This Is Embracing The Feminine

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About a month ago I woke up from an incredible dream where I rode around the desert on a pink cruiser bike.  Immediately when my eyes opened I felt a flood of joy and excitement rise up inside me that I literally jumped out of bed.

After breakfast and a shower I was out the door and on a hunt to find a cheap pink cruiser.

And I did.

When I got her home we decked her out with a baby seat on the back for Phoenix and a cute little basket with a flower print lining in the front and of course a bell.

Ya gotta have a bell!

When we were finished bolting down the accessories Hansel and I took a step back and looked at her.

The Mothership, I said.

That’s her name.  The Mothership

Since then, there has not been one day that’s gone by that I haven’t been out on The Mothership.  I ride her anywhere from two to five hours a day.  Everyday.

I look for any excuse–grocery store, dentist appointment, post office, diapers, toothpicks.

And when I don’t have an excuse, I strap Phoenix in anyways and hit the road!

The lovely Jane Davenport came to visit us on Easter, and I even convinced her to ride with us!

I’ve never been a bike person.  Sure in my youth I rode a bike like all kids, and even in my twenties when I was hurting for cash I rode my bike instead of using gas.

But this…this is different.

I’m in love.  Crazy love.

Wild. Passionate. Crazy. Love.

Because of The Mothership I see things I’ve never seen before!

I’ve discovered things about my neighborhood alone that in my seven years of living here I had no idea even existed! Like an organic juice bar that’s only a few blocks away and awesome playgrounds for Phoenix to play, incredible bike paths with breathtaking views, and on those main streets that I’ve driven down a thousand times–The Mothership has shown me  turtles just hanging out, vibrant colors from the cactus in bloom, baby geese, and I even found money lying on the sidewalk one day!  Plus, once I twist away from the main road you can hear the birds sing, owls hoot, and the hum of the wind so perfectly that I forget that I live in suburbia.

And don’t even get me started about riding at night!

We rode as a family under the last full moon and tears ran down my face from the beauty of it all.

I am in love.

It’s something that fills me from my sit bones to my crown.  It’s pouring into all the crevices of my life and pushing out the toxins.  It’s taking me from one chapter to the next and I haven’t a clue where I’m going.

I’m not riding The Mothership to lose weight or to be “green” or to save money.  I’m riding her because it’s fun, it makes me feel good, and I get to be out in nature…in other words, it’s nourishing.

But why I share this with you is because it surprises me completely.

For the majority of my life I have pushed, pushed, pushed to be something, to get somewhere, to achieve a certain result and to attach my actions to meaning.  Almost everything I’ve done in my life has had an alternative motive.

I studied to get good grades.  I went to college to get a good job.  I exercised to lose weight.  I did yoga to gain peace of mind.

I’ve done something always to gain something else.

But when I’m riding The Mothership, I ride just to ride.   And when I do, it fills me with freedom and nourishes my Soul without having an agenda or something I need to fulfill.

And that’s where I am right now.

I am nourishing myself.  Nourishing my home, my relationships, and even nourishing my creativity in a way that I never knew was possible.

I’m letting go of the things that drain me, like Facebook and being busy all the time.

I am moving into my life and into my work from a place of nourishment.  A place of permission to just be.  To just let things go undone and let life fill me up instead of things on a to-do-list.

And I will tell you that this is by far the scariest thing I’ve ever done.

What if my business falls apart?  What if people lose interest in Dirty Footprints Studio?  What if I’m crazy for spending more time riding around then doing all those things that kept me glued to a computer before?  What if I’m missing something by not being connected on social media regularly? What if? What if? What if?

I used to talk so much about creating work that was a lifestyle and what I learned is that I created a life around work.

And when my whole life fell apart last year, I learned that work is not something to build a life upon.  Contrary to what society tells us from the day we enter school, this formula is just not sustainable.

When work becomes a lifestyle we lose touch with our True Self, our families, our health, our communities, our God.  We become so busy that we need to settle for a computer monitor as a way of connecting with others.

The shadow side of the internet is that we’ve become addicted to consuming: more friends, more followers, more information, more money, more choices, more power, more “freedom” and it’s our minds that are becoming obese from taking all this in.

And so, I’m writing this to share with you where I’m at and where I’m going.

I love the work I do and feel grateful beyond words that I can support my family doing it.  But The Mothership is teaching me that I and my work is shifting….it’s deepening…it’s moving into a new space….it’s requiring that I slow down and appreciate the landscape that all my hard work has created.

Though most of all, it’s asking to become a source of deep, deep nourishment.  For myself and for others that I am so blessed to reach.

I don’t know exactly what this should look like, but I feel that it is already unfolding.

And this is what it means to me to truly embrace The Feminine.

Painting The Feminine starts Monday.  Come.

Come join me.

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