Eleven months in, I am one month away from a year, a full year. One year since the freedom to go and to do whatever moves me left. One year since I could choose what I ate, when I slept, when I woke, what I listened to, what I watched, what I wore and when. One year is just around the corner and I couldn't be happier.
It's been almost a year since I walked through the veil of transition between Maidenhood and Motherhood.
In my typical Scorpio fashion I have jumped in full force, straight into the deep end. She is yet to be 'babysat' by anyone besides my husband, she sleeps with me at night, on me to nap, my breasts are forever at her disposal, we are pretty merged, my Maiden and I at this point. It seemed the most natural way in the world for her and I to be together at most times, it feels as if a part of my insides was birthed outside of me while remaining a part of me. Like I gave birth to my heart and now I hold her as close and as dear as possible.
Despite this energetic vortex that envelopes the two of us, somewhere throughout this year it became apparent to me that I was going to need some downtime, this need developed into a routine known in the evening as 'Daddy/Daughter' time, this is my time to unwind. When we decided, my husband and I that downtime was very much a necessity for me, the vision that I held was of me knitting, reading, writing, meditating, napping and drinking tea. I'm happy to say that at 11 months this is pretty much how my sacred space looks 80% of the time.
Daddy/daughter time didn't begin quite so crisp and clean in the beginning months for me, it began quite secularly, those nights definitely weren't my pride and joy at the time. In hindsight I now see how much I gained from them, the humility and the permission to be human, to be a mother that was not a cookie cutter of the 'Domestic Spiritual Goddess' that I was holding up for myself to attain.
Daddy/daughter time began with me addictively watching TV series and eating potatoe chips (often they were organicish) and drinking pop (cane sugar instead of white....) getting as many "ep's" in as I could and fervently escaping into other worlds. I posted on my personal Facebook page asking for more show recommendations when I had devoured Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey, The Tudors, Boardwalk Empire and finally Orange is the New Black. My Priestess sisters, energy community and homesteading friends suggested some nice healthy mindful practices rather than T.V. They had the same vision for a healthy, full time to self that I had had. I just wasn't there yet. I felt myself slink away from announcing my dirty little TV and snacks habit and just sank even further into the couch cushions. I sank and I feared that I may have lost all of who I thought I was. I wondered if I was going to loose my Priestess self, if I was going to be a Stay-At-Home-Mom that didn't write, hold circle, offer services to others and ate junk food and watched T.V. I'm so appreciative that I allowed myself to sit and eat. I'm grateful that I didn't push and that I was were I was and allowed that to be okay. These months humbled me, they revealed my humanness, not only in my need to take time for self, but in my ability to experience a little sloth without loosing my soul or my calling in the process.
I learned throughout my development as a Priestess, that nothing, absolutely nothing is as powerful a principle in the life of a Priestess as humility.
My mentress, the Priestess Aquarius, would teach me this during every learning session we spent together. "Above all Candise, a Priestess must be humble," she would tell me during my training. It was these words that followed me when I fell into a depression during a 'dark night of the soul' three years back. Similar to, yet nowhere close to as dire, this dark night of the soul mirrored my surrender into the couch potatoe phase that I have just been through. Both of these situations called for me to fall into what was and to allow myself to be in those moments, to let go of what I thought life should look like and to flow with the River of life. My dark night of the soul began when a man who has lived this lifetime shrouded in darkness, one who had wreaked havoc on my life when I was a young Maiden re-appeared in my life temporarily three years ago. I fell to pieces as years of frozen and unacknowledged trauma rose to the surface. My first response was to 'spiritual leapfrog' through the pain. To skip over the pain, to deny it, to spiritualize it away, simultaneously I felt myself teetering along the thin line of self-destruction as my old wounds promised to take me over the edge and back into the black abyss of self-destruction that I had lived in once long ago. In that moment of choice a silent clarity descended upon me and I made a deal with Goddess, I said to Her, "okay, I'm going to fall apart now. I'm going to feel everything I didn't feel when I was abused so many years ago. I'm going to fall to pieces and I'm not going to rush to come back together, I'm just going to let it happen and I need You to carry me through this." And I did. I just fell completely to pieces. For one full year I did little more than make it to work, the rest of the time I cocooned on the couch, I barely ate or showered, I went to trauma therapy and fought the voices in my head that argued that therapy wasn't as evolved as breathworks, meditations, Shamanic journeying and communal circles (all of which I also attended). My world turned black and I wasn't sure I would ever see colour again, my pride was stripped away from me and I flowed along the river of despair until one day I was delivered to the shore. I stepped away from the river integrated, more whole than I had been before I fell apart and I was gifted with experiences that I could offer others on the shamanic path. Suddenly I had less 'answers' for others and more experience to share in. This was the heavy pill of humility that I swallowed and this experience has taught me that being real, being human is worth more than any shiny ideal of a spiritual woman that I could try to fit into could ever be.
