I am compelled to write as this last month of the year comes to a close. The moon is waxing, my heart is full, hence the desire to express gratitude.
First, I wish to thank Heather Sullivan and her iniation of "Build an Altar, Altar your Life". In September hundreds of people started a year long project that is called, "13 moons, 13 altars."
Each new moon Heather sends out a theme and we embark upon the journey of building an altar dedicated to the theme. The first theme was building an altar representing "My Biggest Fear". October's theme was "Forgiveness" and November's theme, "Gratitude".
I have a long list of things for which I am grateful, however when I plunged deep into the recess of my heart what emerged were the faces of the multitudes of beautiful women who have found their way into my prenatal yoga classes. I feel an enormous amount of gratitude to each of you who have come with your growing round bellies to share with me your stories of womanhood and pregnancy. It is an honor to sit with you, to breathe with you and to practice yoga with you during this extraordinary time of life.
When I began teaching prenatal yoga in 1999 I had no idea the impact that it would have on the community. I have encouraged you to reach out to each other during your pregnancy and many of you did just that. Numerous mother's groups have blossomed as seeds of connections were made and nutured during class time and beyond. The first group formed in 2000 and still share camping trips, Holidays and other gatherings as the children are coming into their 7th year.
I also had no idea how my life would be so completely enriched by the lives of each of you. It seems that pregnancy brings out the very essence of who we are as women and I am blessed to bear witness to this each time we gather in the prenatal yoga class. Thank you for sharing the truth of your being. It brings life to us all.
I have not seen the theme for this current moon and what it is to express. However it feels like after gratitude comes Hope. So it is with a sense of Hope that We Women will continue to expand into the fullness of our most gracious outrageous bold divine Being!!

Last evening in the prenatal yoga class, the topic of sleeping, or should I say, sleeplessness during pregnancy came up, as it does, often. Many women experience sleep challenges during pregnancy...and the solutions are as varied as the reasons are that contribute to the problem.
Some find help by simply drinking a glass of warm milk and retiring to the sofa with a book relaxes them enough to return to bed to fall asleep. Others find that an herbal tea with Camomille, Passion Flower and Skullcap to be a useful remedy. (Check with Susan Weeds Herbal Guide For Pregnancy for proper use or consult with a qualified herbalist).
If you are finding that your bed is not comfortable you may need to come up with an alternative mattress or place to sleep in your home. Sometime using pillows as props can assist you into comfort and thus falling back to sleep.
Sometimes the sleeplessness is related to anxiety related to becoming a mother and/or the upcoming birth experience itself. If this is true for a woman there are many approaches to release the anxious feelings. Sometimes simply vocalizing the fears to a person who listens well can be enough to move you through the feelings that are disrupting sleep. Other women find journalling or some form of art to be helpful.
I found that during my pregnancy that accepting the wakefulness and moving with it to be a way to approach my fears of "not getting enough sleep". I practiced yoga asanas that were calming in nature as well as breathing meditations. These would often be enough to relax me back to sleep.
Pregnancy is a time of great demand and change in our body and we have been designed, if you will, to bear children. I encourage all the women who come through my yoga classes to seek their own inner wisdom and guides as well as call upon the support of those they love and trust.

Eleven days ago I gathered at an event to mark the winter solstice. It was an evening of music and dance and song. It felt good to be with an eclectic group of folk to note this time of darkness giving way to light. Many years ago an internal prompting cued me to do the same. I was living with the parents of a former boyfriend. On the third floor of the house was a bathroom with a huge clawfoot tub. It was a very cold damp evening in the midwest, I filled the bathtub, lit many candles, put on a the music of George Winston and commenced to soaking my weary being. As I soaked, my soul drifted with the sound of the piano and this thought emerged, "let the new day begin." The Eternal Wise One was saying it was time to let go of what maybe holding me back and allow something new to come forth. These thoughts reign true now and always.
I feel the weather these past few days have reflected this dark time of year. The heavens opened up and dumped enormous amounts of water in the North/East Bay. Flooding, landslides, closed freeways, power outages...all a reminder now is the time of year to move slowly and perhaps find a warm cozy place to enjoy a cup of tea, to read a book, or simply take a bath and drift on the sounds of music. And just as the energy of the plants go deep into the roots and the animals of the forest hunker down for a spell, so too may we humans take time to look inwards and reflect on this year past.... remembering that the light is returning! ~Blessed Be.

