Kathleen Botsford

Life as Play

I am always surprised by the spontaneous eruption of pure pleasure  that accompanies a little glue, paper and ink under my finger nails.  Me, a grown woman, tearing and cutting, glueing and stamping, feeling like a child in kindergarten.  Why don't I do it more often?

I had an astrology reading recently.  I don't remember which planet is in conjuction with which house in my chart but the energy that will surround me these last few weeks of summer and into the autumn months is "Playful and Fun".   I can definitely tend to take things a little too seriously.   Even my journal pages "need" to have a message.  How much fun did I have glueing down these odds and ends and adding a stamp or two?  Lots.  Is there a purpose?  Who cares!  It was fun.  Just plain fun.  No deeper intention necessary.

...man is made God's plaything, and that is the best part of him.

Therefore every man and woman should live life accordingly,

and play the noblest games....

What, then, is the right way of living?

Life must be lived as play.....

~Plato, Laws

 

Moon Watching and Star Gazing

Some of my fondest memories of summer evenings revolve around watching the moon and the stars.    While swatting mosquitos and chasing fireflies, my siblings and I would compete to be the first to spot the various constellations scattered across our midwest sky.  As we excitedly searched for the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper and the Milky Way,  I raised my round face towards the heavens with eyes squeezed shut in my own personal and private youthful ritual.  Deliberately and ever so slowly, with breath held tight in my chest,  I would open my eyes to the magnificent summer sky;

Star light, star bright

the first star I see tonight

I wish I may

I wish I might

have the wish I wish tonight.

 

Memories of summers long gone.  Perhaps its time to dust off a few old rituals to help anchor my swiftly changing emotional seas. 

Treasures Await

Graduations, proms and baccalaureates have come and gone.  Memories and photographs are all that remain.  New paths are still unfolding, opening like the pregnant buds on my peony bushes in the back yard. Slowly....in their own time....moving ever forward.  Time stands still for no one.  Children grow and mature whether we are ready or not. 

 

 

Everyone on the face of the Earth

has a treasure that lies waiting for them.

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mothers Day

My mom was beautiful.  She left home before she graduated from high school and joined the Air Force during the Korean Conflict.  My mother was extremely intelligent and highly driven.  My aunts tell me she was a risk taker and had more than a little "devil" in her personality.  She became an Air Traffic Controller in the Air Force long before women were welcomed into that elite club.  She met my father who was also an Air Traffic Controller and they married.  The rest, so they say, is history. 

My mom has been gone for 15 years now.  It was a rare day that we did not talk at least once, sometimes many more.  Although I know such a small part of who she was, mostly the "practically perfect" mom part, I feel her with me every day.  Every day I hear her whisper support and encouragement for the mostly invisible road we all travel together, in all directions of time, binding us deeply and forever in the sisterhood of the Divine Feminine.  Could anything ever be more important than being a Mother?  Thank you Mom.  I know I did not say it often enough and loud enough.  I would not be the mother I am today without you.  I love you and miss you, now and always.

 

Letting Go, Little by Little

I created this collage yesterday.  I was experimenting with ink and water so I threw caution to the wind and added one of my precious antique scraps of paper.  Those of you who do not have this hoarding disorder may not really appreciate how hard it it to let these little tid bits go.   But as I sit and contemplate this piece, I find so many of my lessons peeking through. 

Of course the big and most obvious is letting go.  With relationships, children, a way of life, or the simple quiet of the morning that is now and has been accompanied by hammers and saws for over a month, life is about living in the present and letting go of the resistance to have it look any way other than how it does this very minute.   (That's a very long sentence but I am letting go of my need to re-write it!) 

I think my letting go muscles are getting stronger.  I am getting more and more comfortable with the mystery of not knowing how things will work out.  Just letting them be as they are and staying present in the moment. 

Giving birth and nourishing,

Having without possessing,

acting with no expectations,

leading and not trying to control:

this is the supreme virtue.

                                                       Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching

 

Shifting Moments

It's time for me to muse over  the ephemeral quality of life.   My life is in the pre-cursor of major change.   As life is constantly changing and evolving, with many endings and beginnings, you would think I would be comfortable with this by now.  But this is a big one for me.  Being a mother has taken up my days and nights, my thoughts and prayers, my worries and joys for almost 25 years.  It seems only right that this change should be taken seriously and treated reverently.   As I sit here, trying to clean my office, preparing  for a house load of company this weekend, I found this collage in my drawer.  It fits my feelings and mood as does the a short glimpse of this poem I opened to this morning.

