I feel most powerful when

• I forgive
• I rock the balance between assertive and vulnerable
• I accept help before I desperately need it
• I honour my needs
• I indulge my wants- just a little
• I feel my creative juices flowing
• I enact a spiritual truth
• I help a friend in need
• I find the synergy between disparate elements
• I am in tune with my body
• my intuition is clear

Thanks to O magazine and this post for the inspiration

*image credit

7 things I CAN’T live without

The Universe has a sick sense of humour.

Over the past 5 years I have come to depend on food. I have always loved eating. (I’m a Taurean – sue me!) But it was my Stepford wife transformation when I moved in with my husband that inspired me to learn how to cook.

Cooking, ah I love to cook. I make fortnightly menu plans. I visit the green grocer, deli and butcher. I cook from scratch at least 6 times a week – not including lunches which can range from honey sandwiches to lemon Parmesan pasta. I even have a menu chalkboard.

Cooking is multi-tasking-goodness; relaxing, fulfilling, nurturing, practical.

Now I enjoy cooking more than eating. I love the process. I love hearing my 2-year-old say ‘Mum this is DELICIOUS!’. I love that when my husband is down he asks for a cake.

So imagine my surprise devastation when my morning sickness not only stole my appetite, but my desire to cook!

Cooking is almost a chore now. The smells of cutting fruit for my son is enough to make my stomach lurch and flip. Ironically (or sadistically) I still love my food blogs, reading recipes and food porn. It is just real produce that makes me ill.

This isn’t the first of my loves that the universe tampered with. Some I fight for – the ones I won’t live without – some I have willingly let go.

1. Sleep - Since half way through my first pregnancy a full nights sleep has been allusive. I compensate with naps.
2. Alcohol - You know the walk your talk thing? Self destructive behaviour and cocktails till 2am was fun, but not helpful for a natural therapist. Plus I have been pregnant or breastfeeding for 3 of the past 4 years. So a vodka to calm the nerves it out of the question. Thankfully I have also let go of hangovers.
3. Music – I still love it. This one I’m fighting for. Every now and then we get some real music in around Playschool albums and ABC Classical. I still get to concerts (about 2 a year) but I’m not on the dance floor these days. This is one I can’t let go.
4. Tea – I am still a tea-a-holic. In fact I probably should belong to TA (Tea-drinkers Anonymous). I can’t let go of my teacups, high tea, daily cup[s], but these days I am a connoisseur of decaf and herbal teas. Bye-bye caffeine.
5. Girlfriends - Never. Ever. Giving. Up! I have one girlfriend close by, one the other side of the city and one interstate. If it weren’t for Facebook, Email and cheap domestic flights I would be screwed.
6. Space - Personal space. A space for me in my house. Head space. I’m not prepared to let them go, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me – if you can see me beyond the toddler crawling all over me.
7. Reading - I don’t really have scope to lounge around reading novels (or text books) any more. But I have my [sneaky] ways; I read late at night, I read blogs, I read Ebooks on my iPhone. My reading obsession is still alive and kicking.

What can’t won’t you live without?

*photo credit

Goodbye foundation

Yesterday some of the bloggers I read religiously began “No Makeup Week”. Not as a protest, but as an exploration of beauty, makeup, self-esteem and the status quo. You can read their posts here & here.

Skin care and makeup is a timely subject for me. My skin at the  moment is absolutely radiant. So much so that it is fooling (much to my delight) people around me into believing that I am well rested, healthy and stress free. I am getting comments like ‘Gee pregnancy really agrees with you’ , ‘Look at you, you’re glowing!’ & ‘You look fantastic!’

No, I am not well rested. Yes, I still vomit every day. And I am certainly not walking on sunshine. But you would think so or why else would my skin look so nice? For some reason society has trained us to believe that healthy skin is the holy grail. Skin takes a beating when we are tired, stressed, run-down, not eating well, ill with the flu, on medication, exposed to polluted air. ’Good’ skin is hard to achieve it has become an unconscious barometer of how we are ‘doing’. With the odds against us most of us have given up entirely on healthy skin and instead invest in serums, foundations, concealers, bronzers, primers, shimmers, recovery gels and the list goes on.

Makeup was originally designed to enhance a woman’s natural beauty. Skin care was designed to maintain our natural complexion. Somewhere along the way we learned that a flawless matt finish constituted beautiful skin. At some point we began viewing freckles, lines, god forbid wrinkles as the enemy. And some clever marketer convinced us that to look ‘natural’ we needed 12 different products.

