Parenting Amidst the Ruins of Childhood’s Mythologies

“Mom, I know magic isn’t real.”

My just-turned-eight year old made this grave declaration at the bus stop the other day. As the cars ripped through the filthy slush on our back country road with a sound that tore the morning in two, I felt something rip in the fabric of this childhood we’d co-created with our girl.

I wasn’t ready. Lately, we’ve been going through a lot of emotional ups and downs with this daughter I have always called my “little mystic.” It’s impossible to know how much can be blamed on the disruptions and fears stirred up by two years of Covid and how much of this was always destined to be part of her path, but this child, the quintessential old soul, has access to the depths of the depths. And some of those depths are dark. 

We’re getting her the help she needs to regulate her own emotional terrain, but as we huddled together on a frigid February morning, I wondered where my help was to deal with “I know all magic is just made up.”

Living, Writing, and Parenting According to the Rules of Magic

Now, as you likely know, I am a woman who has built much of her creative life and work on this word, “magic.” I call myself a word witch because I know my superpowers lie in the weaving of language. I believe that we cast a spell when we craft well-made sentences. I believe stories are formulas for miraculous transformation.

I have never flown on a broomstick, watched sparks fly from my wand, or seen anyone turned into a toad. I don’t think burning just the right number of candles will attract a lover or help you get revenge. I know that tarot cards have nothing to do with predicting the future but have everything to do with reframing the current narrative.

And yet, I do believe in magic.

And in this moment of revelation, I wasn’t sure how I would relate to a child who didn’t want to speak the language of unicorns, dragons, and fairies.

The Stories We Make Up. The Stories We Make Real.

By bedtime that night, she knew that Daddy assembled the toys and Mom filled the wooden shoes with candy from Sinterklaas (and kept up with all of the global holiday traditions she learned about at school and wanted to make part of our tradition). She knew we tossed Rudolph’s carrots into the yard and put Santa’s cookies back in the tin because we were too full of sugary carbs by midnight on Christmas Eve to enjoy them.

The next morning, she was saying “I’m so sorry I realized magic wasn’t real.”

There was real sorrow there, but also a sense of pride, I think. We celebrated her curiosity and her wisdom. We told her that we were proud of her for being brave enough to ask questions. We showed her that we wouldn’t lie to her.

Her biggest fear, as we picked our way up the icy driveway for another school day, was that she might start telling other kids. ( I had asked her to promise not to share this revelation as it’s important that everyone come to their own realization about how magic works in the world). The believers in her second grade class are safe. I trust and admire her thoughtfulness, even as I wish I did have a functional magic wand to instantly restore her peace of mind.

I think we arrived at a good place. We discussed that, though she lost something in losing her belief in leprechauns who leave gold on March 17 and a sleigh that circumnavigates the earth in one night, she had gained something that was even more… magical.

Now she knows what the grown ups know:

Magic isn’t about watching wishes materialize in an instant. Magic isn’t about mythical beings creeping into your house in the middle of the night and leaving gifts in exchange for gingerbread. 

Magic is about the love that families have for their children. 

Magic is about the great collective stories that get made real.

On the Other Side of a Belief in Magic Is… More Magic

I still believe in what Dion Fortune says, “magic is the ability to change consciousness at will.” Someday, maybe my daughter will, too.

Despite the heartache that comes from realizing this chapter of mothering is closed and knowing we all must enter the stage when Easter baskets become ceremonial offerings of parental chocolate rather than the gifts of an egg laying bunny, I am breathing into the magic that is found in this change.

We get to talk about all the forms of magic that are in the world, from science to love, from the beauty of a sunset to the way a cardinal swoops by your window when you need it most. We’ll learn together how to court wonder in a non-magical universe and make room for those mysteries that still can’t quite be explained. 

And, we have a daughter who has learned that her mother and father will tell her the truth, even when the stories seem prettier. She gets to understand how devotion creates delight, and how well-loved she truly is.

