Did you know that each female human is born with all the eggs that she will ever need throughout her entire life? I told my mother this story soon after my own daughter was born. That while I lay nestled in her womb that the eggs that would become her grandchildren were all there. All within me. And all within her. As I floated around in that warm cradle that was her body, we all made some kind of intergenerational Russian doll. There we all were: me and the eggs …
Poem: What to let go…
(reflections on my firstborn son moving out of home…) Was I good enough? Could I have done more? These questions are running around in my mind They feel like a crowd of carrion birds Picking at memories, like bones I rush at them and they fly away Sitting in a distant tree And yet… What to hold onto? What to let go? Maybe everything. At the end of it all I’m seeing that it’s all just ‘you’ anyway All this introspection can spin out of control! Always you …
Poem: Pomegranate
If I could eat a jewel Would it taste like this? like these luscious seeds, That stain my hands and delight my tongue?
Why does vulnerability matter?
Vulnerability matters. It increases the depth and quality of connections that we create. The act of being vulnerable requires us to connect in to ourselves; we come to know more intimately our deepest desires and feelings. As we share with and open to another, we then come to know ourselves.
The Joy of Grief
I’m driving at 110kms along the Auckland motorway. I’m punching the empty passenger seat beside me, hitting the steering wheel. This is probably not a great thing to be doing. Tears run down my face and I’m growling, sometimes wailing. I feel as angry as hell. Thankfully my exit is dead ahead and I’m actually going to need to slow down. And, what’s so wonderful is that I haven’t felt this close to my sister in years. The motorway trip I just described took place on the 19th of October …