holy mama winter inspiration
I am too alone in the world
and not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
Rilke
I want to continue to support the work of meeting winter. I last left you at winter solstice with the idea that in the cold, frozen, dark winter, when everything in the outer landscape appears dead -- the inner life is actually most alive. I reminded you at that time if you want to access this inner aliveness you would have to slow down, find quiet, contemplate, hibernate. The action step this would require is finding and taking out your sacred weapon/tool that protects that kind of time so that you would not miss the medicine that winter has for your soul.
I am reaching out again to remind you of this task (it’s not too late) – the task for a mama in deep winter is to touch, explore, own, encounter her own solitude: seclusion, withdrawal, privacy, peace – so that she may experience her soul-in-tune. Let the trees be our teachers, they have been meditating on stillness and quiet and what is happening right now is that sweet, delicious energy is filling them up from within, the sap is rising from their roots and is being directed to their limbs. This energy will be transformed into buds, leaves, flowers, fruit. Being still and allowing the sap to rise is how the tree prepares for new growth in spring. It does not happen without the practice of stillness and quiet (for mama’s even a little bit goes a long way). Touching into stillness and quiet, holding and honoring a fertile void, and feeling into the movement of sap rising prepares us for new growth, winter prepares us, makes us ready for spring.
We are now at the halfway point between winter and spring. I always glean something important from the pagan festivals. Imbolc/Candlemass (celebrated February 2nd) punctuates this halfway point till spring. The tradition teaches that strength and courage are needed at this time to not just survive winter, but to actually thrive. How do we thrive when our children are sick with winter illness (sometimes long and seemingly unending), when the snow and snow days wreak havoc on: our rhythms, schedules, sanity. I imagine what helps us shift from survive to thrive is taking our medicine. I am calling it snow medicine. Maybe snow medicine is the winter teacher of surrender. Each season has its own surrender teacher because the capacity to know when and how to surrender is so important, essential, to being a human being. I consider surrender one of the core strength muscles (eight pack abs) in mamas. If you are not just going to survive motherhood (and basically you are a lifer – a mama for the rest of your life) and thrive (not just in mothering but in becoming your full, authentic, awesome self despite AND because you are a mother) you are going to need this muscle. And with any type of core strengthening – when we work the muscle we feel sore. But the sensation of soreness is also an indication of strengthening! I am imagining in the psyche and soul of each mama reading this you are being given snow medicine – you are being asked to surrender. Remember if you take the medicine, really take it in, you can become more alive AND you may feel sore. Please feel free to share with me what, where and how you are being called on to surrender.
I will share my own encounter with surrender this month, no one gets off the hook. We are all in it together. Kole left college. I am inwardly swirling, pulsating, writhing in a lot of feelings/soreness. Did I do something wrong? Did I make our home too comfortable and supportive (of course these voices in my head reflected back to me by well-meaning people)? Or is it time to step out of the way and let Kole take the reigns of his own life? Do I trust, release, let go . . . SURRENDER. And if I do, how do I know everything won't just fall completely and utterly apart . . . that my children will never grow up into whole, full, self responsible, living with purpose adults? My secret. I have been doing the mama workout for 20 years. Stronger and deeper then any fear I have about Kole, his present and future and my flaws (and I have a lot of those) is the strength of a well worked out surrender muscle. If surrender is one side of a polarity and authoring, guiding, designing is the other side – I am finding an aliveness in the tension of holding both (and not coming apart!). An aliveness that is not based on what someone outside of me does or does not do . . . but an inner aliveness that spreads to all parts of my being, maybe like the sap flowing from the roots to the buds. Tension, aliveness, all good, all growthful, all preparing me for inner buds, leaves, flowers, fruit yet to grow from the tree of my being. Old TV commercials used to warn, “do not try this at home alone!” My capacity to surrender muscle did not develop in isolation. I am also held by a web of support (I have slowly, painfully (sometimes) and intentionally woven for twenty years so that at moments of complete disorientation I can drop, lean, fall into . . . the women/men in my life who see and reflect my wholeness back to me . . . people in my life who are not afraid of my darkness or my light. Amen to workouts and webs.
Last but not least, I intended on taking a personal retreat this month (practicing the kind of self-care I preach). I cancelled it due to Kole returning home that week and knowing I needed to be present for him. However, I did reschedule it and as hard as it always is (even after twenty years!!) for me to leave the centripetal force of family life and work responsibilities, I also know nothing grows in me without retreat (return to self/soul) time. I am heading to Tulum last week in February. In the spirit of retreat medicine I want to remind you of the incredible holy mama mother’s day retreat in Tulum May 13th – 17th!!! There are ten mamas attending and there are still a few spots. I hope you will consider this gift to your self. I would also like to take this opportunity to ask a few research questions. Is there something you need that this retreat is not offering? Is the cost holding you back? Are you taking retreat time in another form? Any feedback about why you are not attending this retreat would be a gift to me. Big love. Deep bow.
I love the dark hours of my being
in which my senses
drop into the deep.
I have found in them, as
in old letters,
my private life, that is
already lived through,
and become wide and powerful
now, like legends . . .
Then, I know that there is room in me
for a second huge and timeless life.
Rilke
big dark love.
deep bow.
jerilyn
holy mama mother’s day medicine
Early motherhood initiates us into the capacity to NOT be the center of our own life. Our baby becomes the center. The good news is that if we have a successful initiation, it is likely we will be protected from becoming completely self-absorbed, self-centered, self-involved. However, the initiation from “me” to “you” is not complete until we learn the whole dance.
Step one: We learn to move out from the center of our own life (in our thinking, feeling and actions) and allow our baby to hold this space.
Step two: We slowly (each mama’s dance is completely unique – with her own organic timing) move back into the center of our own self (soul). What this step lacks in grace it makes up for in humility.
Step three: We have the ability (growing wisdom) to move in and out of the center of our self (soul) to care for, love and grow our self and our baby at the same time. This step is full of complexities and challenges.
The danger (danger because all initiations contain an encounter with death -- of ego, psyche, soul or physical body) is that we get stuck in step one – stuck standing in the periphery of our own life OR we do not take the first step and remain fixed in the center. Either extreme leads to a pervasive stuckness, dis-ease or deadening of a mama’s sense of self and soul.
Step four: Repeat steps 1-3. This is the hardest step because step 4 requires us to know when a new move is required.
Step five: Steps 1-4 will not always be in sequential order.
Step six: It is mandatory that you create a support team to inspire you, challenge you, stand in for you, hold you, care for you, keep you company and love you – you can not do this dance alone (doing this dance alone is actually a form of self-violation).
You are invited to this dance your whole life.
An initiated mama is able to move from “me to you” and “you to me” – that is the complete dance. Entering the dance becomes the ability to be transformed by motherhood – allowing mothering to work you, rub you, grind you into the most essential expression of your authentic and undefended self. Ouch. Amen.
My wish for you this mother’s day is to practice step 2 by teaching your family and those that love and support you how to honor you for doing the most difficult, demanding, rewarding and profound work in the world -- growing another human being (beings) and yourself at the same time!
big love.
deep bow.
jerilyn
jerilynbrownstein@gmail.com | 845.492.1946