Easter

I have addressed some of the below in previous entries, but I had a pretty powerful spiritual awakening over the weekend that I wanted to share here. I wrote this as an email, though interestingly enough I haven't sent it yet! I'm not yet done processing it for myself. Additionally, this post has undergone some editing from my original writing, as I want to keep some details to myself should I ever make this blog public.

Over the past few weeks I have had this yearning ache in my heart. I knew it was attached to something, but I couldn't figure out what. Recently springs have been like this for me... some kind of longing, some sense of something waiting to be born. I've also felt the need to connect to other mothers right now. So I've done a lot of work around these feelings -- reading, prayer, meditation, journaling, tarot cards, the whole nine. But nothing was coming through.

Two weekends ago I went to my dream group. I was telling the women there about this feeling of rebirth, how I feel connected to the seasons now, and how I've been at a place where I've been treading water spiritually for a while, but I'm about to go back underwater, and how that feels like a good thing. Karol, the woman who runs the group, said, "Holy Week is coming up, maybe you're also feeling the downward pull of that weight." She knows I'm not Christian, but knows that I was raised Lutheran and said that perhaps I was feeling that from my childhood. I didn't really agree with that, but I like the whole idea of Easter being a celebration of rebirth.

On Thursday I saw Katie and told her that I felt like my heart chakra was opening up, but I didn't know what it was all about.

Friday comes. Good Friday. Ben had the day off, and we had talked about me having a "Meghan's Day Off" that day, and he would take care of Eliza while I did whatever I wanted. When I got up I realized I had started spotting. I was really upset about it, because I was only a week past ovulation and my cycle is being a bitch and I'm probably going to need supplemental progesterone. I decided to do some yoga to clear my head, and I'm half-crying through the first bunch of the poses and start asking God for a sign. I tell God to send me a sign in a book of symbols I have, and as I'm praying this prayer asking for clarity, a cardinal shows up right outside my window. It sits there for a while and then flies off, and I realize that the cardinal has a message for me as well.

When I'm done with yoga, I grab the symbols book and my finger lands on a picture of sage. The book says that people have used it to connect with the Virgin Mary. As I'm asking God for clarity with the whole pregnancy thing, I'm thinking, okay, so Mary had a baby... but I'm still pretty clueless. Then I go to my animal signs book. One of the meanings of having a cardinal show up is to look back on your religious past and revisit it, maybe find some once-discarded truths that might be useful to you again.

And suddenly I get it... holy shit, Mary is coming through to me.

It makes SO MUCH sense. As I've grown older my spirituality had evolved to one of seeking out divine mothering. I directed much of those prayers to the Goddess, but I never fully felt connected -- my idea of the Goddess felt too ethereal. Mary walked on earth, had a baby, held her dead son when he was pulled off the cross. She has been here, she knows our suffering. She's an angel with muddy feet, to paraphrase one of my professors. I can connect with that.

Even little things become clear with this insight: I have had an idea for years about a book that alludes to Mary. I LOVE nuns in kind of a crazy way (and went to a Catholic grad school with a bunch of them). A few days before I had this revelation I wrote a note to my aunt Mary just to say how I much I missed her. (I do miss my aunt, but it was an out-of-the-blue thing for me to have done.) And there's my middle name, Mary, staring at me all these years! All this in my life, and I NEVER thought to look in her direction!

Later that day I head to this awesome metaphysical bookstore that has this yummy incense smell and just always brings so much peace to my soul. I find this book called The Return of the Mother with a picture of a statue of Mary on the cover. It's all about how we need more divine feminine in our spirituality, and I'm a little bit jaded by the premise because I have like 17 similar books like this at home, but there is a chapter on Mary (and the book is 40% off) so I decide to buy it. Later that night in the bathtub I start reading the chapter. The author used to be into a lot of Eastern spiritualities, but he had a falling out with his twat of a guru and in this whole process he discovered Mary.

He writes that as one begins to connect with Mary, your chakras begin to realign. You begin to operate out of your heart chakra, and your heart undergoes an opening so that you, like Mary, can better connect to and work toward ending the suffering of the world.

I feel like I'm in a very joyful place knowing that I have finally made this connection with Mary. I love that she has been in my life for ages, just waiting for me to be ready for her. And I love that I can relate to her as a mother myself; in fact, maybe I needed to become a mother before I could truly connect with her. But I feel how I imagine an adopted child must feel connecting with a birth parent. Like you have this really huge connection, but where do you start the conversation? How do you start the conversation? I have this need to have an image of her with me. I've ordered this necklace with a picture of her holding Jesus, and in front of the picture is a rose. I like how the rose is opening up, just like my heart.

And that was my Easter weekend.