Unbecoming a Maiden, Becoming a Mother: Reflections from the first year (Part I).

Since our darling girl arrived on February 14th, 2022, there has been a lot of contraction and expansion, flying by the seat of my pants, breaking down and breaking through, and a gradual and greater trust to open wildly to life. Rather than thinking about living life, it has felt like a huge, loving, push into just LIVING. All in, at all times. And slowly but surely I am gaining ground beneath my feet, starting to let these roots take hold, and nurture me and my family.

I wanted to share some reflections from the first year of physical motherhood, and some of the things I’ve noticed along the way. Or perhaps, more accurately, see with great reverence and awe in looking back at this wild ride. All while holding the vision of what is to come.

As I sit down to add to this ongoing inner reflection, Saoirse sleeps. Which, is a rarity. Even in this moment, it is not lost on me how during this window of rest for my darling girl, I feel the pressures of all that has to be “done” and “upheld,” and choosing to sit down to connect with and share from my heart takes a true conscious effort. So here I am, messy, fraying hair, a quarter cup of cold coffee beside me, lentil soup on the stove, a fullness in my being, and entirely exhausted. Coming up against this moment which I have met endlessly during her first year of life -

Overwhelmed and battling for what matters most even if it seems “far away.” Breathe deep… settle… listen… What is my heart saying? What is present here? What does the wisdom within point to? How can I see through the eyes of love? What would my heart have me do in this moment?

Unbecoming a Maiden and Becoming a Mother has been a true full spectrum experience. A spectrum I didn’t even know existed!

Becoming a mother started before Saoirse was here in her physical body. The initiation was strong and swift the first time I found out we were pregnant in October of 2020. I remember going into the first doctors appointment with my list of a hundred questions and my uncontainable excitement. I look back at that version of myself with such adoring eyes. She didn’t know that when you have a positive pregnancy test, that doesn’t always mean the pregnancy will continue. She didn’t understand why the midwife who did the ultrasound wasn’t excited and congratulatory. She didn’t know that her heart was going to be broken. She didn’t know she was strong enough to go through such pain. She didn’t know she would have to go through another loss five months later. And she certainly didn’t know that this grief was opening her heart more than it had ever opened before. That through this loss and inconsolable longing to hold her child in her arms, she would uncover more strength, resilience, and joy than she had ever accessed before.

And here we are: our daughter just turned FIFTEEN months old. We made it ONE WHOLE YEAR! It feels as though she has always been here. Life before her reads like a blurry dream. And with that, the identities I once held onto so tightly and desperately have been slipping through my hands, washing away with the rain, sinking into the soil. I wave goodbye with open hands (sometimes), gently releasing the last ditch effort of my trembling fingers to hold on. Let go. Let go. Let go. And let love.

I am here, bones and a bare heart that knows, for sure this time, that the power of love is the only true power. Funny how everything that felt so big and important shrivels into barely flickering embers around the raging fire of unconditional love.

Love that had been buried and blockaded in my heart, rigid in my chest, ready to burn as bright as the sun was lit with the moments of holding, feeding, staring, rocking, witnessing her.

Each passing day seems to be an invitation for my inner child, adolescent, maiden, mother, and crone to unite and work together. Becoming the Mother isn’t about certain parts of self being edged out, but Motherhood is the expansion to more fully hold, love and express ALL of them, ALL of you. Because how we meet ourselves is exactly the capacity from which we can meet our children.

As this year has unfolded, there have been so many layers and cycles and changes. Sometimes all within a day, even within a moment. The initial phase with a newborn was the most vulnerable and open I have ever felt. I had no choice but to lean on my community and those helping us during that time of huge transition and overwhelm. The way I see it, the postpartum phase has a brilliant consciousness. In that space, you step (or rather fall) into the true power and wisdom of Mothering. Like, BAM there it is.

What a wild experience to be so vulnerable and caring for such a vulnerable being at the same time. I was a laughing, crying, unfiltered mess, and it was liberating. The Maiden may try to keep herself together for fear of what others may think or say. The Mother knows the wisdom of remaining open to life, and she has the courage to do so. The maiden may judge herself for feeling so deeply and so much. The mother knows the elixir of life is to live every moment from this place of deep feeling and connection.

After the initial and immediate expansion into motherhood, there comes many days and moments of disorientation and subtle integration. And these moments of deep anchoring often appear in the most mundane: changing diapers and wiping countertops and rocking and folding laundry. When I look back on this first year, there are many moments where I wish I could have seen the magnitude of the work I was doing and who I was becoming. The Mother in me wishes I would have been much easier on myself and remembered that huge initiations and transitions take time. There is much being undone, much being processed, and much being transformed.

As I have come to see it, and continue to discover, motherhood is an ever evolving, dynamic, living, and breathing journey. It is one of the biggest initiations that we go through in our brief lives. In some ways that initiation felt instantaneous in that one moment I am leading myself, the next I am preparing to guide another. In other ways, it is slow and tender and meanders into every aspect of life and into every crack in your being. But, one thing that has stood radiantly at the center of motherhood is that everyday holds the invitation(s) to look deeper into myself while allowing my daughter to be herself. Motherhood demands spaciousness. Motherhood demands presence. Motherhood demands unconditional love. Motherhood demands you embody and live that that you wish to teach your child. Motherhood demands that you mother yourself with deep tenderness and grace.

AND it's okay on this journey to feel like it’s utterly impossible to have space and grace, be present, and embody the highest version of yourself. The Mother is who we come back to, and become over and over again. The Mother allows the array of experience room to breathe and be. The wise Mother does not hover, but simply leaves room to take flight. She knows the middle way and is in harmony with household to-do’s, personal needs, papers to fill out, ambitions and dreams, another being to tend to, another meal to make. It is all part of the wheel, and she is in the middle.

And I think that’s just how it is, this motherhood thing. We have to get REAL comfortable with duality and voids and opposites and limitations and endless space. We learn to live at the center of the wheel: connected, stable, in flow. Through this slow progression of acceptance and allowance, acceptance and allowance, we expand and grow. We become stronger and stronger. We plunge deeper and deeper. We reach wider and wider.

As one of my beautiful teachers put it, “There were days when I had to remind myself to go one breath at a time, others when the universe happily breathed me.”

And so it goes.

Perhaps it is our duty as Mother’s to actively and intentionally connect with this inherent Mother consciousness where we are

Unbecoming the fearful and becoming the trust.

Unbecoming the singular and becoming the Universal.

Unbecoming the scattered and becoming the still point.

Unbecoming the tension and becoming the space.

Unbecoming the meek and becoming the courage.

Unbecoming the control and becoming the surrender.

Unbecoming the victim and becoming power.

Unbecoming the mind and becoming the heart.

Unbecoming the excess and becoming the necessary.

Unbecoming the judgment and becoming the love.

Unbecoming identity and becoming boundless.

After all, we have the most sacred job in all of the world: raising and guiding the next generation.