while so many want simple I'm choosing something else
may life forever be celebrated for it's complicated involutions and fractaled neverending-ness
the push and pull of it all
forever teetering on the brink of something fantastic if we just choose to let go
if we choose to believe that confusion and lucidity bring us to the same source (truth), we walk a much more interesting path
stepping forward by seeing and making sense of the multiverse that exists within each of us and that we exist within brings us to nothingness and everything
each of us equal in our humanity 🤝
stop trying to make things easier
stop trying to make things palatable
black and white misses ALLLLLL OF THIS
trust the expansiveness of your mind (heart soul spirit)
trust that it will catch up once you make the choice to step forward
our survival is rooted in our opportunism, our curiosity, our boundary pushing, our skepticism
let contradictory things live side by side and settle into the tension
listen to the story spoken between opposites, understand that there is truth in each
neither is right or wrong, they just ARE
universe says: baby bird, we gotchu 🤝🐦❤ keep diving
thanks to @thatmattsmith for collaborating on this piece and putting a final image to this year
[these are my concrete and up-in-the-air lessons from 2021, thought I'd let you all see where my head has been at 😝]
bread pushed in a tin
Kitchen thoughts 😂 welcome to my brain and how the bread is made!
Text in case you want to read:
We are not broken beings
We are made exactly as was meant
There is no cosmic score keeping tally of our deeds
Good girl good boy, bad girl bad boy
What does it look like when we step outside of the box and live a life more honestly?
Not necessarily for others but just for ourselves
Sometimes I take this all too seriously and sometimes it does seem serious at all
A giant cosmic fluke and also the most purposeful thing ever
Rumi says we are not a drop in the ocean, we are the ocean in a drop
Tathagatagarba sutra says all beings have within them the wisdom of ThathAgata, the buddha
We are all buddha-nature and buddha-nature is us
This is both the elevation and the leveling of our being
We are the warrior and the slave, the master and the child, and mother and the maid
All at the same time and not at all
Bread getting pushed in a tin
buried in this post is a message
topped toasts with cinnamon raisin pumpkin bread, almond butter, roasted red grapes, granola, pomegranate, pepitas, almond 😍
buried in this post is a message for all of you out there who are having a tough time with tightening up of restrictions 👌 I'm with you and I'm really tired of pretending that I'm okay with what's happening
I'm also really tired of being a "good girl" and hoping that expressing my opinions won't lead to the end of the business because some people disagree and some people boycott
I've always been a bit anarchist and this is how it's expressing itself these days-- restriction is not freedom
Anyone trying to feed that to you is intentionally poisoning you
This craziness will end once we demand it ends
I've read study after study about the cognitive/behavioral declines in children over this time of restriction. It's heartbreaking what policy has done in the name of science
And we're not pulling back. Not saying enough is enough. Not saying it was a mistake
I saw a video of elementary school kids not much older than Bea forced to sit on 5 gallon buckets, eating their lunches outside, with 6ft between them to protect them. How is that protection? How is that anything but harm?
It's easy for me to understand and empathize with children, but what is this really doing to us?
Why do we think that we're any different?
Why do we think we can handle more?
