PIP Friday - He's Breathing

He's Breathing

He’s breathing, yes, he’s breathing.

That deep, strong breath after a good cry.

Maybe he hit his head on the wooden train,

Maybe his sister took her water bottle away from him,

Maybe he couldn’t reach the off-limits pencil canister,

It’s yellows, greens and pinks enticing the curiosity

Of a nine month old.

 

In my arms the tears stop as abruptly as they began

When his eyes catch the color patterns of the blessing quilt

Made by my sister for his sister.  The sobs cease,

the breathing becoming the dominant sound

In my ear, up, down, in, out, a canticle of calm.

His eyes focus on a deep red circle on the quilt and he reaches out,

Lips moving in his own guttural language.

 

It is a repetition of what he hears, yet he could speak

The intoned speech of Chinese peasants,

The metallic, musical notes of Eygptian, 

Or the harsh consonants of my Slavic ancestors.  Instead,

He moves steadily towards my own slurred bubblegum speech

of this northern continent.

 

His language, though, is universal.  The sharp sob, the deep sigh,

The turning towards warmth and strength and succor. 

The finger pointing towards the vibrant shades of a blessing quilt,

Then at me.  He buries his face in my shoulder, and exhales. 

 

When life strikes

I guess it has taken me awhile to get around to this post.  On Friday night my four year old was bitten on the cheek by a dog.  It was a dog she knew that was chained up and she went up and hugged it.  I wasn't right there, so I don't know exactly what happened, but it was horrible to come around the corner to her screams and see her lying on the ground with her hand over her cheek, blood dripping down it.  

It was one of those parenting moments.  It was a the first major trauma emergency with one of my kids.  I was, luckily, able to start giving her homeopathic remedies within five minutes of the injury happening - Ledum, Arnica and Hypericum in 200s.  They worked wonderfully and she didn't complain about pain after the first thirty minutes and has healed well.  There were three wounds which were cleaned and steri stripped shut at the hospital.  I've had a lot of anxiety and guilt around whether I should have had them sew them up as I am (now that she is safe and healing well) concerned about scarring.  This post from Dr. Laura Markham has helped a bit with that (my perfectionist tendencies).

Well, I guess that is yet to be seen and I am so grateful that it wasn't any worse!  A dear aunt also reminded me to pay attention to the potential emotional scarring.  I have taken her sage advice and acted out the incident with my baby several times.  

The crazy thing is that I had a scary dream the night before.  The last few times I have had scary dreams something scary has happened the next day replicating the energy (though not the actual events) of the dream.  So, I was a bit concerned when I woke up Friday morning, but had forgotten about the dream by the evening.  Has anyone else had the experience of feeling like something bad was going to happen and was unsure if it was possible to avoid it?  What does one do with bad dreams or premonitions?  Can one not give it energy and hence avoid it?  I hope there is some way to change courses, otherwise it just seems like a death sentence to have a dream or premonition like that.  

Well, here's to healthy, safe blessings and gratitude for my healthy, safe girl.  

Welcome Pip!

I would like to make Fridays PIP days.  :)  That is "poem in progress" days.  As someone who enjoys writing poetry, but struggles to make it a priority within the everyday magic and mayhem of family life, a weekly deadline of sorts to have SOMETHING written will be helpful.  Plus, I will have to drop my perfectionist tendencies as best as possible and just put something out there. 

So, with no further ado (drum roll, please) let us welcome today's Pip!

Morning Comes to Morgan Hollow

With two sneezes and a smile

He’s awake.

I shuffle him into my arms

And down the stairs

To kept the stars singing

in his sister’s sleep.

 

Daddy, already awake,

takes the tow head in his arms. 

They lie there, on the floor,

Toddler on Daddy’s dark chest.  

Together.  Almost back to sleep

When he remembers me. 

The warm breast, the mother breath,

And with one vowel sound turns,

Contracting his body towards me. 

 

I hold him.  He nurses a moment,

Then back across the room he toddles,

Lays in his daddy’s arms, quiet again.

Until the head lifts softly and he starts

back to me.

Back and forth, to and fro

Like a labyrinth meditation, waking

This child slowly, like the clouds moving

above the emerging morning. 

 

He brightens with the sky.

Morning comes to Morgan Hollow.   

Elderberries

Elderberry hands,

Elderberry feet,

Elderberry joy

in everything we eat.

Elderberry syrup,

Elderberry jelly

Stocking up for winter

and a happy, healthy belly.

I've been enrolled in a correspondence course with Susun Weed for a good two years now - the ABC's of Herbalism course.  It has been a fabulous doorway into a much deeper and more personal relationship with plants and their healing qualities.  With all of the activity in our life over the past two years - baby, moving, etc - it has been slow going, but still wonderful.  I have read and gathered and prepared and used plant medicines as I have found the space and energy.  My daughter is often involved.  

