Becoming Mothers of Creation
Oran’s asleep in the back of the car— he’s on a long nap strike and will only sleep to my own music (more “Holy Waters”, mama!) so everyday at like 1:30, I surrender and roll out to ride. I’ve fought it for a month. And now I’m letting go.
In other news, my roses are thriving — and the mugwort and nettles and yarrow and borage and tomatoes and blueberries and birds! The birds. My inner Snow White is in heaven in my yard.
And every day I am learning to direct and guide my Motherbody towards centering Life, and out of victimization, and into power. And I’m waking up and getting freer inside a very responsibility laden period of Life. And this is the gift of waking up! We don’t just have to run away or live in a fairyland or be on a luxurious beach to be free.
Recently, I have finally felt ready to try and put words, context, frames and maps to the experience most center in my life in the last few years— moving through the threshold from a very late (and possibly forever!) maiden into a fast, hard, dive into Matriarchal Motherhood. Becoming a new mother at 41, after years of mothering creations in so many other ways, has been a deep initiation.
Entering into Motherhood, not only as a human mother, but as an initiated dragon mother, a keeper of Creation, a protector of sacred life— has brought me up against every layer of conditioning I unconsciously held around Mothering, and around becoming a wife.
The truth is, I had never wanted or identified as someone who wanted to become a Mother or Wife, so when I became one, a solid decade after a spiritual awakening that had me shed any ideas of those roles, I came directly into contact with the thick, heavy, old, old, old, paradigms of WIFE and MOTHER.
Learning to wake up inside these conditionings, the stories and behaviors they engender has been a DOOZY.
Does a good mother sacrifice herself for her children?
Does a good wife cook every meal?
Where does a woman become selfish— where is the line between self-preservation and selifishness? Where and when are the needs of her children actually more important than her own, and where are they not?
These roles are THICK with expectation, especially in the Deep South. Holy cow!
I have spent the last two years recognizing myself asleep inside them, feel victimized by them, growing numb, resentful, enraged. And then, in waking up inside them, beginning to live into a living question—
How do I, inside the particular pattern of my authentic experience and body, find a wild and generous and loving and unresentful relationship to Wife and Mother? How do I do this in a way that is reciprocal, generative, and even joyously erotic and fufulling— and in doing so, cross the threshold out of these maidenous victim states and become a MOTHER OF CREATION?
It has been a big shed.
And as I have shed the weight of these eons of ancestral and cultural expectations, my body has also finally been shedding the excess weight from postpartum and the blood sugar challenges that have caused diabetes in my ancestors. And I am digesting and integrating the rage, the rage, the swallowed rage of the housewives.
And when I do so, a third thing is conceived. This third thing is the space I make where the authentic Jane, the authentic Mother that I am— in l my human imperfection— makes way for The Great Mother to live in me, through me, and as me. And then Life takes on an entirely different meaning.
But to be clear—
Becoming a Mother of Creation This is not theoretical. Becoming a Mother of Creation requires everyday magic and devotion—
I am resentful that I am cooking dinner again. (Why are you doing it? Because a good wife does? Because your husband won’t eat well without it?) And then, listening for the pathway out of the pattern.
I am tired of giving away all my time to doing what Oran wants to do — I deserve space to make music, to write, to sit by a river alone! (Why aren’t you? Because you feel frozen in the weight of what it means to be a good Mother? Because you haven’t figured out childcare?) And then finding the edges to trust the impulse— either way.
And then— devotedly weaving and trodding and forging the third ways— the pathways that are TRUE— beyond societal and cultural expectations. And becoming myself as a Mother. This means doing things like building a school for my son when no options existed that felt good for our family. It means trusting and knowing ourselves, our needs, our gifts enough to be able to build legacy.
And as I do, as I walk this pathway into authentic Motherhood, I am naturally beginning to weave a legacy for my son. A forest school, a community of like-minded families in a conventional place, a home filled with truth, song, and sweat lodge. As I speak and live and practice moving at the pace of Truth, I am weaving a mantle of legacy.
When we take up the mantles of our own Truth, and our joy, and we weave them with our gifts, and we listen, deeply for what our children need, we can begin to weave and embody mantles of legacy for our children and communities— this is how we become Mothers of Creation.
We become Mothers of Creation when we walk through the thresholds between the flat stories we have been given, the ones we must starve and suffocate to be a part of, and instead, we honor our bodies and their needs and their dreams, and their yeses and nos— and chose to become Mothers of Truth.
The last thing I want to share is this. I wrote this essay last night, and paused, because I knew it wasn’t fully complete. There were last threads to weave in the tapestry of this small creation.
And after a hard morning of conflict and challenge in our home, I took the time to grab Oran, bring him into the rocking chair, make him a small baba at his request and pause. And I opened by belly and heart in the midst of pain and fear, and I felt what I wanted to pass along to him in that moment.
More than anything, I want him to know that he doesn’t have to numb out, or dissociate, or escape this human experience, no matter how hard it feels sometimes. This is not a legacy I want to pass on. And I do want to pass on a legacy of Love, of union with Earth, of wholeness. And so—
Even though he is two, I know he understands far more than our society would give him credit for, and I often speak to him, very directly, trusting my words to land in multiple places in his body and being.
As I rocked him in the chair, and looked in his eyes, I found myself saying, “Oran, Mama wants to share something with you. I know that your boo-boo is really hurting, and I know that Dada and Mama had a hard morning— and sometimes life is like that. Sometimes we’re just at our edges, and we lose ourselves in anger or fear or pain. But I want you to know that we’re never really lost, and we can always come back. We can always bring ourselves back— we sit, we sing, we take deep breaths. We go outside and feel the Earth, let the sun touch our skin. And we tune into the presence of God, of Love, and we look in each other’s eyes.”
And as I stared in his eyes and said this, I began to weep, because I could feel the presence of Love, and behind the Love, I could feel Her. I could feel the Great Mother, holding me as her daughter, and Oran as her son. And my whole being was flooded with Love. And I knew I was being, in that moment, a Mother of Creation.
Full of Life. Weaving and unweaving the tapestries of legacy.
Doing my human best to channel the presence of Her Love.
Orienting to the hundreds of thousands of Others— all holding and living the same prayer.
Becoming Mothers of Creation — full of Life.
And so it is.
Love,
Jane
P.S. If you are looking for support in walking through a rite of passage into Motherhood (in any form!), or into embodied elderhood— or if you’re craving support and mentorship in creative expression or the shamanic healing arts, I am opening up a few spaces for individual mentorship this summer. I have not had the space to do so in three years, and so the time is ripe. Please explore more and submit an application if it calls to you.
