Welcome to a special Mother's Day episode, where six guest poets and storytellers break down suffocating ideas of what a mother must be, to make space for the primal torrent of the earthy, crazy, profoundly deepening realites. And this isn't just about biological mothers, though god bless 'em, we need 'em.
Our guests share traditional stories, heartfelt poems, and personal experiences that delve into the twists and burns of motherhood. Through their stories, we'll discover that motherhood is not just about the Hallmark card version of it. It's a messy, complicated journey that often defies our expectations and challenges us in ways we never imagined.
We'll hear from mothers who have experienced loss, sacrifice, and moments of pure exhaustion. We'll also hear from those who have found unexpected beauty and fulfillment in the chaos of motherhood.
Our guests will challenge limited conceptions about motherhood and reveal something more primal and deeply resonant within all of us. So join us as we celebrate motherhood in all its complexity, and honor the women who have loved and nurtured us throughout our lives. Happy Mother's Day!
Transcript:
Mother's Day May 2023 assembled
[00:00:00] Theo
Welcome to the story paths podcast. I'm theatre Lowery, and this is our mother's day special. My birthday was recently. And on that day I reached out. Uh, some online and in person. Communities and asked if anyone would like to share some stories, some reflections, some poems. About mother's day.
And I'm glad to say they sent me an intriguing variety of offerings.
From a story, reframing a childhood.
To a poem about motherhood from the trenches.
To reflections on breaking societal molds of motherhood.
To a deepening [00:01:00] into the fierce beauty. Of mother earth.
We begin with a story from storyteller, Carrie taught. And this one is broadly about childhood. The realm of mothers.
About relationship. With elders about carrying guilt and the stories that we tell ourselves. And as you listen, whether you're old or young or male or female, you might imagine that you were the boy. And this story.
And that this is part of your childhood.
Once upon a time there was a boy and he lived on a [00:02:00] small farm in the distant remote countryside at least 10 miles away from the closest village, and his family ran the farm small vegetable farm that also had 12 apricot trees and chickens, and two cows and six sheep. And the boy named Jimmy. Worked very hard on the farm along with his family, and together they produced enough food to survive on as well as to sell at market for a moderate modest income.
Well, one day Jimmy was not doing his chores. But instead was playing by the old well, and he had been told many, many, many times by his mother to stay away from the old. Well, but there he was nonetheless, because there was something magnetic about that deep, dark void in the earth. And, and he just couldn't stay away.
And he loved the way, when he reached his arm down, the air felt different because it was cold and still. [00:03:00] And when he leaned over and smelled, it smelled damp and earthy. There used to be wood on top of the well for obvious safety precautions, but at a particularly bad time of storms, the family used the wood to board up the windows and nobody had got around to replacing it.
Well, I know that you can see where this story is going. Jimmy did fall down the well, and he lodged his foot between rocks at the bottom and he couldn't move. He tried to free his foot. He thought, well, maybe he could scramble up, but the walls were far too tall and too steep for that. Anyway, Jimmy was terrified.
And he knew that nobody was gonna find him until at least dinner. Everybody was off doing their chores, either working in the house or working in the fields or working when in the orchard or attending to the animals. Everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing and nobody would notice that he [00:04:00] was gone.
The dinner bell was hours away. And in that time, Jimmy, Thought. Terrible, terrible thoughts. He wondered what would happen if nobody ever found him and he starved to death. What, what if they had to cut off his leg to get him out? What if, what if his family was so angry with him for the trouble they caused that they sent him away to live somewhere else?
Oh, why? Why wasn't Jimmy? Doing what he was supposed to be doing. Why did he not listen to his mother? Why was he playing near the, well? Why wasn't he doing his chores like he was supposed to? Why couldn't he have just been a good boy? Why? Well, sure enough, when the dinner bell rang and Jimmy didn't appear for dinner, the family sprung into action.
You see, there are a lot of accidents that can happen on a small farm at the edge of the wilderness, and they didn't wait to see if Jimmy was just [00:05:00] dillydallying. They jumped up and they spread out and they searched and it didn't take long for them to discover Jimmy at the bottom of the well. But the problem was really about how to get him out.
