This Mama’s Dharma

Thanks to Ms. Single Mama for inspiring this video!!

Not partying, not smoking, not drinking, not dating, not indulging in my addictions, I am feeling raw emotions bubbling up to the surface with ferocity. Mostly guilt, sadness, shame, confusion…grief. Boatloads of grief. Trying to love myself through it all - my so human, so flawed self.
I have made so many mistakes in my life, [...]

It has been a very interesting few weeks.
Interesting is putting it mildly. It started when I got some completely unexpected and very upsetting health news - basically it was yet another cancer scare, and the good news is that it is benign and things are more or less back on track. But something has happened [...]

I hate the word “depression,” as I detest all clinical phrases. They serve to dehumanize and they also don’t get at what is really going on with people. A neat label does not begin to encapsulate the complexity of human existence, and I feel does it a disservice. But looking at the word depression in [...]

I’m tired so tired not a fan of this feeling that life is passing me by and my child grew an inch I swear while I was gone for four days in CA and sometimes I feel like when I am with him I am not really with him because my mind is always wandering [...]

I believe that in this world all matter is interconnected - what influences the inner influences the outer, and vice-versa.  My new tattoo is a perfect example of this principle.
I feel as if I have undergone an initiation of sorts.  I am marked for life.  So many experiences have marked me for life in the [...]

Today would have been my mother’s 59th birthday.  I miss you, Gail Susan Harris, 13 years since you passed on.  Poet, priestess, visionary, artist, friend, lover, and mother - you live in my heart always.  As the lines to one of my many poems written in your honor said:
You breathed out what was left of [...]

March is already here, arriving with a fierce blanket of snow.  
Life is speeding by so, we did not yet get a chance to play in it.  If it had been up to me, I would have taken a snow day, but work called, so off we went, two hours late.
I looked out the window [...]

The metamorphosis.  It’s happening.  I feel as if I am going through some kind of awakening, down to my DNA.  Old, long-buried loves are being resurrected in my heart, and it feels extraordinary.  Recently, I’ve gotten obsessed with GarageBand, which I’ve just discovered on my new Mac (no, I swear I don’t work for Apple). [...]

Ever since I was a rebellious teenager, I have wanted to get a tattoo. 
Luckily for me, I did not get tattooed at any point along the way.  It’s likely that I would now be cringing at what I would have picked then.  I was a “goth” as a teen and it probably would been something [...]