You speak of resplendence,
and so I look for it
in each new bloom
-the shed is empty.
Gentle gardener that you are
having taken
the life of my words
left me with nothing to care for them.
Holding one rough seed
warm in the hand
with desperate clawing
cling to the soil
hoping something might bloom
from my hovering.
Becoming a “Mom” in this modern age of social media can often be inspiring and discouraging. While it has never been easier to access information regarding the physical development and emotional changes that occur during pregnancy and maternal advice from an array of pregnancy vloggers, it’s also easy to feel bombarded and beaten down by images of perfectly perfect moms who don’t look like you. It’s not just the models in the maternity wear adds, it Mrs. Mommy Perky Pants in her well scripted vlog, the celebrities and their shoots that make it to your Instagram feed, and that over the top friend who insists on turning life into a personally stylized photo shoot so that the world will recognize her inner goddess.
On one hand these moms can remind you that even though you’ve spent some time worshipping the porcelain god (a symptom that was supposed stop at least two weeks ago), and put on at least twenty-five pounds, you’re not the first to go through the changes of pregnancy and if they can look and feel beautiful so can you. On the other, it’s easy to start drawing comparisons between what you see in the morning mirror after a series of sleepless nights and the contoured cheeks and luxuriously long hair of just about every mommy model. With hormones raging inside of you, worse than they ever did in the eighth grade, it’s easy for feelings of vulnerability and self-doubt to turn baby blues into full-blown depression. If this is you, know that you are not alone. If your one of the lucky one’s rocking out your inner goddess then work it girl and keep reading. You can still do you while thinking about others before you add your next pregnancy update.
Baby blues sound more like a new ballad from Adele than the very real depression and breakdowns that are associated with it. Though many will tell you that this should be the happiest time of your life the actuality of the physical strain of it really should have all of us thinking twice. Yes, it is so exciting to know that this little person is growing inside of you. And yes, you are essentially the universe giving birth galaxy of possibility. However, you are also feeling your personal universe expand while thoughts collide causing episodes of baby brain and overall weight gain. At least your gestational period isn’t as long as an elephant’s — even if your pregnancy waddle has you feeling like one.
WHAT DO?
So, how do you deal with all of these thoughts, feelings, and changes? First of all, acknowledge what you are feeling and don’t try to fight it or fake it. If you can ask yourself where the hurt is coming from you can start to identify the difference between over-top estrogen levels and the real issues that you need to address or distance yourself from in your life. If you’ve never considered going to a therapist before, now might be a good time to get a little help and support. Seeing a counselor can help you to feel more balanced and will provide you with positive strategies that you can tuck into your emotional toolkit before the baby arrives. Let’s face it, those sleepless nights that everyone has warned you about won’t help your psyche. What time better than the present to work on techniques to help you ground emotionally and parent appropriately?
HEALTHY LIVING AND YOUR OBGYN
Depression during pregnancy can be a warning sign of possible postpartum depression. Recognizing this can enable you to set a plan in motion that will support you in the future. Feelings of emotional trauma, physical pain, anxiety, insomnia, and oversleeping, as well as changes in eating habits (all of which can occur during pregnancy), are linked to experiences of depression. Unfortunately, your pregnancy has not caused the world to come to a happy halt just for you. Life keeps rolling along with all of its ups and downs which means that taking some time for self-care has never been more important. Often herbal supplements can help to balance out hormonal changes. Just remember that before stocking up on some vitamin D and Saint John’s Wort that it is essential to check in with your physician so that you are taking what is right for you and your baby. Your doctor is an excellent resource for what to do and what not to do and can support you in coming up with a plan should the baby blues carry on.
Morning sickness might be determining your diet, despite your best efforts to eat healthily. That said, stocking up on protein will help to keep your energy up. Well-sourced beef and poultry will keep your healthy iron levels and help to prevent lethargy and anemia. If you are a vegetarian now might be a good time to consider your stance on eggs since protein consumption supports your ability to nurse. It should come as no surprise that veggies are a must, and not because you’ve always been told to eat your greens, but because it will keep the pipes clean (no one really wants an anemia anyway).
CONSIDER THE SPA
If it is in your budget consider looking into spas that offer pregnancy packages. There is nothing quite like a good massage especially when your legs start to swell and reaching your feet has become a bit problematic. If you are experiencing anxiety due to the anticipation of holding your little one in your arms businesses like Becoming Mom Spa, will provide you with ultrasound packages so that you can start building that photo-album and stop waiting for another 18 weeks. If this isn’t in your budget but sounds like a great idea consider adding the request to your baby registry or including a simple note in your baby shower invite as an ideal gift.
