This Mother's Song

Namaste Beloveds,
Happy Mother's Day! I hope this finds you and yours nurturing each other in the Spirit of The Mother and doing, thinking, being whatever makes your heart sing! And if your heart isn't singing in this moment, let's honor that too in the Spirit of the Mother ,,, the soothing, nurturing energy that gives birth and supports life with unconditional Love. As I reflect on my own blessed journey of motherhood, I am most grateful for the capacity to truly love unconditionally in a way I wasn't capable of before ... with all the surrender and acceptance that goes with that. All the zillions of tiny things like when baby J would do something inconvenient like poop just as we were leaving for an appointment or when he bit his cousin or when he bit me. It might ruffle the surface but the core Love goes undamaged. It's just as close as I've ever come to real God Love with a human. When Jeremiah was in utero, I wrote him a song and sang it to him over and over. When he was born c-Section, 51 hours after the water broke, I spontaneously, instictively sang his song as a way to touch him across the room. The effect was powerful for both of our souls and for the hospital staff who dubbed me "their first singing c-section"! The song says, "May your Spirit be nurtured, may you know you can fly. I vow to give you safe nest. I vow to give you the sky." (You can hear the song & read more details on the new Mothers page) Now, as Jeremiah gets older, nest and sky look increasingly different - and he's only 7! The Love and acceptance are the same but my mind is sometimes boggled. He recently cried saying I was too strict because I wouldn't get him the little plastic army guys who are pointing guns at each other. I told him I didn't understand what was fun about playing killing and he said it was a boy thing. Is it really in the DNA and is that what Ghandi meant when he said, "If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman." ?! I just try to treat each day as a song and hopefully we have more harmonious notes than not. And maybe, as with so much in nature, struggle is a necessary part of finding balance between nest and sky. I take heart in his Mother's Day letter where he thanked me for many things including teaching him how to sing. We have a new song about growth, struggle, flight entitled, "My Mother Is A Butterfly". You can find it on the Mother's Page along with these incredible women ...

Amazing Mother Songs

In putting together Family Concerts for the SF Free Folk Festival (see next section), I looked up a few old friends from the Children's Music Network and was amazed at how their work has evolved and how incredibly beautiful it is. These mothers have found truly inspirational ways to nurture the sacred in life through song. Joya Winwood has been doing MotherSong Circles in Santa Cruz for more than 20 years; singing the Spirit with 0-3 year olds and their parents/caregivers. Besides creating so many JOY vibrations at every one of her circles, Joya's purpose is to inspire people to find or start a song circle wherever they are. Take a minute to watch her circle video on the site: http://www.mothersong.org/ This is a must see to watch Spirit in action ... really! Oh and Kate Munger. My goodness, what grace in action. She founded the now dozens of all-women Threshold Choirs that honor the ancient tradition of singing at the bedsides of people who are struggling: some with living, some with dying. When requested, these angels with skin on sing for those on their death bed, those who are fighting illness or struggling to come back to life including critically ill babies. In addition, Kate has one co-ed group, San Francisco Midnight Choir  that sings lullabies and songs of hope and Spirit to the homeless on the streets of San Francisco. Wow. You can visit Kate's site, be inspired, and even have her guide you in starting your own choir ... why not??!! Let's do it! http://www.thresholdchoir.org/ Both Joya & Kate are featured on our new Mothers page.

Read More On Our Mother's Page!

Community Celebration Circles!

As Kate & Joya are testimony to, there are so many beautiful ways to serve and the circle is one of the most sacred places to sing, listen, play, pray and experience music. Joya is right - find or create a circle near you! For those in the Sacramento area, our series of Community Celebration Circles is near you! Join us this Saturday, May 19, 2:00-5:00 at Joyous LifeWorks, 3009 F St., Sacramento. This month we are hosting a Circle of Service with the Spiritual Cinema movie, "Ryan's Well" and slides from Sara's Club Mud experiences. You can also check out Sara on the site: http://www.newthoughtfamilies.com/People/Sara.html
Our Service Celebration will also have singing & music making, yummy snacks, Random Acts Of Kindness Crafts to make, take & randomly give away as well as a few games we can play to be in service to each other. And there is a lovely backyard to relax or run in. Come play & pray with us!
Our next Circle at Joyous LifeWorks is June 23, Circle of The Sun: Solstice Celebration! 
And join us at the San Francisco Free Folk Festival in June! Jeremiah and I are hosting the Pete Seeger Room at the Festival which is being held at City College in SF on June 16 & 17. We will be decorating our room, hosting crafts there and interactive family concerts both days. The 16th is our Super Special CMN Saturday featuring performers from the Children's Music Network and the 17th is our Super Special Spirit Sunday. Our Pete Seeger Room lineup is on the site: http://www.newthoughtfamilies.com/FFFConcerts.html And check out the whole amazing Festival online at: http://www.sffolkfest.org/ Lots of singing and dancing circles there all for free!

Community Celebration Circles!

Feathers Of Faith Family Fun Retreat!

Join Us For Fun & Faith Renewal in the Sacred Sierras! 
Join other New Thought Families at Silver Lake in the High Sierras
August 30-September 02, 2007, Labor Day Weekend
Before you head back to school ... Refresh, Rejoice, Renew!

Feathers Of Faith Family Retreat!

Web Site Is Singing

The web site is singing it's song, note by note. There is still lots of composition going on but new pages are up!
Bounty of Books page speaks to The Adventures of Joy Boy! and Julie Jenkins-Sathe's new book for teens: Change From Within. It also has some picture book picks from Amazon as well as some general Amazon info - consider using our link to enter Amazon to buy anything and we get a small commission to help support the site.

As mentioned, we have some inspiration on our new Mothers page including The Daffodil Principle ...

The ABC's of Spirituality: Giving Voice To Virtues The base page is up with a vow to myself and all of you that i will complete and link at least 1 of these per week! These pages are designed for home use and/or use by Sunday School programs for more resources and reinforcement in ways to play and pray. More ways to use the language of the soul to further develop awareness of our true selves. Awareness, Appreciation, Beauty, Blessings, Connection, Compassion ... ABC's.
Peace Pages! Still pending, in process, not forgotten! Send us your peace pictures and peace prayers!
Playful Prayers! We will be offering written and spoken prayers to accompany our ABC's; prayers invoking appreciation, kindness, forgiveness, divinity, energy, etc. Jeremiah and I each have one on the new ABCs page. His is awesome, short & sweet, came from a meditation. Mine is loooooong as it is speaking to ALL those ABCs!! Jeremiah also has a very sweet, brief prayer for Mothers on that new page. Add your prayers!
Add Your Voice! Remember the site is open for your contributions. Join us!  

Play & Pray with us Online!

Your Song!

Whatever your song is, I hope you will give birth to it, nurture it note by note and keep singing it. There is an awesome mother/daughter story called "The Daffodil Principle" (anonymous) on that Mothers page. I hope you read it but just know that a dazzling display of daffodils danced and delighted so many because of a willingness to begin singing and continue the song: "50,000 bulbs ... One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain ... Began in 1958." Whoever you are, man, woman, parent or not, you have the Mother's Song within you ... the song of birth and unconditional Love. Sing, sing, sing your song! I leave you with words of wisdom from the great Mother Theresa: "Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired." "Good works are links that form a chain of love." "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." "I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world."