You see, Jimmy's foot was still stuck. He couldn't free himself. And the entrance to the well, the opening of the well was too narrow for anybody else to fit down, to come down and help. And they were afraid that if they tried to dig a wider opening, that the rocks and debris in the mud would fall on top of Jimmy.
And they finally decided the only thing they could do. Was to dig a parallel shaft beside the well and then dig across to free. Jimmy. Well, they sent the kids out to the neighboring farms to rally for help, and soon they had gathered a work crew. And they worked around the clock in shifts digging and digging and digging.
And it took five days and five [00:06:00] nights before they were able to free Jimmy from the well. And in that time, not one moment was Jimmy left alone. There was always somebody sitting at the mouth of the well with him talking down to him in. Calming, soothing, reassuring voices. They sang to him. They told him stories.
They read aloud. They even brought Jimmy's little baby sister to come and coup and babble and giggle down the well. They sent down as much love and comfort as they could. They sent him his favorite food. They sent down blankets. They hauled up his toilet waste. They tried to fill Jimmy up with as much love and comfort and reassurance as they could, and after five days when they freed Jimmy, there was a huge celebration and everybody came.
It was a giant potluck and, and there was so much celebrating. Jimmy was the hero. [00:07:00] He was celebrated and Jimmy went to bed and cried himself to sleep.
Not one person said a thing to Jimmy about the terrible inconvenience of missing five days of work on the farm. Not one person said anything about the apricots dropping off the trees and rotting on the ground or, or about the. Cut worms that were devastating, the cabbage patch. Nobody said anything about why Jimmy was playing at the well in the first place.
Nobody scolded him. Nobody said, why weren't you checking the fences like you were supposed to? Nobody said any of that. Nobody teased him. Nobody made fun of having to haul up his toilet waste, none of that. But Jimmy was ashamed and embarrassed, and he made a promise to himself that night. Jimmy promised himself that he would never again cause so [00:08:00] much anguish to somebody else.
Never again would he require so much labor. Never again would he be a burden. Never again would he be so helpless.
I, and although Jimmy was forever grateful, He carried a small cold stone in his heart for the rest of his life where he kept his fear and his sadness, and his shame, and his loneliness. Jimmy grew up to be a kind and generous and serious. And successful man. He was philanthropic, but he always kept himself a little apart from the world.
He was always a little bit alone and a little bit sad if only he had spoken those feelings aloud. If only he [00:09:00] had heard how others told this story. You see, for some people this was a story of purpose about how setting a worthy goal and working hard to achieve it against the odds is an incredible feeling.
For some, it was a story of the value of community, about the importance of working together for the common good. For some people, this helped them set their priorities straight. It reminded them that the love and the support and the wellbeing of another. Is so much more important than anything else on their to-do list.
Others were reminded to go home and do a safety check on their own property. I mean, who knows how many accidents this prevented for? One young couple who were just starting out, this was a story of love and commitment of family, and it became the cornerstone of the life that they built together. Even, [00:10:00] even.
Jimmy's little sister who had no memory of the event, internalized the importance and the significance of her voice, how important it was for her presence and her voice to be heard. Not one person carry the story of bitterness or resentment or the disappointment that Jimmy imagined. So I ask you, are you carrying an old story?
That keeps you apart from life, that keeps you somehow small. Have you made a vow or a promise that no longer serves you? You see how we tell our story impacts how we experience the world. We get to choose how we tell our story. Choose well, my friend, choose well.
[00:11:00] We get to choose how we tell our story. What a powerful lesson.
There's a saying, I like. It's never too late to have a good childhood. To look back and reframe. Stories in which we cast ourselves as a fill-in or others as a felon. And to look at them from different perspectives. That's one of the beauties of storytelling. Is it allows you to move around 360 degrees.
More. Our degrees around particular events in the past or particular understandings. And see them from different points of view. Like a council. Uh, people coming together and sharing their few point.