I sat in a meeting today with members of the Hudson Farmers Market. We're masked up again and all eyes. I thought about the years of expressions I've seen on the faces around me and how difficult it must be for children to build experience and negotiate faces right now
I only see this as the collateral damage of tyrants anymore
I have a ton to say, really
But totally scared about any backlash or blame or bullshit
And, as a sidebar, because I've been a bit vocal about this I've found customers of ours who have been sharing their injury experiences and diagnoses. Hemorrhage, vertigo, hair loss, nerve damage, + more
Feels like I'm being called to not ignore what I'm seeing anymore and bone-up on what "gaslighting" truly means
Note to self: stop thinking the state is your friend 👌
ancestor veneration
ancestor veneration: been a little quiet on here while processing some things happening in the background of life
we went to visit our family at the First Church of Andover's cemetery a week or so before Halloween
William Barker Sr is my 10th great grandfather and accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials (died 1713)
feeling a lot and keeping a lot unsaid, but this feels big for me
unearthing something
maybe a narrative that has run through our lines since the incident
I can feel the ripples of it all right now-- the persecution, the accusations, betrayal of community, group think, the distinction of truth and lies, the abuses of those in power
a lot to digest and rest my heart into
I do know that the joy of bringing life to the dead is something that I'm only starting to understand now that I'm raising Bea
teaching her that a graveyard deserves deep respect and reverence, but that it's a safe place to run free and laugh and have fun hiding behind the tombstones because our ancestors memory is strongest then
we live through them and they live through us
our family is some of the first to be buried here, under pine trees that cover the ground in cones and sap
roots that run deep and boughs that reach to the heavens
we made three mandalas: one circle for William Sr, the patriarch of the line and protector of his family; one heart for the babies lost to Samuel Barker, Joshua at 2 and Joshua at 3 weeks; and Mary who was William's partner, our kin, and braved the hardest journey that a mother can
I left here thinking one thing: we are survivors
And for some background, in case anyone is actually reading 😝👌 William was accused of witchcraft and confessed that the was in the legion of the Devil because the people who denied got hanged and the people who confessed lived. He escaped prison and made his way to Andover from Salem. Everyone accused was eventually acquitted including a few members of our family. There are many theories about the fervor of the trials, seems like a blend of politics, economics, bad harvest, and group think. I do like the ergot poisoning theory the best 🔥🔥
let's talk about potential
let's talk about potential: not every food business has dreams to open a storefront or to expand to co-packer style manufacturing or being in every location imaginable
I have heard for YEARS that Happy Belly is not living up to alllllll of our potential
While I'm flattered they have seen so much in what we've created, this is not the direction I want to go
We've looked at + planned for a number of storefront spaces over the years-- the spot where Filli's is in Valatie, a spot on Warren with @tincanjuicery, the entire Catskill National Bank and Trust for a combination performance/co-working/bar/bakery spot (this one I wanted the most)
All the dreams are there
All the pathways are open
It just matters which direction I turn my attention toward
I can't help but think that "potential" is just someone else's projection of a hypothetical future
One that they will undoubtedly be absent
Not there for the waking up at 4am to slice breads and cut bars, the 14 hour baking shifts, the making hard decisions about bottom lines, the not being able to balance and shift when you need to balance and shift ALL THE TIME
I used to feel a lot of pressure thinking about all my squandered potential
All until I started listening to what my heart was telling me:
Small
Sustainable
Connection
Freedom
Those are the concept ingredients that created the Happy Belly recipe
The minute I stopped listening to the projections was the minute I settled into pride for what I created and nurtured over this decade
Conscious awareness, all the way
I am still that 14 year old girl who's most loved job was the farmers market
Waking up at 4am to load the box truck with fruit for markets in NYC with @locustgrovefrui
I worked 4 per week over the summers until I was 18-- 175th St, Union Square,Thompkins Square Park, and Borough Hall in Bklyn
The conversations + connections, the energy + vibe, the immediacy of the interactions 🔥 our regulars, the product, the sales pitch, counting the money, working back to back 14 hour days (all that teen energy😆), but mostly the freedom of being outside while conducting business
Honest work
But please, tell me how to run the show
I'll wait ✋😝
in a rut, enjoy the scenery
when you find yourself in a rut, learn to enjoy the scenery
my equinox lesson this season 😆
this phrase came to me while Bea and Ebby moved through the deep channels made by 4x4s plowing through the sand
they just had fun playing and digging and listening to me yell about being safe
it got me thinking about the ruts of life
I don't mean the challenges of life but the actual space between experiences
the time after you've started something but before you've finished it
the valley of the vast
our eyes are neither on the prize or the horizon, but just on the surroundings
I'm talking about the time just before we emerge from a deep dive-- our lungs can't take it, we feel like we're about to explode from the pressure-- at the same time we have to breath so intensely we feel like we'll died, we also feel so damn alive in our bodies and the urgency of the experience
I'm talking about the belly land between the mountain peaks filled with unseen joys and untold riches-- we are usually too focused on getting to the heights of beyond that we forget this low-lying space can speak to us with nuance and tenderness and give us everything we need
this can be a time or space or experience we choose to avoid, to not settle into
the space in-between is uncomfortable and unknown and a little directionless, kind of like a waiting room between your arrival and your destination
I've been forcing myself to be as present as possible while in the depths of my ruts to feel out all the nooks and crannies of my life and my feelings
I really do love when how I'm feeling on the inside shows up on the outside-- perfect equinox balancing act
so here we are!
spending our time with the pelicans and the plovers, the sand crabs and the fishermen, the puppies and the toddlers at Island Beach State Park in NJ the past few days
nice to reflect on where we are at, at the moment-- at a place that means so much to me
entrepreneurship is brutal
I would change very few things about our business but I'm going to be real...
