“You know, people come to therapy really for a blessing. Not so much to fix what’s broken, but to get what’s broken blessed.”

— James Hillman

Bless this life. That is what I keep hearing as I drive the twenty minutes in the fog and rain to pick up my children from school. February in Oregon is not my favorite month. Bless this life. The house is a mess, as usual and I am feeling the crunch in the premenstrual phase of my cycle. Bless this life. I know I have been abandoning myself lately. Spending a little too much time thinking of the future, on the screen and not where I am. It’s not wrong to dream but I am being called back into myself. I am being asked to call all my split of parts back home. I am being asked to bless my life back into presence, once again.

‘May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses. May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon. May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.’ John O’Donohue

Bless this house. That’s a hard one for me. I have had a challenging relationship with the house our family has lived in for almost a decade. I have never really appreciated this house the way it deserves. It was always meant to be temporary. I have always wanted to leave, picked apart its faults, wanted to change them, but never did. The first house I mothered in. The house where my daughter was born and where my husband and I slept with our tiny six pound baby boy between us. As I write, now in the Autumn phase of my cycle where judgment is a superpower and a burden, my house, our family’s home brings a sigh. I can’t fight the clutter, the laundry is a river and I have still not learned to swim. Bless this house I say. Bless the weight, the sigh, the river. Bless it and bless it again. Bless it until I remember. Bless it until my muscles relax and I take my house, my home back. Bless it, remember how sacred every broken door and paint chip is. It is about owning where I am in this moment. Owning this too, without a cringe but with a mother’s welcoming. This too. I bless this too.

Bless this body. I have lived in this body for 37 years. I am not sure I can say that I have ever truly accepted it just as it is. I am not self loathing but often inadvertently thinking about the slight alterations that I will make. I suppose you could say I drank the kool aid from an early age, subconsciously divorcing myself from my own sacred body. After two babies and an affinity for eating leftover pancake scraps off my children’s breakfast plates, (parents don’t tell me you have never done this), my desire to alter my body increased even more. Yet I now have the hard earned muscle of more self love, grown out of necessity in the trenches of motherhood. But this sneaky desire to reject what is and hope, try, push for something different still pops its devious head up on the regular. It likes to make a visit particularly around day 23 of my menstrual cycle and doesn’t go away until I bleed.

The beautiful thing about the premenstrual phase of our cycles is that it doesn’t stand for any shit. It won’t let me, my husband or anyone within a ten mile radius get away with a toe out of line. I am forced to tell the truth, the ugly truth at times. Boundaries must be held. Hard conversations had. If I am not brave in this regard I have found the lash back much worse than the gritty push of the truth telling. The girl in me that wants to be liked and accepted by everyone hates this part of my cycle. But the crone in me cackles, lifts her chin, shakes off her skirts and walks away humming to herself. I like the crone better. I’m thankful time is taking me down that road.

Bless this life. To inhabit a life, a house, a body. To truly inhabit them, not splitting myself off from that piece of baseboard that just fell off the bathroom exposing rotten wood. Not splitting myself off from the way my tummy squishes these days. My six year old daughter says she likes my soft parts. I want her to grow up and like her soft parts too. What would it take to be present to my life without judgment? Mind blowing right? I mean I can start small. How about meeting those thoughts of judgment for the first hour of the morning when my mind is most active? That would be a really good practice.

A favorite practice of mine, that is not a regular one…because seriously, life. But I love to get up early and write my Artist’s Way morning pages. I love to clear, clean and open to the day. The beginning of this practice I am complaining and whining.. which is the point. And by the end, a voice of wisdom is speaking through me and I am clear on the meaning of life. I of course forget by noon. But I'm a work in progress. Back to my point. What would it take to be present to the broken places, the ugly places without immediately having the impulse to hide them, or alter them. Oh the shame! Bless them. Bless this mess as they say. It is not wrong of course to fix the baseboard or do some sit ups, to grow, change, evolve. Of course not! That is a natural impulse of life. But I am asking what is driving me? What is pushing you? Is it an impulse for growth blossoming from you? Beautiful! Is it the need to change and fix what is broken in order to control that pesky gremlin, the need for perfection, perhaps caring what others think? Is it to get somewhere anywhere that is not right where I am? I will take responsibility for all of these, growth yes, the rest of them, ouch, those too. Bless this house. And all its faults that when I am very old will make me weep with happy memories.

There is something exquisitely grounding in a blessing. A blessing brings us and the thing we are blessing directly into gratitude and therefore the present moment. My Irish ancestors knew it. Your ancestors knew it. I believe all ancestors knew it. They had a blessing for everything. Bless the food before you eat. Bless the baby, bless the mother, bless the sheep. Of course. The layers to the medicine this brings, the cellular change in the water molecules themselves let alone our awakeness to a daily act. Bring us back, bring us back to blessing. Bring us back to tasting to feeling,our senses. A blessing brings us back to the kitchen table altar and the experience of bounty through small things, each day.

Bless this body. My body. My children’s body. My mother’s body. My husband’s body. Bless our bodies these sacred vessels. Bless this body that works so hard each day under judgment and toxins and years of sleep deprivation (blame the children). Bless her as holy with rose water and oil of clary sage. This womb that connects through time, creation, to all wombs, the rhythm of the earth. This womb that whispers words of guidance to me each day. Bless this yoni who stretched and tore to bring new life into the world, who felt it all, twice. Bless my soft places that squish and wiggle. They are my Venusian glory. They are the girth I need to inhabit this life. Bless this tummy that stretched and grew and never ‘went back’ but transformed into a Woman’s core. Bless this life that holds magic beyond all belief and grief I cannot speak. Bless all the broken parts that my ancestors tried to hide because they are pouring through me to be healed and need to be remembered and blessed twice for doing their best.

A Blessing

Bless the sticky kitchen floor beneath your feet.

Bless every child that you meet. 

Bless your car, your house, your bed.

Bless the table that you're fed. 

Bless your body, your arms, your legs.

Bless the squishy parts, the bony parts.

Bless the pain, the not quite working parts, your eyes, your ears, your hair,

Or what’s left.

Bless every single one of the not quite enough.

Bless them fiercely.

Bless them soft.

Bless them as a christening. 

Breath in Blessing to your very core.

Then breathe it out to bless the world.

To come home to yourself,

Bless it all once more. 

Bless this life.

So much love to you all.

A blessing to you.

Jamie

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