For so many reasons I was thrilled to discover Herbal Roots Zine last month and to purchase September's guide, Enchanting Elderberries.  Herbal Roots is a monthly, printable PDF booklet featuring one herb a month and is geared towards kids!  There are stories, songs, crosswords, pictures, crafts, and, of course, recipes.  Since my children are young, the crossword and word find were not of use to them . . . yet.  I am sure we will file these away for years to come, and I can see them flipping through them on their own and filling in the pieces they weren't ready for this season of their lives.  

Even before discovering Herbal Roots I was determined to gather as many elderberries as possible this year and make all sorts of things with them.  I discovered so many elder trees earlier in the summer when gathering elder blossoms.  (Elder trees are much easier to locate when those glorious rosettes of white flowers are blooming.)  So, again, the sychronicity of the universe showed her beautiful face in leading me to Herbal Roots.  

I gathered many berries.  Gathering was the easy part; picking them off was much more time consuming than anticipated.  Luckily, my daughter, who by personality is much less cautious than I, got in on the fun.  She pulled them off much faster than I and so we made it a game to see who could empty their bunch first.  It was fun and we got them all off in record time.

So, what have we done with the berries?  Elderberry syrup, elderberry jelly, elderberry smoothie, elderberry tincture, elderberry elixir, frozen elderberries, and writing with elderberry ink and a homemade quill.  We've had so much fun and feel ready for whatever winter might bring.  Thank you, Herbal Roots, for helping us enjoy and make use of this season's elderberries even more than I had anticipated!

turn, turn, turn

There are seasons in our life.  A time for everything and for everything a time.    

 

Autumn is my season.  It brings me back to my life from the scattered corners of summer.  Don’t get me wrong, I do love a summer – the warm breezes, the constant swimming, the plants, oh, the plants, the bike riding, the frolicking, the sunning.  Summer’s energy is outward, expansive, growing and surging and being.  Especially in this northern clime, where summer feels like a brief snapshot of re-creation, autumn is a deep inhale. Things slow down, turn inward, and we take stock for the coming season of darkening and deepening.  

 

I woke up a couple of Saturdays ago to the smell, the chill, the skin-tingling thrill of an autumn morning.  Oh, how I love it.  We put on classical music, drank tea, stretched and then dove into the preserving of this blessed pile of summer gifts.  Kimchi, sauerkraut, corn relish, frozen peppers, pickles, pesto, lemon balm popsicles, beet kvass.  We moved purposefully, but with a groundedness I seldom find in summer. 

 

Autumn has been a time of discovery for me.  I discovered love, pregnancy, and many an adventure in autumns past.  Last autumn I discovered blogs, truly, for the first time.  I knew of my friends’ personal baby blogs, but not of this universe of sharing and connecting and dreaming that is the blogosphere, especially the mama blogosphere.  Now I have immersed myself in blogs, zines, books and dreams for the past year, and I am ready to take all this input and find my own output again.  I hope I can remain committed to this writing as I am committed to my cooking, preserving and preparing of the earth’s bounty.  The gifts of my imagination put into writing are no less valuable than my gifts of imagination put into physically nourishing myself and my family.  There are hungers of all sorts.  So, let us turn, in this season of bounty, to the words, to the pictures, to the dreams.  Let us feast and be grateful.  

hearts - it's February!

This morning when Sophia was getting dressed she saw a heart on the tag of her pants. She has only recently been introduced to the cultural convention that hearts = love. So, she said to me, there is a heart on my pants so I can love you all day.

Aww . . . I accepted her offer of loving me all day, which had many manifestations, many hugs and i love yous, rolled right in with fighting words and resistance. The joys of a securely attached child figuring out this life. I love watching it unfold.

happy loving month to you.

I'm back!

Whew! I haven't disappeared forever and am glad to be getting back to this blog. Nothing major has kept me away - just the wilds of life! Blessed family visits, holiday baking and gifting, daily homemade meals, comforting a teething babe, trying to get some laundry done with a washer and dryer that are, well, a bit past their prime, loosing track while trying to count the dust bunnies.
Life is full!

Here are few of my favorite things that have made me smile recently:

On the morning of St. Nicholas Day, Sophia woke up and told me she saw Santa at the window last night.

On Daddy's birthday he made homemade bratwurst with the new sausage stuffer I found on Craig's List. Es schmecht wie Deutschland - echt!

With my mom in town, I was able to take Sophia sledding on the dyke on a very windy and cold morning. She insisted on going down by herself. (This is a dyke and is rather steep.) Halfway down, clearly terrified, she lets go of the handles of the sled, and as the ground levels off at the bottom is thrown face first into the snow, and then flips over. She was very upset and I felt terrible for her. My loving arms and some hot cocoa helped smooth over the adventure. At the same time, it was the most hilarilous thing I have seen in a long time. If I'd had a video camera I surely would post that adventure video here!

I told my sister that I was wishing for a butter bell and a rebounder for Christmas this year and she had no idea what I was talking about.

Holiday Blessings,
and I'll be back sooner this time!!