What with all of the week’s whirlwind of news: with Disney now suing DeSatan (GOOD!) and 45 having to make the case in court as to how he did not, in fact, grab anyone by the p@%&^( when we know he totally did;) what with the wearying probable prospect of a 2020 presidential rematch; what with a couple of bullies (granted, one worse than the other) punted off the airwaves, I thought I would have a veritable grab bag of topics about which to write.
The thing is, this blog has always been a joint undertaking, with the cards dictating both subject and perspective, and with me serving as scribe. This week is no different. So let us be swept from the major to the minor, from the macro to the micro, from the political to the personal. I am not ready, exactly, but the cards are, so….
The other day, I saw that a writer whose work I’ve enjoyed for years was doing a retreat in Guatemala for women who had, what she called “estranged adult children.” The point of the retreat, she said, was not for the mothers to commiserate about how sad and hurt they were, how much they must have sucked at parenting, what failures they felt they had become. Rather, this writer said, the point of the retreat was to find ways to heal, celebrate, be joyful, carve out meaningful lives IN SPITE OF all of that other stuff. That’s nice, I thought.
As it turns out, this…alienation of filial affection seems to be nothing short of epidemic. There’s even a book about it, called Rules of Estrangement, by Joshua Coleman, Ph.D. You know how I know? It’s on my Kindle, along with a thousand other books that I will probably read first. Just like I’ll never go to Guatemala to learn how to heal. It’s not that I don’t need to. It’s just that, thanks to cards and words, I have other healing modalities.
Mother’s Day will be here in a couple of weeks; well… in 18 days. I counted. On that day a year ago, my almost 30 year old daughter last spoke to me. I actually don’t know why, exactly. Perhaps it was because I told her I would be moving across the country (which I did, 6 months later.) Or because I told her I would no longer be paying her phone bill, now that she had a fiancé to be on a family plan with. I mean, I don’t think either of those are GOOD reasons not to speak to your mother for a year, but they are the only reasons I can think of.
At first, I was flummoxed. Then I was bereft. Now, as the year mark approaches, I am skeptically hopeful. How’s that for oxymoronic? In any case, my partner and I will be out of the country on the date itself. We will be in Canada, where I am sure there are filial estrangements, but the people are super friendly anyway, lol! and I have people there who are indeed friends. On the day, we will shop and dine and raise our glasses. I will be sure to raise one to my daughter, whoever and wherever she happens to be in that moment.
My father ran a residential treatment center for drug addicts. My family lived there too. Invariably, the day the residents found the most difficult, was Mother’s Day. All day long, every Mother’s Day, my father put out a never ending string of emotional fires. I understand why, now. Our mothers are our sources of life, of sustenance. They are our first teachers and our first friends. We live inside their actual bodies. And yet, the great and cruel irony is that this relationship, which is our first and our closest understanding of relationship is is invariably fraught. As mothers, when we are at our best, we are always in catcher’s stance. As children, we are unable to see our mothers as anything more than our mothers. Which is to say, that as mothers, what no one tells you is that you sort of….cede your personhood, at least in the eyes of this small person, who will grow and change and mature, but will always see you only and ever as Mommy, Mom, Mother. And that seeing is tangled up with how they are able to see themselves. No action you take as a mother, even if it has nothing to do with your child, is one they do not take as praise or indictment or at the very least, commentary about THEM. And so, it seems that the way this generation handles that uncomfortable dichotomy is to turn away from it, and from the person on the other end of it, entirely. They say misery loves company. I hate that this is being classed as an epidemic. And yet, there is something to be said for knowing I am not alone.
Anyway…the cards:
Today’s Tarot card from Courtney Alexander’s Dust2Onyx is the 4 of Blades. The card depicts four soldiers at rest, their weapons down, as they take their ease, ponder the past, and strategize for the future. I am choosing to take it as advice to be gentle with myself in this run up to what for me too has become the hardest day of the year. I, like the soldiers, will take my ease, ponder the past, and strategize for the future.
Lenormand, from the Ofrenda Oracle by Nancy Hendrickson and Carrie Paris show me how to do this, with Whip, Fish, and Snake. My own Lenormand book comes out in October (The Language of the Lenormand.) It’s available for preorder in paperback and on Kindle, so look for it now on Amazon ;0) and I will be Kickstarting my very own Lenormand deck this summer too! Now that I live the life of a creative, I have learned that one’s mind always turns to the next project, and the next, and the next. I love that. And I have a next project in mind, which is a book about mothers and daughters and the…epigenetics of it all. I mean for it to be as lyrical and lovely as I aim for all my writing to be. Whip is the Lenormand card for the writer and the writer’s process. Fish is the Lenormand card for emotion. Surely, I will be writing from a place replete with that. And Snake is the card, both for a problem, and for a clever woman. Making art from pain is a thorny thing. But I am clever, so…..
The Adinkra card for today’s post is Kojo Baiden, which is the symbol for the cosmos and the spirit world. I believe healing can move backwards and forwards among generations and beyond any veil between worlds. I hope to take some quiet, restful time, as per the 4 of Blades, to connect with the Mothers of every time and space, to tell a story that will be rich and round and full of potential to heal many a mother/child breach. Perhaps even my own. May yours, if you have one, find healing too.
Amen and Ase
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