Remembering Mom’s Day

I wrote this in May of 2016.  It was Mother’s Day and I was putting the finishing touches on my move to Europe… So I am leaving Long Beach on Friday. Squeezing my daily material existence down to one suitcase and a carry-on so that I can travel lightly and be less burdened on my journey. This will allow me to follow the song of my heart, I feel. As I have been getting ready these last days, my mother has been on my mind a lot. Most of you know that she transitioned 2 1/2 years ago from a strange bout with breast cancer. Well, I knew that the grieving process was a long and personal journey, but I did not realize that I was still in it! Nor did I realize how much the well-being of my psyche was hinging on my relationship with my mother. In an effort to make a long story short, suffice it to say that I have been deeply and heavily grieving the loss of my mom and I didn’t realize it. In the pit of my stomach, lying like a stone, was the death of my mom and big empty void that was swallowing my health, creativity and desire to live.

Well, after I got accepted into the artist’s residency program in Spain, I felt this tremendous relief and lightness come over me. It was if a thousand angels were lifting me up and ushering me to safer ground. That night, as I got into bed, I spoke to the God and expressed great appreciation for all that I have gone through and all that I have achieved. And then I turned to the Goddess and asked for a message from my mother. I tuned in and couldn’t get anything and so I took a tarot card. I got the Five of Cups which represents loss and mourning. I then heard mom’s voice coming through loud and clear, “The period of mourning and grieving are over. It is time to stand up and walk freely into your new life. Lay down your baggage and go forth with the confidence of your heritage. I am behind you and you are your own woman now.”

Well, I was pretty surprised because I didn’t realize that I had been mourning so deeply, but of course, upon hearing the words, I knew that I had been. I had been stuck in a petrified state of apprehension and mistrust for a world that could take the only guardian I have ever known– my very own Rock of Gibraltar. I had been unconsciously dying my own death and it wasn’t until November of last year that I started surrendering to the death because I knew that it was in surrendering to death that I could find my new life.

The last few years have been about embracing the path of the caterpillar– eating my way through the forest, outgrowing my skin and bursting through (did you know that this is what caterpillars do? They eat so much that they burst through their old skin and then they keep on munching until it is time for the ultimate transformation. Personally, I put on 20 pounds in the last two years! YIKES! ) When I go to Spain this Friday, my first job is to get quiet and tune in. The munching away and outgrowing my skin has finished. This is my cocooning process. Get quiet, go inside, and let the Universe handle the rest. I don’t have to think my way through metamorphosis. I don’t have to guide it. It is already programmed into my potential, my DNA. It’s already written. I just have to allow it to unfold and experience it with awe… because our transformation is AWE~SOME. Folks ask what I’m gonna do in Spain. I realize that the truthful answer is “Cocoon. Allow. Transform.”

So on this Mother’s Day, I stand with my very own mother behind me. She is free from the burden of my guilt and shame, ,and I am free of the same. I bid farewell to the sense of loss, sadness, loneliness and the great void of despair, and I take a giant leap into the arms of Mystery, Hope, Ambition, and Womanhood. I am leaving Long Beach on my own terms, having lived my life here perfectly. Perfectly aligned, perfectly timed and perfectly imperfect.

I wish every single one of us a Happy Mother’s Day, for we all parents (mother and father) to children, pets, and/or ourselves. And if you’ve lost your earthly mommy, like I have, and particularly if you are still grieving that loss, I give you an extra special big hug because I have been there and I know the pain you’re going through. Nama-not-stay