Entrepreneurship is brutal
It's definitely freedom, but making it work and the actual WORK 🤯 ahhh!
The amount of mistakes you make along the way is intense and kind of neverending
We work just about 7 days a week, haven't had a planned weekend off since the shutdown last March/ April
Our livelihood is directly on our shoulders and our absolute bottomline
I wrote this back on February 20, 2020-- before the pandemic, but seemingly preparing me for the requirements of the pandemic:
"To be a business owner you need to have a strong stomach, a straight spine, a hard chin, a flexible mind, an unbreakable back, and durable legs to get you through the rough road. To be that committed to the business means being that committed to yourself. The version that exists now and the potential version you see on the horizon. If you let the journey take you it can be rewarding, but to get to that place requires putting your ego (admittedly HUGE) aside every step of the way. It requires an objective look at what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong and to know how to adjust over and over and over again. It requires breaking down and rebuilding. This is not for the faint of heart. This is for in-the-trenches freedom seeking sadists, hellbent on refinement, with the courage to keep taking the next blind step forward with the groundedness to plan for the unknown future. I fucking love it and I fucking hate it and I wouldn't have it any other way. The dreaminess of creating the vision and the practical magic of the hands-on work is perfect for the drive inside of me that never stops."
You guys sometimes ask me at market how I do it... this is how
Beating myself down and raising myself up 😂
The commitment to myself is everything. Without me there is no Happy Belly
Thanks for the support though. You all really do lift me up when I'm struggling and questioning and not knowing what the fuck to bake. Knowing that we'll meet in the middle-- between the market tables-- really brings me to life again.
Anyway, we're going on break soon but I wanted to share whats on my mind today
balance of multiplicity
The balance of multiplicity: I was 13 when Buddhism found me and exploded my Catholic kid brain
I was raised Roman Catholic. The way it was taught to me didn't line up with the experiences of my life up to that point
Before I was confirmed I told my mom that I was having doubts. She scheduled a private meeting with the priest
I said: "If God created all of us, what created God"
His only response was "faith". I needed to have it to understand greater mysteries and priests were the go between. I still got confirmed even though I immediately left the church
That moment set me on the path to find what I actually believe--- to be the one who actually holds the knowledge, the one who has a relationship with something higher
Like an ever-expanding recipe, I put together my belief system through this life from everywhere
Buddhism and Daoism felt most right and are my base. Then I added some Animism. Then some healthy Agnosticism. Then hands on work with psychedelics and plant medicines. Then shamanic traditions throughout the world. Then Egyptian, Celtic, Hawaiian, Mayan, and Norse mythology. Then our some of our own mythology (LoTR, GoT, Harry Potter, Marvel)
I'm left in a place where I feel like a hodge-podged student of the world and of all the stories we tell ourselves about the great mystery of life. Definitely vagabond living 👌
This has been informing my political understanding these days
A bubbling cauldron of ideas from liberals to libertarians, anarchists to socialists, conservatives to communists, globalists to nationalists, anti- to pro-, and all the things in between
I supposed that makes my belief system harder, one that has to be regularly maintained and upgraded
But it works for me to know that I can at least understand the reasons why belief systems are formed and have respect for the opinions born through individual experience
Who am I to sit in intense judgement of others 🤷♀️ share your story, I'll listen
Grains of sand on the beach, stars in the skies, or molecules that surround us-- all expansive and contractive in our own worlds and minds
I welcome all
And now I realize I've been following the Jesus path for a while 🤯 full circle
settled in the in-between
next month is 19 years for @brandon.of.bjerke and I ❤
Admittedly we're not in the best of places these days
Kind of settled in the in-between place-- a lot of things up in the air and not quite sure WTF is going on with our dynamic
I heard from the ocean today: you are two wild hearts not meant to be tamed; the dance is difficult, never-ending in fact, like the tides; the only path to true liberation is through the balance of the love and the pain, which can be either love or pain if you stay bound to binary mindedness; expansion expansion expansion
What this all means? Who fucking knows 🤷♀️
But trying to live together, work together, raise a child together with all the expectations and boundary work required of two people can be utterly suffocating
Some days we flow, other days we fall (pretty spectacularly, too)
I've been thinking about love more than ever and the versions of love that I have experienced in partnership with Brandon
We joked today that we're on relationship number 5 with each other ❤ that's truly what it feels like
Our partnership is an ongoing, side by side evolution
However...
