Ancient mother

I hear your song; I hear your call

Samhain.

The veil is thin, grows thinner still.

The ancestors’ voices are clearer, tinkle like wee silver bells, through a veil that dances in the wind: gossamer song.

With each year that passes I grow closer towards the ancient truths of these liminal, unnameable days.

Learn to lean in— close, closer still— to what I am being offered: ancestral bestowal.

In the days leading towards this time, I know I will need to be with my hands.

I will need to be with flowers, with all things that have grown in the dark earth.

I will be tired, I will be tumultuous, I will be tender.

I will, like the circle of our year, be making ready to winter.

My heart will feel heavy in ways I am unable to allow it to feel at any other point of the circle of our year.

I will, moth-like, be drawn to candle light in the dark of night.

Not because I fear the dark, nor because I need the light; purely because of the dance between the two.

Purely because I know, in these newly winter nights, that I am— despite what other voices might have me as— a seed born of both: darkling light.

At this time I am closer to my mother line, my mother wound, than at any other time.

In the past this truth has broken me, over and over.

Now I welcome this invitation to step into the deep red pool of my being.

My bloodline.

I lower my body, in all its humanness, and I stay a while in the darkness of an imperceptible ebb and flow: invisible becoming.

In these days, in this cusp moment, I will be with all of the women I have been, I am, I am becoming.

All of us together, in aching one-amotherness: mythical mirror.

I will hold, deep inside of me, the bones that are my reminder; my guide; my truth.

And I will know, in ways I could never dream of knowing at any other time, what I am being called towards.

So here I am, the bones of me, sharing with you, albeit in a much less polished packaging, something I have been dreaming up since last Samhain.

I have been telling myself it has to be perfect, all tied up nicely before I share this with you, but actually I am listening more than ever before, and the time is now.

I would love to introduce a new gathering of sorts, a gathering that will, like the darkness, only reveal its true shape as we journey through together.

m o t h

e r

— mothers

i n

ecology

I have been dreaming for some time of (m)others, together, any way we can be, singing out for all beings.

An ecology of care that is as inclusive, as tender, as beautiful, as ecology herself.

Our own ecosystem that holds, & carries, & heals, & grows.

A safe place to gather, & question, & grieve, & hope.

A nest we build together, all us (m)others who love our original mother, the earth, and all her beings.

There will be live interviews, old-school snail mail letters between members, gatherings by candlelight with tears and with action.

We will listen to (m)others residing in many different corners of the world of ecology: scientists, activists, makers, healers, growers and more.

And together we will take our grief at this moment of crisis and make it into a thing like light on stone; like darkness of womb.

A thing like moth wings: delicate, tender, transformative.

A thing of beauty, of hope; a thing that is our creatureness in its purest form.

This feels a natural progression for my paid community who, as I experience the joy of getting to know, reveal to me over and over that we want, simply, to be in proper relation. With ourselves, each other, the natural world in all her exquisite being.

So I offer you here the first gathering of mothers in ecology.

I will be in conversation with the beautiful Anna Chapman Parker, this coming Tuesday 5th November, 12-12.40 pm GMT via zoom.

More soon on Anna’s exquisite book, meantime, the zoom link will go to all paid subscribers next week so if you’ve been thinking of gifting yourself or a loved one a subscription, now is the time.

I have long wanted to find ways to make this online space we call home more accessible to myself and other (m)others and this is one small step I feel excited by.

I can’t wait to see where this takes us this winter and beyond.

This is a free post.

To support my work, to hear more about future mothers in ecology offerings and to join us, please consider a paid subscription.

In deepest gratitude, on this day, and always.

Brightly, X