The Big News (Finally!)

In my last post, I told you there would be a BIG announcement coming soon.
It perfectly explains why I accidentally took a pretty long hiatus from the work I’ve been trying to do in the world here on this blog.
I was reading an article in a magazine at the doctor’s office recently and a line struck me – it spoke about all of one’s creative energy going to one project, and leaving little to give in other areas of life.
Well, all my creative energy has been going somewhere lately, that’s for sure! And to a pretty amazing project might I add! One of the three best, most miraculous, life-changing, creative journeys of my life, in fact.
Yes, my creative energy has been creating…
A BABY!

We’ve got numero tres bakin’ in the oven!
Ah! That explains why I’ve been MIA on this poor, dear, blog! The sheer force of creativity it requires to make another human being has plumb tapped me out, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s been an intense few months as I’ve been ridiculously sick (morning sickness, what’s that? Try 24/7 sickness) and tired. I am starting to come out of the worst of it, though, so here I am!
Thank you for bearing me with me while I went into a temporary Mother-bear hibernation (otherwise known as the first trimester).
There’s still so much to be said and done here – so much more to come, so I hope you’ll stick around.
Up Next
I’ve been planning to begin a series of posts on the losses I’ve experienced and the gifts I uncovered in each experience, as hard as they were. It’s amazing how the loss of money and “stuff” actually granted me profound freedom and a inertia towards my dreams I could never imagined; how Cancer actually gave me the gift of time with people I treasured; how so much death taught me so much about LIVING; how losing taught me about giving, and receiving; how despair taught me faith, and peace.
Apparently this period of struggle in my life still has gifts to give, as we lost a dear, dear friend just yesterday. It’s so easy for me to get mad at the sky (as if the sky had some 100,000 foot long pokey pole it was using to just mess with my life) at the shovels full of more dirt heaped on us in this period of loss. It’s so easy to play the victim and say, “Why me? Why us? Why…again?” I dwell there for a moment now and again, and then an awareness in me, that could only have been developed through the use of every single last one of these loss experiences, pops up, and reminds me of who I truly am, and what I truly believe.
I do not believe in death, or separation from any one or anything. How long must this Earth live before we remember we are all connected? We are all either angels in Heaven or on Earth – the line betwixt us is so thin and veiled. I have seen this first hand, repeatedly; illuminatingly.
As Shakespeare said in one of his great plays…

As much as loss and death, struggle and pain surrenders us to our darkest fears, I believe I’ve learned to take life a little less seriously through all this. I see now, that, “The solemn temples, the great globe itself/ Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve/ And like this insubstantial pageant faded,/Leave not a rack behind.”
Another quote which has spoken to me deeply through these last few years is this one:

I used to use it to cheer myself on through all the loss, because I needed to believe there were some butterflies coming out of all the Arachnophobia-like incestuous swarm of caterpillars in my life.
Then, I saw the quote again, for the first time, the other day, and realized…
If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterfly baking in my belly. 🙂
An author by the name of Peggy Vincent wrote a story in her book “Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife” that has become “famous” in Miscarriage Support circles across the web. She finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, with two nearly teenage children at home already, and when she loses the baby to a miscarriage, her broken heart tricks her into believing she should not have another child. But, her young son tells her the story of the Spirit Babies – his belief that all babies hover around their Mothers in a circle, waiting for their “turn” to come into this life, and how when a loss happens, that baby just goes back up into the circle and gets “cuts” in line for the next time. For months after his mother’s devastating loss, he gently nudges her to consider the idea of trying again. One day, she asks him why he wants her to have another baby so badly. He replies, simply, with tears in his eyes, “Just for the joy of it, Mom, just for the joy of it.” A month later, she conceives a child she carried to term, “just for the joy of it.”
That’s about how I feel about this baby – this one’s coming just for the joy of it; to bring gifts of giggles for the simple pleasure of inducing sheer joy and laughter in our lives.
And I will gladly take that.
Yesterday, just minutes before we received the news of our friend’s death, we received the news that two other dear friends welcomed their first child into the world. I welcome change now, because for all the death it’s given me, it’s also given a whole lotta life.
“… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.” ~Kahlil Gibran
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