LOVE YOUR NATURE

We are the generation that stands between the fires...

11/22/2018

~ Wishing you a beautiful Thanksgiving. May it be a time to reconnect to grace and wholeness and all that which you love most ~

These times seem to oscillate between darkness and confusion, and a most resilient light and hope. I find our work with the girls truly holds this paradox of such vibrant promise for a future filled with possibility, and a great weight of responsibility towards all that lies ahead. I see it in the girls - our meetings have been more filled with tears than usual, and also quicker to dive more fully into the waters together. I see it in my family - Shaye just turned 1 (we did it!!!) and his wonderful innocence amidst smoke filled skies highlight just how complex it is to be alive right now.

We have been loving our 3 East Bay Girls Groups, and are excited to announce we are enrolling a Marin Girls Group now, to start in January 2019. We will also be at the Marin Teen Girls Conference on March 31st. We are also hosting a panel event featuring our oldest teen girls, in April. Juicy details to come.

Sending prayers of healing and support to all those affected by the fires, and anyone feeling disheartened. May we find our way back to love.
Emily

Photo Above: Our younger group's Dia De Los Muertos Altar

Shaye Turns 1!

11/13/2018

• BIRTH DAY •
November 13th

My last note was about my own birthday, and this one is about Shaye's birthday, and my birth into mama life. It seems the profound cycles have got me, to keep me in remembering what is holy and bigger than us all. It's a lot, and it is good.

Dearest Shaye,
Happy 1st Birthday! This has been the fastest slowest most wild year of my life. I am so so lucky to me YOUR mama. Thank you for choosing me, for teaching me, for humbling me so deeply. I love you like crazy! You are magic and your innocent love heals us all. ✨♥️✨
Love,
Mama

Birth Day

9/27/2018

Today is unlike any other birthday I’ve had. Somehow I never connected the dots as vividly that this day marks not just my life, but my Birth. 💕
To know birth from the mama side, is as if to have touched the belly and crown of every birth before mine. My mother’s, my grandmother’s, hers. To imagine that 32 years ago my mother gave birth to ME, that was me that came through! And almost 90 years ago my great grandmother gave birth to my Nana, and that was HER that came through. And somehow the stars danced so we could share our day of birth through her daughter, my mama. ✨
What illuminated threads weave our stories, womb grown and wrapped in the darkness of unknowns, warmed and revealed by the light. So powerful, so vulnerable. All so fleeting and forever at once. 💫
Nothing changes you like becoming a mama. Nothing can prepare you and there is no going back. Today was the first year in many that I did not walk the hills and spread my Nana’s ashes and remember. Instead I spent the day with my baby and took a seriously deserved rest. I guess the juxtaposition of the tender softness of baby’s cheek and the raw truth of ashes let go to the wind is image enough to remind me how precious this all is. 🙏🏼
Thank you mom. I love you.
Happy birthday Nana. I miss you.
Please help me to remember how holy it all is.
Grateful for this life.
🦋
The birthday girl
With some new wrinkles to prove it!

Balance

9/22/2018

Again we find ourselves on the threshold. Today is the Fall Equinox. Next week is my birthday. Was my grandmothers birthday. Shaye will be 1 soon. Time.

Having spent almost every day this Summer outside (out of joy, seriously needing to get out of the house, or desperately trying to nap my baby by any means necessary🙃) I’m mourning but mostly welcoming the cozying up, the crisp air, the crunching fallen leaves. This new feeling of getting to show my child, “Shaye, this is Fall!” followed by laughter and awe that *everything* is new and exciting to him, from the melodic chimes in the Autumn winds to the random teeny garbage in the grass he always seems to find.

It already feels a world away that this time last year I was holding my big belly, thinking I understood what was to come, that I had any true knowing of the journey ahead. Now Shaye walks ahead of me, practically running, little explorer.

As light gives way to dark, I’m finding myself giving more of myself than I ever knew possible, and giving myself more easily to each day, whatever it holds. The sweetest smiles and cuddles humanly possible, utter head explosions, pure innocence, total exhaustion. The potent presence of love and loss in every moment is my humbling teacher.

Yesterday I rest with Shaye in fuzzy blankets, watching him sleep, making a memory. (A rare gift to myself these busy days) How fleeting and forever some things seem. Grateful for this life and the passages revealing themselves along the way.

Love to all, happy Fall ✨🍂🍁🍂✨

Follow on Instagram: @emily1loves

Voices from the Village: An Intergenerational Panel on Youth Development 9/26 @ Marin

9/12/2018

Excited to be facilitating this panel event on September 26th! Hope to see you there.

Voices from the Village:
An Intergenerational Panel on Youth Development

Join us for an all-ages discussion focusing on the key stages of adolescence, the role of
mindfulness, mentorship and rites of passage in building confidence and resilience,
and other important issues facing teens and families today.

