never and always

♥️

Loving you means I never look down on you no matter how far or in which direction you fall. 

It means I give and learn, all that I can, to lift you. 

It means even though I look up to you I know I am never less than, and because when I have fallen you are holding my hand to bring me back up. 

It means I am never judging you, shaming you, deserting you or betraying you. 

It means I have your back. 

It means our friendship carries our relationship when life gets in the way. 

It means I support you. 

It means I respect you. 

It means I enjoy you. 

It means I believe in you, I stand by you, I protect you, I value you. 

It means I am always moving towards you, never away from you. 

It means I am grateful for your life and for your willingness to share it with me. 

It means our sacred connection is more important than any difference, challenge, or conflict. 

It means I know we are all human, we all have victories and we all make mistakes, and there is no heart I’d rather be beside through all of them

than yours.

Never above you. 

Never below you. 

Always beside you. 

anywhere

i've seen you together
i see you in pieces 
i know your whole self 
i know when you're broken
i know when you're you
i know when you're not you
i know you at peace
i know when you're troubled
struggling
and fighting against yourself
i know when you're scared
when you're courageous
when you're trying to love the best that you can
against the odds
against the uncertainty
against your self imposed or conditioned belief of unworthiness
(inaccurate i know)
(but real for you i also know)
so rest your wet salty face in my hands
and let your fears escape
hot on my fingers and deep in my skin
and let me look into you
because the thing is,
in pieces you are still whole to me
i love you anyway
either way
all the ways
every way
and i'm not going anywhere
other than anywhere
you go
with me ...

have you ever been judged

have you ever been judged 

by people who don't even know you

yet somehow believe that they are right

and you are wrong, 

based on what they think they know about you

and based on their opinions of what they think they know?

have you ever been lectured

by someone who doesn't know you

yet has made assumptions about you

and believing that those assumptions are true,

thinks he or she knows more about your life

than you do,

more about what you should or shouldn't be doing,

more about who you should or shouldn't be ... ?

or how about by someone who knows you,

but doesn't ... "know" you ...

unfortunately i think most of us have been there at some time or another!

in my experiences, most of the times when this has happened,

it has been by people who are devout christians or strong believers of some faith

which somehow, which i don't understand, 

affords them the illusory position of being better than me,

more capable of determining right from wrong,

and actually powerful enough to pass judgment and condemn me

based solely on the imagination in their very closed mind.

i find it sad that anyone would claim a lifestyle based on love,

yet reject the very act of loving,

and reject another human being,

thereby rejecting the true foundation of religions all around the world.

are we here to judge?

or are we here to learn ...

are we here to criticize?

or are we here to grow ...

are we here to reject others?

or are we here to love others ...

go where the love is

i believe in living our lives with people
who make it not only possible
but easy
to become the whole of who we are,
in humanity, in spirit, and in love. 

i believe if there are people
who are preventing us from being free and genuine,
in the face of the world,
in living the life we were given,
then we should distance ourselves from those people. 

i know that there is growth for us
in even the negative relationships and encounters that we have.  

and i also know 
that the ones who lift us higher
and free our souls
are the ones
we belong with. 

pennies for fountains

♥

there was once a time when i didn't know if i would ever be a mother. i woke up every day not knowing.  i spent every day wondering.  i went to sleep at night not knowing.

something many people take for granted:   having a baby.  women and girls do it all the time, sometimes not wanting to, sometimes without a second thought, sometimes as if it is their right and not a privilege. 

like many others, i spent years in quiet desperation, hoping i would one day be a mom, wondering why it wasn't happening for me ... yet seemed to be happening for everyone around me.  getting to know the joy of pregnancy only to then meet the agony of my baby not surviving.  more than once, reliving this tragedy to my heart and to my body.  to my spirit.

i prayed. i wished on stars. pennies in fountains. dandelions. birthday candles.  wishbones.  ladybugs.  other people's babies. any possible way to get my heart's desire out there. 

and then i gave up.

it was a time that made me question a lot of things. it was a time that made me re-evaluate love and life and faith and destiny. 

it was a time that made me the mother i am today.

i have never taken one day of motherhood for granted.  grateful for the honor of loving and guiding my two children and grateful for the children i am allowed to love as my own but who i did not give birth to, today i especially celebrate my baby, ian david, who i proudly named after his uncle, and who i proudly adore to the ends of the earth. 

ian has always wished on stars  

and asked for pennies for fountains.

i always have pennies for him. i always stop what we're doing and give him time with the stars, no matter where we are, how late it is, how tired i am, if it's raining, etc.  i always stand and smile both inside and out, in silence and respect, and admire him as he gets his heart's desire out there. 

i would be incomplete without the ability to love and experience the beauty of his very special soul in my life.  i am beyond grateful for him and for the fortune of being his mom.

i can't believe he is 10. 

i can't believe he is mine. 

i can't believe i could be so very very lucky. 

