surrender

i have watched the mother bird in our garden, sitting motionless on her eggs. she doesn't eat. she doesn't leave. her body, a shield against the world. this isn't choice or emotion—it's written in her DNA. sacrifice without the weight of that judgement or socialized expectations.

they hatched! and they are hungry!

when did we lose this? when did this primal knowing fade from our bodies?

perhaps it slipped away in the comfort of privilege, in generations where survival became easier. or maybe some of us never lost it at all.

my children are adults now. they live with me through their struggles because i raised them to resist becoming slaves to systems designed to extract and exploit life. we work together, bound not by obligation but by something deeper.

i notice it in small moments—offering food to them before taking any myself. it's not sacrifice as we've labeled it. it's simply response. when i watch my children enjoy something, my joy multiplies beyond what i would feel consuming it myself.

just think about christmas morning. their faces. their joy, that isn't sacrifice. it is love.

we've twisted this natural instinct into something that requires decision, as if mothering were intellectual rather than instinctual. we've assigned judgment—good or bad—to what is simply a response to life.

the question becomes: are we willing to be uncomfortable in service to the life around us?

mothering transcends having children. it's the conscious choice to nurture all life—to remove the "me" and see the collective "we." it's surrendering the individual narrative for something larger.

this doesn't mean sacrificing beauty or desire. but when desires root in the "me" story, conflict follows. reframe sacrifice as surrender. what are you surrendering to today? what life surrounds you that you can serve?

as a mother who has given up personal desires, i don't hold the sentimental experience many do. the act of surrender isn't about desire or emotion or me. surrender to nurturing life is what makes us human—we do it consciously.

i remain unfinished. practicing daily. moment by moment surrendering, offering myself to the life around me, letting go of me, asking how i can serve.

this is mothering with awareness. this is being human.