I dreamt about us all the other night, and we were in a beautiful warm place on a beach at sunset sipping cool cocktails and nibbling on lumps of fresh stone crab dipping our fingers in the yummy tangy mustard sauce that perfectly complemented the sweetness of the crabmeat. We were laughing softly and sharing stories from our lives, each of us wishing that at times we were more accepting and appreciative for each other’s gifts and talents. Recognizing we’d have had so much easier a time in life if we’d practiced compassion, allowance for what is, and been able to drop our protective, projective guards and let each other in more. We all knew that Mum was dying and these moments would be cherished memories. She believed that from the earth she came and to the earth she’d go, reinventing the landscape as she’d reinvented the landscape of her life so many times before. My daughter was like the air, blowing whichever way the wind would take her. A flight of fancy defined her as she followed her dreams with a passion, traveling round the world ~ to Europe, to South America, to Africa, to the Middle East, from Iceland to Australia, and had just flown from Latin America to meet here for this special five day retreat. And in this dream I was full of fire in my belly ~ full of the vibrant energy that marries wisdom and youth. Smack dab in the middle of them both. Being air like in the quality of my mind, open, flexible and flowing as wind does but without the physical movement that my daughter just is at this point in her life. Being grounded once again mostly in reference to my mind but without the depth of wisdom and knowingness that Mum possesses. Maintaining a home, being there for husband and children, plus caring for our five animals; in full force with my career knowing I choose to allow it to be more even though being scared of the unknown, but realizing massive responsibilities of college, elder care, and how hard my husband had worked and still was yet in this time of recession needed me to stand way up tall to the plate of life and be my potential in the world. Mum just being, daughter going, and me doing. Go, do, be where the words within a beautiful teardrop shaped teal green bubble rising from the sea and moving towards all three of us. What a poignant moment we shared as each stretched out our hands to the other sitting in a circle on a blanket on the beach.
How insignificant everything except the power of love seems. How important it is as girls, women and elder ladies that we respect and receive each other’s gifts of youth and old age. So much has been written and so many wonderful books have been on best -seller lists where this topic has been researched, reviewed and revered over time. The subject of mother and daughter with all its’ complexities and woven threads of time will always be a topic for discussion! It’s a new era with new energies upon us for living in the light of awareness so let’s wake up to each other within this format called family, and think differently about it. Rather than believing we don’t choose our family, what about this? We indeed do choose our family and if we can get out of our own way we’ll reap enormous lifelong benefit from these potent women in our life. Not always easy for sure, because the truth is sometimes difficult relationships are our greatest teachers. It’s not that we won’t feel the mosaic of human emotions, cursing under our breath at times and so disappointed our views or choices are not heard and validated at times~ it’s that we understand and give credence to the individual girl or woman we call daughter, mother or self. It’s that we can feel lucky to have a daughter or be one, have a mother who lives or be one, be the grandma or have one, or be any combination of the female who informs and enlightens our life within the family that is unique to us.
I pose these questions for you to contemplate. If you are a daughter and of a certain age, can you see your mother’s faults and release them so you and she are both more free to be? Can you make up a story that feels better for you if the relationship is sharp with the stings of the past so that it has a chance to transform? Can you write your woes and angers on a nice piece of paper and have a little ceremony outside burying them in the earth so they are released from your heart and your mind is more free? Can you forgive your mother her humanness? Could you possibly invite the parts of your mother that you admire and respect into your own life and make them part of you? Could you drop the age ole fight first and apologize knowing it’s not about who’s right or who’s wrong, rather it’s about feeling inner peace because life’s hard enough without holding tightly to ego stuff. When you’re of a different age, and you begin to see signs of looking like your mother could you see them with a smile? Instead of being aghast and wanting to run from them, fix them or otherwise alter her hand me down genes could you embrace them and enhance other aspects of yourself instead so what you aren’t so happy with is only a gentle reminder that she lives and will always live.
If you’re a mother, could you drop your stubbornness and need to be right because you think you know better, or because of how you were raised or because of what you did or didn’t receive from your Mom, and listen to your daughter with an open heart for a few moments? Could this way of active listening become a habit that gives your daughter one of the greatest gifts of all ~ a soft place to be heard, to express, expel and examine her beliefs and experiences in a place of safety and comfort and love. Could you be witness to her growth as she awkwardly strives to find her place in the sun? Could you let go of jealousy or envy at her beauty, her bloom of youth and her eagerness to leave and explore the world when the time comes? Instead of wishing and wanting the life you could have had if you hadn’t chosen to be a mother in the first place? Through the trials and tribulations that accompany motherhood, could you put it all aside and be truly happy for her successes even though you may have a few furrows from the worry and stress she’s forced upon you? And can you handle her becoming a wife or partner or mother herself with a sense of grace and pride and not regret and relief? Could you welcome the parts of her that inspire, uplift and engage you to be a better you, into your life and feel blessed you are her Mom?
I’d like to pose one last question. Could you put aside all you know about your self for this one moment, and all you know about your Mom, and all you know about your daughter, and close your eyes, breathe slowly, deeply and consciously let go of every thought in your mind. Can you see yourself on a beach with the women in your family all sipping cocktails, eating your favorite delicious food and watching a sunset? Can you feel the warm breeze blowing softly over your skin? Can you look into the eyes of these women and see the kindest gentlest most pure reflection of yourself? Looking out to sea, what does the sunset mean to you? For me, upon waking from this soft and ethereal dream, the sunset was my gift of awareness that for this moment all that I know of myself and all I think I know about my daughter and all I thought I knew of my Mum is setting. I am opening to endless possibilities for welcoming and awakening to unique amazing aspects of us all and it comes to me in the form of a lotus flower. The lotus flower grows deep roots in the mud, and rises high and tall and stately into the sun blossoming with gorgeous color and form ~ big petals of beauty and I’ve not ever seen a lotus flower alone. They stand steady and firm on their own yet in the same pond are other flowers of the same kind, one a little shorter, one a little rounder, one a little taller. And did I mention they are all facing in the direction of the sun.