Better Days

Better Days (Emma's Revolution: https://youtu.be/grB7TvT_6SM)

We have come in the light to this place in the light with our hearts in the light open wide.
We are here in the light giving voice in the light to the truth in the light we divine.

Let us sing for today let us learn better ways.
Showing love in the light giving hope in the light we create in the light better days.

We are born in the dark we are fed in the dark we connect in the dark through the veil.
We are held in the dark we are healed in the dark mysteries in the dark we reveal.

Let us sing for today let us learn better ways.
Showing love in the dark giving hope in the dark we create in the dark better days.

Time is now we begin where we are we begin we have all we begin that we need.
To renew we begin to release we begin to rebuild we begin to believe.

Let us sing for today let us learn better ways.
Showing love we begin giving hope we begin we create we begin better days.

I sat in the opening worship for the LREDA professional days and I felt the tears well up and wet my face.

I did not want to cry. I did not want my colleagues to see me cry.

But I could not stop the tears.

It has been 12 years since I attended a General Assembly or a LREDA professional day at GA.  And my inner Child wanted to know why.  She wanted to know why I had abandoned her by neglecting these professional and collegial connections for so long.

Once I could hear that Child's wailing question, I could accept it and answer it.

I chose mothering infants and toddlers for a cumulative 12 years with my eyes open.  For much of that time I had very good communal support from family and friends.  I chose to become a doula and childbirth mentor in addition to my religious education calling with my eyes open.  I had amazing support from my partner and connections in that community.  But in the last half of that time, my family was also impacted by financial and social pressures we did not choose but could not avoid.   External changes beyond our control pulled us into the underworld, made us walk a labyrinthine path of change.  I will not speak for my other family members or even about our path as a family except to say that it has been hard and long.

Yes, in a way the time I've spent focused intensely on raising my young children and coping with familial and financial pressures and developing another professional role entirely in another field was an abandonment.  In other ways, it was not.  My inner Love Warrior was able to reassure my inner Child that even when it didn't look like it, all of that time I was in fact working very, very hard to get myself back here.  This reassurance steadied me, dried my tears, and let me move forward.