Being a Mother to an Angel

The Empress - Mothering an Angel

Today, I am thinking about my hopes and fears concerning motherhood... My strengths and weaknesses, blessings and shortcomings... I know I am not perfect but I know that my children know that they are loved and Willow, my angel baby, knows that too.

She didn't come to teach me any material lessons about motherhood - my other three children provide plenty of those. She came to show me the depths of a mother's heart and how motherly love transcends time and space completely.

The Tarot Empress (Venus) is my Soul Card. She is all about nature, nurturing, creativity, procreation, beauty, lust, fertility, love and giving birth. What would the Empress do if she lost one of her children? There would be tornados, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, forest fires, droughts, torrential rains, hail storms and earth quakes. She is Nature and loves her children ferociously, willingly sacrificing to protect her own. When the Empress is bereft, the World knows.

In the Mythic Tarot, the Empress archetype is symbolized by Demeter, the mother of Persephone. When Demeter lost her daughter to Hades she made the earth completely barren. It took a lot of negotiating by the gods to get her to bring life back to the planet.

My own mother left me when I was three years old. From then on, I was raised by an intelligent (bordering on genius) but mentally unstable and abusive father. I lived in fear of him for many years, with no one to turn to for protection. Therefore, my priority as a parent was always to make my children feel safe. It hurts that I wasn't able to protect Willow. I would have given anything to give her the breath of life and to rock her safely to sleep in my arms. Anything - and I mean that.

I am not meant to know why things happened the way they did. If they happened for a reason then I will make that reason love - anything else is completely unacceptable. You do not lay grief of this magnitude on a person to teach them 'a lesson.' 

In spite of coming from a dysfunctional background, I embrace life. This is my greatest strength, as expressed by the Empress archetype. Now I am learning to embrace life beyond the grave and I am richer for it. I will accept the pain for the simple reason that it adds depth to my love. I accept, embrace and move forward with love. I allow the barren earth to become verdant and bloom again... and next year there will be new fruit. Death is only the beginning....

I'm pregnant!

After realising that I was 2-3 days late, and knowing full well that I'm never late unless I'm pregnant, I went and bought a pregnancy test kit. The disbelief lingers. It wasn't planned... but then I never really did plan any of my other three pregnancies (and secretly wonder how it is possible to plan one). Please understand that not planned never equals 'not wanted' in my book. I told the Goddess a while back to only allow for a fourth pregnancy if and when the time was right. There is a soul on the other side of the veil that has chosen me and my partner... and I feel so graced.

It's now about 7.50 PM, and I have known about the pregnancy since about 1.30 PM. I'm sat here typing to allow it all to sink in. I'm typing so that I can give thanks properly for the grace of going through the miracle of pregnancy and childbirth one last time (or so it feels). I'm typing to be in the present moment with the immense joy that I feel when I allow for it.

It's difficult to know who to tell at this stage. Part of me wants to shout it from the rooftops, and another part of me wants to make sure that everything will be alright first - as if there is something I could do or as if more time would somehow make it alright... I'm going to make an executive decision and decide that it is alright to go with the flow on that... My intuition will guide me about who will be positive about it. The last thing I want or need right now is other peoples' negativity. I can feel a cull coming on.

I have told my sister already. I wanted her to be the first to know besides my partner since she psychically predicted this pregnancy the other week. Needless to say, she wasn't surprised :)

Some of them might think that I'm too old for another child, but not many eyebrows are raised over pregnancy at 40 these days. Personally, I'm not worried about statistics. I'm grateful for being more experienced and a lot less anxious these days. I know I can do this...

I chose to illustrate today's post with the Empress card - my Soul Card. I'm a tarot reader and healer, so you can expect a spiritual twist to the posts over the next 9 or so months.