Parenting in the light

Last night, I awoke for the first time in months it seems. As I got into bed to sleep, I was hit with a realisation so stark and powerful that I sat bolt upright and wrote and wrote and wrote. And then I got my computer out and researched long into the night.


So what was this thought, idea, divine spark that kicked me out of my slumber with such force?


I realised that for a spiritual person I have been parenting my child with almost no spiritual awareness. Not only have I not seen my parenting role as a co-parenting role with the Divine, I have failed to incorporate much of my spiritual knowledge gleaned over years of study and dedication into the act of parenting. Why?


I'm not sure. There are many reasons I could mull over, and many things I could guilt myself about. But this is not what this post is about, and no doubt I have done enough of that guilt-tripping already. But if the point of feeling guilt is to highlight to the self when we are not being authentic with ourselves or others, then surely the best antidote is creating positive change?


The hardest thing for me on my spiritual journey has been integrating my human and divine aspects. I have sustained periods of being either more human or more divine but rarely have I managed to marry them. Habitualising spiritual practice would seem to be the answer and yet I haven't done it.


And then this little person came into my life and I had a whole litany of excuses as to why I couldn't meditate, be still, be calm, write etc etc etc. But what if he is the very key? The thing every parenting book will tell you is that children thrive on routine and healthy boundaries, structure and emotional consistency. And even though I thought this sounded terribly dull before I had my son, in fact it is absolutely 100% the truth of the matter. 


Wait a moment! What if I combine my need and joy of integrating my spiritual practice into my daily life by meeting my son's needs for not only routine but a healthy, balanced parent living her truth through daily domestic-sacred acts? What if I just draw the sacred into the everyday? What if I offer my child a sense of mystery and wonder in everything from taking a bath to watering the pot plants? What if I meet my own need for reverence, peace and contemplation by building lego trucks and making playdoh? What if I give up segregating the divine from the human and live wholistically to be the very best possible parent to my son and to myself? 


Is this the real definition of domestic bliss? Is this what I have been withholding from myself for so long?

Edith O'Mara McMahon says:

In our society, we are not accustomed to the surrender and service required by the human infant. In order to sustain and ethic of parenting that honors the necessity of surrender and service, we will have to surround ourselves with the kind of support and information that will enable us to overcome the limitations….

Serve your child—for in serving your child, in trusting your child, you serve yourself and give yourself an opportunity to be reparented and reloved. The greatest kept secret of the world is the personal transformation inherent in developing and ethic of parenting that is truly in keeping with the nature of the child. Parenting with this type of ethic releases the full potential of the human being, a force greater than anything we have yet to see on this planet.

All of this, in a less articulate way, hit me last night. Sleep could wait. I suddenly felt free from the pain of parenting in a human way alone. There have been times I have been in this space of sacred parenting, gentle parenting, intuitive parenting, conscious parenting, soul parenting, spiritual parenting for certain. 

But I have never integrated through routine and ritual the things I believe to be true and at the very core of who I am. They have been tangential to the business of our lives and we have both suffered for that. 

The image of Sumatran Orang-utan Maimunah and her baby Dewi, born a month ago at Mebourne Zoo, but only now revealed to the world by her mother, has unlocked something deep in my heart. That image of mother and child linked as one is so profound. That is conscious parenting. The child entrained to the Divine through the body of the mother. I am the Divine her on earth for my little one. I am his living, breathing Goddess, and his understanding of his place in the Universe is enacted through our relationship, at least until the age of seven.

I have spent too many years of his life already thinking like a human when it comes to parenting. Now, I am awake. And through the simple act of making a routine of it, I offer him an understanding of his everyday divinity.

In the next post I'll provide a list of resources I found, as well as the list of things I want my son to know that started this all for me.