Mother's Day Lemons and Lemonade

My toddler didn't get the memo about being all sweetness and light on Mother's Day - quite the opposite.  He was sick, clingy, threw tantrums, refused to eat except when in my lap eating from my plate of food.  In my experience, this is generally how celebratory days go.  As in, they hardly ever end up feeling picture-perfect and often involve fights or disappointments or exhaustion or all of the above.  

I did get to spend some solo time in the kitchen while my son napped, which gave me the opportunity to take the two lemons we grew over the past 16 months (in Seattle during our two rainiest, coldest winters in recent memory!) and make lemonade (along with lemon zest biscotti).  I prepped most of the ingredients and, after nap time, we had family kitchen time.  

I want Dean to understand the entire food system, so even though we live in a 1940s town-house style condo with a small back patio, we grow food.  We have pots of herbs, kale, lettuces, and strawberries.  Yesterday we went out back together to snip some mint.  Back inside we juiced our two Meyer lemons, steeped raw honey and mint in hot water, and voila - local lemonade!  Next up - mixing ingredients for biscotti.  We experimented with buckwheat flour and eggs from our farmers market (except we forgot to add them into the dough, there they still sit on the counter), raw honey from our co-op, and our own lemon zest.  The results were delicious and I felt no qualms about sharing afternoon sweets with my little boy.

Motherhood is plenty full of lemons, but with a little patience and creativity, it's not too hard to make lemonade.  For a few moments yesterday, in between tears and snot, destruction and frustration, we sat together in a brief moment of afternoon sun and shared an illusive, instagram-worthy moment of pure contentment, beauty, and joy.  

Buckwheat Lemon Zest Biscotti                                                                                               (adapted from the nytimes.com well blog recipes)

• 125 grams buckwheat flour
• 120 grams almond flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 oz unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 small/medium eggs (optional)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup almonds, chopped
• 3 tsp lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

In a medium bowl, mix together the buckwheat flour, almond flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and honey for 2 minutes on medium speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beater with a rubber spatula and add the eggs and vanilla extract. Beat together for 1 to 2 minutes, until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beater. Add the flour mixture and beat at low speed until well blended. Stir in almonds.

Divide the dough and shape 2 wide, flat logs, about 10 inches long by 3 inches wide by 3/4 inch high. Make sure they are at least 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Place in the oven on the middle rack and bake 40 to 50 minutes, until dry, beginning to crack in the middle, and firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 20 minutes or longer.

Place the logs on a cutting board and carefully cut into 1/2-inch thick slices. Place on two parchment-covered baking sheets and bake one sheet at a time in the middle of the oven until the slices are dry, 25-30 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Honey-Mint Lemonade                                                                                                             (adapted from superhealthykids.com)

• quart mason jar
• 2 Meyer Lemons
• 2 stems fresh mint leaves
• 1 tbsp raw honey
• 3 cups hot water

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Rinse the mint and juice lemons to make 1/2 cup of lemon juice. Add boiling water to mason jar and stir in raw honey. Add mint leaf stems.  Steep for 5-10 minutes covered. Add lemon juice to jar. Serve at room temperature or pour over ice cubes to chill. 

Thoughts on Suffering

Spring is taking its time arriving this year.  I'm impatient.  After a long, wet, and very cold winter here in the PNW (coldest in 30 years), I had high hopes that spring would bounce onto the scene and sweep away all the built up dreariness and stagnation in my body, while magically airing out the moss and mildew accumulating on our back patio.  The landscape is getting more colorful every day, but the rain sure hasn't let up and I'm still taking refuge inside my ankle length down coat for most outings.  

Just like the weather, my toddler seems in no rush to ease up on the intensity of his existence in this life.  19 months in and I'm more exhausted than ever and left to wonder when I will ever emerge from this extremely demanding season of motherhood.  My son has slept well 4 months since arriving - the other 15 have been an endless nightmare of multiple night wakings.  Every sleep regression hits hard and drags on.  Neither of us is ready to fully wean, but I'm amazed to find that instead of tapering off, he's asking more and more often for whatever milk I still have.  So we're still attached at the breast several times a day.  I'm barely functioning, while all the while my head is spinning with projects I long to pursue but have no energy to initiate.  So the spinning spirals downward, dragging me into endless feedback loops of unhappiness and self-doubt.  I'm so good at burrowing into these layers of suffering.  

I'm in pretty deep, barely clinging to any semblance of a practice that usually helps alleviate the pain and allows me to gain a little traction.  I'm so exhausted that I can't, for all my wishing, get out of bed any earlier in the morning to have some time to myself for pranayama and meditation.  I collapse again after tucking my little guy in for his afternoon nap.  I spend the precious hour between his bedtime and mine trying to connect with my partner, wash my face, brush my teeth, and wind down.  And so it goes, day after day.  My inner and outer worlds spin in the mud. 

