motherhood: the unparalleled choice, work, joy and privilege of my life
the threshold year when maiden became ʍօȶɦɛʀ and a spirit became Earthling.
maiden, ʍօȶɦɛʀ, crone:
the threshold year when maiden became ʍօȶɦɛʀ and a spirit became Earthling.
Category: Mother
the threshold year when maiden became ʍօȶɦɛʀ and a spirit became Earthling.
Earth
“Do you realize – we’re floating in space?”
Our ancestors were born on a spaceship that never needed refueling, repair, redesign or course correction.
Earthlings have all uniquely adapted to their respective natural, geographical habitats and migration routes — except for the warring and dominant human regimes and cultures — that decided for all Earthlings that they should geo-engineer artificial environments and extract the blood and bodies of the ancient ones — for one species’ sole benefit — until Earth no longer feels or looks like Earth – and has become unrecognizable, unsafe or uninhabitable to most other species.
There are PCBs in the Atacama Trench and microplastics in fetal tissue of mammals – of humans.
Despite all the wonderful river and beach clean-up and tree planting projects on Earth Day, for me, it’s always a contemplative and sobering day.
We all have a stake—equally. Because if we do not save the environment and save the Earth, then whatever we do in civil rights or in a war against poverty will be of no meaning, because then we will have the equality of extinction and the brotherhood of the grave.
James L. Farmer,
at the very first Earth Day,
April 22, 1970
crone in blue linen pyjamas
taking her outdoor barn mirror-selfie
as interpreted by an artist-crone
April 2023
Stationed on the Crosses
The CruX: historically, continually, and invisibly stationed by, and on the crosses of, men
women, womxn, womqn, womyn and girls have been both the cross-bearers and the crucified – ever since the unnatural and unholy “conception” of the Roman Catholic Church and all its subsequent patriarchal, misogynist Christian derivatives.
maundy thursday, daily
mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos
As I sat on the maple floor of my kitchen in Chicago on a Thursday evening in 2017, voluntarily polishing my son’s chukka boots for the weekend — it became a meditation on my own father, who would offer to polish or freshen up my scuffed, dirty shoes – usually white Keds knock-offs from Zayre, Venture or Jupiter – the canvas stiffened bright white – like brand new /the scent of the liquid polish and sponge instantly conjured/ – me smiling /did i remember to say thank you/ did I know how to/ ; later in high school, he would polish my beloved and preciously expensive pair of Stan Smith’s leather Adidas /or were they Tretorns? even when I was in college and always pressed for time or conversation, I began expectantly asking if he would please polish my black heels or boots for work – but more importantly for the weekend, and he always obliged me.
but she tried
Every act —
a favorite meal endlessly repeated/ a packed lunch *with a quartered pomegranate* - never ending juice stains on countertops, dish towels and school shirts/ a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies shipped overnight to the dorm in Nebraska or studio in Albuquerque/ a homemade pot of soup with sixteen kinds of vegetables/ a shirt or dress pressed or steamed in the wee hours for work or an event the next day/ a favorite pair of jeans or baseball uniform washed and dried overnight and waiting there in the morning - for the hundredth time/ a relentless search for a favorite discontinued aftershave or a pair of rare Nike Dunks - low tops/ making tacos at 10:00 PM after she finally came in from playing on a summer night/ sloughing an awkwardly unreachable callous for him/ a ride to or from the “L” - but particularly, “from” - after he fell asleep and missed his stop for the dozenth time/ a drive to 5:30 AM strength-training from Portage Park to the West Loop for three months straight in winter, when she didn’t have to be to work til 8:00 AM/ filling an ipod shuffle with a deep song curation the night before the class bus trip to D.C. or Springfield/ gently combing the tangles out of her hair when she ran out of conditioner/ rubbing his back/ a home pedicure on the patio on the first day fit for sandals — or shoes polished again and again — and again
— every task, every errand, every attendance, every ease that was bequeathed — were all always proxies for foot-washing — all these seemingly simple and humble acts to the recipient were performed out of enduring love, at times, adoration, even.
