The Art of Motherhood
Transferring Devotion
I have been an artist and creative for most of my life, and dedicated my adult life and career to fine art, sketches, and paintings guided by spirit—ethereal abstracts, mystic roses, angels, and delicate crystal pigmented wings—and it has filled my life with inspiration, purpose, and deeper connection to people, the heart of humanity, and a sacred, holy connection with my own presence.
Before having my son, Gabriel, I had this idea about how I was going to hold both—being an artist and a mother—and how they were going to inform each other. I had this aspirational kind of vision of how it would look. I even kept the wall open between my studio and Gabe’s room separated by double doors because I thought, “oh, I’ll just keep those doors open and everything’s just going to flow between the two.” And that worked for the first nine or 10 months, but once we entered the mobility of early childhood, I found that I was going through an unexpected and challenging transition.
Motherhood wipes the slate clean, and I am attuning to something new, something totally alive and fresh. I’m waking up to something that feels even more real—this ultimate creation—my son, myself, my partnership, and the soul of our family.
It felt like an initiation of transferring my artistic, creative devotion to my art—and the divine inspiration and attunement in my work—into the space of motherhood. It took me some time and space to fully surrender to it. I really fought it because it was unfamiliar, and I thought I was losing my identity and the way I was contributing value to the world, beyond my family.
Do all mothers experience this? It seemed like such a foreign thing, because of the way our culture has motherhood set up now. Everyone’s so in their own silos of their family life and we’re not in a village, in the physical sense anymore. I realized we’re actually incredibly isolated. I’ve recently learned about the concept of matrescence. It’s when you become a mother and what you go through—the actual transformation that happens of becoming a mother: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, biological, the whole thing. Our culture just doesn’t talk about that. We talk about the baby shower, and baby names, and decorating the baby’s room. We ask about breastfeeding and car seats and babywearing. We talk about all of that, but we’re not talking about how motherhood radically changes you. And we don’t ask or plan for how we need to be held through that. We don’t even acknowledge it.
My journey as a mother has helped me to appreciate our experiences as a sisterhood. As lineages of women, we are experiencing a sacred rite of passage that is actually quite universal—and we don’t need to be afraid. When we share our stories, it normalizes the diversity of experiences, while also being deeply unifying. As you step into motherhood, you can’t know what your story is going to be, but you can trust it’s going to be different and new. However your path unfolds, you can never be fully prepared for it, but as we share with and hold each other, we remember we’re not alone in it. It’s going to be this intense experience in every way. Every way. Including the beauty and the joy, the magic and the wonder.
Return to Innocence
As I’ve shifted out of my studio and into my life as a mother—I’ve found I’m starting to live out the trajectory that my soul planted in being here. I feel myself returning to my true nature. The more I tune into what’s here now, I’m naturally discovering more of who I am. I’m learning how to listen and respond to what’s real and true for me.
For most of my life, I have been serving this idea that I had about myself and the ways I was called to create, all which have been very beautiful, filled with spirit and in service to raising the frequency of love and beauty in the world.
But motherhood wipes the slate clean, and I am attuning to something new, something totally alive and fresh. I’m waking up to something that feels even more real—this ultimate creation—my son, myself, my partnership, and the soul of our family.
When I look at my son, I see this ancient, totally brand new, pristine, perfect light. When I tune in to the question, “What does it mean to steward this light, this child?” I realize he’s reflecting back to me like a mirror. He’s a perfect mirror of my own inner light that I have to tend to in order for him to shine.
He’s a reflection of how I relate to my own light, how I relate to my own perfect innocence—my innate self. I recognize his pure, innocent, unadulterated presence— there’s no thinking, it’s not from the mind; it’s not from the feeling—it’s pure presence that arises spontaneously. I recognize it as something I’d previously touched and been inspired by in my artwork, and now I’m seeing it alive in him, and in myself. It feels like my soul, ancient and brand new at the same time. I see how it’s growing and strengthening this divine memory within our family. New visions are arising and old patterns of living are falling away.
Like a ripe fruit; is what I want ready to be harvested? If I touch it, will it fall off the vine and right into my hand? Is it wanting to be taken in and savored? Or do I have to go and get scissors and cut this— forcing a separation…
It’s so true, what they say, that when you raise your children, you’re raising yourself. And we’re starting to become conscious of our part of this process of becoming who we can be. We can accept and embrace our own spirit and our own innocence, as parents, or not.
It wasn’t always easy to be present to this full awareness earlier on in motherhood because everything was so taxing. I don’t think I’d ever felt that physically drained in my life. Despite feeling disoriented and isolated at times, and having some unique challenges in my postpartum experience, the quiet inner voice of higher awareness was there.