I know when I heard this story from Carrie, I thought of some events from the childhood or younger years of other people that I know who are dear to [00:12:00] me. And considered, oh, it could be seen in a different perspective. Or maybe there's someone, you know, who seeing events in their own life or they're casting themselves as the fill-in or the victim.
But the, you don't see them that way. The UCM is bigger than that. Stronger than that.
Theo
Next, we have a poem from storyteller and poet, Amy Walsh.
And here she digs down.
Into what motherhood should be. Could be. Is. And deep reflections.
But what it means to be.
Uh, human poised within older and newer generations of humans.
Tending new generations. Children.
What to pass on. What to stop. When to forgive oneself. [00:13:00] What is it to be a mother?
Amy Walsh
Hi, Theo. I wanted to share my poem with you. It was inspired by a group that I'm part of called Mother Circle that's facilitated by Kimberly Anne Johnson.
I am Amy, daughter of Marsha, granddaughter of Rita, and Arlene, great-granddaughter of Anne, Minnie, Marie and Marie, mother of Rita and Irene. I carry the blood of the victim, the perpetrator, and the rescuer in my veins. And I know that I pass these to my daughters via both nurturance and bone. I know that I want to do things differently and sometimes I can't, and sometimes I can.[00:14:00]
I know there are gifts I want to hand down, and sometimes I can't, and sometimes I can. My oldest daughter is a wise little mystic, a sensitive soul. She told me when she was four. All we needed to do to deserve God's love was be born. She reads body language like I read every flyer at the dorm elevator bulletin board, effortlessly, unintentionally, perhaps uncontrollably absorbing every emotional nuance I never saw or long ago tuned out. Until Covid made my rage unavoidable I would've told you with a straight face that I didn't often feel angry. Or afraid or ashamed or even sad because what did that get you except sent to your room? So I prided myself on being the easy kid and got it together [00:15:00] and expected my sense to five year old to get it together too. Now she attaches so much to being the best kid in her class to being all business in first grade.
It makes me want to cry. Because maybe she was wired like that, but maybe this is her version of easy. Maybe I have already taught her that her emotions are too much, that it is more important to be good, that's safe, that there are conditions on her worth.
How do I unwind that and repair that? Can I open my heart to feel the joy and grief, passion and rage, hope and fear? Belonging and shame. Can my daughters and I teach each other, can we take that freight ancestral tapestry and weave it a new, my mother was the [00:16:00] daughter of a man who lost his mother in a car accident at the age of six.
I am not sure there are words for how disorienting that was. He never moved beyond that emotionally in the 83 years that followed his outbursts. Never more regulated than a six year old boys, but much more terrifying to a small child in the container of a grown man.
My mother was two when she and her brother threw eggs at the hem house wall. She remembers the fun and the delight of bright yellow streaking down the wall. She doesn't remember what happens next, except that it was the last time she did something fun without fully examining the consequences. A good girl through and through to this day, my mother recoils that conflict when my daughter's fight [00:17:00] over a plastic hat.
She pounces with immediate distraction to escape their anger and provide them an escape route too. I say that as if I am better, as if it doesn't take two days of inner pep talks and a well-rehearsed script to confront someone about a small frustration at work as if I weren't afraid to be unreasonable, as if it didn't feel mean to say no.
As I sift through the debris of easy and excavate my too muchness, I can see that I never felt afraid of my mother. I can see the additional room she created for me to maneuver in the world, room she never had. I can see the stories of abusive fathers and women who did what they had to to survive. I can see the stories of grieving fathers.
And women who died in childbirth. [00:18:00] I can see the son of an alcoholic whose heart broke too early. I can see the hunger and the fear that led to that alcoholism or led to insatiable taking, that was the direct cause of the hunger and desperation of others. I can see the church and the wild woman of the woods.
I can see the stone workers and the story keepers. I can see the conquest and the concord. I can see the ancient grandmothers place their flower crown on my head. There is pride and shame and magic in your life. Victims. Perpetrators, rescuers, all of them, shaking your windows and rattling your bones, demanding you look at the sacrifices and the atrocities [00:19:00] carried out in your name, demanding you reckon with a question? Why are you still here?