“And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.”
The Gospel of Luke,
Chapter 7, Verse 44
I did it, I do it, in remembrance of him and Him, of her and Her, of them and Them, all, and their tasks, favors and time – so much unrecognized or unacknowledged tenderness and work.
Let them lodge eternally in my memory and theirs.
thank you, thank you, thank you
amen, amen, amen.
the only, holy Trinity: maiden, mother, Ƈɾօղҽ
”As a symbol, the Crone had to be suppressed by patriarchal religions because her power ‘overruled the will even of Heavenly Father Zeus.’ She controlled the cycles of life and death. She was the Mother of God, the Nurturer of God, and, as a Crone, the Slayer of God. While Christianity retained the feminine as Virgin and Mother, it eliminated her role as Crone.”
-Marion Woodman, Dancing in the Flames, The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness
proof of life :
she taught me to not like
myself/
especially, my image
— in photographs and in the moments themselves
ingraining a self-consciousness in me
in the candidness of my real life
in
play
laughter
effort
surprise
exertion
contemplation
fatigue
wonder
sadness
silliness
conversation
worry
unmade
pose, poise, posture, profile, perfect,
control
and because perfection
is unattainable,
in the eye of the beholder and in the eye of the beheld
she was absent from the photos of our lives, and so also was i,
becoming onlooker, background, instead of subject
and, i learned to make myself invisible
to become invisible
to accept invisibility
there are so many ways to be a thief
Kahlo, an ideal of self-possession
Open
I walk bare
out in the open
on borrowed land|stolen
to be returned to the people, to all be-ings, to them
with my bones or ash interred, one day
the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars
kiss me at all hours
did you see me open up
this Autumn?
after a Summer spent crying,
wet, yet fruitless
spent Spring wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass
Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good
For now, I bathe
nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, wetland pools and moonlight
unapologetically
|out in the open|
unabashedly
baptising
my face,
hair,
and eyes,
my breasts
vulva
and legs,
my lips,
throat,
spine,
and my wild heart
ceremonially, first
with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed,
in the name of the mother, Sun and holy ghosts
|cabernet henna|
then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia,
lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded
to cleanse or drown [to be, or not to be]
in the name of the Moon
|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|
the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth
[puhpowee]
the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct
and overrides decorum with new delights
| and old delights, revisited |
an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking
hidden in plain sight, everywhere
and I’ve intuited It as Ol’ Scratch,
I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here
You,
Your windows are not true eyes
Your lamps are not enlightenment
So, bless the dark
of the night
of the country night sky
And the Moonset
of my moon
it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,
and I want that too
i want it to
|I come here and open up|
Famêlée
This feels like an arrow
Made from a tree
That rose from
An acorn
That I gathered and stored
In another life
Scribed with a message continually
piercing my heart
I wasn’t only wounded though,
I was woke
into a clarity
that I was already sighting in my dreams,
writing with words
mortal and eternal
You once said, proclaimed or whispered
Every single thing
that I ever believed
My own truths embarrassed in the shadow of your confidence
My inner voice silenced in your animated persuasion
Believing you so completely – for the better of my years
Becoming like and unlike you because of it,
but not be-coming me,
Un-be-coming me every day
I ain’t even mad
You don’t know this – still,
You don’t want
to hear,
or listen;
Our time is running out
Even this admission
Is sure to haunt me one day,
and guilts me today
But I can’t call you confidant or crone
If you refuse to learn,
to evolve,
From this one archetype
The wide and long view
seems to escape you
You live in the moment in the least way, the worst way
And I don’t worship here or there, any more
The faith in your godliness is gone,
It is unfamiliar
For me to pity you
You, deaf and tone deaf
You had all the answers
In the morning shallows, perhaps
But evaporation revealed even those
Were anchor-less, yet stationary
An algae
Mucking up the colorless perfection of sunlit water
But in the deep, or dark, or quiet pools, you were always so lost
And in the ocean, at night
You drown even in its calm
You have ridden civil swells and storms,
I’ll give you that
But have you ever communed with waves
Allowing them to be part of you
Swallowing and absorbing the mystery
Becoming the colorless perfection of dark water
You seem to stay parched
Your belly’s hollow from impious fasting and pious thirst
You do know that’s where your heart sits?