Giving space to your partner to find themselves, redefine themselves, break down old ways, and emerge new... phew, that is the hardest work of all
Scary shit for the partner making space
Pretty vulnerable work not knowing if each time your vision for the future will align or if your paths will diverge
The song Daredevil by Fiona Apple has a line I love: "I will try hard to hold on to you with open arms" 👌 that is it exactly
I think this is the magic sauce, at least for us-- the holding on and letting go of each other
...the trepidatious but wholehearted opening up to the new people each of us will become while together
... the knowing that we need to step off a cliff to find ourselves and in that terrifyingly freeing process becoming more whole and sovereign beings
...the not knowing what the future will bring or require from us and how much we were able to change for it
... the showing up because the love of and dedication to the next step on the path
In service to ourselves and each other, always
Anyway, big ocean medicine today. Going to bed.
to be yourself is all that you can do
"to be yourself is all that you can do"
lyrics from @chriscornellofficial I have been coming back to just about everyday
I've been asking some deep questions when I have the presence of mind
Who are we when we strip away everything?
Who are we when we remove our masks for a bit and sit in the full honesty of our being?
How many people have seen this side of ourselves?
How many of us have even show it to ourselves?
Takes bravery (maybe foolishness too) to look that plainly at anything.
I've been sitting in this place for a bit.
When my son died I felt this expansive white pearl take shape in the core of my being. Everything I cared about-- all the hope, all the expectations for the future with him-- was gone. I was left with this indescribable vastness.
It was as if the birth and death and stripping away cleansed me in a way that nothing has before.
No medicine as strong as birth and death.
Instead of my son I was left with a purity of emptiness that was both so difficult and so beautiful to experience.
Like a sloughing off of an old life and an old story. Hard and tender. Nothing but supported love with open arms. The possibility of everything is in that space.
I felt the white pearl of emptiness again when I gave birth to Bea and when I lost my grandmother back in January.
Not as sharp but still showing and glowing and growing and saying:
This is you, at the core, without pretense. Standing in your strength and innocence and embodiment.
At some point I would like to share this with anyone who would like to sit with the pearl. Thinking a meditation-channeling session would suffice. But not sure how that looks yet. Offer is out there for anyone who wants to experiment and play.
Anyway, I've been taking time to myself late at night when things are quiet and I can think clearly. I've been creating spontaneous collages that act as visions that come to me when I'm in meditation.
Here is Amitabha with Everest and amethyst and lightening.
"Infinite light" among extreme circumstances
Feels right for right now
like mother like daughter
like mother, like daughter
the things Bea is working through in her life, I am working through in mine
a massive untangling is underway on my end while a weaving together is underway on hers
the second she came to me (even before, if I'm honest) it felt like in order to a better mother/parent/human I needed to dive into how I was parented to address the legacy of my family
I've reparented myself over the years but not to this depth or with this speed
my family is a military family
my grandfather made my mom and aunt move cinder blocks around the backyard when they were little just because he could
made them ration food and toilet paper just because he could
that "fall in line, keep your mouth shut" shit is insidious and our legacy and I still see it popping up in me when guiding Bea
autonomy and assertion is where she's at right now and I have been struggling with control and surrender a lot lately
what does it mean to try to control someone?
