Taking Flight-Introduction

Stretching my wings and preening my feathers..I got this Crone thing down. Wait...what's that you say? Menopause? Can you say that in public? Dealing with our cultural issues around women getting older? Fine..I'll just stop preening for a minute and go get my Surviving Womanhood Instruction Manual (S.W.I.M.)
It doesn't exist? What do you mean no one left us a map? How are we supposed to navigate this? What do you mean Mr. Wilson that the map is not the territory? Well..I guess there are initiations then..and secret knowledge. Yes...yes...as I say as I stretch my wings again, feeling the energy of powerful memories. I will tell you about one.

Once upon a now, in a dream, I was standing beside my own bed. I looked down at my sleeping form and was shocked. She looked NOTHING like what I saw staring back in the mirror.
My first thought was "She's SO fat!". It wasn't a judgement, or criticism, just a change in perspective. Like seeing a flower and noticing how YELLOW it is. I looked closer at the sleeping body on the bed and thought I won't likely have a dream from this perspective again, so I should take a closer look.
Look..there..see that scar on my ankle? That was where a lawn chair bit me and tore a chunk of flesh out. Those matching scars on my shins? Yeah..ow..I remember that. My hands slipped on metal bars while trying to jump on a playground toy..smacked both shins pretty hard landing on the metal edge.
Ha! Look..that one is recent..it's a dog bite. Ohhh...there is that scrape on my knee from a hot metal spiral slide..how did we ever survive in pre-protective child bubble days?
Ahhhh..those stretch marks..look at all of them. And no child bearing to blame it on. Volcanic cracks and heaves from a body in unrest. Eating disorders and auto-immune disease. Look at how they kind of shine in the light...
Those spots on my arms? Constellations of scars from a near life time of needle pokes, IVs and blood draws.
I look at my/her face. I am snoring..my poor hubby has to wear ear plugs at night. Look at those dark circles under her eyes...wow.
I am overwhelmed with compassion and love for this being on the bed. Those scars hold a collection of memories and experiences that make her who she is. I feel deeply the wonder that is her, traveling through space and time..it is overwhelming. I have never felt that deeply about myself before. I am in deep awe.
The dream changes and I am lying in a hospital bed. I feel trapped by the tubing all around me. Panicked but determined to appear competent, in control, and not scared as hell and defeated. I wish I could be more accepting of human touch. My mind doesn't recall a lot of physical closeness growing up...part of our culture I think. I feel the lack of it with the plastic tubes and the plastic coated wires intruding on me.
My mom is in the door to the hospital room now.
"What are you doing here?" She asks in my dream.
"I'm sick mom" I say, and my inner walls start to crumble..so I cry.
She walks over to my bed, and crawls in it with me. (She somehow manages not to get tangled or pull any tubes out..that's the cool part of dreams!)
I am tiny again next to her..I shrink down to pint size... a small child, I am a representation of when the world wasn't quite so scary and scars and dings could be kissed or blown on to make them all better.
She wraps her arms around me and holds me close to her chest. I realized those physical moments were there...often. I relax in the comfort of a mother's love. I sob. I wake up sobbing. Release. Alchemy. Initiation.

I find myself amused that my mom and I are starting a blog together. We are both intensely creative and emotional people. We've been poking at the other for years to share our writing, our talents, our visions. We are so very different and so very the same. We are so yearning to create maps and explore territories and bring back tales of adventure and humor, sorrow and growing. We both seem to like the idea that this blog will be a place where you want to see what we are up to. We create. A lot.
As for me, I am a spoonie. I am also a fiber artist, beekeeper, urban farmer, food preserver, and any other hat I can try on. Most days I fancy myself a sorceress and mystic. I play banjo.
I live in Denver with my hubby, dogs, chickens, and bees. We run Bloominkraft Urban Ag.