My glowing skin was not inspired by a marketing campaign, a beauty editor or retail therapy. I simply wanted to feel more feminine. I wanted to do something for me. I chose skin care that was natural and that would feed my skin in a deep way.  My whole skin care routine cost less that $70. As a result I am getting no end of compliments (after 1 week of usage), I really do feel more feminine and I have stopped using foundation entirely.

My relationship with makeup changed when I stopped trying to fake my femininity and started to honour it.

*Photo credit

4 types of tears

I have heard of 4 seasons in one day. I have experienced 4 moods in a day. Who am I kidding – I have had 4 moods in an hour. Today was a first. Today I had 4 types of tears in a day;

Angry tears

We all know these tears. They come at the worts time. You are so angry you could explode. You are trying to keep your voice even when you want to screech. Your rage is building and all you want is to make the other understand your position. You need them to understand. And your body goes and betrays you – you burst into tears.

This morning it was my son, being cheeky, then back-chatting me, kicking the game over and finally sitting with his back to me saying ‘I’m ignoring you, Mum’. At least I didn’t yell.

Sad tears

The most common type of tears. They are best defined by what they are not. Generic sadness. Not quite grief. Not quite heartbreak. Not quite wracking sobs. Just tears. Something saddens you, upsets you, pulls at your heart-strings and the waterworks begin.

Later this morning after the ‘ignoring incident’ where Mr 2 was sat in the ‘thinking corner’ of the couch to ponder his behavior he promptly fell asleep amidst his apology. Sleep. At 11.30am. Most mothers would be silently dancing around the room with joy. But my baby is sick. This isn’t the tiredness of a child running in the sunshine. The tears just flowed.

Helpless tears

These tears are new to me. From what I can tell they are reserved only for situations where you are unable to or ineffectual in your attempt to help a loved one. I have only ever experienced them when a loved one is ill in some way.

This afternoon, leaving the Dr’s office I simply couldn’t stop them rolling down my cheeks. He assured me that the referral I clutched was for the best Dr in his field and that my waiting period was remarkably short. He also warned that none of the efforts I was making would help in any way what so ever, except for making me feel useful. Great.

Grateful tears

These are often mistaken as happy tears. There is a difference. A subtle difference. Grateful tears are tears of pure thanks. Something reminds you how very lucky you are; to be alive, to have the family you do, to be exactly where you are and the gratitude is expressed physically as little drops cascading down your cheeks.

Later this afternoon, when we arrived home. Mr 2 sitting in his Daddy’s lap pretending to drive the car in the driveway. Cooper is luminescent with joy and his Daddy is sitting in awe. Powderfinger’s ‘Burn your Name’ (one of our wedding songs) comes on the radio. I am utterly struck by exactly how blessed I am to be wife and mother to these beautiful men.

Yes, I am hormonal, sleep-deprived, stressed, exhausted and generally sentimental but what a day…

Thank Fuck for girlfriends…

…and their ability to remind me that life is unedited. Long, labour intensive and full of challenge. Oh goody!

There is something special about a close female friend. Yes, I have close male friends (well had, but we will get to that later) too, and they are fantastic in a whole other way. Male friends give me the best hugs; remind me there is something solid and grounded and strong around to hold onto. Female friends hug me less and embrace my heart more. Sigh. Girlfriends love me enough to know they can call me on my bullshit and that I won’t be offended. My girlfriends know when to cry with me and when to point out the crocodile in my tears.

My girlfriends are my girlfriends precisely because they have similar hearts. They are ‘my people’. Similar but different – they have varied perspectives. Many of them directly contradict mine, but that is to be expected when you are the hippy leftist that hangs out with conservative lawyers. Sometimes i find it laughable that two of my besties (of over a decade no less) are lawyers who between them will have more degrees than the average graduating class. But I digress. They know how to talk my language, to direct my flow of thought; they reveal myself to me in conversation.

Heart conversation is such an intrinsic and divine feminine act, talking to each other’s souls through our personalities. There is no mistake when we feel some divine presence when we really share ourselves with girlfriends in conversation. We feel it, because it is divine. Sometimes I can see us as ageless crones passing divinity back and forth between us as words.

I cried. She laughed. I said ‘but’ and she kindly pointed out my resistance. She saw my claws and my soft underbelly and she recognized herself. She told me what I already knew. But hearing it from another, somehow, made it different. She told me I had to learn to be infinitely open and infinitely loving. She told me I needed to soften.

