Ix Chel Graces My Garden

Her glistening white bottom shakes and droplets of water cling to her skin. My daughter is totally in the moment – light dancing, water sprinkling, bum dancing naked in the garden mist. Ix Chel - goddess of the rainbow, is right here in my backyard, sprinkling angel prisms all over my grass.

I was first introduced to Ix Chel, the Maya Goddess of Fertility who also goes by the name "Rainbow Goddess", over five years ago on my first trip to Belize. Since then we are gradually becoming better acquainted as I dive deeper and deeper into my training in the Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Massage™. This massage owes much to the work of Maya Shaman Don Elijio Panti, and to his apprentice Rosita Arvigo, who now carries on his tradition. Don Elijio conversed regularly with the nine Maya spirits (as does Rosita) and incorporated their guidance into his healing techniques. When I entered this professional massage training I was not sure I could relate to this aspect of the work. I spent my entire week of training in Belize last year contemplating the role of faith in our practice and in the healing process. As a long-time agnostic I just wasn’t sure it was in me to use prayer or intention in my role of helping women with their reproductive health issues. As if in answer to my contemplation, the winds whipped closed Rosita’s window shutters during the final hour of our week’s training near San Ignacio last February and moments later an incredible rainbow arched across the sky above Rosita’s home. I knew in my heart this was more than mere coincidence.

I began writing this piece during a class last week with Chris Fraser, our inspiring writing coach who prompted us to finish the sentence "I don't want to forget this...". I couldn't help but smile when I came home that night to find a picture on our breakfast bar that Mattea had drawn during Goddess Girl camp that day. At the bottom a grown-up had clearly written "Rainbow Goddess" under her dictation. Mattea smiled at me. "It's for you Mama."

It seems everywhere I look these days, rainbows are blessing my path.

What does pride mean to you?

As we approach pride week, it is a great time to reflect on what pride means to you. We invite you to write a comment sharing your own feelings about pride, or paste a link to your own blog post. We are also collecting photographs of people holding up signs with responses to the question "What does pride mean to you?" and will be compiling them into a little video creation. E-mail us your photographs at info@redtentsisters.com.




This is what pride means to me. Sitting around my dining table three weeks ago, with the smell of bacon still in the air, and the remnants of an extravagant Mother’s day brunch all around me, I gaze across the room. On the couch, one of my dearest friends, Anya, sits with her wife Tara, and they hold their three-month-old son, Caleb, between them. My daughter, Mattea, bounces on the couch beside them, extolling her love for her new “brother.”

Since Caleb’s birth, Mattea regularly jumps around asking me questions like:

“Why don’t I have two mommies?”

“Two vulvas can’t make a baby, right?”

Or saying things like:

“When I grow up I want to marry a girl too, like Anya.”

“I changed my mind, I think I want to marry a boy.”

I reflect on a long journey which has brought us here to this moment.

I met Anya not long before I entered Occupational Therapy school. I was immediately captivated by her Ukrainian accent, love of literature, her honesty and her humour. We became study pals and were thrilled when we both got into O.T. school at the same time. Anya’s own story seemed like an epic work of fiction to me – with Anya figuring as the heroine who defies all odds or stereotypes. Having taught herself English as a teen immigrant to Canada, fought to leave an abusive marriage, struggled to get accepted to University, financially put herself through school, and then got accepted to Occupational Therapy school on her first try, she mesmerized me with her tenacity.

In my final year of O.T. school, I arranged a placement in Uganda, East Africa. My soon to become fiancé, Jacob, came with me for the first few weeks. By then the three of us were close friends. One day Jacob went into town to one of three small internet cafes and returned to tell me that Anya had sent us an e-mail, coming out, and apologizing to us if this was shocking. In the same breath she wrote that we were in fact the first people she had told. We were honoured.

When we returned from Uganda, Anya was undergoing the painful process of moving out from the apartment she shared with her long-time boyfriend, getting settled in a new place, and beginning to enter the lesbian dating scene. Somehow this transitional phase in Anya’s life brought us all closer and we enjoyed weekly dinners at our new condo together at least once a week, evenings filled with decadent meals (cooked by Jacob), lots of wine on our small patio overlooking the St. Lawrence Market and city skyline, comedic television watching, and perhaps most importantly, trips to the McDonald’s downstairs for hot fudge sundaes with extra fudge.

