Motherhood killed my creative fire

And also resurrected it

In shamanic communities there is the concept of “dismemberment.”

The idea that we must first be torn apart, pieces of ourselves scattered to the four winds, before we can reach a new form.

Dismemberment is painful. It can feel as if you’ve been ripped apart. But when we’re put back together again on the other side, we reach an entirely new level of wholeness—and access to our own life-force—than we could conceive of before.

Motherhood dismembered me in a lot of ways. It brought back a chronic pain condition I thought I had healed a decade prior. It dissolved some the most major relationships in my life. It shattered so many of my expectations, views of the world, and ways of seeing my own self.

But the hardest dismemberment of all was what happened to my creativity.

At some point in the first year of my daughter’s life I realized… my creative spark was gone. That fire that had always warmed me, held me, protected me, kept me believing in the future—had disappeared.

And it terrified me.

No matter what I’ve been through in my life, I always had my creativity. When I was trapped in a severely abusive relationship. When I was first diagnosed with chronic pain. When I caught Lyme disease and struggled with chronic illness.

No matter how shattering an event was, I could envision a future, see new possibilities, remember why I was here, because I still had the ember burning inside of me that said—I will create.

Then motherhood happened and it felt as if the fire had gone out.

I know a lot of mothers feel this way. We pour so much into the creation of our children, our families, our homes, that it often feels as if there is nothing left for us. We use every piece of kindling we can carry to build a fire that can feed others, warm others, protect others, so when everyone is in bed, and all the bowls have been emptied, it can feel as if there is not a single ember left.

We go to sleep in darkness, and wonder when the light—that spark that is meant to light up own selves—will return.

Creativity isn’t just writing, or painting or cooking. Creativity is the life-force itself. It’s the impulse towards life. And when you cannot access your creativity, it is as if the light of life itself has gone out.

In the deep of it, I wondered if the creativity would ever come back. If I’d ever be well-slept enough, resourced enough, regulated enough, to see the spark again.

Of all the initiations into motherhood, this one was the most profoundly distressing for me. It was a reorganization of my identity I never saw coming, but one that changed me irrevocably.

And eventually delivered me to a new level of wholeness, self-trust and, yes, creativity.

I recently saw a video of someone emerging from a three-day darkness retreat. Living without light inside a cave, she lost track of all time and space. She went into the deepest, darkest parts of herself…and then she emerged.

Watching her blink her eyes open to the light after so many days of darkness, witnessing her cry in pure wonder, touched me beyond measure.

And I thought—this is motherhood.

Motherhood is a darkness retreat that takes everything from us, and then gives us back more than we could imagine.

Most days lately I feel like that person emerging from the cave. The creative spark is back, the light has returned and I find myself blinking back tears of gratitude.

I know there will be times when it dims again. When my daughter is sick or life just gets too intense to hold it all. But having the fire die in me, and then having it be resurrected, is an experience I wouldn’t change for the world, because it’s given me a map—torchlit and inextinguishable— of how to always come back.

A few months ago I started to feel a deep pull to teach a live class just for mothers…

I’m excited to announce that this class is finally here— Relighting the Fire: A Class on Creative Resurrection for Mothers.

Together we’ll gather on August 1^st (on Lammas, the Celtic holiday of harvest and bounty), to reconnect with the fire of our own creativity again, and find a map that can guide us back.

In this two-hour experience you’ll:

• Understand how to keep your fire alive (even in the darkest moments) 

• Get clear on what creative project is calling your name (and how to get there)

• Meet the creative muse who never leaves your side

• Identify what is smothering you and tap back into the possibilities of life  

• Heal ancestral patterns of self-sacrifice so you can be fed by your own hearth

• Gather with a group of like-hearted mothers and be warmed by our collective fire

Because fire is just another word for force of nature…and you, as a mother, are a force of nature beyond measure.

So if you’re feeling drawn to relight, or more deeply ignite, your creative fire—I’d love to gather around the bonfire with you.