I created the MotheringJoy Gift Bundle this week after I selected the winning number of a beautiful mothering soul for the Good Mother, Welcome Raffle….and of course I wanted to send her even more.  So here is a nourishing book of comfort, a bouquet for love and beauty, and my three special children’s primers for snuggling in close and reading together.

If you know someone who could use such a boost as this, you may order the MotheringJoy Gift Bundle here.

“I am so glad you are here… It helps me realize how beautiful my life is.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

When my daughter Isabella was four, she would drape herself in silky shawls and scarves and glide about the house, one bare hip exposed as her knots came loose. Every color was represented, from peach to purple to gold. She wore a pale green hat just above her sparkling blue eyes. She carried an empty purse, and a book with blank pages inside, as rich with possibility as her young life.

“I’m a gypsy,” she’d say. “I sleep in doorways because I am poor.”

“Come, my darling,” I would say. “It is night now. Let me put you in your bed.”

“This is not a bed,” she would smile, engaging me in her fantasy. “Let’s pretend it’s a shed in the garden of someone who’s very kind.”

And I would think:

“I am so glad you are here…

It helps me realize how beautiful my life is.”

When my daughter Rose was as young, she would declare with great contentment, “When I grow up, I’m going to stay in this house with you forever!” I would mention that she is welcome to stay, but she may want to have her own house. To this she would reply, “Then I will build a house next door, and you could come for tea. Or I would come visit you, and we could have tea. We could drink tea and tea and tea!”

And I would think:

“I am so glad you are here…

It helps me realize how beautiful my life is.”

I feel wealthy with such exquisite memories, and I find myself cherishing the present as well. Sometimes, when my husband and I are working together in the garden, or cooking a meal in the kitchen, he will turn to me, and his smile will seem to say,

“I am so glad you are here…

It helps me realize how beautiful my life is.”

And I will marvel for a fleeting moment at the swift passage of time. I will remember my brief monastic life in the White Mountains Of New Hampshire. He arrived shortly after I’d settled in for a life of solitude, to lure me willingly away with the promise of travel and good company. Now, more than twenty years later, I’ll stand in the kitchen, surveying the clutter of art projects, sprouting seedlings, and crumbs from supper. Someone else’s choice of music will be pouring from the stereo, and baby chicks peeping away in the study nearby. All in all, we live in a tender balance of serenity and cheerful chaos.

Yet more often than not, I open my mouth and out pours a complaint: “Who spilled cheerios on the stairs?…How many times do I have to ask you to put away your shoes? The kitchen table is not meant to be a repository for every stray thing…If you don’t stop squabbling, I shall melt in utter despair…”

I don’t like complaining. I don’t like the shrill sound of that voice. Sometimes, when I become still, allowing myself to savor the divine present and my delicious memories, I remember who I really am. I become filled with gratitude for my life and the people who share it. They remind me over and over again of life’s magic, and the gifts of silliness, beauty, innocence, and play. And I think:

“I am so glad you are here…

It helps me realize how beautiful my life is.”

These words of Rilke are the perfect blessing for Motherhood. Actually, they are perfect for the company we keep at any chapter in life. As we offer this blessing to our children, spouses, family and friends, affirming the beauty of our world and their welcome place in it, life seems even more sweet. It absolutely does.

Well, we were quite spontaneous this month, and Bella and I jumped a plane to meet up with Jonah at the end of his school trip to Italy.  Jonah’s father lives in Florence, and we spent a few days visiting with him.  We had rain, but it was still lovely.  Highlights were the farmer’s markets, visiting a cobbler for shoe repair, gelato, painting with grandpa, visiting with family and old friends, and just being together in a beautiful place.  I have returned home jet-lagged, in debt, and refreshed with an even deeper appreciation for the fulfilling and rich country life we have built for ourselves here on the island. 

This verse of Rumi’s is the one that has come to mind all week, as my heart swoons to blossoms and buds…

Oh Heart,
Sit with someone
who knows the heart;

go under the tree
which has fresh blossoms.

