I hope this is encouraging for all you mothers out there. I asked Kate if I could send this email I received, and she quickly got back to me saying yes. She also likes this blog! Her website looks awesome. http://www.kate-ballo.com

Kate says: “My personal mission is to help vegan women—or women who strongly desire to become vegan—create a life of deep meaning, unwavering courage and unparalleled peace as they step into their unique calling and become the visionary change-makers, thought leaders and gentle warriors the world so desperately needs at this time. I hope you will join us.”

Here is the email:

Dear tribe,

It has been a while. I have missed communicating with you all, though many of you have checked in on me. Some of you have sent me words, photos and resources that you know I would appreciate. Some have sent tips on how to make immunity boosting elixirs that you knew would be helpful for my family.

I am touched and moved beyond words.

Because the truth is, I needed each email that arrived in my inbox. I needed those blessings sent my way. So to all of you who reached out—you know who you are—thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

All this to say, in my mind, I thought it would be the other way around.

I thought I would have the ability to quickly offer tools and resources to support YOU.

But the Great Mother had other plans.

The moment my children’s school closed three weeks ago and we lost our in-home child-care, I was flung into the vortex of small bodies and teeny hands with plenty of needs and voracious appetites for assistance, engagement and play. 

And play, oh play! This is something that is very hard for me. It takes a lot of energy because it is foreign to me. This is not something I am proud of, it’s just the truth. I love my children, of course, but suddenly being  needed by them seemingly every minute of the day, and not being able to come up to my studio to do what comes much easier to me—writing, channeling my creativity into my business and time in solitude to contemplate the whispers of She—my energy began to grow dark and heavy. The ancient fears I thought I had battled and were long gone, rose to the surface once again.

I am not good enough. I am a bad mother. I will never be able to do what I have come to Earth to do. The money will never show up. She is better than me. 

I felt stuck, hopeless, directionless and small.

Each moment carried with it twinges of pain that I hadn’t felt since I was using drugs and alcohol to cover up that hurt.  But this time, there was nowhere to run. Yes, I engaged in all those familiar behaviors initially. I reached for my phone, sweets, caffeine…

But I noticed that my body wouldn’t let my mind go numb for too long. The Ancient Wisdom within knew better than to let me off the hook at a time like this.

The pain would come rushing back in yet I would somehow find myself careening back into the present moment. There I would feel ALL of what I was feeling—the smallness, the stuckness, the anxiety, the hopelessness—AND I would simultaneously land in the here and now, witnessing the world around me with fresh eyes. There were my children before me. Smiling, laughing, playing ring-around-the-roses or the smell of my baby’s head as I pulled him onto my lap.

And in this way,  the gratitude in my heart that felt listless just moments before, grew exponentially. 

There I was, with my children and husband, living life on life’s terms. I didn’t have to try to fight or resist the pain anymore because I began to allow the gratitude for being alive to co-exist with it. 

I finally could be all of me. The “good” and the “bad.” The light and the shadow. One of the greatest lessons I have learned during this time is that by meeting the fears of not enoughness (in all of it’s various faces), my body became a healing chalice of the Divine. The feelings would fill me up, and then empty out of me.

Just like waves. 

I realized, then, that this is the work. OUR work. To allow ourselves to be filled up with ALL of the feelings and then to release them. To let them go. To have them ooze out of our bodies like slime.

Or was it honey?

This time at home, of slowing down and being present with family has been an initiatory process for me, as I am sure it has for you, too, in your own way. We are all going through an initiation right now, a metamorphosis and a shedding of the old so that we can alchemize and emerge anew. 

And as we become new versions of ourselves, so does the Earth. Our relationship with Her is transforming into one that we have all longed for. All that is being asked of us is to stay present and to not run. 

Because there is so much beauty on the other side of our fears. There is a gift of healing, wholeness and rebirth when we welcome in the shadow.

Today is the first day I feel the heaviness lifted. I am not saying that everything has been worked through and I’m done. That I’ve reached a finish line. Oh no. My work is not done. 

In fact, I’m just getting started.

As my desires and the golden light in my core begin to grow with passion for transforming the future for Earth and all Her beings, I am dreaming into ways that I can serve you at the highest level possible. 

And that serious part of me that I spoke of? She has not left. This is part of who I am. It is a part of me that drives me to acknowledge that this is a grave time we are in, and that there are people dying from this virus. And it keeps me remembering that the slaughterhouses are still in full operation, as are the testing labs, zoos and many other places around the world where there is extreme suffering and exploitation.

This seriousness helps me stay connected to the fact that the Earth and Her beings need us now, more than ever.

To keep doing the work.

To stay present even when it hurts.

To allow ourselves to be filled up with the fears that would normally have kept us playing small.

To look for the beauty and to feel for the moments that crack our hearts wide open and remind us of the song our souls were meant to sing.

To pray to the Cosmic Forces to push and pull us through the rubble till we get to the other side.

Because we will be reborn. There is no way around it. But labor pains are part of birth and the only way out is through.

So together, we shall move through this. One day at a time. One step at a time. Sometimes, one moment at a time. 

In your worst moments

When all that is good

And right in the world

Seems so far away

And hope is no more than a distant dream,

Remember these things,

My friend;

The stars remain steadfast in their spaces

And the moon still guides the tides in their paces

And the planets still lined up in their places

And you’re loved as you are…

Because that is what grace is.

Please hold tight. Don’t let go.

Try to breathe through the pain.

Like the sun every morning,

Hope will rise once again.

Hold on, my friend.

Hold on.

~ L.R. Knost