But let’s agree to come around again, friend
We’ll swap places and next time
I’ll be the mother,
and the son,
and the husband,
and the elder,
and the babe,
and the foreign one,
I’ll become The Other One
because,
I want the chance to know
You
Wanderten Mutter
“Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut.http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard
My life seems long, I know
My body’s mostly worn
Inside, she’s just begun to live, again
A girl gone long ago
There are bottled laughs to voice aloud
New smiles to wear with these old shoes
Time to know the world, and you, and you, and you …
between these walls of peeling, muted hues
Once Herr died
My Self was ready to return
My cadence so shy and slow,
Lamenting the awkward waste of precious years
I find my voice as I write the past,
But in my book, the Tomorrow has no page
Forever winter approaches from within
These years and years upright on hard chairs
Unreal, unseen, unheard, untouched
by the world, by the womb, it may concern, Whom
I speak through and then beyond this pain of bone and life
Before the cold within brings silence of the tomb
You see, to me, my presence still feels warm, and blush
somehow, even new
My life stretched out behind me, no steps ahead
And I forestall Death’s cue, awaiting mere glimpse of you
If you can imagine, child
I love, unsaid,
I feel as just alive, as real, as you.
Lamentations of Birth and Exultations of Re-Birth: An ode of the birthed and mothered on Mother’s Day
Lamentation and Exultation
I am spirit
Though not pre-conceived;
I was conceived; and pro-created;
I contained knowledge, and
I was known
I did experience,
and I remembered; but
I was then birthed, and
I became human; so
I was mother’d;
I was mis-guided;
I was injured,
I was mis-judged; and
I was so scarred
I became ignorant;
I became blind
I forgot experience;
I became animal
I fell asleep and
I became unknown;
I too conceived; and
I pro-created
He too was spirit
He too contained knowledge;
I birthed him ignorance
He too was experienced;
He too remembered
I was the witness; but
I was still blind’d
I was still sleeping;
I then mother’d, and
he became human,
I then mis-guided,
I then injured,
I then mis-judged
I then so scarred;
I saw the death of one dear before me;
and then,
I remembered;
I was re-wakened,
I became un-blind’d;
I sought my [lost] knowing
I reclaimed my experience;
I forgave the mis-guidance
I so sought forgiveness;
I forgave the mis-understanding
I so sought forgiveness;
I forgave the injury
I so sought forgiveness;
I understood ignorance, and
I so sought re-knowing:
Those who are born are meant to be born;
Some who are born, though, choose to be born;
Most who are born though, have no choice to be born;
Most who are unborn; are not meant to be born
Not meant for this time; not meant for this World;
Those who have birthed, those who have fathered, have re-pro-created error;
Still there are Those who were sung into exIStence
Those are the Ones who chose to be born;
Now those who were birthed, not sung into existence, must will to re-member,
must choose to re-birth, to become re-known;
I re-membered mySelf, re-birthed mySelf
Now,
I am beginning to become re-Known.
Jesus said: “When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father.” – Gospel of Thomas (15)
Jesus said, “The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same.” – Gospel of Thomas (4)
Jesus said, “Take heed of the living one while you are alive, lest you die and seek to see him and be unable to do so.” – Gospel of Thomas (59)
A woman from the crowd said to him, “Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you.”
He said to her, “Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.’ – Gospel of Thomas (79)
the limineen | poet & crone 