button pushing

Button Pushing: This little thing is pressing me into the hardest, most complicated, most unloved areas of my personality. She's working on me. She's asking for integration. She's teaching the truth of not judging myself for all the things I am not. She's bringing her whole tool-bag-- screaming and crying and laughing and smiling. She's promising I'll get better if I just allow her to show me how.
.
[My back is in spasm. I could feel it getting weaker and the pain getting stronger over the past few days. This morning I bent down to pick a tulip and felt a pop. A tulip lit the fuse.

We're having a lot of trouble with Bea. She's back to sleeping like a newborn. She's having back bending meltdowns. She's standing up, army crawling, and talking all the time. She is making her YESes and NOs veeerrrry apparent. And the mom who shows up after 4 hours of sleep each night, dealing with hour-long meltdowns and fussy fits, is a person I am desperately trying to avoid. I don't like her. I have labeled her a bad mom. And I want to be liked

Working with my chiropractor today on spatial awareness, we went over the areas of my personality that I like and the areas that I dislike. Then we moved to the areas of my personality that other people like and dislike. And there it was...the pain. Deep in my body. Lodged for a lifetime. Right in my gut and wrapping around to my low back.

The spasm seems to be a marker. I avoid going to those shitty places of my personality that I've tried to bury. Those places where I've learned to unlove because when those sides show their face they get a pretty negative reaction from the people in my life.

My kid needs all of me. My kid needs me to bring all of myself to her without judgement about what behavior is right and what is wrong. It hurts to think that I will just pass this bifurcation on to her-- teach her that she has to hide sides of herself to comfort others.

And that is the blessing in her breakdowns. So we all had a couple good cries today. We talked to mom friends who said the most liberating 3 words: THIS IS NORMAL. We slept.

My Buddha is a crying, teething, crawling, shitting 8 month old and I love her for pushing me there.

great nana legacy

This book. This belonged to my great-nana.

After my parents separated when I was 3, my mom and I moved in with her. She lived in a well-loved and well-worn home in Wallkill, NY. The kitchen was huge. I loved exploring all the special spots and taking stock of what she had. Cabinets. Countertops. Drawers. Jars. Taking things out and putting them back in

I remember after dinner, only on some nights and probably not the ones when we would dunk Oreos or Vienna Fingers in milk, I would go over to the spot in the kitchen that housed her cookbooks. I would pour over the pages in this one. Usually just this one.

I was young enough to not understand what I was reading. I remember being mesmerized by the photos and title descriptions of these beautiful treats. They were things I had never seen before. They were pure MAGIC.

And that FEELING, that MEMORY, is DEEP in my BONES. I can still feel it as I write this.

I hadn't touched this book since we left her house when I was 11 but on Saint Patrick's Day I found myself revisiting an old habit. After dinner I went to my mom's kitchen shelf and opened up this heirloom.

The instant I looked at the pictures, ALL of Happy Belly made sense to me. I know this doesn't carry the same weight for you, but for me it's a moment of major crystallization.

For those years as a kid, I had been subconsciously absorbing what magic looked like and felt like all through a baked good. Now that I'm in a place of reflection, I'm seeing things a bit deeper. The wonderment and awe I felt is infused into every aspect of this business and our creations 😭🤯 I always wanted to pass that on because it was the happiest time of my life. When our family functioned at it's best.

Three women, separated by four generations, cooking and baking and eating and talking and creating a life with each other so good that none of us wanted to leave it behind.

So fucking joyful. So fucking heavy. So I share. The origin.

these two hands

These two hands have built everything we have.

They have been side-by-side, in admiration and respect and pain and frustration, for 17 years.

These two hands never stop working.

things that i put to sleep as a child

Reflections: throwback to the fall equinox walk we took last year at #greenportconservationarea ⛰ so much in my life has shifted over the past 6 months.

A lot of deep pain and ancestral trauma has been working itself through me. Anger and rage has been its undercurrent and I am the antenna. Sometimes it takes ahold and brings me to really dark places. In those places I am hearing the voices of family-- both biological and spiritual lineages-- call for MORE and call for a CHANGE. I think it's a fierceness that comes with Motherhood Womanhood Personhood that is rarely talked about.

I am waking up each day realizing that all the work I am/we are doing is rippling outward. Seriously moving things within our lines. Every act of kindness toward myself is a step toward something radical. Revolutionary. We now have time and space and consciousness to do it. And we don't have to hide in the same ways we used to.

I'm touching places in my heart that I put to sleep when I was a child. All because of Bea. All because of the massive transformations that have been set in motion with her arrival. Callum's arrival. My arrival. Cannot be more grateful for the pain it took to bring them into this world. It taught me freedom. It taught me strength. It taught me how to see myself for everything that I am and everything I am not and LOVE THE SHIT out of that woman.

But now, it really feels like we're energetically moving back into a place of balance.

I welcome its return. The Yin. The Yang.

we are the fighters, we are the resistance

Irish in our blood: We are the fighters. We are the resistance. We are the voices that carry on the wind. Shouting for more. While you stand on the precipice.

Sharing our wisdom. Sharing our magic. Sharing our love.

A knotted and knitted history that has been passed down through blood and bone. Woven into us. Keeping us linked. Keeping us tight. Keeping us together.

We are the lineage of a people who refused to give up. Refused to give in. Refused to ignore injustice at our door.

We are the fire. Always rising. Always reinventing. Always anew.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Me and my sweet Beatrix Ea on this Saint Patrick's Day. Remembering the powerful trinity of Saints who come from our Celtic heritage: Patrick, Brigid, and Columba (Callum's patron Saint). Celebrating our Irish and Scottish roots today and every day 🇮🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 always honoring our wildness and ferocity. Knowing it is deep in our homeland, deep in our history, and deep within ourselves.