I stumbled upon an On Being podcast recently that briefly pulled me from my mental prison.  Krista Tippett's interview with Alain de Botton is mostly about love, sex, and relationships, but deviates just a bit at the end to discuss a less western approach to life.  He suggests an "acceptance of ourselves as flawed creatures." 

We have an enormous loneliness around our difficulties.  We need solace for the sense that we have gone wrong in an area where perfection was possible.  Anyone who comes along and says "It's normal that you are suffering.  Life is suffering," is doing a quite unusual thing in our culture which is so much about optimism. It sounds grim; it is in fact enormously consoling and alleviating and helpful in a culture which is oppressive in its demands for perfection.  (We need) a certain kind of pessimistic realism, which is totally compatible with hope, totally compatible with laughter, good humor, a sense of fun.

A week later, Yoga teacher and author Rolf Gates came to Seattle and offered a weekend workshop for teachers hosted by 8 Limbs Yoga Studios.  I was able to pass off nap duty and attend one session.  Low and behold, in the middle of a lecture on theming classes, Rolf addressed suffering.  He wasn't suggesting anything new, but it was helpful to be reminded of some basic tenants of a philosophy I've studied and adopted into my worldview.  To sum up Rolf's offering  -

• we get stuck like a wheel in mud and then we suffer.
• habits of the mind cause suffering.
• everyone is carrying a portion of the world's pain.  your portion gives you unique insight.
• affliction comes from an exaggerated sense of aloneness.

And so I remind myself that suffering isn't unique to my experience.  I remind myself of the most simple breath practice - three conscious breaths.  Suffering is the reality of all of our lives, even if a few of us are able to pretend, from time to time, that it's not.  

It's not any special time of the year or month or week right now - today is a random Wednesday in early April - no real reason to start fresh.  If you follow my blog you know that I'm big on cycles.  I use the moon and the change of seasons as a guide for renewing my intentions for mindful living. Yet here it is Wednesday in early April and I need (another) restart.  I've neglected my Lunar New Year intentions.  I escaped to Whidbey Island for a weekend alone to usher in Spring, and two days later I was once again sleep deprived and had abandoned any attempt to shake the winter/toddler blues.  The stories in my head that call to me to be told still aren't down on paper.  Projects pile even higher.  I'm buried but it's time to start digging out.  I don't want to miss that glorious Puget Sound sun when it finally decides to show up and stay a while.  There's nothing special about today, but there doesn't need to be.  On some level, every breath is an opportunity to release the past and try again.

Lunar New Year Intentions

For several years now, I've been experimenting with an extended New Year awareness.  I don't set a January 1st resolution (full disclosure - I haven't been up at midnight for several years now, but that has more to do with motherhood).   I've tied many of my daily rhythms to lunar cycle awareness, which includes celebrating the lunar new year.  Between Jan 1 and the next new moon I sit with ideas for intentions and let them percolate.  By the lunar new year, I’m ready to commit to a few ideas for shaking up my daily life.

It's taken me longer to settle on intentions this year.  But yesterday things clicked and I chose three lunar new year resolutions based on the theme of conscious living.

Pay Attention   I used to regularly set aside time to be tech free - nightly before bed and a weekly ritual silence for a few hours of family time with devices shut off.  As I slip further into motherhood, I've neglected this practice, spinning my wheels faster and faster to try and keep up and keep moving.  I try my best to say off computer and phone when my son is around, but am more hooked than ever in the time I have without him - eating breakfast alone, walking to and from appointments or meetings, sitting on the couch with my husband after our boy has gone to bed.  I'm equally disappointed with myself and addicted.  New year intention number one - conscious eating and walking.  I (re) commit, starting today, to just walk when I am walking and just eat when I am eating.  I will (try and) resist the urge to pick up my phone at the table alone and walking to and fro.  I commit to connecting with myself and the city around me. 

Moon Angels I love staying in tune with the lunar cycle through daily inspiration from Ryan Rebekah Erev's Moon Angels.  These cards provide thought provoking art and guiding descriptions for each day of the cycle from waxing to waning moon.  I've drifted from including these in my morning practice and have missed the ritual.  Today they are back and not a moment too soon.  Many of the systems in our country - political, corporate to name a couple - are dominated by a deeply ingrained patriarchy.  In itself, this solar powered energy we often associate with masculine qualities is not wrong.  But over centuries this way of living and governing has taken root to the exclusion of other ways of functioning and our systems are out of balance, serving only a few rather than all.  Lunar energy is linked to the feminine, to qualities of creativity, calm, and intuition.  Power is expressed in a very different way than we've come to know in our culture.  When we who live in a society dominated by the masculine/sun energy start to pay attention to the feminine/moon energy, we invite a shift towards balancing these two opposites.

