I am in Nepal with Guru Aama, and for the first time I am feeling what it feels like to be mothered. The word aama means ‘mother’, and the word guru means ‘dispeller of darkness’.
This reminds me of something my midwifery teacher said. She said that every free birth she saw went the same way… with the mother kneeling on one knee, ready to bring the baby into the light, and the father hovering over her like an archangel ready to receive the light. The first love we ever feel is from our mother, who brings us into the light from the darkness. And it is the greatest gift.
Here I have many mothers, and I am surrounded by motherly love. Motherly love is fierce, from a fiery heart of tender fury. It is tough, because it is so true, and it sees you and believes in you so much that it will slap you in the face if you aren’t being true to yourself. This love knows no limits, it is infinite, like the ocean. And it is indeed unconditional love.
Iemanja is the spirit of mama ocean.
She has taken my life, and she has saved it.
I have felt her feminine force, and I have felt mine reflected from her.
She has shown me my truth and asked me to act as a voice of truth for others.
She only has tolerance for the highest truth. She strips and sheds everything else until she uncovers the truest essence. She holds us as she shows us our shadows. She shines stones into the smooth crystal inside. She turns sand into pearls. She turns trash into treasure. And she cradles and cherishes this beauty for eternity.
And truth is indeed love.
She is powerful
But power flows in many forms
Like a soft, sweet rose with thorns
Power oscillates
Ebbs and flows
Shifts and moves
And hides in the shadows
It is the light and the dark
The strength and the softness
The waves and the stillness of the sea
The flower and the tree
There is power in being the sun
And there is power in being the moon
And using the sun’s light to move the tides
There is power in being powerless
In stepping back and letting others shine
And being a witness to that
And I had thought the times I shut down my heart
Were a sign that I was being strong
But now I see
There is power in vulnerability
And in loving unconditionally
Her power can give you power too, but only if you surrender to it. Think of what happens to water when it stops flowing and is stagnant. In stuckness there is sickness and suffering. In surrender, things flow through us, and healing can happen.
In Nepal, whenever someone says the name of a god, everyone throws their hands up showing that they surrender. They say, ‘Here you don’t have to show us a gun to get us to surrender.’ Though this sort of surrender doesn’t come from fear but rather from fearlessness and faith. It comes from the willingness to swim in the ocean at night, to dive deep into the darkness of the unknown, and to adjust our eyes to learn how to see again.
When I have found myself at the mercy of the force of the ocean, if I tried to fight it I struggled, but if I surrendered to it and shifted with it I was safe.
Iamenja’s love is unconditional. Look what we are doing to her… we are poisoning her holy water… and yet she is winning. She is winning, because she is still flowing and showing and shining her light and love. And her love is more powerful and forceful and fierce than ever… because it has to be… because this mother is raising really unruly children.
And we are losing. We are losing our connection to mother ocean, to mother earth, to motherly love, and to the divine feminine.
And we are so lost. We are lost children in never never land. We are in the darkness.
And the only way out is to open our eyes and our hearts to see and receive the love that surrounds us… and surrender to it.
Last year I was reborn at the ocean. I don’t remember it, but I was told I fell off a forty foot cliff, from a rock that I said looked like a vagina. Apparently I didn’t scream or struggle at all, which I thought was strange, though now I see that I surrendered, which is probably what saved me.
I wrote this poem as a rebirthday gift.
We are born to be free
We come from the amniotic sea
We fill our lungs with the first breath we breathe
And when the water is winning
And the veil is thinning
And we can choose to live or die
We reach to the sky and start swimming
And I try to spread my wings and fly
But I know why the caged bird sings and cries
So let me be born again
Take me down to the ocean
Make me a bed of sand to lay in
I won’t drown when the tides come in
Or be dragged below by the undertow
To the deepest part
Where it is so dark
That when the fishes finally find each other
They latch on for dear life
And never let go
And don’t you know
That even the heaviest hearts float
In the deep blue ocean
In the deep blue sea
The tides come in
The waves carry me
And when it seems like the water is winning
I start swimming
I am dripping
Ripping off my skin
Naked in my skeleton
Like a snake shedding
Tears like medicine
Like a snake
In that limbo place
Between having skin and having faith
And my heart is so open
I’m afraid of what will come in
And what will escape
But I don’t want to be a bird in a cage
I don’t want to lie down
In the depths of the ocean
Can’t you see my hungry mouth
And my floating heart are open
So kiss me
Electricity
Kiss me
Restart my heart
Kiss me
Fill my lungs
Kiss me
Lift me up
Oh love
Let me in
Oh love
I want to swim
Oh love
I want to win
And as the waves come
And as the waves go
There is still hope
For all hearts that float
On the surface for all to see
And the only thing that can rescue me
Is to sing a song that sets me free
And rings so true
The song that I was made to sing
They say when sleeping women wake mountains move
So what does it take to make a new start
Brake my bones
Tear me apart
So I can see my true heart
From the inside
Slide
Am I dreaming
Or is this what I’ve been dreaming of
And do you know what freedom is
It’s love
It’s a slippery slope
She said
And flowers, like hope, are harvested
#Love is freedom