Portals

“Outlined by the light for just an instant, an archway appears. We are invited into the heart of wonder. If we accept the beckoning, we enter a realm just familiar enough to banish fear, leading toward resilient truth.”- Joanne M. Clarkson

As the light lessens, the days cool, and the flowers and bees eclipse their peak, I wonder about these changes and the transitions we are constantly walking toward and into. I moved back to Omaha a little over eight years ago. I was coming to start a family amongst my family still living here. It wasn’t part of the “plan” but what good are plans anyway? I left good, meaningful work in Boston to seek something different, inspiring on the West Coast, in Los Angeles! So how did I end up in Omaha again??? There is NO Coast. It’s literally the slogan. However, time has a way of shifting geography. Finding out I was going to have a child shifted everything and it was clear that the Heartland, not Hollywood, was the place to walk through this portal.

The choice to move back to Omaha was an obvious one for me. I knew I needed community. I knew I needed a village. I didn’t need more Husker nation however you catch as catch can sometimes. In walking through the almost insurmountable challenge of childbirth and motherhood, I have changed, grown, learned, and struggled so much. I am so grateful I so willingly walked through that archway, TWICE! I have loved every minute of the role of mother that has been called upon me. I take great humility and gratitude in carrying this love and responsibility so tenderly.

As a birth doula, I constantly support people in a birth journey long after, and sometimes long before, the portal is ever traversed. Because the archways that are appearing, that are inviting our hearts to wonder, reveal themselves every day. If we become comfortable and unafraid of these big transitions and sometimes impossible feelings of reality-ripping transformations, then we banish fear and continue to head through portals that lead us to the “resilient truth”. I am not sure what that is; however, I intend to seek it because it endures throughout every portal, every archway, every change, every volatility, every ambiguity, every confusion. It’s the Silver Lining.

“As we slip into the liminal space…we may find ourselves wavering between action and stillness. We hear the cries…they urge us to seize both our joys and courage and set forth beneath a rising moon beside a ravenous sea, eyes cast upward to catch the silver lining as it breaks forth behind the clouds, feet moving together with resolute purpose, onward and forward.” -Molly Remer