I’m back. Today I did a yoga practice, took the kids to the park, and have spent the last couple of hours working on sublimation t-shirt prints that I am making to fundraise for Gaza. It’s been a good day and I am exhausted in a joyful way.

The eclipse yesterday sparked a few conversations which felt authentic from a home ed point of view, and today things have felt calmer. The wind was strong but the sun came out and my kids played for hours outside. Then we came home and they played here, before tuning in to a new programme so I could rest. My body, at 31 weeks of growing another human, has reminded me today, that I am not actually capable of as much as I used to be. My body, in it’s wisdom, asking me to honour the need for a slower pace, and to rest; because it knows, as changes come, rest will look very different soon.

Tonight I’m thinking about rest, and about yoga, breathwork, and Palestine. I am thinking about how my body, growing our baby dragon is able to ask for rest, to ask for nourishment, to be held safely. I am privileged, and as in every pregnancy, acutely aware of it. This time, far more resourced, far more ready, and far more willing to listen; while also being aware that women, just like me in many ways, are carrying babies through stress, heartbreak, displacement, famine, and phycological warfare as well as genocide. I have learned, more deeply in these past months than ever before; how to hold solidarity in my body, bare witness and look away when needed, coming back, and trying to create ripples of healing.

The past 6 months I have delved into learning more deeply about pregnancy, our experiences in the womb and how we are in fact so much more aware and impacted even before life earthside begins; and as I have learned, I have grown in my knowledge, and in my belly; and in my capacity to practice compassion while NOT jumping into overwhelm. I have tried to protect my baby from the stress, while not disappearing into a bubble (a previous, very effective strategy of mine).

As I type, I think of the women who don’t have the choices I do; who are birthing to the sound of drones, who are carrying through loss and change more tumultuous than I can cognitively comprehend; and I feel a sense of understanding… I know in my bones, from lives before this one, that these experiences will not break them; because the resilience passed on is just as strong as the trauma. I have a sense of real solidarity, compassion and also rage. I am burning… and that fire has led to these t-shirts that sit before me; a way for me to fundraise a little, a way for me to contribute more than contaminate. That fire has led to something bigger too; a project I worked on for weeks, pulling in different people to help, and creating resources. Small, and still, ripples… ripples that I can see and ripples that I can’t.

I hope that this baby feels those ripples; the burning inside me, to do more and also to honour rest. It isn’t something I have gifted my other babies, already earthside teaching me daily. I didn’t know how to then; but now, I am doing what I can, with different tools in my toolbox… I can feel them wriggling inside me, dancing in my belly (and making me need a wee!); and I am beyond grateful for the lessons.

Until tomorrow,

With love,

Rohana x