet, a happy, loved up, COURAGEOUS and blessed new year.

Love Astrid xx

TREE HUGGING IN LOS ANGELES

Moving to Hollywood saw the same look of dismay on my face as a child who was prematurely told that Santa does not exist. The absence of princesses living happily ever after and people falling madly in love in cute little hipster outfits saw my romanticism of the place die in quite an instant. While there is beauty here it is snuggled up with a lot of litter, poverty, shit stained streets and souls grasping for the illusion of happiness from fame and fortune. Nevertheless, I love it. I don't want to leave this reckless town and its relentless heaving of noise and chaos. For all its filth, tacky glamour and prostitutes hollering on my 7am walk, there are the mountain walks, the many kindred spirits and so much for the senses to explore. The ability to escape and replenish the soul is as easy as heading up Western ave, taking a right onto Los Feliz Boulevard and a left onto Fern Dell drive to find yourself in a woodland paradise called Griffith Park. Deer and horses a plenty, cellphone reception and smog at a minimum. It's here I have spent many hours seated under tall trees gathering my thoughts into my minds basket, ready to sort out the weeds from the blossoms. I love watching the trees in autumn in this town. The branches bare and bent resemble a kind old lady's arthritic fingers pointing out to a distant memory. Chlorophyll drained leaves are plucked by the fall breeze and swirl down creating a fiery red and brown rug for its forest floor. These old woody giants stand tall and admire the seasonal loss. They do not wither or complain about the changes that occur but instead seem to look upon their letting go with admiration and go as far as to create beauty with their shedding. I always look to the trees when needing inspiration to keep going, to keep changing without resilience.

Los Angeles could beat you down. It could strip you bare with its capitalist teeth, exposing your naked bones which are splintered with insecurities, worthlessness and doubt. Or perhaps you could be like the trees. Feeling the weave of the winter blanket being stitched across your vulnerabilities and creating a hardy new skin on those exposed limbs. Swaying with the changes but always rooting down to seek life force and sustenance from the earth. Staying grounded in the storm. I think that's what has got me through this upheaval of moving from one country to another. I have not resisted or challenged the change unfolding in front of me. I have seen the lessons and beauty in the transitional times, and midwifed that inner child into the birth of a new chapter of her life when she has wanted to run away scared into her safe yet stagnant past.

I bid you to make like a 1960's Californian hippy and start hugging some trees when your soul is feeling tethered. The great thing about this place is you have to be really crazy to look crazy so be a free spirit! Learn from nature that speaks in tongues of beauty and time because they have and will continue to outlast us through their effortless meetings with change. 

Astrid x

THE BIRTH OF A MOTHER

It was fear that appeared in the window of my pregnancy test. Those two little lines represented the parallel that my life was running at that moment. In an instant I saw all of my hopes and dreams dashed and a new path carved out before me. I sat in the public toilets in Byron Bay and choked down the tears and looming responsibility that those two lines threatened me with and then I pulled up my big girl panties and I ran as fast as I could. I ran all the way to a grassy little hill and cried until I couldn't cry anymore. I closed my wet eyes, took a deep breath and placed my hands to my belly. Hello you......and then I was really in trouble. Fear was replaced by an ancient love. I already knew this little speck of shared reproductive juices. Her imprint had been lying within me since my beginning. It was if she had been echoing in my bones this whole time and like a powerful mantra,, had manifested itself into life. This manifestation came from the vibration of years of daydreaming, reckless love making and perhaps a little destiny. She was now submerged in her own watery universe, dividing, multiplying and changing. We were both changing. She into her physical form and I into a mother. My old self was slowly dying and I could hear the chain rattle in my inhales and exhales as I somewhat clung to my former life. But, I was excited about the birth of a new me.

Over the next few months my belly swelled, as did my day dreaming with my daughter. I would smooth my hand over my full moon round stomach and imagine I was caressing her sweet little head. I ached to just kiss those tiny toes that wriggled under my rib cage and prodded me awake in the depth of the night reminding me of her presence. Pregnancy is like one big acid trip. You float between moments of absolute euphoria, seeing colors, nature and people with new eyes and cosmic connection, then without warning you can be thrust into facing some deep dark skeletons which you have to deal with in order to melt back into a sublime state. There is nothing like pregnancy to hash up all those suppressed emotions and memories and to be made to shed them like an old skin before birthing a new one. And if you don't deal with your stuff during the generous nine months you are given then be sure it'll well up in birth and beyond.