~Rumi

(I’m sorry, I’m not sure of the translator for this one)

She said, ”

Ingrid sent this to me when Ostara was still a wee babe.

It was another one I sobbed over, creased up, and clutched to my heart.

It’s a love letter from the world to mothers.

Tremendously reassuring, loving, kind and soft.

Just what we need.

I can see why this book gets bought in the dozens to be sent as gifts to new mamas. It is truly remarkable.”

I was truly delighted to read this- how lovely!  I had a small flurry of orders, and of course wanted to give a copy away too.  If you, or someone you know, would like some mothering reassurance, toss a comment in, and I may pick your number from my teacup of numbered doves on Friday the 27th.

The weather was so generously beautiful here last Sunday that I had a little walk along the Vineyard Haven Harbor before watching Bella’s soccer game.  This boat reminded me of my poem, ONE THOUSAND EVENINGS MORE- a poem that hopes to remind us to savor the preciousness of life.  The better half of me writes these poems…the other half forgets… and then feels grateful when remembering comes.

One Thousand Evenings More

What if we had
one thousand evenings more
to step into
like a small boat
waiting at the dock,
or a blank page
and the most exquisite pen in hand
to write the sun dipping hot flames
into the western sea,
the moon and stars rising,
and not have such words sound empty
like the straws on the broom as it sweeps
those last remnants of life
from the room we’ll leave behind?
And what if we had
one thousand evenings more
to walk in the woods,
to share a glass of wine,
to ask our friends
from where their happiness comes…
…to reinvent ourselves as lovers,
forgetting all we’ve learned,
even all that we’ve forgotten?

~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

from the book, What Holds Us, New and Selected Poems

I have been loosening some of my “shoulds” lately… that I should be more, do more or have more before I be permitted to breathe deeply of the fresh air, or put my face in the sun, or feel joy tingling in my veins.  I hope that you have been too! This world is too beautiful for us to be distracted with the unnecessary, the unkind, the unloving, ungenerous or unimaginative. 

Thank you all for your loving comments of late, you have been, to borrow the phrase from another, like “wind beneath my wings.”  I feel very nourished, encouraged and healed by your presence in  my life.  Thank you!

 These beautifully wrapped packages contain 100 Fortunes: useful, smart and sometimes witty proverbs and pith sayings from throughout time and around the world.  Each is a blessing and a bit of wisdom for living a deep, wide, rich and contented life.  Perfect for party favors, office gifts, conversation starters or personal reflection, these fortunes will bring you wisdom to draw from throughout your many days.

The true source of joy is love — love of God, love of beauty, love of wisdom, love of another human being, it does not matter which. It is all one love: a joyful awareness of dissolving boundaries of our ordinary narrow self, of being one with the reality beyond, of being made whole.
      - Irma Zaleski, from the essay The Door To Joy

Dear friends, Joy Tenders all, things are shifting around here.  I hope you’ll stay with me!  From the stillness of illness, so many visions are coming; hopes re-emerging; abandoned dreams coming home- the song of my calling is becoming more clear.  It feels as if there is a bonfire in which old assumptions, habits, and comforts are being burned away.  But I am enjoying it, somehow… and what has been coming to mind is the Phoenix.

What little I know of the term ‘Phoenix Rising,” is that it refers to this mythical bird which has the ability to sift through the ashes of its burned down life, and gather what remains to make new eggs.  In the stillness of illness, I find myself gathering what remains (the true, the beautiful, the visions of next steps…) And I am finding that there is so much!  Upon reflection, when my painful arm says I must glue less, assemble less, pull back from the artisan shows…what remains in the ashes of the old ways are what delights me still- a love of words, of the world, of poetry, of life itself, and joy…what remains is a beautiful tribe of joy-tenders that I have met and served over the years… what remains are over a dozen books and inspiration decks written and more longing to be birthed- once I put the glue-stick down.  

