Welcome. This website and human being are
under re-construction.

3/27/24

Holy shit. (Please forgive my French. I am not sure how else to begin without recognition of the fear, awe, and excitement to reconnect with you that is stirring in my heart.) It has been a loooong time – four years in fact – since I have written. 

As you may know, 4 years ago I gave birth to a little one, and her arrival rocked my world in ways I never imagined. Her birth, like birth itself, brought mess, chaos, overwhelm, and a struggle to stay afloat, “functioning,” and celebrating the days when clothes appeared on my body tag-side-in and more than 50% clean. To those of you who have children, and even more than one, I bow, ever deeply. 

With becoming a mother, I went cave-ward, focusing on baby baby baby, individual clients, baby baby baby, with occasional sleep on the good nights. As many of you know, it takes years for little ones to de-cling, to find their own feet on the earth, to discover the capacity for solo play (YAY SOLO PLAY), and for their parents to relish long and luxurious three-minute conversations. 

With my little one now in preschool, I am now beginning to raise my head above the water, and - to mix metaphors - to find my own feet on the earth once again. Human. Self. Mama. 

Motherhood has disintegrated and refabricated not just my daily routine, sense of self, and capacity for relationships and connections outside of the home, but perhaps most importantly, my sense of purpose.

There is nothing like giving birth to another being to drive home a) one’s own mortality, b) a sense of limited time to contribute, and c) the mattering of making a difference, because now your heart is walking around on another being's two feet, about to inherit the world you leave to them. 

All this goes to say the following three things:
 

I’m baaaaack.

(So sorry, could not resist the Poltergeist reference). I am reawakening this website. I intend to write here again, and more often than every 3 years. 
 

My focus is changing

I have only ever been able to write and share about the thing that my soul most wrestles with. In the past, that was shameless-heartedness, freeing ourselves from shame, in our internal and real life relationships, particularly through Nonviolent Communication. It was, no doubt, a reflection of my own lifelong struggle to free my own sense of self and expression, needs, wants, the whole shabang, from the life-restricting grip of shame.

Now, the thing I am immersed in and grappling with on the daily is motherhood, and in particular, what it means to be a mom in a world that’s on fire. 

Who do we become, what dies, and what is born, when we give birth to a little human? And what does it mean to live and parent and model and teach our children in a deeply broken world, in ways that embody the qualities of the world we want them to inherit?

If you’re here for the questions of how the heck to raise a small human, how to hold on to threads of your own self, and how to do both within the context of your heartbreak and rage at the violence and destruction in our world, awesome. Stay with me.

Readers of all genders and parent/non-parent statuses are welcome. Even if you aren’t a mother, many of you “mother” and contribute to your community in untold ways. Many of you will be connected to an internal sense of the archetypal Mother. I don’t presume to know what will interest or speak to you, and if you feel called to stick around, I’d love you here.

A new offering for moms

Lastly, in the next few weeks, I’ll be letting you know about a new group I’m calling together: The Mother’s Way: Deep Community at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change.

This 6 week series will be a safe place for moms to come together, feed our need to be known, connected, and accepted for the mess of mothering-and-humaning. It’s for thoughtful, progressive mamas who are pissed off and heartbroken about the state of the world, who don’t know how the heck to make a difference with the absurdly full lives we lead. 

This will be for moms who share the values of collective healing, anti-racism, anti-supremacy, care for the earth, basic kindness, and creating systems that work for everyone. Together, we will explore an approach to social change that feels accessible, within reach, and inclusive of yourself and your world as a mom.

The group will be virtual, via Zoom. If this sounds like your cup of herbal tea, stay tuned, as we’ll be getting started in the weeks to come. 

I am excited and aglow with what’s to come. The connections to happen. The radical ideas that can only be birthed in community. The ways of bringing healing to ourselves and each other that we find when we mamas dare to let ourselves be known. 

With love and respect,
Marina