Activism  Eight years ago I was inspired, like many, to go into public service following the election of Barack Obama.  I pursued a job with a councilmember at Seattle City Hall.  Two years later I left to pursue a Masters Degree in Sustainable Food Systems and, disillusioned with shortcomings, bureaucracy, and lack of creativity in government, never returned.  I stopped following local politics and grew complacent about (and took for granted) a national progressive agenda.  Eight years later I feel despair and anger at the election results and the decisions currently being made in Washington DC by mostly white, male political leaders.  I am inspired to activism, to an awake and conscious life that comes out of being and living according to a feminine, creative, compassionate rhythm.  

Conscious living - that's my motto for 2017.  Perhaps you'd like to join me?

Begin (again).

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction. — Cynthia Occelli”

An apt description of my postpartum yoga journey.  15 months since the birth of my son, my practice has been completely upended, my body reshaped, and my mental state fluctuates wildly. I can feel a shadow of myself one day, and then the next I find I've more energy, creativity, and strength than ever before.  Throughout I've found it helpful to approach my postnatal practice with a beginners mind and I'm bringing this idea to my students as well.  Rather than overwhelm a room full of new mamas with a zillion options, in an effort to keep longtime practitioners engaged while simultaneously offering a safe space for beginners, what if postnatal yoga was really a space for everyone to explore an intro level practice? 

As a yoga teacher with pre and postnatal credentials, I have the added experience of exploring yoga in my own body through pregnancy and after birth.  My teaching is now informed from both training and personal understanding.  What I've found is the unique challenge of approaching yoga with the curiosity I had the first time I rolled out my mat, while allowing space for muscle memory and accumulated knowledge from years of practice.  Life becomes instantly more complicated with the birth of a baby, and there's relief in straightforward physical postures. Discovering yoga after pregnancy is a wonderful time to learn or relearn the basics of asana, pranayama and meditation.  I try to offer my students a space to approach their practice in this same way.  For those returning to yoga after giving birth, there is an incredible opportunity to begin again.  The postpartum body invites mothers to approach familiar poses with wonder, patience, and compassion. 

Whether you are new to both yoga and motherhood, returning to the practice in a new body, or moving through post birth experiences for a second or third (or more) time, you might find comfort in how effective the simplest of poses can be.  Revel in the simplicity - how the most basic of poses can provide challenge.  Feel the pose as if for the first time, and refine it.  Return to poses you had to forgo during pregnancy (twists!).  Rebuild your abdominal muscles from scratch, and perhaps discover them stronger than ever.  I used to avoid abdominals at all costs, I mentally disliked the work.  Then it became necessary for daily life - to ease low back pain, to feel good in my jeans again, to be able to pick up my son day after day as he grows.  It's taken much longer than I every dreamed, but starting from scratch and working diligently has produced a deep core strength I've never had before.

All that said, postnatal yoga classes are more then a place to awaken and tone stretched-out and saggy abdominals.  It takes tremendous courage to start (or start over) a practice.  For many mothers, it is an enormous effort just to leave the privacy and comfort of home and enter into the public realm with baby.  Crying might be viewed as disruptive, diaper changes could turn messy and chaotic, unspoken assumptions about exposed breasts hang in the air.  My biggest priority when I show up to teach and hold babies is to offer a safe space for vulnerable bodies and spirits, a place for you to find support and affirmation for your own journey through motherhood.  Come as you are and begin (again).

(Join me Tuesdays 1:30-2:45pm at 8 Limbs Capitol Hill)

Accessible Ayurveda - qualities of autumn

From an Ayurvedic perspective, autumn is a season of expansiveness and movement. Think of those blustery days with leaves dancing every which way. Traditionally, we counter these qualities with the opposite to find balance. We ground and stabalize so we remain healthy and vibrant with the swirling, chaotic energy around us. I'll address this next, but for today, I'm curious about exploring what this season is about and what it could mean to to bring a sense of fall's Ayurvedic elements into your life.

I think a lot about space - how it affects interaction, how we design space, how we hold space. Lately I've been engaging with how we move through claustrophobia in our lives, those times we feel like we can't breathe.

We don't have to go to a yoga class or roll out our mat at home to get space.  I haven't been able to get up the last two week for my early morning practice between breastfeeding my son and his wake up time. When I do get up, I have an hour or two for a cup of tea while I write and read, then sit for a few minutes of meditation, do some sun salutations and possibly head to the gym.  Instead, if I choose sleep, it's right into the kitchen to make his breakfast while I drink my tea standing up.  Last week I paid attention to how cluttered my head feels and the effects of my body from rushing from the moment my eyes open. This week I still haven't been able to roll out of bed before my son and his dad.  So I'm experimenting with how to bring the expansive quality of autumn into my compressed morning.  This practice is pretty simple - I try and pay attention to what I'm doing as I make my tea, stir the pot of hot cereal, empty the dishwasher. If I slow down just a bit, my morning opens up.   