tactics of bribery, punishment, lying, physical and emotional abuse seem to be memories that are most close these days
a legacy I have a very hard time changing despite hating it when it was done to me
The whole "I'm doing this because I love you" or "you'll thank me one day" 🤦♀️
control is not love
control is a fallacy
control is fear
this time of toddlerhood is teaching me about sovereignty, personhood, and freedom for Bea and myself
how to create boundaries that are safe for her without it becoming controlling and domineering
how to honor her individuality while dealing with all the places in myself where I supress it
how to let "NO" and "YES" be said and heard freely
how to allow ourselves to keep shining and be silly and love everything and everyone with innocent abandon without pushing to conform to a certain way of being
often we forget that we're all capable of being little tyrants drunk on ourselves, just out to get the people who stand up and voice something different than quo
as ram das said: when you know how to listen everyone is the guru
here's mine: the child who named herself 🔥 with a spoon on her nose, standing in front of her drawings, loving me for all I am, as I do my best
divinity in the darkness
there's divinity in the darkness
I worked through fertility issues before having Callum and Bea
there were energetic ties in my mother's line, going back many generations that played out between mother and child, that kept me from being able to hold space for life
I lost a few pregnancies while the rage in me just grew
alongside energy/body work and therapy, I went back to psychedelic plant/fungi to help open myself up to the story that needed to be told
I remember in one particular ayahuasca ceremony we had a different co-facilitator than usual
during the session and deep in the rhythms of the medicine, he stood up in front of the room and began to dance and sing
the voices and energy that was working through him were wild-- I have NEVER seen someone so fully possessed by spirit
his face flickered between male and female and animal and alien and divine and disgusting
mask after mask, voice after voice, just a clean channel
shit got intense for a lot of the people in the room, many left
I watched, totally entranced, hands on my heart, belly laughing at the spectacle of it all
with a deep understanding being told to me... everything in us is godly and divine from the vomiting in buckets to the simple prayers on our altar
that moment trained me for meeting the future Monica-- the Monica who would have to deal with ALL sides of herself that would come out after losing a child and raising another while deep in grief
I stood in the kitchen today and wept thinking about that night
I know I'm slightly sadistic but the joy I felt in that chaos was pure magic
and today I felt it again... the depth of dates and the height of mint when baking brownies, the cup of intense coffee that completely lightened my mood, the bittersweetness of chocolate that elevates me each time I taste it
there is divinity in the darkness
we're all just worms making liquid gold from the rot and life around us
it's beautiful and holy and totally gross
men
o the dads who are still here and the dads who are not ❤
@brandon.of.bjerke, my dad, and B's dad
all men of tenderness and warmth, each in their own ways
working on issues with Brandon over the years (but mostly since losing our son) has really helped me understand the legacy that we have handed down to the men in our lives
I keep seeing how I am complicit in emotional/psychological/spiritual abuse-- all normalized by our society and relationship structures
When we talked about having kids, I was always less worried about raising a son than a daughter
But now I'm seeing the depths of trauma that our sons/men are brought into and pity myself for assuming my son would be tough enough to handle it when I didn't even understand it myself
The roads toward healing are cut off for many men (for a variety of reasons)-- our rituals and rites of passage have less gravity now
Finding place within community is hard-- getting a man to hold space for another man and be affectionate with another man seems to be something that is starting to shift in my generation
But we have largely abandoned them, encouraged them to get hard, be individuals, be dutiful, be productive
All the unprocessed anger/sadness/grief must be a heavy burden to carry on their own
Coming from a line of men on both sides of my family who were alcoholics and sexually abused, the pain runs to the core
Men are conditioned to keep quiet about their pain-- that shit will eat you from the inside out which explains all the numbing and self sabotage I've seen
When I feel into my compassion for men and fathers (mainly my own father and maternal grandfather), I think about the way I would treat my son had he lived
My wishes:
keep him close, shower him with love, teach him to soften
do not abandon him with his feelings because of external expectations of what it should look like and how he should act
do not force him to grow up too fast and harden his heart, encourage tenderness and responsibility to himself
remind him to share his inner world/experiences and meet him with compassion
teach him to love and heal without discrimination
teach boundaries
change the legacy, honor the legacy
national pollinators week
got a feature in the @hudsonfarmersmarketny newsletter this week about our garden 😎 for National Pollinator's Week which starts on the 21st! 🐝🐜🐞🦋
I dug up our front yard almost as soon as we moved in. First thing I planted was rhubarb and raspberry. Been here a little over 9 years and this is an ongoing project.
We've been reported to the town by our neighbors multiple times over the years. I never backed down from code enforcement. Sent videos and pictures of this garden playing host to pollinators.
I fought for this and worked on it and now we have new neighbors who stop to appreciate what we're doing and thank us. Times change. We are outliers making a difference with a GARDEN.
