a gentle birth & moments with food & what is heart shaped

we sat together facing one another on saturday morning, partnered to participate in an exercise on intuition. he told me he saw a cupcake and wondered if there was a birthday. this part didn't make sense at first. he told me that he saw a bird held gently in the palm of a hand. he told me that my gift was my gentleness. later i remembered that an aspect of my horoscope for 2007 was "a gentle birth." i remembered that an image i was working with during the past year is the image of eggs resting in a nest. i understood that indeed i am celebrating a gentle birth, a re-birth. so, yes, there is a birthday, a re-birthday and i will be treating myself to a cupcake soon. perhaps a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing. one of my favorites. would you like to come to the party?!
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at the end of last week i had a series of moments with food.

moment 1: while enjoying a mango (a bella favorite) for breakfast at work i filled out some paperwork which required me to list my family members, their ages, their relationships to me and their genders. beside bella's name i wrote "sister" and for the first time ever (in reference to my sweet sister) i wrote the word "deceased." words are so limiting sometimes...

moment 2: at the end of my mango-for-breakfast-at-work day i entered my apartment building and greeted a familiar scent. the kind of scent that lives in my bones. it took me back, in a flash, to the days of opening the front door of my home after school and smelling my momma's spaghetti sauce and meatballs cooking on the stove and feeling my heart lift. for a moment, i returned to the memory of this comfort and the gift of feeling at home, safe, with family. a little miracle at the end of a work day that began with a mango and the word "deceased."

moment 3: i sat at my kitchen table last friday afternoon and prepared to slice up a yellow bell pepper (an ingredient in the "Italian Salad" recipe in this book). i looked at this yellow bell pepper and saw sunshine and smiled and realized bella was here, with me. my sunshine girl. i greeted her with a "hello, babe."
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a month from today i will arrive on the continent where my beloved sister, bella, died. i invite you to read this article by Ben Okri about this continent, "Heart shaped Africa." i discovered this article via the enchanting jen lemen. me & my momma will be making a ginormous, brave, heart shaped & healing pilgrimage.