Journey of the Heart

A Mama Day Blessing This day we honor and celebrate the women who have given life to us,  the women who give life to ideas,  the women who died giving life, the women who wanted to have a child, but didn’t get to, the women who right now are tilling their fertile soil for new seed, the women who choose not to have a child but have many children, the women who are in captivity, the women who are free, those who were mothered well, and those who had crazy mamas, because any mama that did not love you well, was not well enough, the women who are struggling this moment to care for their babies, and the women who right now snuggle with little ones under feather comforters, for those whose mamas have gone on, and for those who are mamas to be, for women who miscarried precious life, and those who carried many, for single mamas who want their mate, and for married mamas who want to be seen and heard, for those who never got...

On November 8, 2016, Donald J. Trump won the Electoral College to become our President-Elect, at the absolute shock of most of the country... The same day, a person close to me, who I have always loved dearly, experienced a bit of a break with reality. The cracks I saw forming in my friend’s life with those closest to them mirrored the chasms forming in our ever more polarizing nation. I had just recently become a mother, and all of the tension in my friend’s life and the nation made my mind spin over the world my daughter had just been born into. I imagined Lady Liberty as a kind of mother to us, and how she might react, unable to believe the country she had watched over so long changing in ways she could not grasp. Mother Liberty by CLS Ferguson Mother Liberty has lost her mind There's something infiltrating the system in her brain that usually separates right and wrong, logic and farce Right around where so many have tread, at the front of her head, be...

This poem is written for my little daughter Alice… She brought the Essence into my life in the most pleasant form! Sometimes I feel as if she is also like a mother to me in this life, as well as my being hers, because I learn so much from her in so many ways. With my daughter in my life I feel as if I have a second precious channel to flow through. When I feel the divine energy of this new, pure being that has come through me, I also feel myself growing and blossoming like never before. She Who is Exalted Beauty is She who surrenders to Life bringing laughter to each of our days. For every fruit has its precious core: Give yourself to the muse that leads you there and recreate yourself through her. As She nourishes the Primeval Seeds in every cell of this Timelessness She gives birth to Luminous You. The author pictured with her daughter, Alice.  Milijana Božović : I am from Montenegro, Balkans, Southeast Europe. I am 23 ...

Motherhood begins with the birth of a child, or so I thought…   This year, as my daughter turned 18, I was struck with the idea that Motherhood is an on-going continuum - one that spanned generations and reaches back to the beginning of time and forward into eternity. Our children grow, and leave home, and some will eventually join us in the journey of motherhood: a journey that we are all a part of. This poem speaks of that journey - or at least a small part of it. Rejoice Old Mothers! Rejoice Old Mothers!  Rejoice and wear white.  Delight in your sagging breasts,  once round and full,  now flat against your long chest.  Your babies round and full instead.  Rejoice Old Mothers!  Rejoice and wear green.  Take pride in the ache setting in,  and the wrinkles forming on your hands.  Hands that have tended gardens  and buttoned coats.  Hands that have held the future and rocked her...

It’s Mother’s Day, and I’m not sure what to say, or how to say it… Because, the thing is that whilst this is a day of celebration, scratch the surface even slightly and you hit raw pain for so many people. Biological mothers are not always good mothers. Biological children don’t arrive on demand… People pass on and leave us, missing them… So, “Happy Mother’s Day” is a phrase that perhaps shouldn’t be posted too liberally... I do want to say, though, that in my mind, this phrase can apply to anyone, male or female, who's ever "mothered" or been mothered. You might not have had the best biological mother, or you might have had the best mother but she might not be here any more. You might not have your own biological children, or you might have several... But, for anyone who’s ever been nurtured, or birthed into a new phase of life, or soothed, or comforted, I think there’s a form of “mothering” there - and I think it’s a part of who we are, as human beings. All...

There are moments when we stand almost suspended in time… … when we hold a silken cord that binds us to the past and connects us to a time that lies ahead, as yet unseen.  Writing this poem was such a moment, as memory rushed in, of a time of quiet, pure sweetness one ordinary afternoon that imprinted itself on my heart, making that afternoon something far more than ordinary.    The love that floated between us, like the steam rising from our hot chocolates, traveled the years, transforming with each place it touched.  And now when that love is a gift to someone else, there is the silken cord, each fiber spun and strengthened by love, that I still hold. First Date You don’t remember our first date but I do, you in that kelly cabled sweater that made your hazel eyes as green as new clover. We stroll through town, find ourselves at the corner European patisserie nearly empty at this hour. Acros...

  This poem was written for my daughter... Photography by Tori Mercedes She journeyed to Australia when she was 19 and discovered a self she loved.  She has remained there for 7 years. My missing of her is counterbalanced by the fulfillment I feel in knowing what she is creating and discovering.     When she returned to Australia a year later for graduate school (and then subsequently settled there), many of her friends' parents commented that we must be so sad that she was leaving.  Others asked us how we could let her go so far away.   When my daughter was young (actually almost right up until the time she left), she always found it difficult to leave.  She fought this trepidation, never wanting her life to be defined by fear.  I could never want something different for her than she wants for herself.  I was less aware of being sad at her leaving and very aware of celebrating her courage, her capacity to d...