So yeah, she may know magic isn’t “real.” But she also gets to find out that the real world can be magical in ways she never imagined before.

---

What about your stories of magic, heartbreak, and realization?
Have you been giving yourself the time and space to consider them and put them on the page?

I think of our online writing community, he Sovereign Writers’ Knot, as a creative cauldron. Over our thirteen weeks together, you’re giving yourself a chance to explore, imagine, draft, and craft some of the stories you’ve longed to tell.

I Sent My Kids to School Today

I sent my kids to school today.

Because there was a terrorist threat on social media, what is (finally) unremarkable, sending the kids to school, became a conscious choice.

My twelve year-old, who isn’t on TikTok and didn’t know that every kid was “supposed” to be afraid to go to school, casually mentioned her fears about atomic war as the bus screeched over the hill at dawn.

She disappeared into the next stage of her heroine's journey before I had a chance to respond. She stepped into a day that, thanks to a terrorist with a smartphone, is not just another day.

My friend, a teacher, texted about how scared her colleagues were to go to work.

She’s at school now and half her class is out today. But that might just mean that there’s another virus going around. And because we live in the age of Corona, that is remarkable in an entirely new way.

My husband, an engineer, was nearly speechless with stress as he tried to recreate plans for machines when global supply shortages mean they can’t get most of the parts they need.

He’s working from home in our dining room and trying to track down simple bits of plastic and metal from China and across the planet, sweating and swearing as he’s constantly forced to redesign components and redesign his days based on an endless chain of uncertainties.

My seven-year old collected bits of quartz from the driveway on the way to her bus.

For once, my mystical, anxiety-prone child didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

And then, my dear ones launched into the day, I walked around the edges of our land where the half-green lawn meets the brambles and the brush, and I held them all in my heart and sent prayers to all the gods I can believe in to keep them safe and sane.

I return here, to the page, and write through all my optimism, all my fear, all my helplessness, and all my devotion to what is mine to do.

Much of my story has already been written. It is not the story of a scientist who takes on a virus that has paralyzed the globe, a political leader who takes on endemic violence that has terrorized our society, a teacher who takes on every social problem while they try to teach kids to read, nor an engineer who keeps building the stuff that builds our economy.

We are all living our own stories that may or not take us to any of these front lines.

I am a writer. I am a holder, a healer, a re-weaver of stories.

I am someone who writes for the scientists, the politicians, the teachers, the engineers, the children, and all the rest of us trying to do good and trying to get by.

I am trying to be brave enough to be an artist rather than a mere wordsmith. I am trying to live into the hardest questions about safety and fear, about sustainability and blind progress, about devotion and what transformation really means. Maybe today, I’ll succeed.

All of my most honest words are a prayer, knotted with worry and and woven with dreams.

The first layer of prayer, “may this just be another Friday.”

And deeper than that, “may we all have the courage to change everything about this violent, inequitable, too-hot-to-handle world.”

Ultimately, the prayer is that we can all live our own stories with bravery, with clarity, and with the support we need to get through, to grow, to thrive.

But first, the prayer that we will all get through this day.

Untethered and (Dis)Connected: How to Return to Your Creative Path On Your Own Time

That crunch.

You know it. I know it. Everyone who has owned a ridiculously fragile electronic device that goes everywhere and is relied upon to do almost everything knows it.

The crunch that you hear when the screen hits the floor.

On Labor Day Monday Monday, I felt that sinking dread when my Apple Watch slipped from my fingers and fell face down on the tile.

For over two years, that little piece of wildly powerful technology has been securely fastened to my body. It’s own tracking data will show you that I would wear it for well over 12 hours per day. And, if you don’t have access to the app, you can see it in the pale strip on my arm where the freckles have faded after years under cover.

Now it’s Thursday, and though I am fully clothed, I feel naked. 