Yolanda
I'm Yolanda I'm an Ubuntu poet and I love the idea that stories, stories,
I'm Yolanda I'm an Ubuntu poet and I love the idea that stories, stories,
That's the voice of Yolanda.
Who will share with us some bombastic reflections on motherhood.
On primal forces, breaking societal molds.
And finding one's fault. All the more visible with the attempt to parent. Uh, young being into this world.
And with the mother's connection with ancestral lines of mothers flowing into her. And all their [00:20:00] connection. With mother earth.
what really struck me was, firstly I was. Grateful to have this invitation from a man. It really landed just that simple awareness that, um, a man was wanting on his own birthday to celebrate motherhood.
I come from an African culture that's a dual heritage. So it's the north and east of Africa. It's a two season landscape, it's multiple languages before you enter into school. And you come into a culture that is in Europe. So I'm very much a sort of diaspora lens. Using the English language, my, my second language to communicate on a topic that. I believe motherhood just strips you off language and gets you back into that animal primal state, you know, where between, you know, [00:21:00] milking with, you know, with holding your child's head in one hand and kind of sensing the, on a pheromone level, you can smell the presence of your man wanting to creep back towards you.
And, you know, how does that mind deal with all that at once? It's, it's just, it's an adventure, you know. And you learn to relax into it
I couldn't even speak the word adventure without acknowledging that I wanted to pause Advent. So I don't know how folks reflect on motherhood.
It's got such an urban myth around it. It's got so many different silent codes within it.
But motherhood for me has just been. Tooth pulling messy adventure,
and that we need to somehow be nourished by it and also shed some of those stories that we have somehow nurtured. There's the stories that we see from our families. There's those things that [00:22:00] exist in society that say the dos and don't.
A mother. I'll have, you know, Theodore, if I've understood the silent codes has put aside her.
Her sexy has put aside, her woman has put aside her. You know, lover has put aside all of that and has raised to the pedestal a dream. A dream filled with urban myth rather than the sacred, simple, scared story.
You are on an adventure and you aren't being asked to go beyond some of those limitations that you might have. And through a conditioned mindset and, and religion, all those kind of things. You call it culture. On a good day, you call it maddening on a bad day.
And then motherhood just kind of keeps pushing, but both further down that river so that you recognize that uh, you just don't have the language. And that's when I became quite. [00:23:00] Familiar with my animist heritage and I, I brought that to myself in the most compassionate way cuz I recognized that in all ways I had given up and that I was not being asked to give up on myself, but I was being asked to explore this on a completely sacred level.
So motherhood for me became a path where I recognized that I had walked with shame, and that I was gradually being invited through the motherhood experience of seeing the holy in the shame, seeing the beautiful in the shame, seeing the, I'm part of a wider story in the shame, and so shame like all entities that have a spaciousness to them.
My first glance on this relationship was I'll never be good enough. I failed him from the get-go. [00:24:00] Um, and then the storyline became what makes you think there is any extra that needs to be done? Maybe he needs my kind of crazy, maybe he needs my kind of flaws.
And I have found that the mother tongue is the one that is so foundational in the discourse between Great Mother and remembering our matriarchs from the original story, those who have now been transformed and present to us as two-legged people, but they are present to us through the other members of our family, through the tree family, the stone people, the elements.
The oral tradition gives you that tonality. The oral tradition says you are to lean to your child. Like the grandmother always reminds the mother. When I lost my firstborn child, I still use language like lost. [00:25:00] It's my grandmother who said you had already called and named her Maisha.
Maisha in my mother tongue means life.
And I go back to the simplicity of the term storyline. It brought me my grandmother in a form I hadn't known. She said, we go at a particular time to go and meet our coffee plants. We have coffee plantations by the but of the kja. It's, it's a sea, a wave of.
Of coffee plants, it's coffee medicine. And then we have those who walk, who go into the climb. So they listen and they do that story and they hear the story and they bring it back down to us. And we know how to do our coffee medicine to care. There is nothing within the storyline.
