New Moon

I feel like I want to write something beautiful today; to dredge up golden, sunlit memories.  I think they will surface soon.  I've been spending so much time with the ugliest memories that were stored away in my brain.  Writing them, reliving them.  

The time for that remembering is passing quickly.  So much processing has come out of the compiling of my memories, and I am grateful for it.  The most valuable lesson I've learned through it, though, has been in the art of self-care.  

Nurturing myself through these past months has been the best gift I've ever given myself, and I intend to continue it.  This coming new moon feels significant.  Like a clean slate for the mid-year.  Like a shift from the deep dark inner work I've been doing toward something that feels better.  

This last moon has felt like a great rest, somehow.  I wasn't moved to be terribly productive, and yet I got a lot done.  Mindful activity is coming back now, and a persistent realization of the necessity of making plans and digging in to the physical manifestation of things long held in my head is walking into my life with the assurance of a wild woman.  

This moon I am setting the intentions of fiercely mindful and intuitive living, and of living toward my purpose without wavering.  No different in words than my intentions last month, but much different in nature. 

Tomorrow is my baby girl's third birthday.  Three years.  She's changing a lot, and the next few years will bring about so much change that at the end of them we'll leave behind the "little years" altogether.  Even with that, I no longer have a baby to care for and in less than two months I'll have a space of time each week all to myself at home to work toward my dreams and my calling.  

It's funny how our children's birthdays can bring up so much.  Sometimes I think we forget how important our children's birthdays are to our own life's story.  Of course we acknowledge that we were blessed with a wonderful gift, but we don't always acknowledge our own process in birthing that child, the marking of the time span of our motherhood that it lends us, and all that we have grown through because we have taken on the role of the nurturing mother.   

To me each birthday that my little Jules celebrates is a marking of both her independence and mine expanding little by little until she's ready to cut the tether.  Her birthday is a celebration of the beautiful gifts she brings to the world and to our family, and also of having one more year under my belt.  One more year of experience, of memories, of growth.  One year closer to the completion of these demanding years of mothering.  

Stitching together each moment of stillness I can gather today.  Watching, feeling, the moon wane.  Marveling at little Jules and at the wonder of it all.

Wondering.... What's it all for?  

Deciding.... It doesn't really matter.  

The living is what matters.