Within a year, Anya had met someone she had hit it off with. When we had this woman - Tara, over for the first time to join one of our weekly dinners, it was not only obvious how much Tara adored Anya, but what a perfect addition she made to our dinner parties. Tara and Jacob talked tirelessly about politics and cooking, while Anya and I rolled our eyes and went off on our own to talk about our O.T. work, our families, books, and knitting. Tara and Jacob were alike in their effusive expressions of love and devotion to us. Anya and I were alike in the comfort we took from being doted on and loved unconditionally.

Our bonds to each other have served us through many major milestones in the past five years – two weddings, two pregnancies, two births, and one parental death. Anya and Tara are Godparents to Mattea. My mother and I were holding Anya’s legs as she pushed Caleb into the world this past February. The image of Tara’s face, choked with emotion and joy, as Caleb slipped out and was placed on Anya’s chest for the first time is one I will never forget.

As I glance across the room at this new family unit celebrating mother’s day for the first time, a wave of deep gratitude comes over me that we live in a city and country that has allowed these three people, whom I adore, to choose each other and to love each other, as they are meant to. I then look at my daughter, who, in great part due to Anya and Tara, has fluid ideas about love, family, sexual orientation, and choice. And my heart swells with pride. When it comes to LGBTQ rights, we may have a long way to go, but I am infinitely grateful for how far we have already come.

Write it again...

Last night we held a parenting meetup at our store and a group of seven women gathered to discuss the book “How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk.” After a lively and thought-provoking discussion I headed home from a long day at the store expecting to have a quick dinner and go straight to bed. Instead, I found that my three year old daughter was still awake; having been home sick all day and having had a disrupted sleep routine she was full of energy and wanting to spend time with me. I decided to put into practice some of the techniques the book recommends and which we had been discussing all evening. Four scenarios ensued, each more interesting than the last:

As I was preparing my dinner, my daughter decided she wanted a juice box. She went to the fridge and pulled out a three-pack. She asked me to break one off but not to peel off the plastic – she wanted to do that part herself. In the interests of preserving the plastic for her, I cut the plastic down the line between two of the boxes. After she had drunk one of the boxes, she reported she wanted another, and that she wanted to “cut” the plastic herself. I was reluctant. My daughter doesn’t have the best track-record when it comes to using sharp tools in a way that I consider safe. Knowing this would likely be much more challenging than cutting paper, I prepared to say “No.” Instead, I said “Yes, if you can find a way to cut it so that the scissors are pointed away from you so that I won’t be nervous.” “Okay she said.” She tried a couple of angles, and with my light guidance, eventually managed to safely cut away the plastic without hurting herself (or me!). As per the book’s suggestions about validating your child’s efforts, especially when they demonstrate something contrary to our role expectations of them (e.g., my daughter is careless with scissors), I quickly followed with “Wow. You really know how to use scissors safely.” “Yeah” she said. At the time she didn’t seem that affected my words, but a few moments later I knew it had actually made quite an impact because of what she chose to do next...

She showed me a picture of me as a child that she had found during the day. She told me she wanted to cut it. Again, remembering from the book to try to give positive options of what your child can do, I said “No, that picture is special to me, but you can cut up this picture” and I proceeded to point at one she had found that didn’t have any people in it. “Okay” she said and grabbed her scissors and the picture and started heading out of the room. “Where are you going?” I inquired. She looked at me and said matter-of-factly “You only like me to cut things up in the library, right?” I was bowled over. A couple of months ago my daughter had become quite obsessed with cutting up every piece of paper she could find and leaving the little bits all over the house. We had had endless arguments about cleaning up after herself and I had eventually resorted to asking her to keep her cutting to the library so I could at least contain the mess to one room of the house. I had never seen any evidence that she had heeded my request much. “Yes, that’s true. Thank you. That is very respectful of you.” Moments later she called me into the library to help her finish cutting the picture. Again, using a technique from “How to talk...” I commented “Oh. I see there are lots of little bits of paper on the floor.” She looked blankly at me. I followed with “Could you pick them up please and put them in the garbage?” (Probably not the best approach according to the book). She hesitated, then said “No but it makes you happy when I cut paper in this room, right?” I responded with “Yes that’s true. But it makes me even more happy when we clean up after ourselves and put the paper in the garbage.” She hesitated, then asked “Okay. Will you help me?” “Sure.” I replied. We picked up the pieces together, at which point I said “Boy, you really know how to clean up after yourself.” “Yeah, I do!” she responded. She proceeded to take the bits of paper to the kitchen garbage. She decided it was too full so asked me to take out the bag, and then... she filled it herself with a new garbage bag! I was quite pleased with us both.

