Each day a mother-centered matriarchy unfurls from within me. My daughter’s watchful gaze guarantees my commitment to slowness ~ to presence with my body ~ to my wellness as a mother. All day & all night (literally!) I model for her how it is to live on this earth & what it is to be well. She reminds me to tread carefully ~ as a child of these times, she offers me the medicine I need to mother us both through.
As ‘business as usual’ resumes around us, I hold our choice to live slowly close to my heart ***lockdown meant we were momentarily joined in the slowness ~ that was profound***. From pre-conception, my journey into motherhood consistently called me to surrender deeper into a slow presence. & now Holly is 6 moons old, slow mothering has become my antidote to ‘motherwhelm’ ~ its a choice away from influences that (could) keep me moving too fast for my body & doing too much for me to be well.
Choosing slowness is choosing to rewrite many inherited, internalised stories about how valuable mothering is (or not), how motherhood should look & feel ~ stories that (could) make mothers feel they need to do or be more than they are. It is these same human stories that impact the wellness of our greater mother earth ~ stories that seek to devalue the land who mothers & nourishes us ~ stories that push her to her limits & make her unwell.
I’ve learnt the hard way that the capitalist, patriarchal frameworks we live in make it hard to surrender into motherhood & be well mothering. Throw in a global pandemic (the impact of which is a direct result of such frameworks) & its guaranteed nervous system overwhelm for mothers. & this is how our greater mother is right now ~ our earth has been forced into system motherwhelm by human stories introduced to us by societal frameworks out of balance.
As the intensity of ‘pandemic motherwhelm’ eases from my body, I see I have a new resilience & stability that seems fitting for these times. I have been initiated into what will be required of me to mother myself & my daughter through the challenging collective times we know lay ahead. The experience of this pandemic has gifted us a taste of what is to come & a chance to prepare ~ inwards & outwards ~ to become the medicine children our greater mother so desperately needs.