Four Simple Ways to Honor Spirit in Baby’s First Year

May 14, 2013 By 2 Comments
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By Thekla Richter   Finding time to nurture your connection with divinity might seem laughable when you are so busy nurturing your newborn and struggling through the most basic aspects of day-to-day life. Yet, at the same time, if you were supported by spiritual practice before you had your baby, giving up that path entirely can leave a huge void in your life that you feel deeply even through your haze of exhaustion. The good news is that tending your spirit and connecting with the … [Read more...]

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Wednesday Wisdom: Finding calm in the storm of parenting

May 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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A weekly Wednesday Wisdom post with two or three profound or beautiful thoughts on a theme related to Paganism and childbearing. Parenting, distraction, prayer, nurture, self-care, and stillness... "This is the real challenge of our spiritual lives as parents: to take our distracting thoughts, not to mention the distracting nursing, dressing, schoolwork, sibling fights, family vacations, baths, stories, meetings, and bedtimes, and make of them the prayers that are our lives." - Rabbi Nancy … [Read more...]

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Wednesday Wisdom: Liminal

May 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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A weekly Wednesday Wisdom post with two or three profound or beautiful thoughts on a theme related to Paganism and childbearing. An invitation to meditate or just to pause a moment and consider. Liminality, journey, birth, transformation... "Pregnancy is one long liminal stage, a transformation that yields a shift into a new role." - Arin Murphy-Hiscock, Pagan Pregnancy "We are always on a journey from darkness into light. At first, we are children if the darkness. Your body and your face … [Read more...]

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Cesarean awareness month

April 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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April has been Cesarean Awareness Month. Why is there an awareness campaign for a common medical procedure? Because it's way too common! The World Health Organization (WHO) and medical studies agree that the best outcomes happen in places where the cesarean rate is 5 - 10%, but in the U.S. nearly 1 in 3 mothers delivers by cesarean. That's cause for alarm. It's important to understand that this crisis is not caused by mothers in any way. Researchers have identified several causes within … [Read more...]

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Wednesday Wisdom: Cycles

April 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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A weekly Wednesday Wisdom post with two or three profound or beautiful thoughts on a theme related to Paganism and childbearing. An invitation to meditate or just to pause a moment and consider. Mandalas, cycles, birth and death, seasons, tides, an unfolding life... "Your life is also a mandala. In each year, you complete a cycle, a mandala, with you at its center and around which revolves that year's events and experiences. Elongating that cycle, we see the mandala that is your life, which … [Read more...]

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Track your cycles

April 18, 2013 By 4 Comments
Wiccan_Triple_Moon By Nyo. (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Since Molly wrote about the benefit to paying close attention to the rhythms of her cycle, I wanted to share some practical resources for getting started. First, Taking Charge of Your Fertility is the best book I know on the subject. It can teach you how your cycle works, how to use evidence like basal body temperature and cervical fluid changes to get a really good understanding of your personal cycle, and how to implement that knowledge for birth control or pregnancy achievement. To put … [Read more...]

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Our rockin’ writers

April 15, 2013 By 2 Comments
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Last week we quietly added Kira as a regular contributor to Pagan Families. Kira Nuit is a writer, geek, textile artist, witch and mother. She strives to build a simple and fulfilling life that integrates all her parts — which includes figuring out how to provide excellent care for her toddling daughter while also bathing regularly. She writes about it atEarth Mama Prime. Kira had already contributed some of our most popular posts about spiritual practices to do during pregnancy and with … [Read more...]

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Wednesday Wisdom: Loving

April 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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A weekly Wednesday Wisdom post with two or three profound or beautiful thoughts on a theme related to Paganism and childbearing. An invitation to meditate or just to pause a moment and consider. Heart, love, growth, and imperfection... "Though the human body is born complete in one moment, the birth of the human heart is an ongoing process. It is being birthed in every experience of your life." - John O'Donahue "Perhaps we parents would judge ourselves less harshly if we acknowledged that we … [Read more...]

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Why I Am a Pagan

April 9, 2013 By 1 Comment
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By Kira Nuit The rituals of Catholicism spoke to me in their scents and sounds; the sacred music sang through me as I sang it. But the building felt full of human longing yet empty of Presence, and the institution of the Church displayed too many flaws for me to feel comfortable with it. Mary came to me one twilight as I sat in Her rose garden. She showed me the face of the Starry Mother. That Presence, that energy, I followed. Mary was the bridge, leading me out of the church and into the … [Read more...]

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March link round-up

April 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Family, parenting, miscarriage, practice, breastfeeding, Goddess, and more... time for another monthly link round-up! Owl at The Pagan Household wrote about the meaning of family, which was timely for us because I announced that Pagan Families was dropping the pregnancy and birth tag line in order to get conscious about a comprehensive approach to family life (still with a core of attention to childbearing which remains underrepresented among Pagan resources). Check out this post on … [Read more...]

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