I have no idea how many calories I have burned, whether I got a text in the three minutes since I picked up my phone, or what the temperature is outside. It will take me more than two taps to figure out exactly when my next menstrual cycle begins. If you call me and I don’t have my phone on me, I will not be able to answer you by talking to my wrist like Penny in Inspector Gadget.

I am realizing the depth of my addiction to that tiny glass square. Well, the glass was just the vehicle. My real addiction was to quantifying the success of each day based on my move goals and the illusion of constant connectivity.

At this point, I am not sure if I am uncomfortable because I feel so disconnected or if I’m uncomfortable because I have to reckon with being so addicted to machine that monitored my every move.

Either way, this is not how I planned to land post-Labor Day.

I am untethered. I am lost. I am free.

Of course, I am more than my history of shattered Apple products. It’s also the first week of school. And I am suddenly realizing that after eighteen months of certain uncertainty, the prospect of five days a week of school is immensely challenging.

This return to “normal” is what we’ve been yearning for. Why is this so hard?

Sure, there’s the chance that schools will close or either of the kids could be quarantined for weeks. There’s a chance that Covid could be more than a mere inconvenience as we see infections rise in children. It’s hard to get excited about the new routine when a stray cough could bring the whole fragile arrangement crashing down.

I am so dazed and unfocused. I can’t seem to shake the “I need more tea and then some chocolate and then some pretzels before I answer this next email” state of mind.

It’s more than vicarious first day of school jitters, though. 

Instead, I realize it’s immense pressure that comes with “Psst, Mom! It’s finally quiet. Go be outrageously successful and accomplish every single one of the professional and creative things right now so you don’t fail at post-pandemic reentry!”

Back in the old days (like over the weekend), my watch could help me track when anxiety would set my heart racing. I don’t need the heart rate monitor to tell you that there are too many stress hormones in my system right now. (Oh, hey, maybe I’m already learning to live without that device!)

There are too many stress hormones in our collective emotional system right now. While we have a lot to be stressed about, some of that pressure is self-imposed and truly is optional. Like the pressure everyone puts on themselves during new beginning moments, like the end of summer and the return to school.

So, if you’re a parent and are feeling the press of “I should get my business/creative practice/self care routine up to 117% because the kids are finally back where they belong,” I see you. I feel you.

Regardless of whether we have kids in school or are going to class ourselves, September is a chance for many of us to begin again. We can all use a little more self-compassion right now since it’s far from easy to get back into the post-Labor Day routine.

I’m holding hands with all of the writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs who are staring into the next season wondering how on earth you’re going to find the energy, focus, and confidence to get out there and make the next thing.

Here’s what we’ve learned (since March of 2020 and throughout our lifetime as sovereignty seekers, word witches, and all around weirdos):

• The old rules don’t apply any more.

• The old structures cannot support us.

• The old routine can’t be revived in the same old way.

If the timepiece that used to help us make sense of the world cracks, we need to find a new way to navigate our lives. 

In this early September moment if you can’t quite find your center, find your muse, or find your pen, remember this: your lack of inspiration, motivation, or imagination is not the problem.

What if it’s the relentless press to be productive and commodify every free moment that’s the problem? What if it’s the equation of busyness and self-worth? What if we must finally, once and for all, smash the foolish belief that everything is going to feel “normal” again just because we landed on a certain date or reached some artificial milestone?

What if you didn’t have to start today, but you trusted yourself and believed that in your own time, you’d settle into a new cycle of being, making, doing, and creating?

---

When it is time to set off on your own creative path — as a writer, as an entrepreneur, as a seeker looking to understand your own story in a new way — I’d love to help.

The Sovereign Writers’ Knot, the new iteration of my online writing community, opens again on September 27.

The Story Illuminations Sessions are a great 1:1 option if you’re trying to figure out just where to start and need to heal some of the old wounds that hold you back from stepping forth on your creative path.

Sovereignty In the Midst of the Chaos

I have been up since 4:15 am.