This past week in my prenatal class one of the mamas to be said that she watched a movie the previous night with a birth scene and she "had to cover my eyes." She said that, "I would rather watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre." To which I replied, "hmm this is very telling", what is it that you fear most about giving birth?" And she replied, "I'm afraid of the pain."
I applaud her for honesty and she (let's call her Zoe) is not alone in her feelings of fear with respect to pain and its association with childbirth. I am curious about pain in general and especially curious about its association with the birth of a child. I wonder why some women experience "pain" when they are "laboring" to birth a child, while others clearly do not. I have witnessed several dozen women who walked during their birthing process up until the time the baby was nearly crowning, all the while moving in some fashion or walking only slowing or pausing to breathe through an "intense contraction." I wonder about this and how a woman who has never birthed a child from her womb presumes she will experience "pain." How can she already "know this."
Science explains that we experience pain because of the "pain-receptors" that we have in our body. So I am curious about the half of dozen aquaintances that I know who have walked across hot smoldering coals and have reported that they did not experience 'pain', and reveal that they do not have burns on the soles of their feet. How is this so when 72.000 nerve endings exist on the sole of each foot? I am also curious about the time I was camping and had a hornet land on my wrist and said outloud, "this will not hurt me" and I watched as the hornet lowered it's stinger into my arm and watched the pulsing of it's body releasing stinging "stuff" into my arm. The hornet flew away and I had felt nothing more than a pin prick that left a tiny red whelt. How does one explain this sort of phenomenon?
I invite all women who are pregnant or ever been pregnant or planning to become so to explore what she holds to be "true" about birthing a child, but even more may we question deeply how and what we believe effects our experience when birthing our babies.
And lastly I leave you with this: Does anyone know how many "pain" receptors line the wall of the womb?
Blessings, Cynthea

I think that it is good that Valentine's Day is celebrated in February. It seems a good time to fall in love with yourself. I am speaking to all of us, and especially to women. Many of us give little pieces of ourselves out each day, be it as mothers, partners, as a part of our livelilhood, or to our friends and community. So for this month of Love, I am taking a moment each day to give myself an appreciation. I started by receiving a massage and lighting a fragarant candle of Tuberose. Each day I am committed to returning the gift of love to my Innermost Being. Today as the sun shines down to Earth, I will take a walk and bask in it warmth. ~Blessed Be!

When my partner read the heading on the about me page of my website, ("if you are breathing the opportunity to heal is yours") he laughed!. Well of course, he said, "that's a no brainer". Perhaps, it would be better stated, "as long as your alive (hence have breath) you have the choice to realize your wholeness." In the Concise Oxford Dictionary under the word whole you will find this entry 1. In good health, well. Under the word health, the last entry you will find this; [OE haelth,=heilida f. WG *hailitha f. Gmc *hailaz Whole: see -th]. I put this at the heading because the practice and study of yoga along with reflective journalling revealed this to be true. At any point in our life we can choose to ignore the internal promptings of our deeper/true selves, conversely we can choose to listen. I am grateful for whatever "it" is that coaxes me to move towards wholeness.
The past 3 years of my life have in many ways been the most challenging and the most joyful, I miscarried twice and I crossed the threshold into Motherhood. My son turned two this past December. Some would say, ahh, "the terrible twos". I do not know who first coined this cliched phrase, but I am sure they didn't fully comprehend what this stage of childhood development was about. One thing that the yoga practice has taught me is "watch your presumptions". Why, because if I am presumming I am not using all of myself to understand what is happening but I am pulling in some prior notion about what is true and letting that obscure my vision of the moment. Here is an example. Recently we travelled by car to the Lost Coast (3 1/2 hrs north of our home.) Prior to leaving I was frought with angst about the long car ride with a toddler. I decided the best time to travel would be early afternoon thinking he would sleep. Well, 30 minutes into the ride he started to bemoan his assignment to the car seat, I immediately took the position, "sorry, we (your mother and father) have a goal to get to where we are going, you have to deal with this".... I never said this outloud, but children are incredibly intuitive. Sensing this, he continued to protest loudly and boldly his seat assignment, the more he carried on the more I was aware of my clamping down, resisting to pull over to comfort him. This scene went on for the biggest part of the drive. At one point something inside me shifted, I turned sideways in my seat (I was in the front passenger seat, he behind me) and reached out to his out stretched hand which at first he slapped away, and began to comfort him, and empathize with his position. I felt he was not being "a terrible two year old", but in fact was "not feeling heard, feeling a loss of control, feeling rejected". Truthfully, I don't know if any of these feelings are true, but I do know this, I turned my body and my attention (my heart) towards him and began to tell him that I loved him and that I know it is difficult to sit for a long time in the seat (please note we had pulled over and gave him a 20 minute reprieve from the car seat he was content and happy the moment we gave the indication we were stopping to let him get out) and I said that over and over until he felt me, ( I surrendered to the situation of trying to make it better for him) he expressed he was sad, and I continued to tell him that I loved him and that it was OK to fall asleep and rest. He stopped crying he reached out and held my hand and fell asleep.
This scenario gave me the opportunity to remember "there is no separation". (a truth of Hindu, Buddhist and Native American thought). When I turned my inner heart towards my beloved child and expressed to him love, something shifted for all three of us! May this coming year ahead be filled with stories of deaf hearts tuning into the pulse of the Universe that prompts us towards our Wholeness. Blessed Be.

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