Says, strip the coffee plants away so that we can see the [00:26:00] magnificence of our grandmother better exposed. That's a colonized mind. You don't throw the baby with the bathwater. That's motherhood. Your son's a jerk is the sentence that comes to the surface.
You know, he's come back at two o'clock in the morning, you're gonna hear him making love all night. Why? Why? Why? Then you remember, you don't strip the coffee medicine. That's his story. That's when you're like, I remember when I used to do that.
What is this biggest hunger and yearning that mothers are called to remember? All religions in their sacred and in their pure, how the discourse, it says enter into direct relationship. It's not just us crazy mystic or part Catholic, shamanic and, you know, possessed. It's there. It's in the fabric [00:27:00] of the cloth.
If you become overly confused, Motherhood is the most devouring, insane thing. Can you imagine it's made that way? You know, we, we bring them through a portal and they do their part.
So it's an adventure. And when I think of motherhood, I wanted to recognize the matriarchs that have sat with their patriarchs, and they've done it in a combined and relaxed and loving way in the deep confusion that exists at the moment.
And in the original old stories. As I love to say, the grandmother's spirit had already seen fit to, to have in that in between space medicine, deep deep medicine, and as it happens, science now knows that if you are sipping on coffee, you are more likely to get [00:28:00] to deal with those high altitudes with a better experience.
But you know, did my original, original, original grandmother know this? But she's quite cheeky, so she's saying yes, but you know, we come from a cheeky line, so I'll just ignore that. Shall we say that bit? I don't think she did. Really. I think what happens is a, a deep obedience, you know, you, you learn to communicate and into real relationship and you, you hear your bodies.
Yes. And you, you can, you can recognize your bodies.
For me, motherhood is a messy adventure. And the more you can vent the better. We are not invited to do this alone. Recognizing that we can look at the signs and lean on others and take a leap of faith and remember that as much as we believe it's our own [00:29:00] adventure, our children are our deepest teacher and it's with loving embrace of other mothers, other grandmothers, other sisters, those who have birthed that experience, or those who are there to support you even if they haven't lived the so-called birth experience. And then with that, we can simply say, we are a family and our men are so much a part of this. Our other family members are so much a part of this.
And I'm grateful.
Uh, next we have a poem. Of belonging. And earthiness.
By the poet and artist, Jesse White.
How could we have forgotten the blessing to be born of a love as ancient as eternity, perpetually shape shifting, [00:30:00] spirit breathing you into me and back again until I no longer know where my skin ends and yours begins. Tate our bones back to the land. Remembering her embrace of gravity. May we begin the mourning, bowing to the beauty that births us.
Mother of mystery and magic, father of fire and feather. How could we have forgotten we belong along?
Lastly, we close with a story. By storyteller, Diana spirit hark.
A story about the interrelationships between life and death
which we've. The creatures. In this world together, including ourselves.
The story of the wisdom. [00:31:00]
Of our great mother. Wisdom, which is sometimes hard.
For us. To accept.
I am an artisan of a ceremonial art I've been a storyteller and a dream weaver. For my whole life. I've always known about dreams since I was a little girl, and when I found the medicine teachings of the four directions, I became totally immersed in that and found, felt like I finally found a philosophy and a way of life that matched who I was, who I am.
And so I am a grandmother and a great-grandmother, still raising children, still [00:32:00] interpreting dreams, still making art, and still loving mother nature.
My friend Theo asked me to share a story about mothers or grandmothers, cuz I'm a grandmother and I have. A favorite story about a mother that we often don't think of as our, our mother. When I was a little girl, I was put outside and the door locked. So I, I made friends with, with nature, with the trees and the grass and the birds and, and the bugs and everything.
That was on my, you know, in my yard when I was little. And at one point I actually said to myself that I think that [00:33:00] I was given to the wrong family and that my real mother is Mother Nature. Cuz in those days, long time ago, they didn't talk about Earth Mother much. Mostly talked about. Be good to Mother Nature.
And so that's, so I decided that Mother Nature was my true mother, and this song is called Earth Mother, and it is a story about. There, there's a lot of talk right now about how we're spoiling the earth and how
this shouldn't happen and that shouldn't happen. But nature has a very
pretty powerful awareness [00:34:00] of what her children need.
