Sweet Sacrifice

As Tom turned 12, took his first plane ride alone, and began middle-school, I was left at home to realize the bittersweet, humbling JOY of raising a son. How precious each moment.

The following poem came to me one night recently, as I was stirring when I should have been sleeping in my empty home.

Sweet Sacrifice









No one ever told me
I would never sleep the
same again...

As my belly grew
in both circumference
and discomfort

and the naivety of a
sweet sleep again
on my flat belly.

I never knew
no one said
that the vacancy left
in my flat tummy
would not give way
to sleep the same

as the mantle of that dream
who slept himself
in the cradle
beside my bed
had stirred my awakened heart

and the eye of my love blown
open with his sweet breath.

A Layer of GRACE

I have been enjoying a resurgence of life into my personal yoga practice this year. Early on I decided I would begin dedicating 1-3 hours daily, six days per week with the intention of letting my yoga evolve.

I started with just what I felt like doing. On my mat I allow my body to gain more strength naturally over time, without setting any goals and expectations. It has felt so good to surrender to the moment, without respect to context (like teaching what I am doing or reach some sort of physical attainment).

This past weekend, I found myself hungry for my vinyasa (yoga flow) practice, but I had spent all day Saturday away from Tom, giving a workshop, and knew I couldn't bear to leave him for one more moment. I asked him if he wanted to come to the Bodhi Yoga Center with me, he said: "can I bring my remote control car???".

For Tom the sacred space of the WMY practice room is ideal for doing doughnuts with his car, yelling out loud to hear his echo at random times and throwing racket balls (that we use in class for foot acupressure) against the wall.

I picked a corner of the room and began to bliss out through my vinyasa. As I felt my breath emanate a warm energy throughout my body, I found myself musing at how I wasn't necessarily tuning Tom out, but deeply tuning in to him. The joy it is to have him in toe for so much of my life.

As I watched him, through my practice, build a wall with yoga blocks and ram his electric car into it, I felt a flood of gratitude.

In the past months I have noticed him maturing, with feelings bittersweet, as he starts to get a glimpse of becoming a young man.

I have watched his desire to act "grown up", the budding interest in things like what kind of boxer shorts and manly smelling body spray he uses.

But on this serene Sunday afternoon it was one of the more occasional drops back into the playful little boy I had by my side for so long.

In my practice I felt such an appreciation for not only each stage, but especially those times we allow ourselves to just stay "in-between places" with out having to "be" one thing or the other...where it becomes much more natural to be less critical or self aware...for me this precious space of allowing feels like a layer of grace.

When I had completed my practice, (and laughed with him as we took photos with the camera from my mobile phone), I said: "O.k. bud, lets head home". He said: "Hang on mom, I am doing Stonehenge."

They say in the Aurthurian Legend, the wizard Merlin directed the movement of Stonehenge from a mountain in Ireland to it's current location in England...As St. Patrick's Day draws close, maybe Tom felt moved by his ancestral Irish roots to build it out of yoga blocks before we left.