It wasn't because I've set an ambitious writing schedule or that I'm into sunrise meditation. No, I was escorting a five year old to the potty and then sharing my pillow with her. As is so often the way these day, she woke up with "a scary dream." And - happy spring - there's no chance she'll fall sleep once she hears the first bird announce the dawn.

And so here I am, utterly exhausted on another Monday. The details of my sleep deprivation story only differ only slightly from any other I've told over the last decade of motherhood.

But here's what's different: I am waking up today to tell a story of sovereignty.

In the past, my Monday story has often been about pushing through the exhaustion to be a nice enough mom, turn in decent work for clients, and try to serve something other than frozen pizza for dinner.

But this Monday, I realized I can do it differently. My responsibilities as a mama, partner, and entrepreneur look fairly similar from the outside, but there's a shift in me.

It's a shift toward stillness, toward sitting with what is rather than the way it "should be." In part, that's because I've developed a daily meditation habit (just not at sunrise!). In part, it's because I have spent enough time reading and writing about sovereignty that I have actually made it part of my life and way of being.

To be sovereign is to acknowledge reality with all of its disruptions and injustice, with all of its loss and inconsistencies, and to still remain rooted in who you are.

To be sovereign is to be able to respond to the day, not matter when it starts.

When you embody your own sovereignty you're going to have a very different experience than when you're in reactivity mode, lost in the details and tossed about by the craziness around you.

Today, I look like someone's tired mom, a weary woman making extra coffee and snarling about the noise and making it quite clear her patience is at a premium.

But I am also know myself to be the quiet, confident ruler of my own life who can find herself on the other side of a short, frustrating night. I know myself to be sovereign in this reality of mine, despite the chaos.

Because of the chaos.

What about you? What threw you off your rhythm last night and today? What practices help you root back into your own power and presence?

Perhaps you'd like to get to know your own sovereign self a bit better so you can handle the next round of chaos that life will inevitably throw your way. Join us for Your Sovereign Awakening, the program that inspires you to awaken your own magic, your own self-worth, and your own power.

We begin on Monday, May 13. Get the details here: 

An October Story for the Children of the Moon and the Daughters of the Earth

On the Friday before what you and I might habitually call Columbus Day weekend, my fourth grader and I went for a hike down by the Mahicantuck. I’m quite certain you’d simply call this “river that flows two ways” the Hudson.

This river is tidal. It rises and falls twice in a day and the salt from the Atlantic can reach all the way to Poughkeepsie during drought conditions. I am an ocean girl, born and raised, and the Hudson Valley can seem so desperately land locked… I forget that the river is just a few miles from my front door. I certainly forget that it has salt in its hair and sand in its shoes.

If only my mermaid self could remember that she has always been at home here. Then, maybe I’d be able to put down roots that would help me better weather the storms - those in this New York sky and those that churn on the internet and in the ethers beyond.

My daughter was born in this place. She’s made of this river and its tributaries. She’s held by its ridges and mountains and she skips along the trail and navigates the uneven ground as naturally as a grown faun - or is she now a young doe?

She tells me what she learned about Indigenous Peoples’ Day, about the story of Taíno boy who had his doubts about the men who arrived in their great boats. We talk about the way the boy was right and how the explorers became colonizers who would destroy the native way of life. We talked about how complicated it was, to feel grateful we lived on such beautiful, sacred land while knowing that it meant the removal and destruction of those were here first.

Conversations with my daughter enliven and exhaust me sometimes, especially when we’re trying to sort through stories about our beautiful, brutal, complicated world. Trying to put things into words she can understand when I realize I don’t even have the words.... This is one more thing they forgot to teach us in parenting school.

I hadn’t had time for my morning meditation that day and was craving it, so, as we approached the river’s edge, I suggested we do a “sit spot,” a mindfulness practice she’d learned in her wilderness program.

