Two Babies in Four Years

Aug 4, 2015

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Two babies in four years.

Twice within the last half decade, my body has accepted the undeniability of new life; of its calling, both rooted in evolution, and in the deepest feminine. Twice, I have heeded the early signs, the gradual slowing down and opening up.

The first time, I would lay in bed with my feet together, knees spread to either side, feeling the pull of my hips and pelvis, pressing gently with my fingertips on my inner thighs, willing them to open; know when to open; open for me, open for my baby. The second time, my pelvis and hips unfurled like spring leaves in the very early days. I grew wider, and swayed and swayed and swayed as I walked. My body carried the wisdom of my first birth deep within it, and my opening took little encouragement from widened knees and fingertips.

Giving birth twice in four years, I am supercharged. I am overfull with all that will gradually unfold in the coming decades. I am enacting the divine feminine that will inform all the years of my transition from maiden to mother, mother to crone. All in this four years, my body will reveal a wisdom that it will take me decades to finally understand. It will connect me with my ancestors, my community, my family, in ways that are beyond comprehension or conscious intention. In the time that it takes me to grow, carry and birth these babies, I will undergo the most dramatic transformation known to the human form, to the human psyche, and I will carry the wisdom and strength of that process with me; it will guide me, for the remainder of my days. For nothing is as powerful as the opportunity to expand beyond your wildest expectations, to be rended apart and built into something more than the sum of your parts. To know, deeply and to your core, that having the strength to birth and mother is to have the strength to do anything. Anything.

 

The Becoming Podcast has been on a short hiatus while I focus on writing my book, but oh what a comeback episode I have for you!

This month, I spoke to Toko-pa Turner, who many of you may know as the unofficial patron saint of many of my circles and gatherings because of the sheer number of times I’ve quoted from the wisdom of her book, Belonging.

Toko-pa is a Canadian author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical teachings of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreams, she founded The Dream School in 2001, from which thousands of students have graduated. She is the author of the award-winning book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, which explores the themes of exile and belonging through the lens of dreams, mythology, and nature. This book has resonated for readers worldwide, and has been translated into 10 different languages so far. Her work focuses on the relationship between psyche and nature, and how to follow our inner wisdom to meet with the social, psychological, and ecological challenges of our time.

Here’s some of what Toko-pa and I talk about in this episode:

> The dream that changed Toko-pa’s life, causing her to question her career and, ultimately, her identity

> How we can court our dreams to support us during times of radical transformation – and the reasons so many of us have a hard time remembering and working with what shows up in our dreamscape

> Toko-pa’s perspective on the message of Belonging after the divisiveness our society has experienced in the years since it was published

> What happened for both Toko-pa and I when we fell out of belonging from the ideologies of the “wellness world”

> How to build community when you’re under-resourced

> “The Big Lie” when it comes to belonging, and how we can reclaim a sense of belonging to the greater family of things, as Mary Oliver so famously wrote

Listen to the episode on iTunes

 

Show Notes

Toko-pa’s Website

Belonging:  Remembering Ourselves Home, Toko-pa’s book

The David Abram video about animism mentioned in the interview

Toko-pa’s self-guided program, Dream Drops

Companion, the program that accompanies Belonging

 

Also, while you’re at it, if you enjoy The Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review, and even subscribe to it on iTunes.  That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews!  Thank you so much!