Happy that our neighborhood got more diverse-- from our yard we hear Mandarin, Spanish, Bangladeshi, Hindi and see families who are younger with kiddos. And I can't help but think that the obsession with pristine yards will be a thing of the past. More people, more experience, more life, more memories.
I grew up playing and learning in the gardens my mom grew. Flowers, herbs, veggies... all her specialty. Our gardens always teamed with life.
I dug into bird and insect identification books (dog id books were my favorite though!). My grandfather used to sit outside with me and play cassettes of bird calls. We would mimic their songs and sing with them. Felt like HOURS but I loved it and what was time back then.
My favorite thing as a teen was putting basil in my pockets in the morning before school so that I would keep smelling it through the day. Nice reminder of home and must have given me some comfort while navigating the insanity of high school 😵😝
Anyway, tear up your front yard. Fuck your shitty neighbors. Be a steward.
Remember the rapture of talking with flowers or taking in their deep scent.
Give space the bird, bees, butterflies, moths, worms, bugs, everything little that needs our help.
Interdependence is everything. Community is more than humans.
trauma travels
trauma travels through families until someone decides to feel it, process it, transmute it
I was at acupuncture last Friday working on this gross mucus situation that has been sticking around for a couple weeks (despite all the herbs, body/energy work, and rest it's being stubborn) and I had transmission of this exact thing
I saw a multi-dimensional staircase-- people ascended and descended, like a mirror reflecting into infinity
I saw an ongoing line of people and their traumas which looked like massively knotted ropes
Some people in my line began to unwind the knots they were given, taking their time with patience, and handed down to the next in line a less fucked up mess
Some people in my line ignored the knots completely, wouldn't even touch it, just kicked it to the next person
Some people in my line added to the knots and the unending freight train
I saw my place on the stair
I saw the person a step above me being too fragile to do the superhero-level work that's required
I saw Bea below me
Shining beacon that she is 🔥 in her I saw my responsibility to my descendants
Then, like a slight of hand, the staircase shifted and I saw myself as my incarnation three lifetimes ago
The man that I was bowled a ball of shit down the staircase to me
Knowing the mission, I picked it up
And then I was brought back into my body
I could feel the areas in my nose, ears, and throat where my mucus was hanging out like stubborn little stalactites
I know the shit ball and the mucus are linked but I'm still unwinding the knots to figure out the why and the what
I guess I just want to say to whoever is still reading... know whatever you're working on is not getting cleaned up in one lifetime
Do your work, of course, but remember the ones descended on the stair will help to continue the unwinding
Maybe at some point you'll choose to come back and clean up some of what you've helped create over lifetimes of can kicking and shit balling
We're not all good and pure, love and light, because this mission is hard. Being human is hard
We ARE either trying or ignoring and at some point we can't hide from the trauma
work and play
work and play: I've been going to acupuncture every week for the past few months. Keeping this practice built into my schedule actually requires discipline. It requires putting up a boundary with the business that I typically don't like doing
Laying on the table each week gives me all the time to notice the things that rise up in myself
No place to go because I have those needles pinning me down-- doing the good work, settling my monkey mind (my phone appropriately autocorrected to money mind 🤦♀️), reminding me to focus on the way my body + mind work by staying the eternal observer
Detached, at a distance. For optimal understanding without the attachment of shame. The mantra of: "I am who I am"
Two sessions ago I went in super anxious. I felt myself energetically existing in the front half of my body.
What this felt like: shortness of breath, tension in my shoulders, a knot in my chest, unbalanced heart rhythm, clenched jaw, ready to pounce, forward driving
Uncomfortably, I settled into the session. A couple breaths and I asked "why?"
