Day of the Dreads

Thomas died three years ago today.

Gappy, Pickle and I and a couple of friends went up our hill to the Dada Lump. It's not as obvious as it once was, but still makes a good seat.

We lit a little fire (Thomas always made a fire) to burn some special things.

We ate (another of his favourite passtimes); even Pickle who is still too poorly to eat much.

 Treasures were hung in hedges and buried in the earth, but my favourite thing was this:

I hung all my splendid dreads, wool and all, in the branches of the hawthorn tree which grows above Thomas's head. He always wanted dreads, so now he has mine.

I don't know how long they'll last; I expect birds will make good use of them for nests.

The wind may take one or two, possibly for miles.

Or they may just dangle about, confusing the fat and happy sheep.

The hundred trees, planted by Thomas's wider community and lovingly tended by his father when he visits Pickle and I, are flourishing. It is a good place, this land which holds the Dada Lump. I am very grateful.

Pickle was tired and cold, so we blew kisses to Primrose and Fey, who also lie up here; put out the fire in the traditional manner (a very quick way to warm one's cockles) and headed for the nearest pizza.

It has been a tough day, but also it has been just right.

Cosmic Mother

OK. Brace yourselves. We're going into what may seem weird territory for some... But if you've started reading a post called 'Cosmic Mother', you're probably not scared easy.

So. Another painting by yours truly. And this one has a story, which I will tell a little tentatively because it has fronds reaching to the very core of my heart. 

Cosmic Mother

Oil on Canvas

16"x16"

I was on a course run by Eagle's Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism. 

Amongst other acts of crazy sanity, we buried ourselves alive. Yes. We dug our own graves and, like the free-thinking, independent warriors that we are, we followed instructions to get into them at sunset, lie down... and listen to the earth being shoveled over our wood and tarp roofs. The sound of soil hitting my roof in ever-quieter thuds and sprinkles may never leave me. I have rarely been so grateful to have recently peed. 

And then the strangest thing happened: I stopped feeling scared. In fact, I felt safer than usual; comforted, like a baby.

The Earth was holding me, I realised, not in her arms as she normally does when I walk her surface, but deeply in her womb. I felt a breadth of love I have only had sniffs of with people, even my very loving human mum.

And then... I knew. I had the most curious Russian-doll feeling that I was a baby in the womb of the Cosmic Mother and in my womb... Oh. So that's why the digging was so hard.

And the best feeling, of being able to express this booming love I was receiving, washed through me. I was a holy conduit calling into me the love of the universe and flowing it into the child I carried.   I was a mother.

All night I blissed and loved and dozed in this Russian-doll blessing. I spoke with my child; my boy. Not words; not mind; just a connection so I could sing my love into his tiny, tiny body and he could let me know how urgently he had wanted to contact me. Every time I recall his urgency I am so grateful to have had this unique experience. So grateful.

And at dawn, when others eagerly fled their graves, I was reluctant. I feared losing the love I'd felt. And, anyway, I didn't feel like breakfast. 

But, of course, the love stayed strong and is with me still.

My boy - he has a name, but I will hold that close to my chest for now - is not with me. When I was ten weeks pregnant he left. And I grieved like I had known him all my life.

And so I learned that the love of the Cosmic Mother is not pretty and easy and sweet in the way we often use the word. It is vast and powerful and sometimes terrifying. It is all truth and no mercy. And still I am grateful.

Perhaps, without the burial that night, I would have escaped the bereavement I experienced. But I would never have met my son. And what mother would choose to not know her child? Not this one.

The love I experienced that night now guides me, sometimes minute by minute, in the raising of my healthy, happy daughter.

I wish you all the luck to feel such love and the courage to withstand it.