Since the age of thirteen, people have often referred to me as an Earth Mother. Until recently, I never really understood what they meant. Looking back, I remember being an average girl throughout my childhood, with all the hopes, dreams, insecurities and lack of self-confidence that plagues most young women these days. Daughter of a single mother, raised by a widowed single mother raised by yet another widowed single mother, I always had lots of strong, self-empowered kick-ass women around me, though never what I would call a "sisterhood circle" of women like the kind I create for myself now. We relied on each other for strength and support, but rarely invited in like-minded solitary women to shore up our power and strength with. At an early age, I bought into the prevent mindset that women cannot be trustworthy friends to each other, they were not to be trusted and to remain separate from them, and this safe.
When I decided to become a mom at 28, although I had friends, I realized I did not have a community of women to help me through motherhood and in fact, womanhood. Although I was an adult, I never felt like a full-grown, robust WOMAN. Now I know it was because I did not have a sisterhood circle to nurture me and provide the wisdom and camaraderie I craved. My HMO provided me an MD and a midwife, and my eyes opened wide for the first time. The term "midwife" immediately sent me back to a third-world country where women must give birth on the ground, in a clay hut. I thought, surely, in the third millennium, we must have evolved past such an archaic practice. I researched and asked as many women in the waiting rooms as I could...what's up with the midwife situation? Most had compelling arguments for the magical uses of midwives (and doulas). Needless to say, it was a great experience and initiation (and my mature, older female MD was wonderful too) to reconnect to a woman guiding me to listen to my instincts, my body and my intuition to know what my baby and my body needed me to do.
Fast-forward fifteen years, and my innate wisdom is being challenged by male teenagers and peri-menopause...big time! As my boys grew up, into men, right before my eyes, I too must grow up. I've noticed that my children ask my opinion less and less, but the grown-up women in my daily life seek my counsel increasingly more often. Yesterday, for the first time, my fourteen year old spent the entire day with friends at a local amusement park unchaperoned (as far as he knows). I have a few friends that work at the park on weekends and even one who is a deputy sheriff at the park police station. My job is about five minutes away from there, so it seemed like a nice starting point to my emancipation. I WAS A NERVOUS WRECK ALL DAY! Fortunately, the park was due to close at a reasonable time, 7pm, so he'd be home before I popped a blood vessel. At 8pm, I texted him (it's the most reliable way to have a conversation with a teen these days) and he said the park stayed open an extra hour, so a parent would be bringing him home soon. My mind immediately started to play tricks on me, though my intuition said all was well. I jumped in my car and FLEW to the entrance, and sure enough it said they closed at 7pm. He called me from our living room asking where I was, and by now I am LIVID. I prayed all the way home for peace, level-headedness, guidance and for teen communication skills. Once home, I locked the door and was just grateful we were all safe. Of course my husband was oblivious at work, but that's another story. I knocked on his bedroom door, and he looked tired, peaceful and unaware of the crazy thoughts rushing through my head. He kissed me on the cheek (I nonchalantly sniffed his hair, clothes and breath for "evidence) and went to the kitchen to have my home made chicken stew. As I closed my bedroom to have a warm bath, I wasn't sure to laugh at my foolishness or cry at my insecurity. My babies don't seem to have a place for me in their lives, and I'm not sure how this story will end. Sure people grow up and move on every day. But these are my babies, whom I have been devoted to every minute of everyday for fifteen years!
As my bathwater was running, "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" came on and Bruce Jenner and his 12-year old daughter Kylie were having a similar battle and I'm having with my kids. We parents struggle to maintain a connection with our children as they grow up into adults and we want to guide and protect them, with them kicking and screaming the whole way. I asked God and my angelic guides for help and guidance, and the I was told to pull seven cards from a well shuffled "Archangel Oracle Cards" deck by Doreen Virtue. I was shown that I need to remember to meditate, get outdoors in nature more, listen to my inner guidance, remember my friends Archangels Michael and Metatron are watching over my children and to stay closely connected with my sisterhood circle. At that moment, my Higher Self finally got through to me, and I took a deep breath and sighed relief. I'm never alone and neither of my kids. And just sometimes, it's ok for the Earth Mother to receive Love and respite too.
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