During my labor with my daughter I had all sorts of denied emotions come up. It was like the more my hips and cervix expanded the more my embedded emotional dust got disturbed. Perhaps that why I opted out of my home birth and opted in for a spinal block. Numb the pain, oh god numb the pain. Numb the feelings, just numb everything. Yes said the doctors and yes says society. Suppress, deny, do not grieve, do not see the death of self as a rite of passage into birthing a strong grounded mother. I flipped the bird at vein chilling sedatives and detachment with the birth of my son. I stood bearing into the floor with bare feet and calling upon the millions of woman who had birthed before me, my birthing ancestors, to send their love and strength my way. Every contraction was met with a deep spiraling inside of myself. I can still see the place in my mind I went too. It was far far away, a small place that was filled with light and a glowing orange within its center. It was only in this place that I could handle the intense energy of my labor. Although I had wanted my husband to be my main form of support it was my mother holding me that felt most right. Draping into her arms and giving over the energy of my contractions to a seasoned birther and the woman who gave me the gift of life was one of the most poignant moments in my existence. It was like the contractions surged up through me from the earth, into her and then back into the earth. She was my copper wire, conducting all that power. Perhaps in that moment she became a new mother too.

I always liked the Christian notion of being reborn. But, I feel this does not happen once. We are constantly reborn on a daily, weekly and seasonal basis. Sowing our seeds of intention, shedding, hibernating and springing forth into a new life. I am not the mother I was four years ago or even a week ago. Its futile to think that this life is stable, we are constantly changing and evolving. Its merely the question of how do we flow down lifes river?

My birthing and motherhood experiences are shaping me in a way that I could not have fathomed. It is not what I thought and I have grieved those lost expectations. I am also not the mother I thought I would be. I'm weak in the areas I thought I was strong and strong in the areas I thought I was weak. I love it because I get to be creative and to be in touch with my inner child again. Birthing into motherhood has been a swirling pot of love, connection, dirty laundry, sleepless nights, loneliness, playing in imaginary castles, a lot of time outdoors, a lot of time indoors, a flow, a change, a constant rhythmic change consisting of high notes and low somber tones. In becoming a parent I have learned there is a constant teacher-student exchange. While we are mentoring our children through life we are also being taught by our greatest teachers. We grow and learn beside them. Welcome our babies to the world but do not forget to honor the birth of the mother.

Astrid xx

FEAR OF FAILURE

Hey my name is George (my real name is Anthony, but that's another story)

And well, I have a fear of failure.

I pushed blame, created guilt, wallowed in resentment and proactively promoted procrastination. All to fuel my fear of failure. I have used every excuse to push aside any passions and ambitions and denied myself any sense of achievement by focusing only on my failings.

It seems easier to allow myself to feel stupid than to see the good in what I do.

I just simply punched in and out of life's "time clock" allowing my thoughts to play out the void my life was accustomed too.

I don't know when it began... or maybe I do, but I have allowed this fear to control my life and wipe away any memory of purpose, leaving fear standing over me, hiding in my shadows and controlling me like a puppet. I feel like Pinocchio waiting to become a real boy. A real man. Someone with purpose.

And what is it?

Fear sucks, it literally sucks. It actually sucks any ambitious thoughts into a whirl pool of "you're not good enough."

I have heard the subconscious reacts 5 times faster than your conscious mind and what your subconscious says to you is usually the response you have conditioned yourself to think. This is from years and years of conditioning that plays out faster than your conscious mind leaving your positive affirmations in the dust while your beliefs eat away at you.

Every excuse and anxious thought that makes up the fear we live daily is a constant reminder that we live in an imperfect world, this world has turmoil and chaos and yet so much beauty and magnificence.

This world is authentic and honest and we can decide to be the same or we can choose to live in fear. The greatest lie we tell ourselves is that something that hasn't taken place is real and so, it will be our demise.

But in reality its a fragmented memory that continues to repeat over and over again as if we needed a constant reminder, like an alarm clock that wakes us up from our dream filled with beauty and magnificence.

I guess the hope is that by saying hey my name is... and I have a fear of failure, it might just stop that subconscious alarm clock causing you to wake up to a new dawn filled with hope and wonderment where creativity awaits, longingly to be explored and ambition fills the air with a sweet aroma that brings out the wonderment and beauty of hope.

Maybe fear isn't the enemy maybe its an indication to finding what we are most passionate about maybe its the reason to carry on, in spite of fear, so that one day this world's beauty will be fully revealed within our most hidden treasures.

 

George.