     For those of you who know me from the Vineyard, I will continue to participate in the Night Heron Gallery-  Martha’s Vineyard’s only artist owned and operated cooperative gallery.  We will  re-open in April and it’s going to be beautiful!  I will continue to offer my gifts here online, and to honor my galleries, museums and church gift shops.  Still, somehow over the years, my business got ahead of me- became too big for one woman to sustain.  I found myself a bit of a hamster on its wheel- while my husband worked the garden and my daughters went to the beach, I remained in the dark basement assembling my wares.   I became too busy to wander, to write- to tend joy and to listen…that’s what my body tells me.  And my spirit says, “yes, yes!”

Beautiful things are coming… 

 (What if the experience of oneness didn’t make you more
beautiful or radiant, or special- as so many teachers promise?
What if it simply made you a little softer, a little kinder,
a little more human?  Would you still long for it?
Last month, with a pinched nerve in my neck, I visited a friend on Tybee Island, Georgia.
These are notes from my beach walks there. )

I walk the shoreline, mist drenched morning, ocean soothing in. 
The Gulls seem to be napping, grouped in stillness, 
facing into the breeze, one eye open.  

I think I want gifts from the sea, and that I will find some pretty shells.  

My body is tired,  neck weary and in pain.  I cannot walk very far. 

What I really want is to let go of a lot of things-
some burdens that I’ve been carrying;
assumptions that no longer serve me;
the busyness of my life. 

I think I want special wisdom; healing;
something to make me smarter.

I sit on a bench and wait.

Instead of special wisdom, I hear this:
Listen, the world has no secrets-
only as of yet, for you,
unheard of, undiscovered things.

I go back to collecting shells.
Every morning for two weeks,
I wander the beach distracted.

At first I want only the shells that are perfect and unique.
Eventually, I begin to see the beauty
in broken things. 

I feel some pride in this-
perhaps it is my gift from the sea. 

…One day I look up from my quest
for shells along the shore, and see:
I had become so absorbed in my search for pretty things,
I had become unaware of the magnificent vastness-
I looked up to see the water,
to pause and to breathe in the blueness,
to feel the mist on my face. 

Something in me opened, sighed,
blossomed, emptied and filled.
It felt as though I was receiving
everything and no thing,
a relaxation, a dawning, a download-
an infinite, unnameable mystery:
the oneness of the ocean, wind, sun, sky,
my own soul and humanity-
humanity which had arrived to comingle, play, and delight in the beauty.

That was the best day.

The people on Tybee are friendly-
even the boys at the convenience store
have kind and tender eyes.
Some call this Southern Hospitality-
but what I felt was a basic sense of humanity,
family, kinship, humility and belonging.

Walking the shore, approaching others,
we would greet and exchange stories-
unafraid to ask each stranger how they’ve been.

It’s as if we are all in this together.
This life.  On this planet.  This. 

And we know it. 

And we don’t mind.  

In fact, we like it that way.

Some epiphanies are gentle, like the breeze across your brow. 
That breeze is always there, kissing your cheek if you allow it. 

Joy isn’t a carrot dangling before your nose, urging you to pursue it.
Joy isn’t found in the acquisition of shells….or any other things.
Joy isn’t the ever-receding horizon of a future better life.

Rabindranath Tagore said,
“Joy is the realization of the truth of our oneness-
the oneness of our soul with the world soul, 
and of the world soul with supreme love.”

Looking up from the shell strewn sand,
I experienced a taste of this oneness.
I felt a softening, a surrender,
a relaxation; a trust;
simplicity, humility, belonging- the calm wisdom of the heart.

Tending Joy is allowing joy, welcoming joy,
practicing, feeling, and caring for joy.
It’s a kind of resting. 

Not seeking or striving, but inviting,
melting barriers,
letting go resistance.
There’s a kind of gentleness to it-
a friendliness and curiosity, openness and humility.

Allowing ourselves to feel oneness, we allow ourselves to feel joy-
to feel that we are part of the human family and the greater mystery:
human, frail, flawed, vulnerable, earnest, loving, generous, divine.
 

On my last morning I am up for the sunrise
and it occurs to me
that the sun rises with opulent fanfare above the horizon every dawn,
regardless of whether I’ve awoken soon enough to see it.
It’s not about me.
Yet I can participate if I want to.