You can also pamper yourself with a mildly warm Epsom salt bath, accented by candles, and relaxing music. If baths aren’t your thing consider heading to your local health food store. Most carry Magnesium lotion and oil in their beauty section. Magnesium can help with physical discomfort, swelling, and can have the same relaxing effects as taking a salt bath.
MEDITATE AND TAKE MOMMY TIME OUT
Creating space and taking time for yourself has never been more important than it is right now. Do you remember when you were a kid, and you used sheets and blankets to create your personal pillow fort? Now is a great time to use that childlike mindset to create a Mommy Meditation Zone. Find a corner in your home that you can designate for yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, be sure to have a comfy chair or cushions that can support your body comfortably. If you would like to give this corner an extra sense of style consider purchasing a mosquito net canopy that you can hang from the ceiling to frame out your space. When life gets to be a bit much visit your zone, disconnect from social media completely (consider setting a timer and placing your phone on airplane mode). Then listen to the sound of your breath as it moves through your body like the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. If thoughts arise, allow them to drift in and out of your awareness.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Let’s get real here. If you saw that perfectly quaffed mom when she first woke-up you’d realize that her beauty routine is closer to a military boot camp than your everyday time management reality. If it’s getting you down consider logging off, tuning out, and even blocking friends and feeds that are causing stress instead of creating feelings of support and general wellbeing. Anything that gets in the way of your self-love and acceptance doesn’t need to be a part of your life right now. You have enough on your plate between physical changes and the unstoppable need to nest.
When looking for clothes know that those maternity models are most likely stuffed with a false pregnancy pillow and/or are airbrushed into perfection. Sometimes, realizing that social media is little more than an attempt to stroke the ego can remind us that what we see online is only as real as the filters and caricatures created.
Reality is, in fact, the everyday you. That pregnancy glow that people say you have when you’re feeling your worst isn’t the extra pounds; it really is your own inner goddess shining through. So shine on sister. Be authentically you and take time to breathe. You are, after all, giving birth to a universe of possibility.
IMPORTANT STATISTICS TO CONSIDER
According to the American Pregnancy Association, “Approximately 70-80% of all new mothers experience some negative feelings or mood swings after the birth of their child.” Research, from Mental Health America, also suggests that between 10% and 25% of women experience the onset of depression during pregnancy. This statistic doesn’t even begin to take into account the nearly 12 million women in the United States, between the ages of 25 to 44, who experience episodes of clinic depression regardless of pregnancy. What does this translate to? Well, it means that whatever you are feeling is real, that professional help is available, and that truly you aren’t alone.
If feelings of depression and anxiety are keeping you from feeling your best be sure to speak to your doctor or health care practitioner right away. There is no moment like the present. Getting support and attention will help you and your baby to have a healthy and happy life.
Or rather to The Pinpricks of Light that I see out there in the universe,
There is so much in the world that must change. How is it that we have lived on this planet for so many centuries and yet w…
Source: An Open Letter to the World
Or rather, to The Pinpricks of Light that I see out there in the universe,
There is so much in the world that must change.How is it that we have lived on this planet for so many centuries and yet we do not see that greed is at the root of all of our issues? Why is the path of moderation so hard for us to follow? When did we first believe that the rights of others had a price?
No matter who are, where we come from, or what we believe in each of us is a flame. The heat we give off does not matter. The height and the width are of little consequence. In the end, we are all the same light burning. We think that because we live in the abode of the body that we are different. We believe that because our stories and experiences vary, that we have a single identity and existence. We think that when we take a match to a candle — in hopes of finding peace or a god who will listen — that our beliefs lock into a specific religion or philosophy.
But they are one; they meet right there in that flame. It does not matter if you pray within a temple, or a mosque, a church, or an ashram, or inside of your “own” self. It does not matter if you believe in a god or not when you realize that we are all the same flame, the same heat moving, shaping, calling out into the darkness of the universe. Yes, we call out to the flames that appear to be nothing more than pinpricks of light in the darkness. And yet we call out, each in our own way. And this simple act of devotion, the lighting of a candle that calls out to something or nothing, is the very thing that transcends our divides.
I imagine all of us believing or disbelieving in “something more” when the truth is that we already are “that something more.” We are the pinpricks in the darkness of the universe. We are the evidence of a complicated creation. We can be that something more instead of being evidence of such a cruel and complicated human existence. We can pause, we can still the flame, so that it does not flicker wildly in the winds of entropy that divide us. We can remember that at our core we the same.