The water was high. All this autumn rain was keeping the salt-kissed currents well south of us, but I swear I smelled the sea. Tucked between the trees and the underbrush, we found a clear boulder, a perfect place to rest, our feet dangling over the steadily moving river five feet below.

I was entwining myself with the elements, feeling the sun and the wind and filling myself with the splash of the wavelets. I needed this. I needed to arrive at a point in motherhood when my older child and I could enjoy a long moment of silence, when she could respect the dance of nature’s movement and stillness.

So much felt possible now that I had a daughter who could allow her mother some stillness. I’d spent so many years of going through the motions of mothering. I felt like I’d earned the pause.

As I let my mind fly with the gulls, my girl was quietly busy beside me, grinding a tiny stone against our rocky seat. She was making a fine pile of dust. I glanced over to see her dabbing it on the tip of her nose, her eyes crossed as she focused.

Perhaps it would have been nice to mediate a little longer, but this was a rare afternoon, just for the two of us - the first hike we’d taken alone since her sister was born four years ago.

I think it must have been her idea to paint me. I didn’t know if it crossed her mind that this is how kids have “played Indian” for hundreds of years, but I didn’t mention it because I was caught up in a different world of history and myth.

I’ve been rereading The Mists of Avalon and felt that old yearning to be amongst the priestesses with the blue crescents between their brows. This book had rewritten my relationship with the Catholicism that raised me back when I was not so much older than my daughter is now.  It was necessary to make that sacred sisterhood real in this moment with my girl, here at the rocky edge of a rushing river, so I asked her to draw the moon on my forehead. And then, with the last bit of powder, I did the same for her.

It felt necessary to put words to this sweet little act, so I suggested we speak a prayer to the moon and ask her for a blessing. My wise, huge-hearted daughter, who has been raised to see the Goddess in the earth and in the sky and question why many people think God lives only in a Church, suggested “peace and love.”

This was the end of the week when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Around the country, women in particular were holding their collective breath. We waited to see if that man would be confirmed and added the Supreme Court. I didn’t have any peace and light left in me, and the kind of love I had was the fierce kind that felt more like a hurricane than a mild October breeze.

Though I was filled with prayers that began something like “by the power of this mighty river, by this great mother earth, women must be believed,” I was doing all I could to just look like Mom on the outside. My daughter has been raised to call her a feminist and she’s more politically aware than most nine year-olds, but I’d barely mentioned the Supreme Court. She knew it as one more messy political thing that would inspire mommy and daddy to go to an event in support of our democratic congressional candidate that night.

And so, I was called to walk the edge between speaking the truth and protecting the last shreds of my daughter’s innocence yet again.  I couldn’t erase or disown my weary heart or my boiling blood - this was a prayer to the Goddess, after all, and I needed to be straight with her about what really needed on this earth right now.  

I tried to tilt the specifics of my rage and said I was thinking about justice and about protecting people who are less powerful than the guys who have been in charge for so long.

We threw stones into the water to seal our prayers. We walked back to the car with golden moon dust on our faces. Later in the day, I’d listen to Susan Collins’s long rambling speech in support of the lifetime appointee who showed himself to be anything but an impartial, even-tempered potential jurist.

And the river would keep flowing with moon blessed tides. The autumn would stretch to become more brilliant before the weather turned and the leaves would be stripped and laid winter bare.

My daughter would grow and her innocence would slip away with every conversation, newscast, and great big book.

I would hold this story in the treasure chest with those that make me a woman raising up children, a woman with her eyes widening further open day by day, a woman full of rage and hope, a woman trying to find her way home.

---

In honor of my daughter's ninth birthday, I invite anyone who loves this story to book a Story Healing Session for just $109 (offer valid through November 1, 2019).

You can get all the details on what’s included in this practical, magical offering here.

Book your one-on-one session with me to talk about the story you long to tell, the story that gets stuck in your throat and needs to be healed before it can be told.