Cancer Season - Wisdom of our Mothers

Lately I have been reflecting about my relationships and those with my family, especially my own Mom as we sit in Cancer season. I’ve been thinking about the lineage of women I come from and how I wished I knew my maternal great grandmother. Her name was Ruby. The name makes me smile like someone who found a gemstone laying in the grass. That name carries something special. It tickles me, in a mischievous way.

It’s funny how we tend to look at our elders when we are younger, almost idolizing them, blinded by the love in our hearts. Our elders have their own stories where they’ve had to make their own choices, their own mistakes and have learned their own lessons. They are just people trying to navigate this crazy thing called life.  I see this as i continue to age and understand how life works. There is an unspoken respect within me for each persons journey, no matter what path they have walked.

There is a part of me that wishes that we could turn back time and be back in a community setting.  Where everyone is raised together, cousins, sisters, brothers..everyone caring for one another. I dream of this time where our elders share stories, women cycles are sacred and where women would bleed together. Sharing wisdom that only the grandmothers know, whispers of life and spirit. I long for a place where we all sing together and have songs for cooking, harvests and child birth.

If you had of asked me if I wanted this 25 years ago, I would have said “hell no”.  It’s funny how time gives you perspective and helps you to see what you value most.  Becoming a parent has shifted this for me, wanting to teach my beautiful daughter how to care for herself and others and how to be strong in the ways only women can be.  While strength is important, so is softness.   Being tender, being able to receive and have compassion.

Something inside me shattered in the most gorgeous way when I gave birth. A quiet inner knowing that this was my greatest task this lifetime. To help this little soul grow. The funny part is, I didn’t realize how much it would help me grow too.  It made me look at life in new ways and it made me realize that what we leave behind when we pass on becomes our children’s to tend and carry.

If we love and care for our families then we also need to look out our greater family - humanity.  How do we care for one another?  This becomes the greatest message because it’s so damn easy to love your blood relations. I just wish it was as easy as pressing a button or wishing on a star to correct some of the hardships our brothers and sisters across the planet face.  So it is important that I teach my daughter to care for others when she can and to always have empathy for people that suffer.

Of course, it wouldn’t be complete to just love your fellow humans, no.  We cannot ever forget our Mother.  Not our biological moms, but our Great Mother - Mother Earth.  She supports all life, holds us all and will be here long after we are gone. How we tend to her also reflects how we take care of ourselves and of each other. I love to daydream of a time when we all are in harmony with each other, listening to the whispers of nature, knowing how to be in its rhythm.  Never taking more than we each need.  Replenishing her and feeling nourished each and every day.

I wonder sometimes what her voice would be like if she were to speak to me.

Then on windy days, the leaves on the trees sound like a song from natures own symphony….

and I think…yes, that must be it.

Love,