Wishing Away Time

Dec 4, 2018

 

 

Oh my love,

 

Even though the sight of your eyelashes against your cheeks

the little dimples on your knuckles

and the feeling of your soft, still-squishy arms wrapping around my neck

is like a balm of indescribable healing and joy for me,

I daydream so very often of the day you will go to school.

 

I will drop you and your sister off with hugs and kisses and carefully-packed Goldfish crackers

and I will listen to a podcast on the way back home.

I will light the fire,

and for the months of September and maybe October too, at least in my daydreams, I will lay on the couch

alternately napping and reading

and getting up to make cups of tea.

Maybe I will throw a load of laundry in

or dance to the music I like best

but mostly

I will rest.

 

Because right now, even though the sight of your eyelashes against your cheeks

 

makes me weak in the knees

 

my ears are full of your questions.  My mind is full of play dough recipes and playdate times and the due dates of every library book in our house.  My body is tired.  I have nudged my own life into the shadows of early mornings and late nights and 

 

the tender reachings of the woman I am

 

(while also being your mama)

 

are becoming more insistent.

 

And so though I have been warned by 

every mother who has gone before me

not to wish away time

just for today

just for a moment

I’m going to give myself permission to do just that.

 

Because intertwined in my presence

 

for you

 

is also

 

my longing

 

for me.

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!