Prayer for Our Son

May you know the love that brought you life.
May you know the peace in every breath.
May your eyes be ever-wide with wonder.
May you welcome obstacles as part of your journey
      and grow wiser as you meet them.
May you find laughter in each day.
May you hear the truth in your heart and follow it.
May you join hearts with all living beings
     and know compassion without bounds.
May you live gently on this Earth.
                                    With Love always,
                                    Mama

Blessingway

Yup, it's been a long time!  Between spending the summer working, getting the house ready for baby, making baby things, sleeping a lot, and now with the start of teaching again, I haven't made much time to post, though I have thought about it often!  Today my sister Shaina and one of my very best friends Taylor hosted a blessingway ceremony for me.  It was beautiful to be surrounded by so many old and new dear friends.  I felt showered with love.  Rites of passage are very important to me and I hope that our family will be able to have some special traditions to celebrate different rites of passage for our child(ren).
Here is the poem that Shaina read for the ceremony:

Love Life

You are here to love life,
that is what the Universe is
offering; the opportunity to step
fully, ever more deeply, every day,
in every breath into the possibility
of savoring the gift of embodiment,
of realizing the Universe has gone
through great lengths, all this trouble
to make you, that you're not here
to get something, or acquire something
or achieve something, but merely
to taste, to savor the gift of
the conversation of the heart.
And let that be enough to
let this message of love in.

                          -Gopala Iver Sundarmoorthy

Here is the poem that I read towards the end of the ceremony:

Ordinary Miracle

I have mourned lost days
When I accomplished nothing of importance.
But not lately.
Lately under the lunar tide
of a woman's ocean, I work
My own sea-change:
Turning grains of sand to human eyes.
I daydream after breakfast
While the spirit of egg and toast
knits together a length of bone
as fine as a wheatstalk.
Later, as I postpone weeding the garden
I will make two hands
that may tend a hundred gardens.

I need ten full moons exactly
for keeping the animal promise.
I offer myself up: unsaintly, but
transmuted anyway
by the most ordinary miracle.
I am nothing in this world beyond the things one woman does.
But here are eyes that once were pearls,
and here is a second chance where there was none.

                               -Barbara Kingsolver

And I will let that be enough for now.  I feel blessed!

Creativity

Now that I'm well into the second trimester, which has been WONDERFUL!, I have been feeling very creative.  Today I got some things to make a little mobile for our baby boy's room.       Here is one really cute idea!  I am making one with owls and birds.  It will probably be another month before I'm even able to start on it, due to the busyness that comes with finishing up the school year!  I will be sure to post the finished product!

My Sentiments Exactly

Yes, yes, and YES!  Owner's Manual for a Child
and Thoughts on Toys: Less is More

First Post

Finally, I arrived a time in my life when I am absolutely positive that being a mama is what I am meant to do (even though I already knew a mama is what I've always wanted to be)!  For more than ten years, I have loved and nurtured my kindergarten through second grade students and by the end of each school year I grow to love each one of them so dearly and deeply that I can hardly comprehend the magnitude of love I will feel for my own child(ren)!  My experiences as a teacher helped me to see how tremendous an undertaking parenting is and I wanted to wait to take that leap until I felt ready with every fiber of my being.  I created this blog to keep track of my thoughts on 'mama'ing, (mothering sounds too formal for me), and so that family, friends, and anyone else can get a picture of my 'mama'ing philosophy.  My main tenets are mindfulness, lovingkindness, and openness.  So far, the most important thing I discovered in my years as a teacher is that if I can be aware and open to a student just as he or she is in this world, without judgement, the child and I will connect on a very deep level and this facilitates an astounding amount of learning, understanding, and humor!     


Here is a picture of my  wee one at 13 weeks:

            Dear One,  may your heart and mind be open to this beautiful and mysterious world!