I washed the tears from my face when I washed my hands, because really, every life changing conversation is interrupted by a toddler crying ‘Toilet time!’ Isn’t it?

*Photo Credit

Is objectification a prerequisite for sex?

“I have no problem with women objectifying men in ads, or men objectifying women in ads. Because, really, the only reason we [humans] are still here after 65 million years, is because someone has been shagging.”  - The Gruen Transfer.

I’m sorry, did I miss something? Since when was objectification a prerequisite for sex? Is it because I am a woman that sex to me is more than visual attraction and physical possession?

Need I be terrified that men today subscribe to this theory that in order to perform a most intimate act, which is at its heart prone to our deepest vulnerabilities, they must first objectify their partner and presumably protect their manliness? Have I got it all wrong? Please tell me I have it all wrong.

I understand that sex isn’t always a beautiful thing. Sometimes is it about pure base attraction, heat, pheromones, friction, sweat and climax. Great sex for the sake of great sex, is still great sex. But can it really be great if it is essentially one object fucking another? Barbie and Ken in the sack was never the hottest idea.

Something tells me that our pop culture adopting the values and aesthetics of soft porn may have something to do with this theory. And really, the Gruen Transfer is a show about advertising and we all know that the advertising industry have been justifying the proliferation of the male gaze and over-sexualisation with the simple catchphrase ‘Sex sells”. The prude in me asks; at what cost.

Everybody with two grey cells to rub together knows that the brain is our sexiest organ. If it weren’t then natural selection over the past 65 million years would have produced an aesthetically superior race by now. And that simply isn’t the case. So, how is it that a comment about objectification on a national TV program so flippantly accepts objectification as a part of sex?

For me all I hear are warning bells. Are our young women growing up understanding the in order to be attractive (and receive physical love) they must come pre-objectified; spray tanned to within an inch of their lives, hair highlighted, teeth bleached, hairless except for that on their heads, carefully styled to appeal to the narrowest possible idea of sexy? Are our young men growing up understanding that in order to be a man they must act like the degrading assholes you see in most porn these days (professional or amateur) and order women around, ‘take’ all three orifices available, include ‘light’ bondage and spanking and end ejaculating on her face?

How oh how can we restore intimacy to sex? I think it begins by reversing the over-sexualisation of our youth, introducing instead real sexual education (i.e. something more than sex is bad and dangerous don’t do it), by adding erotica to challenge the stronghold [mostly] degrading porn has on the ever-growing market, and by individually asking more for our partners. If it is normal these days to objectify, demean, humiliate in our sex lives then I say let’s do something radical like honour, respect, and worship in our sex lives too.

*Photo credit

Uncomfortable bedpartners: Motherhood and Feminism

There is nothing about this subject that isn’t controversial. Everybody has an opinion. everybody has a mother, everybody knows mothers, everybody has direct experience with working mothers, stay at home mothers and children. Everybody has a vested interest in the next generation being large, healthy and productive members of society.

Despite everybody’s vested interest, we are willing to lump the responsibility of raising the next generation in the laps of the few willing to take on motherhood. Any yet, despite this seeming imbalance everybody seems to have an opinion, a judgement on how those mothers are carrying out their role. That makes ‘Motherhood’ dangerous territory.

With, quite literally, millions of people judging you and your performance as Mother and no KPI’s to guide you, except for pleasing everybody and their disparate demands of what Motherhood should look like (and even what motherhood feel like), being a ‘good’ mother is inherently impossible and ultimately guilt ridden. How can it not be when we fail in every single moment, by someone else’s standards?

Feminism and motherhood have always had a rocky relationship. Motherhood really is at the heart of many of the difficulties women as a collective face. These difficulties have led to imbalance and feminism seeks to eliminate the imbalances in society based on gender. So, Motherhood seems to be the elephant in the room. If women didn’t have burden of motherhood then their participation in the workforce would be higher, it would be more continuous (no pesky maternity leave to contend with), we could just tackle equal pay and housework and everything would be dandy. Oh, except if women as a collective didn’t have the capacity to bear children we would be men – and masculinity as the sole focal point of society is what Feminism is fighting, isn’t it?

Feminism is fighting for the rights of women; for the recognition that women are equal to men, irrespective of the inherent differences between the sexes. Irrespective of our responsibility to birth the next generation.

I am a feminist. I am a mother. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. It is possible to be a ‘good mother’ and a ‘good feminist’. We just need to get on the same page. Feminism doesn’t just serve women by eradicating ‘gender roles’ and making way for women to enter the workforce. Feminism serves women by highlighting the injustices women face in gender roles and in the workforce and working to eliminate these injustices.