I immediately saw myself as a teenager, sitting in my high school English class
I was a front-seater. Always choosing to be in the front row of the class. I saw/felt the energetics of this and how it plays out in my body
This has been my default for years. This is the pattern I know well
A singularly focused people pleaser who wants praise and control and no distractions. First to jump on everything, take on everything. Helpful beyond measure. Impossible to live up to myself
It made me really sad to trace the path back to those moments; to try to understand why I didn't know (I still don't know!) how to truly settle in my own body
I took a bunch of deep breaths and felt out what I need to do to occupy the back half of my body-- how to drop deeper into my being
And then I felt out what it means to bring the front half me and the back half me together
It takes real discipline for me to relax-- to force/remind myself to settle in and settle down. If I squirm, I gently nudge myself back to center
I embrace the times where my work and play are solo
Ebru marbling, with my tools in reflection, seems like a good start
married 7 years, together 19
selfie day: 7 years married, almost 19 together 🤯 and as usual we needed someone to remind us of our anniversary 😂 thank you @elainemjh
7 years ago we had two ceremonies
one at the ocean to exchange rings (for Brandon on 5/15) and one in the mountains to exchange leis (for me on 5/20)
both ceremonies were just the two of us and exactly what we individually envisioned
us, at home, in the elements... wild love and open hearts
life (and love!) has gotten much more complicated since those sweet breezy days
I have a kid climbing all over me as I write this saying "I eat you up my little big oat mom, hear that fart mom, let's do 1-2-3 break mom?" 🤦♀️😍
much different from our tender days in the mountains and wild times in the ocean 😂 ahhh young-ins we were, oldies we are
here's to another however many years 🌈👏😝 of sitting between our worm farm and the nettle transplants, with a naked baby on our laps with a giant rhubarb stalk in her hand while attempting to take a good enough picture that doesn't show how tired we actually are and how distracted the kid is
this is love
this is marriage
happy to be by your side, smooth sailing and rough roads alike
fuck/love
Happy Mother's Day = finding rhythm in the eternal dance of it all 😜
Being a human means constantly moving between these truths 🖕❤ especially raising kids and being a mother
This whole thing does not come naturally to me
I feel like a caged animal most days
The role of "mother" is something that still feels like it doesn't quite fit. The pressure is really hard. I hate the expectations
But I'm trying
And also rejecting a lot of it
And reframing the role for myself while trying not to shame-spiral
Maybe just taking a step back, seeing where I sit in the whole experience, and accepting that I'm not the mother I thought I was going to be is all a better way to lead
And, inherently, THAT is all okay. That's probably what all Mothers (all humans/birthers of anything) go through. I don't know
I do know that the easiest thing is the love I have for Bea and for Callum. Unending and undying, even in the face of death
Admittedly, mothering while grieving the loss of my kid is something I NEVER thought would happen. I can't help but think that my experience with losing Callum and raising Bea has helped me see how nuanced this entire journey is
It's BOTH the highs and the lows AND all the spaces in between
The dance between the fucks of life and the loves of life
Anyway, not my most elegant 🤷♀️ but motherhood has taught me to accept the messiness 😝 still learning and cleaning poop butts in the process
tribute to gert
said goodbye to my best friend 🌈 "Gertrude the Great" (the name my mother just bestowed on her is beyond fitting)
She was diagnosed with lyme nephritis. The vet @catskillanimalhospital assured us that he had never seen a case go beyond 7 to 10 days after diagnosis... until Gert
She survived a little over a month because of everything we were able to do for her. We knew it was a matter of time. But between the chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture, Chinese herbs from @altvet and the homeopathic medicine and antibiotics we were able to spend the past month giving her all the love and normalcy we/she needed.
She stopped eating and started bleeding in her GI tract so we knew the decision had been made for us. The last look she gave made it clear that she was ready.
The purity of love that exists between animals and their humans is something I never want to be without. I've been preparing for the emptiness but coming home without her was so difficult.
I don't have much to say, just want to sit with it all for a while until she comes home to the farm to be buried with all our other animals.
I felt the urgency to pay tribute to my girl and to just look through the hundreds! of pictures I have just to remind myself how full of a life we had with her.
Truly truly Gertrude the Great. My best good friend forever
hey little one
hey little one 👋 we adopted this cacao tree from Puentespina Farm in the Baguio District outside of Davao City in The Philippines
this heirloom cacao is described as having a tart, fresh berry, and citrus flavor on initial taste 🌈 with a sweet caramel center taste and nut butter after taste 🌈 all with a silky feel
happy to celebrate the complexities of this incredible plant-- it gives so much to us and is really the spine of our work
also so happy our contribution helps the conservation efforts of @heirloomcacao ❤ they are dedicated to preserving the biological diversity of cacao and empowering local farming families/co-ops/communities
Puentespina Farm is owned by Charita Puentespina who started by rehabilitating cacao trees on land that she leased in 2003. She now operates a 24 hectare farm, employs 80 farmers, and runs a training facility to teach good growing practices