I'm also considering how to hold space as a parent. For as rushed as I can feel trying to cram in as much as possible when I have another adult around to help with my toddler, when he and I are alone together everything can slow down to the point of insane boredom. And then I'm tempted to try and do other things while also keeping an eye on my little climber. Inevitably this leads to some sort of accident and bruise/bump/cut followed by tears. So actually, being with this little person is a lot like teaching. My role is to be present with him, to offer suggestions for creative play while letting him explore with his own intentions, and to help him stay physically safe. I've noticed that when I interact with him like this, he surprises me.  Yes, he still wants to climb onto everything and treat my bed like a trampoline and do pull-ups from the toilet paper holder.  And it turns out that he also wants to sit in my lap and read A LOT of books. I experience his sweet and rambunctious nature more intensely and learn more about what makes him tick. 

Beyond parenthood, what does it look like to hold space for other people in our lives?  For one thing, we could put down our phones and devices to engage with other people in the room or at the table, even if it's uninteresting. That moment might pass and we could discover something beyond boredom. See what happens in your world if you simplify your practice by engaging intentionally with your world. 

Experts and Intuition

To live in our current culture is to be surrounded by experts.  It can feel comforting to outsource decisions about my health, my parenting, my emotional state, my career path...  I'm constantly overtired and short on time.  Can someone just tell me what to do?  On the face of it, turning to an expert seems terribly efficient and there's a certain element of checking out that I can do. 

[side note...As I privately mull over experts vs personal intuition, we're regularly digging into this tension over at Bricoleur Collective.  It dominated our most recent discussion, which I summarized in this blog post. Then I found I had more to say, especially in the context of motherhood and yoga and so...]

Following my intuition is a huge time commitment.  I need space in my day to be quiet and listen, to get in touch with Ajna Chakra (Third Eye). As I feel my way along, my path might not look consistent or concrete the way it might if I follow prescribed steps laid out by a professional. I'm making decisions based on what's best in real time, and that often adds up to a whole lot of messiness that sometimes seems like "failure."  My head starts spinning with "if only I had done it the way so and so said, this situation would be neat and tidy right now."  I fret, I try and clear some space again to make friends with my inner voice, and that space inevitably gets co-opted by the cries of a toddler. Did I mention I'm exhausted?  

The thing is, I'm also growing weary of all the experts. Especially regarding motherhood. I've read a good number of parenting blogs and books.  Money has been spent on a sleep training plan, with mixed success. I've had a pediatrician tell me it's time to wean and I've had another congratulate me on still breastfeeding my 13 month old son.  What works today may not be helpful tomorrow. Even with all the outside opinions taken into account, I'm still tinkering with this method and that idea.  My son is a real person, living in real time, surrounded by parents living real lives. The advice I get seems made for a baby in a bubble. Seeking outside advice actually doesn't seem to be saving me time.

Here's an ongoing example. A good night's sleep is illusive in our household.  Despite what he's "supposed" to be doing at his age, my son continues to wake around 5am to nurse before sleeping for a couple more hours.  About once a week he wakes up before that and lately will not be consoled unless I hold him. It happened two nights ago. He awoke at 1:30am, screaming, SCREAMING. I knew he wouldn't go back to sleep if I simply forced him onto his back in the crib and walked out.  And I can't sleep through his cries, I'm in the next room.  Wary of physical contact leading to breastfeeding when I've sworn it off before 5am, I picked him up and brought him to bed. He didn't ask to nurse. In fact, he fell right to sleep in between mama and dada. Two hours later he did wake up and start poking my chest. But he was calm. We put him back in his crib and after a little cry, he went back to sleep for another two hours. It wasn't the best night of sleep, but it could have been a whole lot worse had I never picked him up.  

I'd read Our Sleeping Training Nightmare on the New York Times site just the day before and it stuck with me. "Could every professional be wrong," asks the author/mother. "My instincts say yes, but I've never really been on speaking terms with my instincts." She gets on speaking terms and ultimately concludes that "this is parenting, then: trying and failing and reaching and missing and sometimes getting it right, and always loving." 

And this is parenting: holding space for ourselves, our children, and our families. Parenting is an opportunity for continual mindfulness practice. It's never giving up on that time to myself I try and carve out every morning after the 5am feed, but really only happens twice a week. It's creating some spaciousness in my body and mind through Tonglen Meditation. It's giving my son room to roam while keeping focused on him as boredom creeps in and I reach for my phone and then stop (and reach and stop and reach and stop) and go back to holding a safe space for him to keep exploring and expanding his world.