So I fell into my couch once again, though this time out of burn out rather than despair and I just watched as much TV as I could, I trusted the process despite my very alive pride that yelled at me that I was loosing all of my Priestess self in this year of Motherhood. I struggled with my 'Superwoman' archetype that had envisioned me baking, cooking from organic scratch, writing, knitting, sewing, visitng friends and humming a merry tune all the way through. I judged myself, harshly, after all I only had one little baby. I had so much help from my husband. I wasn't working. She slept great. So what was my problem? Simply put I was drained. In the Waldorf tradition of thought, which is rooted in anthroposophy a woman's child is under her 'Madonna Cloak' for the first three years of life. Energetically my Maiden sucks up as much of me as she can and I need to reboot. So I sat. And I watched, and I watched and I snacked.
Until...
One night when my Beloved and my daughter returned from their Daddy/daughter time I realized that I didn't feel rested and rejuvenated as I had before, I felt saturated in surface level noise. My deep need to fall into unconscious media/junk food bliss had passed, naturally. I had trusted the flow and eventually I did loose my desire. I took at trip to the library, I took out a magical novel. I pulled out my knitting. I picked up doll making instructions for my daughter's birthday and I began to be what I had envisioned, a Priestess filling herself up with art, crafts and inspiration. It was the perfect example of being a modern day Priestess for me, finding the balance between nurturing my soul and honouring where I was. When I surrender to what is and I follow the flow of the Mother I can trust that it is okay to be human and it is okay to be other than how my ego self wants me to be. Shortly after I received my first 'energy session' client since I had been pregnant. My Beloved packed my Maiden up for their evening time together and I saged the healing room/nursery. I lit candles, I grounded down and opened up to the inflow of the Goddess and worked with the woman on my table. I felt exhilarated. I felt deeply connected to me. I saw that when I trust, when I surrender. I can have moments of least resistance that look less than evolved to me without loosing my sense of the magical, my connection to Source.
A Priestess is a conduit for the worlds, Heaven, Earth and all of the realms in between. It's okay to enjoy some of this Earthy realm. I didn't know this. Not for a very long time. It has been a pleasure being able to just unwind and relax some of these high standards that I've held for myself.
That is perhaps one of the greatest gifts beyond my Maiden that has come of my transition into the Mother phase of life. Letting go of everything that I thought I knew. In the morning I get no more then 10 minutes of my much desired yoga practice in. For months I would go from pose to pose with this sense of wound up anticipation, at what moment would she start to climb on me, fuss for me? How long could I yoga for?! Until one day truth descended. It doesn't matter how long my practice lasts, it matters how present to the practice I am. I began to bring full awareness into my warm up, giving thanks for the opportunity to do just one cat/cow if that is what that day's practice offered me.
Amidst the changes, feeding, singing, playing and cleaning I have found that while my time for self has lessened my presence with self is increasing. A new joy and appreciation for the freedom to choose what I engage in matched with a reverent focused sense of receiving as much as I can out of the moment has offered me a more zen like approach to my life than I have ever had. The years worth of books that I studied and the hours of meditation have all brought me to this. An awakened, living presence of the everyday interspersed with moments of spiritual practice.
Eleven months in and I have begun to transform in ways that I had never imagined. I look down the spiral path in front of me and stand in awe and wonder some days. I look behind me and see what the years of the Maiden taught me, freedom, authenticity, love, romance, adventure, exploration, heartache, delusion, confusion, mistrust, enchantment, awakening, passion and blossoming. In front of me I see the winding road of Mother, I wonder who it is that I will discover myself to be as I continue to walk further into this phase of my life. I wonder about the humility that is almost enforced upon my ambitious soul as I surrender myself in service to my family. I wonder about the woman that will walk from the Mother phase into her Enchantress years down that spiral path, Goddess willing. I watch other women now, women who are well along their Mother phase and beyond, I listen to them, I want to know what it was like for them in their different phases of life. I am so curious and so nervous (not knowing is not an easy place for me) and so excited to see what this sacred path will revel to me.
Eleven months in and I'm finally at a loss for words.
Grace Be With You,
Priestess of Grace
Candise Soaring Butterfly
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