♥

it isn't that you complete me ...

i've been thinking a lot about what a gift it is when someone allows us to love them.

the joy of love, really, is not that someone loves you back.

because that's not what love is.
loving someone doesn't mean loving them so that you can be loved.
it's loving because you will to love.

when someone allows you to love them, your whole world can change.

your heart can grow exponentially.

by the moment.

when you can love someone,
and love their dreams,
and love their life,
just to love them,
with no expectation or need from them,

it can bring your search to rest.

it can offer an answer to your prayer.

it can take a wounded heart

to whole.

the four letter word i hope my kids get caught saying

ok, so i have often been teased for being over sensitive ... not just as a mother, but as a person, throughout my whole entire life.  it has become synonymous with my name, almost to the point where, you know how when people introduce each other, they often follow with a title, such as, "this is bob, he's an orthodontist" or "this is suzy, she's a photographer," etc. ... well when someone introduces me i almost expect them to say, "this is jacqueline, she's over sensitive ..." 

so four letter words in my house include not only the classic ones that rhyme with bit and duck and clam ... my children have also not been allowed to use the words "hate" "bored" "shut up" "idiot" (i know ... those are more than four letters) ... these are examples of the tone or energy that i allow and don't allow.  yes, i am that mom.  in fact, when they were younger and we were in the car, typically in traffic, they would call their father out with shock and dismay, expecting restitution, because he "used the H word" ... and he would just sit there baffled and in denial until we figured out that the H word he used was "hate."  trust me, he still sat there baffled ...

so yesterday my 9 year old and i were spending the afternoon together, playing tourists in a small historic town, when we found the gem of an upcycled art and love shop called "when pigs fly."

after indulging myself in all the goodness and life giving energy in this place, i decided that the one thing i couldn't leave without was a set of four letters.  a four letter word that i somehow needed to take with me.

L.  O.  V.  and E.

i have been immersed in the experience of arranging these letters in several different places today, trying to find the right spot, looking at them from different angles, in different surroundings, in different light ...  feeling what "fits" with me and what doesn't.  what resonates and makes me say "ahhhh ..."

in between this interesting ... wordplay (cheesy pun intended,)  i had a conversation with a loved one about how love and relationships mean different things to different people.  the conversation in many ways mirrored the experience i was having, it was much about looking at "LOVE" from different perspectives.  how awesome!

love does mean different things to different people.
all kinds of words or concepts mean different things to different people.
and rightly so, because other people are not us and we are not them.  they have not lived our life and we have not lived theirs.  they have different experiences, needs, wants, ideas, expectations, dreams, beliefs, and have grown up differently and walked a different path.

the word LOVE can incite so many different emotions and thoughts, some positive, some neutral, some even very negative. it can mean one thing to one person or it can mean many things to one person.  
all by itself.  
4 little letters.  
one word that can mean so many things. 

i am one who, when i think of love, it means a myriad of other things to me.  and each of those things ... in themselves they might mean something entirely different to you.

"We don't see things as they are ... We see things as we are."  -Anaïs Nin

so i wonder.  

what does it mean to you?
when i see this word, i also see:
respect
honor
trust
peace
happy
celebration
spirit
energy

i am really interested in learning, what do you see?

i feel like this is an important thing to consider and remember when we are interacting and living with other people throughout our life, particularly in significant primary relationships.

if one person believes that love means always-and-forever-no-matter-what ... that they can treat someone in any way, behave any way even if it is negative and harmful, and basically not honor their partner, (after all, what does honor mean to that person?) they might truly believe that it is okay.   because love means it will be okay and that partner will still love them and be with them no matter what.  however, if the partner believes that love means respect - both for others and for one's self, and those behaviors are not respecting him or herself, they will not feel loved, and there is a good possibility that they will not stay in that situation.   

this does not make either person right or wrong.  they just have different ideas of what love is.  i am not sure that this is something we are ever taught when we are growing up and trying to navigate our path and include loving relationships along the way.

what are your thoughts?

i am fascinated with the different ways that we, as a whole, can see the same thing. 

much like, i don't know, blueberry pie?  someone sees it as tart.  someone sees it as sweet.  someone sees it as comfort.  someone sees it as puke.  someone sees it as dessert.  someone sees it as punishment.    it is still just a blueberry pie.  we each have our own experience of it.

i would love to know how you feel about this.

the whole concept ... not the blueberry pie.

although you can tell me that too!  :D

in raising my children, i have made it a point to eradicate perspectives that foster thought processes involving words like "hate" "stupid" "shut up" "idiot" and other similar attitudes.  i care less about the "classic" four letter words that i know my kids have heard by now through outside sources, and they even know what half of those words mean ...  i know these words will not become part of their language in life. 

i hope with all my heart, that the four letter word that DOES become part of their life language, that they do get caught saying, often, whether out loud or silently, is LOVE.  

whatever that means to them.  

"For the two of us, home isn't a place.  It is a person.  And we are finally home." -Stephanie Perkins

♥

loving the whole person

♥

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mothering earth

♥

women.

we give birth to life.

we nurture life.

we love life.

there is no greater honor

responsibility

or gift.

click here to visit the fabulous Marianne Williamson

no words ...

some say that when a young life passes away, we can learn from it, impermanence. 
some say there is a reason for everything. 
sometimes i can't find a reason. 
sometimes tragedy strikes and hearts are just destroyed. 
and there are no words to say
that can make it better.

be brave. be authentic. be you.