Earth. Mother woke with the dawn and Fanny sacred smoke to all the four directions. She began to walk thelan singing her morning song.
Beautiful home, beautiful homeland. Welcome the fire, the east and sun. Welcome the south. The swimmers and the waters welcome the west, the earth and the plants. Welcome the north. The wind and the animals. Welcome to the stars. Welcome to the moon. Good morning, my beautiful life. Good morning. My [00:35:00] beautiful life.
And as she walked,
she came to. A beautiful place where she bent down and she saw the The Beatles, and she gave them beautiful little iridescent green jackets and she hung green acorns in the trees and bending low. She the seed of summer in a little flower. So that when it opened in summer, it would remember. Then she turned her gaze to the sage covered desert.
She loved the desert. She blew a warm [00:36:00] wind across the Bless the desert and a hawk caught it on his wings as he blew, and then she walked on. As she walked, she came to the river and there was men. Man had his neck and he was catching frogs
for his breakfast
for his mother. You are kind. You sent frog to me. To hunt and catch for my breakfast. I am very grateful they filled my belly.
Oh, but why, why do you send mosquitoes to torment me in my bed at night? They bite me and make me leave my bed.[00:37:00]
Mosquitoes Earth. Mother, very, very bad, bad, bad frogs, on the other hand, sweet, good, and so delicious,
Earth's mother. If there were no more mosquitoes, the world would be perfect.
Earth's mother's side and walked. She walked across the Savannah in Africa wearing a robe, fringed with falling rain. She filled the water holes, sharpened the thorn bushes, guided sunbird to a blooming flower with nectar, she climbed a peak. And flung her spear of lightning across the sky. It felt the sting of storm and the fury of the [00:38:00] lightning
in the North Earth. Mother powdered the trees with snow and like diamond dust. It was in the air later on in the afternoon, earth Mother. Heard frogs calling.
She saw a frog sitting on the rock and catching an insect in with this tongue and eating at whole. Thank you Earth Mother Mosquitoes and her sisters fill my belly. But why have you said man to eat me? Man is very, very bad, bad, bad, sweet, delicious mosquitoes On the other hand, they make me happy. If there were no more men in [00:39:00] this world, it would be perfect Birth mother smiled and walked on in the evening.
She died deep into the water and swam with the whales. Iridescent blue light coming out of her fingertips. Crescent Moon rose, she cradled an otter in a bed of seaweed. It was nighttime. Now, she walked across the meadow.
She heard a tiny little voice,
earth mother. I am so grateful to you for sending man. He's so tasty and delicious when I bite him in his pet. But why Earth Mother do you send those useless [00:40:00] rocks? They have eaten my sisters. And tomorrow, Shirley, they will eat me. This one would be perfect. If
there were no more props, earth mother smiled inside and she climbed the hill to her cloud tv. She spread fireflies amongst the trees and they sparkled like diamonds. She spread a spider, we lace on the grass,
and she said goodnight. Goodnight to the Beatles and the hawks and the sunbirds. Goodnight to the whales and the frogs, and the otters and the mosquitoes, and fireflies. [00:41:00] Her children everywhere. Then she went to sleep and the world in its own way was perfect. Goodnight. Goodnight, my beautiful hope.
Goodnight to the south, the swimmers and the whales. Goodnight to the west, the earth and the plants. Goodnight to the north, the wind and the animals. Goodnight to the starts. Goodnight to the moon. Goodnight, beautiful light. Goodnight, beautiful world. Goodnight. Beautiful land.
The end.
So it's a great story about all of life and it really does answer the why [00:42:00] life is the way it is yet gently, mm-hmm. With grace and beauty.
Thank you for listening. If you'd like to support this podcast, you can become a paid subscriber on sub stack.
And this month paid subscribers are receiving the full.
Reflections from Yolanda. Edited down quite a bit for this episode.
And I also invite you to share it with others who you think would like it. Until next time.
Mother's Day Special