Thank you for sharing this powerful story of your roots. Ive been thinking about the silenced voices of women lately and about my own mother who is in the process of leaving this life. She is also at a stage where she doesn't have many words and if she does they are slurred and a mixing between two different worlds. She told me once that she never knew what her mother thought of her and yet I wonder now, what she thinks of me. Mother wounds have continued through generations, but they can also be transformed, just like what once was a tree can go back to the Earth to nourish the next tree. I wonder, though, as I sit with my own suffering if I can release her from hers with mindfulness and compassion?
Dear Kayla, I am so sorry to hear of this transition you are facing. It carries immense sorrow but also incredible magic, as you imply with the image of the tree going back to the earth. There is a lovely Buddhist practice (tonglen) of holding someone's suffering by breathing it in (in whatever color/texture) and breathing out peace and healing. May you find ease, may you find peace. Big love to you.
A wonderful rendering of how many older women in our lives lived in silence, under restrictions, with lost desire and dreams. I don't think my grandmother wanted to marry, but the pressure and lack of options resulted in a life spent submerged in alcohol, hidden in her house, curtains closed more than open, mostly estranged from her siblings and community, necessary to hide her alcoholism, barely raising a daughter who grew to openly dislike and resent her. I don't think she or my mother felt rooted; I spent decades trying to grow those roots.
Dear Sue, this is our work: to be the root growers for our lines. I honestly believe that in doing so we heal the lineage backwards. I've been working with the women on my mother's side and can now not only name them 10 generations back but also feel that the stories I am telling are making them whole. Sending big love.
There is such power in this story of your roots and what you have inherited from those whose lives have twined with your own, Karen! I am breathless from reading and imagining, and feeling the longing and love in your words. Big hugs to you and your roots, tangled and difficult as they may sometimes be....
Oh who else would produce me but tangled roots? This work, this untangling is another form of re-storying, as you do with land and with houses. We are all working on these ways to heal our world and I am grateful for you for doing so. Big love right back.
Tears here for Alice and all of our Mothers and Grandmothers. The forest and the beauty. The compassion you are rooting in and the words that are for them and for all women. The time for reclamation is here, thank you for being such a powerful healer and voice for all of us.
Thank you for sharing this powerful story of your roots. Ive been thinking about the silenced voices of women lately and about my own mother who is in the process of leaving this life. She is also at a stage where she doesn't have many words and if she does they are slurred and a mixing between two different worlds. She told me once that she never knew what her mother thought of her and yet I wonder now, what she thinks of me. Mother wounds have continued through generations, but they can also be transformed, just like what once was a tree can go back to the Earth to nourish the next tree. I wonder, though, as I sit with my own suffering if I can release her from hers with mindfulness and compassion?
Thank you for this deep contemplation.
Dear Kayla, I am so sorry to hear of this transition you are facing. It carries immense sorrow but also incredible magic, as you imply with the image of the tree going back to the earth. There is a lovely Buddhist practice (tonglen) of holding someone's suffering by breathing it in (in whatever color/texture) and breathing out peace and healing. May you find ease, may you find peace. Big love to you.
A wonderful rendering of how many older women in our lives lived in silence, under restrictions, with lost desire and dreams. I don't think my grandmother wanted to marry, but the pressure and lack of options resulted in a life spent submerged in alcohol, hidden in her house, curtains closed more than open, mostly estranged from her siblings and community, necessary to hide her alcoholism, barely raising a daughter who grew to openly dislike and resent her. I don't think she or my mother felt rooted; I spent decades trying to grow those roots.
Dear Sue, this is our work: to be the root growers for our lines. I honestly believe that in doing so we heal the lineage backwards. I've been working with the women on my mother's side and can now not only name them 10 generations back but also feel that the stories I am telling are making them whole. Sending big love.
I so appreciate your comment. I am definitely the root grower; breaking new ground, extending out to the earth for nourishment and continued growth.
The stories of women are so important and often missing.
I love that image of breaking new ground--the way the root works with soil. We're here--all of us, telling our stories. Thank you for doing this work.
There is such power in this story of your roots and what you have inherited from those whose lives have twined with your own, Karen! I am breathless from reading and imagining, and feeling the longing and love in your words. Big hugs to you and your roots, tangled and difficult as they may sometimes be....
Dear Susan--
Oh who else would produce me but tangled roots? This work, this untangling is another form of re-storying, as you do with land and with houses. We are all working on these ways to heal our world and I am grateful for you for doing so. Big love right back.
Tears here for Alice and all of our Mothers and Grandmothers. The forest and the beauty. The compassion you are rooting in and the words that are for them and for all women. The time for reclamation is here, thank you for being such a powerful healer and voice for all of us.
Dear Karla,
Those tears offered in appreciation are manna for our Mothers. Sending big love.