Magic Monday: Beginning

Good morning, darling MH.

After several nights of insomnia, Mama is pooped.

Check out this major bit of magic, though. It's you--at only 10 weeks. You were already rocking my world. Now we're at moving past 39 weeks, and I'm so ready to meet you!

A song

Good morning, MH. A blessing song for you.

Mother’s Blessing - La Bendición De Tu Madre by Snatam Kaur
Words of Bibi Bani, wife of Guru Ram Das the Fourth Guru of the Sikhs

Retoño mio, esta es la bendición de tu madre.

Oh my child this is your mother’s blessing.

Nunca olvides a Dios, ni un momento

May you never forget God, even for a moment

Adorando, por siempre, al Señor del Universo

Worshipping forever the Lord of the universe.

Recordando a Dios, todos los errores son purificados.

Remembering God, all mistakes are washed away.

Y todos nuestros ancestros son acogidos y salvados.

And one’s ancestors are redeemed and saved.

Siempre canta el nombre de Dios, Har Har

Always chant God’s Name, Har Har

Dios esta en tu interior, Dios es infinito.

God is inside you, God is Infinite.

Que el Verdadero Guru te sea amable

May the True Guru be kind to you

Que ames estar en compañía de santos.

May you love to be with the Saints.

Que tu prenda de vestir sea la protección de Dios

May your clothing be the protection of God

Que tu sustento sea el canto de la alabanza de Dios.

May your food be the singing of God’s Praise.

Bebe el néctar del nombre de Dios, y vive una larga vida

Drink the nectar of God’s Name and live long

Que la meditación en Dios te traiga dicha incesante

May meditation on God bring you endless bliss.

Que el amor sea tuyo propio y tus deseos se cumplan

May love be yours and your hopes fulfilled

Que la preocupación nunca te consuma.

May you never be worn by worry.

Haz de tu mente el abejorro

Let this mind of yours be the bumble bee

Y que los pies de loto de Dios sean la flor.

And let the Lotus Feet of God be the flower.

Oh sirviente Nanak, ata tu mente de esta manera

Oh Servant Nanak, link your mind in this way

Como el gavilán encuentra la gota de lluvia, y prospera.

Like the sparrow hawk finding a raindrop, blossom forth.

Chanting from the heart

Good morning, MH!

What is it about chanting and prayer that creates such calm and focus? I grew up with traditional Catholic prayers; my favorite is probably the Prayer of Saint Francis. I even can remember "playing church" when I was little, with my little book of prayers and my sisters as the parishioners.

There are so many powerful prayers . . . so many ways to connect to God. Here are three that I listen to and recite as I connect with your little spiritual heart.

Heart Sutra
There is something about Zen Buddhism . . . perhaps it is its simplicity to which I am drawn. Sit and breathe. Sit and breathe and pay attention. If you go to a sangha (a sitting group), often the Heart Sutra is part of the chanting that happens within the sitting. My favorite part of the chant is the paradoxical "Form is emptiness; Emptiness is form."

Click through to the YouTube version for the Japanese sounds and the English translation.


Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings everywhere be happy and free. And may the thoughts and actions of my own life contribute, in some way, to that happiness and freedom for all.

It is important to remember that all that we say and do affects those around us, MH.



Chakra Opening
Chakras are considered to be energy centers along the middle of our bodies. There are seven chakras, described here, and they're in charge of certain properties in our bodies and minds. There are sounds associated with each of the chakras, and chanting them is supposed to open the energy channels. The one on which I'm focused as you prepare to enter the world is the root chakra, represented by the color red and the sound LAM.
MC Yogi makes the chanting fun.

Magic Monday: Is your mama secretly a swan?

Swan swan swan, 
Bending their necks to sing to the sky.
White feathers floating on green water, 
Red feet pushing against clear waves.
                              --Luo Bin Wang

Good morning, M. Hazel!

Wow. 38 weeks! How are you feeling about making an appearance soon? We are officially go for launch.

I have too many stories about birds. Today, though, a different spin on bird stories. 

During a game of Words With Friends (a Scrabble ripoff game that is an obsession of mine--words!!!), a friend of mine sent me a text, "My dream last night . . . you and I were sitting in a subway tunnel watching the trains fly by. All the while, you were pregnant and fully clothed in swan feathers; we talked of issues concerning having a baby. Your hair was a bright, deep red. Even though it was a dream, it was good to see you."

Dreams are so potent. Maybe they are just the brain's way of tying up loose ends, or rummaging through the trash out of boredom. But maybe they go a little deeper. Maybe some of them are filled with a little magic. Although Freud gets a lot of flack (even from me), I love psychoanalytic thought and interpretation. The unconscious mind becomes the place from which our intuition emerges. 

My goal here isn't to go too deeply into dream analysis, but simply to acknowledge the beauty of dreaming, and, especially, the beauty of that potent dream.

And so, a fast little doodle for you:

A poem

Good morning, M. "You know being born is important."

Carl Sandburg's "Being Born"

Being born is important

You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love’s payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.

You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.

Momma is a New Waver

Good morning, MH!

Will you prefer the Rockabye Baby! song versions from some of my favorites:



Or the originals?

Magic Monday: World of Froud

Good morning, Maeby Hazel!

After I became mildly obsessed with watching Labyrinth, I did what I usually do with little obsessions, and I branched out. What I mean by that is that I like to take the main focus and filter it through all these different lenses. So, for instance, with another of my obsessions, The Cure, I found it necessary to dig into Robert Smith's childhood, his personal life, the band's pop-culture references, and on and on. Or, another example, I became fascinated for a few years with China's Communist history, which led to a lot of Cultural Revolution and Mao study (my favorite book on the topic is this one, even though it's controversial).

So, with Labyrinth, it became all about Brian Froud, whose artwork was the inspiration for the film. I don't even know how I came upon his book, Faeries, but as you can see, it still sits, well-loved, upon my living room bookshelf.

I look forward to making fairy wreaths with you, MH!

It wasn't the precious flower fairies that intrigued me, as much as the mischievous pixies. In the world of fairy (as in the "real" one), "pretty" isn't an indicator of kindness. My take on pretty:

"every kitten figures out how to get down . . . "

It was more the drawings that looked like this one that compelled me to forever love Froud:

In high school, I had a close-knit group of girlfriends, and we considered it part of our mission to spread the fairy gospel. Some of my best memories are of camping by various rivers, and walking out into the twilight to try and catch some fairies at play. Or staying the night at Weasle's (her name at the time), and building fairy wreaths with rose and wild garlic and dancing under the light of the full moon. Even some of our acting adventures were fae-guided. We did two productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, one in which I played Robin Starveling (I think . . . it was the bit part, at any rate), and a second, for an Albuquerque drama festival, in which I played the coveted Puck. Acting is not my forte, MH, but belonging to such a group of whimsical friends who also believed in make-believe . . . it made a lot of high school bearable.

I've limited my "collection" to a small Fairy Corner, in a futile attempt to reduce suspicions that I might be a little off my rocker.

And so, I still love Froud. His wife, Wendy makes the most beautiful figures. I've never considered myself a person who has a collector mentality, but even having a very small copy of one of her fairy figures makes me a little giddy. And their son, Toby (who played Toby in Labyrinth), is in the family game, too, creating art and living as a part-time fairy. The whole family is getting ready for an exhibition in New York, with a book release, for Trolls. 

Ack! How cool would that be, to meet the whole Froud family?!??! Well, even without the meet-and-greet (since we've already scheduled our own meet-and-greet for at least a couple weeks prior), we'll eventually get the book and pour over the juicy troll drawings.