Back in action

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post. Two years I think. A lot has happened in two years!

My last post was a few weeks before I left Thailand. I was full of motivation, full of determination and riddled with focus. I was going to get home and fully step into my medicine shoes, begin my practice in Thai massage and healing work, start teaching, sell online, etc etc. And I did do this, clients were returning with great reviews from my massages, I entered my first craft show, I taught my first class… And in the middle of all this creative birthing I made a wonderful discovery. I was going to be birthing something else, someone else… I was pregnant and everything was going to change.

I cried at first. I immediately felt a loss of self. I knew in that moment that all the creative work, the hands on healing, it was all going to be put to the side. It was a moment of elated joy and excitement, to bring another human into this beautiful world  with a man that I was madly in love with, and it was a moment of grief, I wasn’t ready to derail my progress… I had only just begun.

Of course,  I embraced my new found motherhood.  It was now my priority to give this new life all the love I had.  To create a haven out of my body by keeping stress low and eating nutrient dense foods. I listened to beautiful music and sang him songs, I smudged with sage and incense, I made my surroundings beautiful knowing he would share the experience of my senses.

I also got a job, an insurable job that is. My self employed ventures and side jobs weren’t going to bring in maternity payments. Though I managed to maintain a couple massage clients and craft a bit on the side, I was focused on working as much as possible at my new job, Sunwolf in Squamish, so that I could qualify for maternity benefits. May I add that Jess and Jake the owners, and Vanessa the big wig manager, were incredibly supportive and did everything they could to make sure I got my hours.

I also went back to my old landscaping job for a few months with, Bishop landscaping in Vancouver, and sheered hedges and mowed lawns while 7 months pregnant. I am so grateful to have had such wonderful employment during that period. Those maternity payments helped us to be able to buy our school bus… we’ll save that for another post.

What I’m getting at here is motherhood, for me it is my priority. It has been from the beginning. Yes, I felt a tear in me when I knew that I was going to have to step away from my creative work for a while to give my new little human the best life possible. But that was just it, I was only going to be stepping away from this work for a little while, I knew the day would come when I’d be able to go full throttle again, but my baby was only going to be a baby once and I wanted to be present for that, offering as much as I could to give him a magical beginning.

All my instincts told me that motherhood for me meant all in, I was to be the hand to raise him, I would breastfeed not pump, I wanted to have what was in my mind a primal relationship with my child. It felt to me the most natural way and the only for our family. We have chosen a simple life and this results in a lower cost of living. This makes it possible for me to not have to go back to work. We made these choices intentionally, creating the life we wanted for ourselves and our family.

Kai Cooper has been the greatest gift to my life. My heart opens more and more each day as I fall deeper and deeper in love with his pure little spirit. But as he grows, space is beginning to open up for me, I’m finding there’s time to work on The Medicine Den and La Loba Holistic Arts.  The time I have is minimal, still keeping Kai as my priority, but it’s slowly returning. It fills my heart in a different way when I do this work. In a way that nothing else and no one else can. So I’m happy to say that I’m back in action. My fire never died. The creative impulse has always been there.