I was sent a link by the lovely Elle from GenYElle to an article in The Australian about Elisabeth Badinter’s book Conflict: The Woman and the Mother, that will soon be translated to english and available in Australia. Badinter raises some excellent issues that plague motherhood. But, for me, many of her conclusions are ill thought out and some downright selfish. She points out that extended breastfeeding ‘deprives [couples] of their romantic relationship, and especially their sex life’ as though we are comparing apples and oranges. As though romance and WHO recommendations for child nutrition are equally important.

The decision to have a baby naturally is also not always a ‘moral’ either; there is more to natural birth than elevating oneself in the eyes of fellow mothers. Natural childbirth has drastically lower complication rates for both mother and child. And I see nothing unliberated about making an educated choice about our bodies and following it through with conviction. I agree with her assertion that we over police women during their pregnancies, but stop short of suggesting it is a sound or even liberated decision to smoke or drink whilst pregnant. It also strikes me as odd that she is almost flippant at the ineptitude of fathers ‘Of course men are deficient. So we expect the state to fulfil its duty as equally responsible for the wellbeing and education of the new child.’ What the? Isn’t it the role of feminism to encourage equality?

All in all Badinter raises issues that I believe need to be discussed. Society at large needs to be aware of the real experience of motherhood. The truth of motherhood that isn’t all sunshine, lollipops and Huggies ads. Liberation is being valued and recognised for who we are and what we contribute, not putting our wants (alcohol, partying, romantic trysts) before the needs of our children.

Having said all of this, I simply cannot wait for her book to be released so I can read it in its entirety. It is no doubt a book worth reading.

Bulletproof

‘I’ll never let you sweep me off my feet’ - Bulletproof, La Roux

I love old movies. Especially film noir. The femme fatales, like their compatriots in other films of the era always fell in love, but unlike the other heroines (Audrey, Marilyn) they fell despite themselves. These women didn’t want to fall in love.

Actually the femme fatales (my favourite of which was Rita Hayworth) actively tried not to fall in love. They schemed, they evaded, they manipulated, they two timed, they played men off one another, they emotionally withdrew. The whole time, despite themselves, they wanted a man (a good man) to sweep them off their feet. They wanted a man to pass their tests, to see through their false bravado, to love them more than they loved themselves, to love them into who they could be.

There is a lot me can learn from these women, and I am not just referring to their elegance, grace, wit, beauty and class. They teach us also what it looks like when a woman falls on her own sword in love. It isn’t pretty. They usually ended up dead, in jail, in an awful marriage or miserably alone. Before I continue please let me clarify; a woman’s worth isn’t in her marriageability. Single is not a fate worse than death for a woman. My point is these women ran from, denied and fought what they really wanted and symbolically they ended up dead.

These women wanted Love with a capital ’L’. They wanted to be swept off their feet. They wanted a love that would deliver them from their confusion and fear so viscous it had teeth and ate them whole. We do that a LOT don’t we? We are so terrified of what we really want that we make ourselves impermeable, we try to become bulletproof and repel it. It is safer that way, or is it?

In the words of my favourite Femme Fatal, The Lady from Shanghai Elsa ‘I’m not what you think I am, I just try to be like that.’

*Photo credit

The gold is spoiling my grass

I was once told the story of an old man. I have no idea where this story comes from, so if you know let me know so I can attribute it here.

This old man is negative, grumpy, set in his ways. He wants more money; everything is expensive, prices are rising and he longs for the days when he was a boy and prices were reasonable. One morning he wakes to a pile of gold bullion stacked in his front yard. His response ‘Oh gosh darn it! That gold is ruining my grass!’

I realised a moment ago that I am that man! I was reading the honest and inspired blog of Ronna Detrick Renegade Conversations. Ronna wrote the following:

I don’t want to stay dry in my relationships. I want them wild and messy and juicy. By that admission, this means they will be hard, confusing, potentially disappointing, and require much vulnerability and risk. At this point in my life I don’t want safety or surety. I want passion, abandon, fiery integrity, brutal truth, and raw beauty. I want to get wet.

First let me say Wow! Fearless honesty should always be applauded! My relationship is wild, definitely messy and juicy (in the personal growth sense) right now. It is hard, really hard, deep, slow work. And to do the work we have had to face paralysing fears, speak searingly painful truths and embrace a vulnerability I have never known before.

