Hasta La Gadget!

I recently read a very interesting article titled, “Dear Stay at Home Moms: Shut the Eff Up.” Let me preface this by saying that I agree with so many of the author’s points; her article was extremely well-written and I really like and respect this particular writer. (Like, I seriously love Susannah Lewis. She’s super-talented and very real.) I too feel that if a SAHM is so miserable with her life that she is constantly wallowing in negativity, she should most definitely consider pursuing part-time or full-time work, volunteering, getting a mother’s helper or babysitter if she can afford one, or just making some time for her personal needs like exercising or having a regular girls’ night. (Stop laughing. It could totally happen.)

There is certainly a line between some relatable whining and being a flat-out Debbie Downer. I am a strong believer in trying to find some goodness and beauty amidst whatever chaos or stress you might be dealing with. I have a daily gratitude practice. I’m not a complete a-hole. But it likely won’t surprise you to hear me say — not for the first or last time — that I think complaining is a completely healthy practice.

I am not a stay-at-home-mom. I work part-time, which is equivalent to both the best and worst of both worlds. I work out of necessity — my income is not disposable. But that being said, I don’t think I would choose to stay at home. I’m not built that way. I would be the mother encapsulated in that article: a giant bundle of angst, frustration and negativity. So please believe me when I say that I have tremendous respect for moms who stay home with their young children; I truly believe it is the hardest job of them all. I have several close SAHM friends, and I know that in their hearts, they are thrilled to be staying home with their kids — they chose that life.

And yet, I absolutely never begrudge them their tirades about their lack of personal space, failed attempts at dinner and self-imposed “Mommy time-outs” because they have reached their breaking point. I never, ever think, Why on Earth don’t they get a job if they hate this so much? 

There was only one passage in Lewis’s article that bugged me:

I’d just like to hear one of these SAHMs say to me, “I am so blessed. I have a faithful husband, gorgeous and healthy children, a beautiful home, and I am fortunate enough to stay home and enjoy my blessings.” Just say that to me once per a instead of continually moaning about the dust accumulation on your furniture, the temper tantrums in Target and the gas you burned hauling your children to baseball, ballet and soccer practice.

I get the frustration with spending time with constant complainers, I really do. But for me, honestly, I hear plenty of that “I am so blessed” BS every single day on Facebook, and it rarely gives me the warm fuzzies. I once saw one of my Facebook friends’ posts that read, “I live a charmed life,” and I almost threw up in my mouth. Really? A charmed life? That’s wonderful, really, but all the #blessed propaganda thrown in our faces these days is giving many of us a complex.

We read a mushy, heartfelt status update showing a gigantic bouquet some woman’s husband gave her for the anniversary of the first time he cooked her dinner, thanking him for being her “best friend and soulmate” and we wonder why our husband doesn’t bring us flowers. (Mine just did, for the record, for our wedding anniversary, lest someone think I’m throwing him under the bus. I’m speaking generally here, people.) We see photos of gorgeous mothers laughing with their matching-dress-clad, golden-haired twins, as we look at our own offspring, facedown on the kitchen floor, simultaneously screaming about the wrongly cut pizza and licking the tile in her filthy, too-small, mismatched outfit. We are constantly bombarded with sound bites and snapshots of families who are “living the dream.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not really feeling a lack of this type of gratitude from the SAHM community.

In fact, I would so much rather hear the wry commentary of the dirty house, unwashed hair, Caillou-hating Mommy. It makes me feel normal, like less of a failure. I know, I know, everyone in the world is so. freaking. tired. of hearing parents complain about parenting. I mean, how many times can we joke about how much we love our yoga pants and how all we want to do is watch Orange is the New Black after bedtime? Mommy-complaining is becoming so passé.

But, you know what? It’s not. It’s normalizing. It’s a relief. It’s how women really reach out and connect with one another when they are struggling with parenting. I am confident that there are a whole slew of perfectly content mothers who seamlessly transitioned from a single career-focused life to their dream job of staying home with a baby. I’m not so worried about those ladies. I’m more concerned about the moms who thought that motherhood would be the answer to their feelings of emptiness who are now perplexed as to why the hole in their lives, their hearts, hasn’t gone away.

The mothers who used to feel important and needed by other adults, who used to have first names, who used to dress nicely, stay organized and have their sh*t together. The ones who cry in the shower because they are lonely, or bored, or exhausted, or feel like they are failing at the perfect mother thing. The mothers who can’t understand what’s wrong with them because, while they love their kids, they don’t always love being parents. The mothers who feel like whiplash victims because they simply can’t adjust to the rapid downshift and role changes brought on by motherhood.