Some of us are hungry for food, shelter, and love. Most of us crave healing. So please, let us stop and think of what we might do that will allow us to be kinder, more compassionate beings. Let us consider how we might realize that the father of chaos is Greed and the mother is Ego. I do not believe that our flame ignites from this place. I believe that we are the children of Love and Consciousness. Maybe we have just forgotten. Maybe we do not see our worth, and so we have forgotten to see the worth of others. Maybe we just need to remember what we are.
Sometimes people say that it is one thing to think with your heart and another to think with the mind. This too is a lie. When the heart and mind are united we remember that one is the wick and the other is the match.
I do not understand all that is happening in the world. I try to understand why patterns of war have continued to play out of the centuries instead of patterns of peace and abundance. But I can’t and in the end, see little use for it. There can be no good greater than that which respects the rights, freedoms, and civil liberties of all.
Someday, we will remember that we are all children of Love and Peace, that we are one flame burning; because of this we will live and breathe a life that promotes healing, joy, and knowledge.
This is my greatest desire and dream for this world. I don’t know if anyone will bother with my words, but sometimes you just have to call out to the rest of the universe. I see the pinpricks of light and I am sure that they see me too.
Much love,
Wendy
-I am working through the drafting process on this one. When I write I like to work through a few drafts, playing with perspective, tone, and structure. Right now this poem is going through a bit o…
Source: Drafting: Sandalwood Saints
-I am working through the drafting process on this one. When I write, I like to work through a few drafts, playing with perspective, tone, and structure. Right now this poem is going through a bit of a fragmented phase. In this version, I am trying to maintain the lyrical qualities while discerning the places in which something more needs to occur.
Rise to drink the elixir of Kailas before the first rays of dawn forever alter it.
Chant from texts and divine a time before the printed page demanded a certain weight, and divinity rose from the universe within.
Bathe in oils of amber and the sandalwood saints who wax awakenings of ascended masters.
Then walk to your own precipice with each step offer a mantra of awareness.
***
She rises in the early hours to drink of Kailas before the red of dawn forever alters it.
She chants from texts in a tongue divining a time before the printed page, demanded a certain weight, and transcendence arose from the universe within.
Alone, she bathes in oils of amber and the sandalwood saints wearing awakenings of ascended masters.
Walking to her precipice, a pause and then with each step she offers a mantra of awareness.
anything here.
More than I have been allowed in years
and years of words,
of shame,
of love,
of wonderings like wine spilling over empty cups
and hives that drown in their own honey.
I looked to Anteros but he only offered silence.
Winged things understand little of the distance.
The gods cannot comprehend the chasm
where I’ve focused my gaze and immersed
beliefs in dancing shadows,
how it divides and swallows up
all that is known or what could be if
certainty existed at all.
My love walks a wire,
each step promising something more salient and yet
they say I’ve cried away the bits of light that illuminate.
I’ve cried hovering there and balanced between
the book of flying weighted against the history of love
without rescue from you because you
are like the white stag of winter
elusive in all forms.
There is that nothing space where tears create a river
for wild things with fins and things with wings
and there I am with arms,
and legs,
and a wire.
By: Wendy E. Braun
We give our daughters dolls with perfect noses and silken hair,
painted lips and wide hips, they suppose are meant for
late night dancing.
A purple haze over eyes so large with glancing glints
a hint of Nietzschen wisdom blossoming,
like raindrops caught on broken bottles
sleeping on sidewalks in the early morning.
They run their thumbs across baby breasts
that rise from fat too young to spawn the growing,
while drawing puce perfection across the masks
of the marred identities they’re etching.
Our daughters trace on larger lips to plump to a prince’s passion,
without understanding the prestige of purple
that will come from his pushing and pulling.
They wonder when legs might match Dolly’s
so long and lean not knowing what we are forgetting…
Skirts that short don’t allow for bending,
while parts that pop can’t be rejoined
in an easy mending.
Eyelids that glance just so with a glint
of youthful sophistication,
lead to lost shoes, and city streets,
and backseat broken dreamings.
Our daughters cry when the waist is less than nimble
and the reflection fails to match that symbol wrapped in cellophane,
where afflictions are boxed and free from pain.
We give our daughters molded lies
and hope for something more,
while they paint on scant smiles
purchased on clearance
by a boy at the secondhand store.
ON A PERSONAL NOTE: I work with children and have watched many of them mature over the years. Although I know that the day will come when they will struggle with a societal persuasion of beauty, I can’t but feel rather heartbroken when a ten-year-old wants to wish away the “fat” on her hips. There are some things that we forget over time, but even now I can still recall when I was teased for the chest that wasn’t, the baby faced reflection and longed to be the girl that was noticeably maturing. In retrospect, it seems there wasn’t much worth wanting what I didn’t already have within me.
Wendy E. Braun - This Existence 