What a powerful re-frame. ‘Wet’ is a magic new paradigm. I am not ‘going through stuff’, ‘in a rough patch’, ‘falling apart’. I am jumping into the depths of my marriage, our love, with both feet. I am getting wet.

Willingness

A question I am faced with a lot more in adulthood than I anticipated is am I willing to do what I must?

Am I willing to forgive? Am I willing to take a risk? Am I willing to trust? Am I willing to get hurt? Am I willing to make sacrifices? Am I willing to get past the pettiness? Am I willing let go? Am I willing to Love? Am I willing to really be open? Am I willing to be soft when the world conspires to make me tough? Am I willing to do the work? Am I willing to take responsibility? Am I willing to tune in? Am I willing to show up? Am I willing to just be? Am I willing to find stillness? Am I willing to face the truth? Am I willing to grow? Am I willing to push through my resistance?

Sometimes willingness is half the battle.  Sometimes being willing is enough. I hope it is enough, because I don’t know how to be open and soft right now.

Unplugged connection

Yesterday I feel like a traveled back in time. I caught the train into the city to meet a friend. No blackberry. On the train I read a book. A real paper book. Not a blog or an E book on a smartphone or tablet. We sat on her couch and on her bed like we used to when we were 15 (yes I have known her that long) and we talked. We didn’t communally watch TV, play a game, sms, or update our  Facebook pages. We even let our phones go to voicemail. Oh the horror. We went to lunch at a local cafe and had pies, not some elegantly put together tossed salad, and enjoyed tea and soft drink. No diet or artificial sweetener to be seen. We even shared the best chocolate éclair ever! Yumm.

I read some more on the trip home on the train and when I had the carriage to myself I called a long distance friend to catch up with her. On the walk home I picked up some ingredients for dinner and actually visited a ‘video store’! Two DVDs later (two of my faves) I went home to cook dinner and watch DVDs curled up on the couch with my husband, under a hand-made patchwork quilt no less!

It felt fantastic to just connect. Not connect in the über modern sense of knowing what your friends had for lunch thanks to twitter, or where there are thanks to foursquare, what they did during the week thanks to their Facebook pics. But real connection, to hear the wobble in their voice when they talk about something difficult, to see the smile crinkle the corners of their eyes in a way that an emoticon simply can’t convey. To laugh with someone. To feel that genuine connection, where so much is conveyed between the words.

I don’t know about you, but pretty much every young woman [20 to 35] I care about has been on an emotional roller coaster recently. And we seem to be stuck in the big dipper part swinging from low to lower, with an occasional sharp upswing. The thing that is keeping me (and I know a lot of them) sane, is female connection. Its power simply cannot be underestimated. It is like alchemy for the soul!

Have you thanked your ‘girls’ recently? Mine know who they are… love you guys! xxx

Image credit

Dinosaurs beware! The feminists are coming.

Men, heroes, archetypally go out in the world and take on dragons, armies, pirates, rescue damsels, explore foreign lands, build empires, and launch crusades. It is the way of the hero, the masculine, to learn and grow through external challenges.

Women, heroines, archetypically heal the sick, create life, nurture, love, celebrate and teach. It is the way of the heroine to learn and grow through personal challenges, issues of relationship and of the heart.

Masculine energy finds its greatness by breaking free of the everyday while feminine energy manifests its greatness by fully connecting to the everyday and the divinity to be found there.

I am not to say that a woman’s place is gathered around the hearth and the man’s is to be out hunting and exploring the wider world. Such a simplistic conclusion assumes that a woman is totally feminine and a man solely masculine. Each of is has an intricate mix of both energies. We are each masculine and feminine, ying and yang. Which is why it insults all of us when the feminine attributes of humanity are disrespected.

Feminism should never have been about giving women the opportunity to prove that they could be heroes and do what men do best, just as well as men. Unfortunately, however we had to combat the erroneous assumption that women were both different to and lesser than our male counterparts. Now that it is [mostly] recognised that women and men are equal it is time to move on to the real role of feminism; equal recognition, respect and reverence for feminine attributes, roles, decisions, contributions, stories and perspectives.

So to those people who still believe raising children is less important than spending 8 hours a day in an office cubical – you are a dinosaur. The face of feminism is changing. No longer are women who rally and burn their bras the iconic feminists. Today feminists are just as likely men as women and they effect change on a personal level, one person, company or situation at a time. Dinosaurs beware! The feminists are coming.

*Photo credit