For a SAHM like that, it would be easy to fake it and happily nudge the mom next to her at the soccer game and say, “Man. I’m living the good life. My husband is so helpful, and I couldn’t ask for better kids. I am so blessed.” But maybe she’d feel less alone, more connected and more like her old self if instead, she said, “Don’t you wish they served alcohol at these games? My kids are driving me crazy, I haven’t had a minute to myself all week, and it would be great to pretend we were really at Happy Hour instead.” Isn’t it better to save the deep, meaningful gratitude for your meditation, prayers, or personal reflection? I’m probably the wrong person to ask, but I’m pretty sure there’s even something in the Bible about praying in private rather than making a spectacle of your gratitude.

I think that for many of us, we feel that we are failing to embody the maternal image we envisioned when we were children, and that stirs up feelings of deep shame, loneliness and pain inside us. Every time I hear another mother confess that she is floundering gracelessly through motherhood as I am, I feel stronger. The deep truths of my dear friends build me up, bit by bit, until I feel less alone and less abnormal.

I don’t believe that in any other profession adults are chided for complaining about their jobs. After a tough day at the law office, you’d never hear a man scold the attorney next to him at the bar for complaining about the high-paying job for which he should be thankful. Coworkers bond through their shared struggles, contempt for clients or coworkers or the demands put upon them by their unreasonable boss. I suspect that, in spite of all their bluster, they are grateful to be employed. By no means should you let yourself slide into depression or pervasive negativity, anger or anxiety. I am all for moms making changes in their lives so that they can feel whole, happier and ultimately, be better parents. But go ahead and be real, SAHMs — you’ll never get anything but a sympathetic ear from me if you need to air your dirty laundry (both literal and metaphorical) next to me in the Target Pharmacy line. I feel you.

A version of this post originally appeared on Mommy, for Real. Connect with Stephanie on Facebook.

The goal of life is death
–Sigmund Freud

If you live in the Northern hemisphere, and if you are lucky enough to reside in a place that boasts four seasons, take a look around and you will see the passionate love-making of Lady Death and Laddie Life. If ever their love affair had an anniversary, it is Oct 31, Halloween. And the product of their illustrious adulation are the twins: Astrology and Science. Since Death and Life are lovers, let me assure you, that you need not be afraid to die, just as you should not fear life. For in nature, mythology, astrology, and science, they are bound together, opposite yet the same, like you and your mirror image.

Apo-ptosis. Ancient Greek, stands for “away from” referring to the falling of the leaves during autumn. First described by Karl Vogt in 1842 and later resurrected in the 1960s, in reference to a biology field studying the programmed cell death or PCD of molecular organism.

Applied in Cancer research, Apoptosis emphasizes the importance of death to sustain life. In other words, without cells dying every breath we take, we cannot survive. Cancer, the uncontrollable grows of cells, kills us precisely because the lack of death. In a paradoxical poetic twist of evolution, in order to live, part of us must always die. Like in the Yin/Yang circle of life, there must be a black island in the sea of white and a white dot in the black wave.

Apoptosis – the falling of dead leaves, the trees pretend to die. Trees have always symbolized life. From Ygddrassil, the Norse tree of life, to the Kabbalistic Tree of life, if anything mastered life on the planet, it is the tree. And yet, confronted with the ferocious huntress, the White Queen Winter, the trees do what rangers tell us we should when a bear attacks us – feign death! And thus they live to see another spring…

Resistance to winter is futile. The trees adhere to the call of Scorpio, one of the four pillars of the zodiac, the sign assigned with channeling autumn. The trees sacrifice their glorious green coat, they shed and stand naked, during the astrological sign that rules intimacy and sexuality. Like a furry dog after a bath, they look somewhat miserable, thin, and small. They humble themselves and in their humility continue to live. Sleeping, perchance dreaming. In Kabbalah we are told that sleep is 1/60 of death and dream is 1/60 of prophesy. No wonder the sign after Scorpio, Sagittarius, is the sign of prophesy. One thing one can foretell with 100% accuracy – we all shall die. Death is democratic, all loving and all encompassing. Trees pretend to die so they can reincarnate in spring.

The Day of the Dead, All Hallow’s Eve, 31st of October, celebrated at the peak of exfoliation, always falling during the zodiac sign of Scorpio. Depicted in the Tarot by the card “Death,” Scorpio is the archetype symbolizing regeneration. Yes, Scorpio is deadly but as long as it also rules sexuality, it insures the resurrection of the soul. Scorpio kills, Scorpio is sexy, Scorpio heals. It inters and impregnates.

How Death and Life Gave Birth to Astrology:

Let us now go back in time and visit our hominid ancestors who according to the savanna hypothesis, about six million years ago, during devastating geological changes in East Africa’s landscape, were propelled into evolving bipedalism.

