Conceivable Surrender

I've always wanted to be a mother. I remember, as a small child, dressing my cat in doll clothes and parading her around my Grandmother's house in a baby buggy. She, Moondancer, was a siamese cat who doubled as my best friend... and surprisingly willing participant in her role within my realm of make-believe. Moonie, as I affectionately called her, journeyed with me for 18 precious years. She taught me much about responsibility, unconditional love, and selflessness.

In what seems like another life, I was married and faced fertility struggles for three long years. That era of this lifetime broke me, leaving me to bleed from shattered pieces of my heart on the floor of my life. So much pain and loss... the dream of motherhood began to feel literally inconceivable.

Once that marriage ended, I came out as queer and embraced new aspects of myself; slowly piecing "me" back together. Though continuing to cling to the idea of motherhood, it wasn't all consuming. For the first time, I enjoyed being an authentic version of myself... training to teach yoga and creating community; all the while planting seeds of hope.

It was during this time that I was introduced to Bhakti Yoga... my true Saving Grace. I met the Mother - my own Mother - and knew Love in a way I'd never imagined. Suddenly surrender became a devotional offering of trust rather than a painful sacrifice in the fire of resistance.

And by Her grace, I was gifted with the mantra, "Om Namah Shivaya"... a mantra that, to me, was the ultimate choice of surrender to Divine Loving Will.

When fear would arise around motherhood, or lack thereof, I'd chant that mantra. When broken hearts broke my own, I chanted.... it was my illumination, healing balm, and greatest medicine. It was from the wings of this mantra that profound seed of healing rooted and began to blossom within the deepest, darkest spaces of my heart. Then, and only then, would I be prepared to become the partner and mother I truly longed to be.

The love of my life had been intertwined into my reality through our Hindu temple for several years; but it wasn't until our hearts were ready that Mā allowed us to see each other in a romantic light. Though he was so much more than I could have dreamed, I had to set aside bits of my identity to allow myself to receive this precious gift of partnership and love. Om Namah Shivaya.

On my 40th birthday, we wed on the sacred land of his ancestors in Hawai'i. We asked Mā Kālī and All Our Relations to bless our union with a child who would be taught their ways and carry on our lineages.

At 40 years of age, we consciously conceived, with no medical intervention and after just beginning to "try", a baby who is healthy and growing stronger every day! My once seemingly

barren womb and our hearts are full... with arms open and ready to welcome this precious soul into our home and the family we continue to intentionally create just for him.

For those of us with wombs, we are pressured from such young ages, to have children... and forced to swallow jagged pills of fear around age and fertility. I share my story because Great Spirit is greater than any fear... any obstacle... any man-made idea of what a woman's body should do and when. Maybe things work out differently than planned; all I know is that true surrender to the Great Mother, with the guidance and support of our own ancestors, will illuminate a path of magical intervention that can only be called Divine.

Om Namah Shivaya.