I was born here, and

I belong here, and

I will never leave.

The blue heron's

 

gray smoke will flow over me

for years

and the wind will decide

all directions

 

until I am safely and entirely

something else.

Mary Oliver

New Adventures

My life revolves around my children and family.  While that is as it should be, I know this time of intense togetherness is coming to an end.  And while we will always be a family and hopefully quite close, these moments of childhood will live in our memories, not our daily rounds.  Each of my children will venture out on their own to chase their own dreams and adventures.   They will meet new people and find partners to accompany them on their own life journeys. 

I too will venture out to explore new horizons, new accomplishments.  I don't spend much time thinking about or planning this next phase of life.  I want to stay present for every last moment of this phase, this wonder-filled adventure of mothering three fabulous children, three wonderful young adults. 

New adventures await us all.  New people and places.  New interests and passions.  We will explore and grow stronger and then we will return.  Return to our home.  Return to our center.  Return to each other to share and celebrate our family bond.  We are bonded to each other, now and always.  While miles may come between us, our hearts will always be united in love.  What more can a mother ask for?

Silence Between the Words

May we find each other in the silence between the words.

May we heal the loneliness of our expertise

with the wisdom of our service.

May we honor in ourselves and all others

the deep and simple impulse to live,

to find sacred space and open land.

May we remember that the yearning to be holy

is a part of everyone

and the only hope for the next thousand years.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Our 25th Anniversary

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary.  We are celebrating with our most precious gifts from God, our children, family and friends.   When I met Steve 26 years ago, I knew immediately I wanted to marry him.  Of course I could not forsee the many difficulties we would face in our relationship but I knew he was the one for me.  At that time in my life I did not yet understand the true nature of relationships.  I still thought of Steve as a "white knight on a stead" coming to sweep me off to our cozy castle in the sky.  I now know there is no magical prince to save me from myself and no castle with a mote deep enough to protect me from myself.  I have come to view relationships as a loving gift from our Creator to further help us grow into a whole and healed human being.  Through our trials and tribulations, our own wounds are reflected to us through our beloved and lovingly handed right back into our own hands to heal or not.  It is always our responsibility, this choice to heal and let go or stay stuck in the earthy mud and mire of blame and fault finding.  And as these encounters do not always appear as "love-filled", this task is not for the faint hearted.  The most basic need for approval and appreciation is usually one of the first illusions to come up for scrutiny and one of the most difficult to erradicate.  But the good news is we have many, many opportunites to fail and try again, each and every day.

On this day of celebration I am so very grateful for this man of my dreams.  This man who has pushed every one of my buttons, time and time again, just as I have pushed his.  This man who refuses to let me out of this life with unhealed wounds.   This man who has fathered my children and kept us all warm and fed.  This man who has filled every need we have ever had and many, many of our wildest dreams.  This man who has opened his heart to us when he could not trust it would not be broken, again.  And again.  And then again.  This man who I love with my whole and broken, tattered and healing heart.

Thank you, dear God, thank you.

A Mother's Prayer

Tragedy has struck the Notre Dame family.  With a heavy heart and swollen eyes I am praying for the family of Declan Sullivan.  Declan was a junior at ND.  He lived in one of our nearby villages and went to our rival high school.  He was video taping football practice Wednesday afternoon when the camera tower he was standing on fell over.

My heart breaks for his mother.  My heart breaks for his entire family.  I want to pull my children close and hold on tighter than ever.  I'm thinking my #63 isn't in a cuddling mood.  His sadness will soon be covered over by male bravado.  He has a job to do to, just as Declan did.  We can't protect them.  We can only love them, let them go and pray.  I'm praying and crying my eyes out tonight.  For Declan.  For his parents and family.  For my children.  And last but not least, for myself. 

Dear God, hear the plea of this humble mother.

I beg of You to spare me from the grief and despair

of losing a child.

Please have mercy on the courageous mothers

who are called to walk that treacherous path.

Keep them in Your divine love and grace,

now and forever.  Amen