Wednesday September 26th, 6:30-8:30pm, Marin
@ Tilden Preparatory School, 1050 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965

Guided

9/3/2018

• Guided • Sometimes we randomly find ourselves in the perfect moment. Today, we ended up in a park with a gentle older man in a wheelchair flying a rainbow kite in a huge expanse of grass and sky. As we said hello he proceeded to fly the rainbow tail over our heads, in and out of Shaye’s hands. Then he busted out a blue whale kite so Shaye could play with the rainbow one. 💖

Something about his project, sitting in the sun solo flying rainbow kites, felt like the perfect magical stranger moment we were meant to find. Especially in light of someone being shot in this park in a drive by recently, his mellow kite act felt like a radical stance for kindness, a restorative and healing one. Thanks kite dude. Oh yea, and the peppy little dog running in circles named ‘Mary Poppins’. 🙏🏼

Sometimes we are guided. Despite and in cahoots with all odds, beauty finds us. And so often not when we are planning or living the ‘best’ moments. Instead, we are found in the most ordinary moments by IT, by the mystic thread, by the rainbow kite trail. When good enough is better than anything I could have come up with, it makes me grateful for the little things, and every precious moment I’m given
✨🌈✨

Giving Thanks,
Mama Emily

Real Talk Teen Summer Retreat 2019

7/30/2018

So grateful to all the youth who joined us for our Summer Retreat! What a powerful way to spend a weekend. You are all our teachers! Here is what the girls wrote to future girls considering becoming a Real Talk Teen...

"You're never going to find a space or an energy like the space Emily and Quetzal create. Do it, I promise you'll love it."

"Do it! Trying doesn't hurt but if you don't, you're missing out! Changed my life!"

"If you're not sure about joining a group or coming to a retreat, just go for it. You'll find people who can retreat to you and connect with you, and it will be worth it!"

"I liked going to this retreat and being part of this because it gives you a separate group that you can open up to. Also because you don't see these people every day it means that you can open up to them about your life and they can give you advice from an outsiders perspective."

"I liked this retreat because I could feel comfortable with opening up and others could easily say anything they wanted to."

"Please do this! You will not regret it! It leaves you with so much life experience."

"To anyone who wants to do this... DO IT!!! It's amazing and you'll love it!"

Choice

7/24/2018

• CHOICE •
Let’s pretend this was the day, just this. This adorable, this innocent, this spontaneous, this easy.

Forget about being up since 5am. Forget about skipping your shower and meal. Forget about the list of things that seriously need to get done. Forget about coherent conversations. Forget about the total melt down car ride or that your breastfeeding baby bit your nip so hard you bled. Just, forget about it.

I’m 8 months into enlightenment parenting and it’s kicking my ass. I’m learning from the master Bubbi BooBoo the art of feeling the feelz and moving on, instantly - that every moment is a choice I’m being offered.

So today I’m going to pretend this was it, this sunshine baby in a tunnel kissing pure cuteness moment. Because really, none of that other stuff is worth being stuck somewhere else, when all you ever want is to not miss this.

Ending the day humble, exhausted and slightly wounded.
Yours Truly,
Mama

Moon Yields To Son • Son Yields To Moon

7/18/2018

I got my moon cycle for the first time since last January. 18 months.

18 months ago we decided we were ready to be a family.
18 months ago another human began their creation inside of me.
18 months ago my Moon yielded to my Son.

Today, my Son yields to my Moon.
This time with milk in breasts and baby in arms.

Since the seed of my child was planted, his rhythms have been my own. His growth, his birth, has also been mine. Our process has been one. But now, something is separating, something inevitable.

Tides greater than both of us are pulling on me again.
Pushing my system back to it's own rhythm.
Pulling me away ever so slightly.
A forced return.

The inevitability of separation is so bittersweet. It makes you nostalgic for what's barely even gone. It makes you admit what you care about most. It makes your love even more tender.

So today, I honor the blood and the tidal wave of motherhood.
Thank you to the Life that makes us, moves us, and keeps us soft.
Happy new mama moon to me.

Go swimming with your clothes on, at least every once in a while...

7/11/2018

Some days don’t go like you planned. Most of them. Especially with a kid. You can spin your wheels or use it as fuel. Sounds simple but it’s big.
⛰
Today was one of those not-as-planned kinda days, one of those head-for-the-hills kinda days, one of those random detour for Lake Anza while on hot sweaty hike so take the baby swimming with your clothes on kinda days.
💦
As I looked over at the skinny, tan new mom with her fancy hair and her fancy bikini and then looked at Shaye (who was wondering what the heck I was doing and what the heck is that lake thing) I said to myself, fuck it, and in we went. Ugly hiking shorts and sports bra, postpartum belly, naked baby, ducks and a lake.
🦆
Baby fell asleep as planned on the hike back, offering an oh so precious moment to remember: the salty sweat of summer, the smell of Mugwort in the warm air, pink sweet peas climbing 20ft high in the trees, the scurry of bunnies, the cry of two hawks for each other overhead, my strong body carrying us home.
🕸
This is why some days don’t work out, this is why when it’s not good enough, you just have to decide “it’s good enough” and jump in with your clothes on. Small acts of freedom.

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We must learn from those who came before us, and share our stories with those who come after.

We are the generation that stands between the fires...

Shaye Turns 1!

Birth Day

Balance

Voices from the Village: An Intergenerational Panel on Youth Development 9/26 @ Marin

Excited to be facilitating this panel event on September 26th! Hope to see you there.

Guided

Real Talk Teen Summer Retreat 2019

Choice

Moon Yields To Son • Son Yields To Moon

Go swimming with your clothes on, at least every once in a while...

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EMILY@loveyournature.com