Earth shakes, climate changes, vegetation alters, no more trees to dwell and climb on but open grasslands and savannas, a habitat of hungry feline and other predators craving for some tasty human meat. Those of our hominid ancestors who practiced the earliest form of “yoga” and could stand on their hinder legs, could see further and escape predators’ attacks. They passed this ability to their offspring (mommy and me classes and all) and soon it was fashionable to stand on two. Another thing happened when the canopy of the trees were replaced with the open starry sky. Early humans could see the constellation, the moon and stars. Their eyes opened to a whole universe of magic. Walking on two enabled them to see the heavens easier, make their brain inflate with wonder. However, these homo-erectus started getting ahead of themselves and developed a bigger brain. Sounds like a good thing, but not if you are a female who needs to give birth to little heady monsters. With the adoption of bipedalism, women’s pelvis shifted, and with big headed babies trying to crown through a terribly narrow canal, giving birth became the killer of early human females. Death, once again dances with life…

Evolution slapped herself in the face and made the growing-brain-babies come out not fully baked, creating dependency on the mother. In addition, the mother needs more time to recover and to do so, she needs the father of the child to feel an emotional bond to the helpless infant so he can stick around and help with the cave chores. Death’s interaction with life, birthed the family.

Now, a big issue, many of us still have to deal with today: how does the woman keep the invested in home life? Sure, love is important and the baby is kind of cute, but as you know, men are programmed to procreate and spread their genetic information. Women learned very fast that good sex keeps the guy around. This leads us to the sex-for-meat theory.

Human female menstruate more blood proportionally to their body weight than any other mammal, therefore, to restore iron, they need meat. Iron in the ancient alchemy texts is assigned to Mars, who is the traditional ruler of the zodiac sign Scorpio – sex.

Cavewoman:
You’ll get sexy times if you fetch me some meat.
Caveman:
OK

But it is a tough bargain as sex is very dangerous for women, even before sexual transmitted diseases. La petit mort, the little death, an euphemism for sexual orgasm. The French remember from the time of the cavemen, Sex is deadly. To an early Hominid female, sex can lead to pregnancy that most likely will result in her death.

Here is a possibility, and bear with me. Imagine a highly intelligent and intuitive woman, equipped with an innate empirical thinking. She somehow managed to discover the connection between sex and conception. She also, most likely, discovered the connection between her menstruation cycles and the phases of the moon. In doing so, she could trace the days (and nights) when it is safe to have sex for meat without risking a pregnancy and birthing that could lead to her death. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the birth of Astrology. As above so below: the heavenly cycles correlating to life on earth. A woman realized that by tracing the phases of the moon and correlating them to her ovulation. And with Astrology, her twin younger brother, science, came to light. Like Artemis and Apollo, twin-flames of light. Astrology and science were born out of necessity. Controlling the environment using measurements, trial and error, as well as communicating the results to fellow humans. Our intellectual Eve used her intuition and observations to save our specie from an inevitable extinction. She realized the connection between life and death and managed to find a way to harmonize them using the cycles of moon. Long live the queen!

So now we know why Scorpio, the sign of sexuality is also the sign of death. However, it is also the sign of resurrection and therefore teaches us that death is not the end. The marriage of life and death is called reincarnation.

The Transmigration of the Souls

Islam’s Sufis, Jewish Kabbalists, Native Americans, Ancient Greeks, Shamans, Alevis, Celtic Druids, Igbo of Africa, Taoists, Jains, Buddhists, Hindus, Druze all believe that death and life are inseparable and that the death of death is rebirth. Just like our Eve, they also have observed, recorded, experimented and investigated Metempsychosis, reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul. They have individually, without aid of diffusion, came to the same conclusion. Death is not the end, it’s just the beginning of another life. To find more about reincarnation research, read this blog I wrote

You are probably using your phone or computer to read these words. Just as God/dess created us in her or his own image, so did we created these devices in our own image. Feminine, masculine, yin, yang, zero, one, death and life. When we upgrade our computer or add a new program, we must reboot it in order for the software to work. The computer must pretend to die, the screen turns all dark, but when it is born again, it is faster and better.

Last Words:

During the next few weeks, as we travel through the magical seas of Scorpio and especially around Halloween, the membrane separating this lifetime and others are thin. Dreams, memories, people you might have known in former lives, and even skills from past lifetimes will come knocking on your consciousness door. All they ask as a treat is that you recognize them, maybe pay some attention, perhaps a nod. They are not here to frighten, spook or threaten you. They come to remind you of what you already know:

Death has always danced with life, as the end did with the beginning…

Happy Resurrection,

Peace,
Gahl

PS:
Below is what Rumi had to say about why you should not fear death:

I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e’er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist!

–Jalal ed-Din Rumi (1207-1273) Translated by A.J. Arberry

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