My husband was heading out the door to quickly walk the dog before we all went to bed. My daughter reported she wanted to go on a “family walk.” It was late and I was tired, but knowing that it was unlikely she would fall asleep before my husband got home, and that I hadn’t had any fresh air that day, I replied “Okay. If you get some pants on we can go for a quick walk.” She headed upstairs with my husband to get dressed while I finished my just-prepared pasta dinner. I quickly heard an argument brewing upstairs... “No! I want to wear shorts!” said my daughter in a raised voice. “Mattea, it is too cold for shorts” I heard my husband saying in a patient but slightly exasperated voice. “No!” said Mattea again. She grabbed the shorts and came to find me. “Mommy, I want to wear shorts for our walk.” I thought back to the book again, and how they suggest handling situations where your child acts according to a pattern of behaviour you find unacceptable (I can’t tell you how many of the battles in her life have been related to wearing inappropriately cool clothing). I responded with “Mattea, those shorts are not warm enough for the weather tonight. If you want to go for a family walk, I expect you to find something more appropriate.” (Firm. Stated my expectations. Gave her some wiggle-room to choose something more appropriate.) I wasn’t sure how this one was going to go over. But low and behold, she quickly retorted with “Okay. How about if I wear my shorts and my pants?” “Okay” I replied. She ran off and quickly came back fully dressed.Nothing could have prepared me for what came next though.

When we returned from our walk she started to whimper and whine saying “I don’t want you to ever go to work.” At first I couldn’t hear her through the whimpering and burying her head in my duvet, but eventually I understood what she was upset about. This was a common refrain. I said, “I know, you really don’t like it when I leave.” She started repeating her words with more intensity – “Don’t ever leave!” she said with a grimaced face and her hands locked around my wrist, fingers tense and curled. Wanting to try a new technique, rather than my usual “I know it makes you sad and angry when I go to work” I offered up the drawing solution... “Would you like to draw me how you feel when I go to work?” She immediately stood up straight and said “Yeah!” in an enthusiastic voice. I quickly grabbed a pencil and paper and handed it to her. She looked at me and said “I don’t know how... can you do it?” I took the pencil and made some stabbing motions with the pencil on the paper, thinking this might give her the idea, then passed it back to her. She shook her head “No. I want to write the words, but I don’t know how. Can you write them for me?” “Okay” I replied. I took the pencil and wrote down as she dictated. Here is what she said: “Angry. Sad. Frustrated. Angry. Lonely. Angry. Miss you. Don’t want you to leave.” I had provided some of the suggestions when she couldn’t seem to think of the word. I read her back the list. I was feeling pretty proud of myself when she started her refrain again “I don’t want you to leave. Don’t ever leave!” over and over. It was getting very intense and I was at a loss as to what to do. Her nails were digging into my skin. I felt I was missing something. I tried to think of what other emotion she might have that I/we were missing. Finally, remembering a conversation we had had the previous week in which she had appeared to grasp the concept of death and was quite frightened, I looked her in the eyes and said, “Mattea, are you afraid that if I leave I might never come back?” She immediately burst into tears and wailed “I’m SCAAAAARRRRRRREEEEEEDDD.” She crawled into my lap and sobbed and hugged me “I’m scared you’re going to leave and never come back. And I’m scared that a monster is going to eat me. I need a night-light on when I sleep.” After a good cry, she seemed much better and headed for bed. I suggested we add “Scared” to her list of feelings. She agreed. I wrote it down (she showed me exactly where to write it). Then she asked if we could tape it up on her wall... and she wanted to read the list to Daddy. After doing that, I decided to try one more new strategy. “Do you want to make a list of all of the things you can do when you’re scared?” I asked. She agreed. I started the list with “Call Mommy when you are scared.” She added “Don’t go and never come back” (translation – always come back). I suggested she could ask whomever she was with when I would be home. She said “No, but how are they going to know when you will come back?” I said usually grown-ups know when I will be back. I asked her if it would be helpful if I told her when I would be back. She said yes and we added that to the list. Then she asked me to write “Don’t go and never come back.” I said, “Yes, we have that on the list right here,” I pointed. In a quiet but clear voice that had now lost its urgency, she looked at me with her swollen blue eyes and said, “write it again.”

I look forward to hearing stories from other parents, particularly those in our group last night, about experiences with applying the concepts from "How to talk...".