I’d be breastfeeding him and have moments where I was just sort of floating in this dream of, “oh my gosh, this is incredible.” Wisdom would come pouring through me about life and myself and mothering and creativity and the sacred responsibility of it all. I realized how this rite of passage is, for me, a necessary step in becoming a more mature soul. It’s gifted me an embodied wisdom that I can actually live and share.
The Gift of Power, the Power of Choice
So today, everything is lived moment by moment, really and truly. I navigate by tuning into my body. Motherhood has restructured me and I’m learning about my vessel—how it speaks to me and how it informs me about what’s going on in the aura of my home and what’s energetically on the table for me and my family.
It’s become this dance of noticing where there’s a sense of ease and ripeness. Like a ripe fruit; is what I want ready to be harvested? If I touch it, will it fall off the vine and right into my hand? Is it wanting to be taken in and savored? Or do I have to go and get scissors and cut this—forcing a separation—just because I want it and there’s a pressure to, even though it’s not quite ready yet?
This has grown me to become more attuned to the ripeness of the things in my field and paying attention to the seeds that we’ve planted and are nurturing. It has become a dance of my own consciousness with the natural timing, order, and space of everything. So I’ve become very sensitive around: What are my family’s needs in this moment? What are the seeds that we’ve planted? And where are we in this process of growth and harvest right now? Being in my garden has taught me so much about the natural rhythms and cycles of life.
I recognize it as something I’d previously touched and been inspired by in my artwork, and now I’m seeing it alive in him, and in myself. It feels like my soul, ancient and brand new at the same time.
If my spouse is in a more intense season, which he has been in for several months now, it’s not my time to fly. I can hold down and ground our energy and be present to really nurturing the nervous system and needs of our family. This way we can all go through this experience together with as much love and grace as possible.
When I launched the print shop on my website last year, it worked because my husband was in a very consistent rhythm with work and was able to spend time at home with Gabe. We had both grandmas supporting with childcare as well. So it was in right timing and order for me to say “yes” and take that space to commit to this vision that was calling me forward. I’ve learned that when it’s ripe, the resources will naturally align and the energetics will be right for me to say, “yes.” If not, I’m likely to feel and create depletion everywhere.
In every moment, I have a choice. It’s part of the devotional path—honoring and recognizing the timing and accepting and trusting that the time will come if it’s meant to. The space will open up and order will align. The more I choose to flow with life and wait for readiness, the more joyful and vibrant life becomes.
There are certain things in my being, in my heart space and in my soul that I know are for me to do. It’s been so humbling to have the awareness that I can’t just follow that urge I have; the want is not enough. I know now that if I don’t have the timing, space, and order—the setup—to do that thing, then it’s going to roll back on me. I’ll only have a partial experience where I couldn’t fully birth it through. For me, I know how that impacts my own self-concept; it’s as if I set myself up to disappoint my own inner innocent creator with this sort of adulterated idea about having to complete this thing in order to have a certain experience of myself.
In this season of my life, I don’t have the gift of freedom. The gift I’ve been given is power. I have the power to choose where I’m directing my life and what I’m amplifying with my creative energy, the power of my love. I have the power to attune to the timing, space, and order of our reality—to allow our family’s unfoldment in ways that are most aligned for us.
Right now I don’t really have a definitive idea about how I’m moving forward as an artist, because I don’t think I’ll ever be going back to the way that I was creating my art before having Gabe. This process of matrescence has been so transformative of me as a person and a soul that I feel like whatever’s on the horizon for me is going to be born out of simply enjoying more of my wholeness. I’m reclaiming more of myself through letting go of the old self-concept and being present to what was in front of me, which is guided by this beautiful light that is my son. I didn’t know what I was birthing myself into. There was nothing to hold onto except the love that I am and the love of this being, this child, and the love that created him; nothing to hold onto but the present moment. We’re not used to living like that: in the trust and innocence, one with life as it unfolds. It feels shaky until you realize you’re on holy ground.
Sometimes the life and business and identities we’ve built have to fall apart so they can be re-created to meet us where we’re going. It feels like we’re breaking, like who we are is slipping through the cracks, like it’s all sand falling through our fingers. I look at my creativity with my work and my studio—and what was once full of activity and inspiration is just an empty room. It’s like an empty church. No one’s going there. No one’s praying. Nobody’s singing. Nobody’s getting married. Nothing’s happening. Sometimes I wonder, “What did I do?”
And as I write this, the answer comes.
We are mothers. We’ve become the living prayer. We’re the walking, living prayer. We’re the walking, living ceremony. We’re the walking, living celebration.
I’m not actively painting the angels and mystic roses whose presence fills an entire room. Yet, in choosing to attune myself to the present, my child, and what’s right here, right now, I am not only touching the holiness of everything, I am co-creating it.
