Mothers Day

I'm feeling the weight of Mothers Day today. The weight doesn't come from my mother, it comes from within me as a recovering Addict and alcoholic because in my active addiction I often chose drinking or using over the needs of my three children.

I live my amends for that every day but no day more than Mothers Day.

When my children were small, Mothers Day was mostly their Dad's responsibility: to get a card, or make and help deliver an interesting breakfast in bed, get something from the store, or wrap a special schoolmade item for my special day. I adored those times: everyone giggling and snuggling together in bed and talking over each other, telling me which breakfast item they Made or which handicraft was their Creation. Life wasn't always perfect, their father and I were not a good match but the kids were resilient and happy for the most part.

After the divorce my lifelong struggles with addiction worsened and my disease began whispering that surely my children were old enough (at 11, 14 and 17) to be left alone together while I lived the single, party-girl life. When my sons both decided to live with their father full-time, the addicted part of my brain consoled me again, drowning painful reality by checking me out of my life almost completely.

I left town for 6 months, justifying abandoning my youngest to live with her father full-time with the argument that I needed "space" to get my head together. I sold my house and blew the small profits I did make on more drugs and alcohol and constant "road trips".  I renamed myself with a brief-lived childhood nickname and became "Mickie" tied to a fantasy of a musician-hippie-bohemian lifestyle my 'addict' brain told me I could pull off at age 41.

That was the year I missed Mothers Day for the first time. The awkward Skype promises-apologies-repeat rhythm of those conversations still haunt me, filling me a guilt that is difficult to shake. What kind of mother did that make me?

It took me three more years to start answering that question.  I missed another Mothers Day #2 while in treatment for chemical dependancy. I remained in the grips of baffling, powerful and cunning disease. I was a mother who had no idea how to live life on life's terms, who had been running for so long I was full of fear about how to be clean and sober.  A mother who hadn't been consistently clean or sober for decades, except (barely) through most of her pregnancies.

After treatment, counselling, 12 Step meetings, thousands of conversations with fellow addicts in recovery, years of indigenous ceremonies and hard soul searching work I am coming to the realization that no amount of time that passes will erase the past. I am still working on forgiving myself for Mickie's mistakes and assumptions.

What kind of mother does that make me?  I think that makes me like alot of moms out there, not perfect, doing the best they can with what they have.  ❤ Michelle

started in May 2018
finished December 8 2018

 

Brigit Anna McNeill

November 25 at 7:32 AM

We are approaching the threshold of winter.

Life is being drawn into the earth, painlessly descending down into the very heart of herself. 

And we as natural human animals are being called to do the same, the pull to descend into our bodies, into sleep, darkness and the depths of our own inner caves continually tugging at our marrow. 

But many find the descent into their own body a scary thing indeed, fearing the unmet emotions and past events that they have stored in the dark caves inside themselves, not wanting to face what they have so carefully and unkindly avoided. 

This winter solstice time is no longer celebrated as it once was, with the understanding that this period of descent into our own darkness was so necessary in order to find our light. That true freedom comes from accepting with forgiveness and love what we have been through and vanquishing the hold it has on us, bringing the golden treasure back from the cave of our darker depths.

This is a time of rest and deep reflection, a time to wipe the slate clean as it were and clear out the old so you can walk into spring feeling ready to grow and skip without a dusty mountain on your back & chains around your ankles tied to the caves in your soul. 

A time for the medicine of story, of fire, of nourishment and love.

A period of reconnecting, relearning & reclaiming of what this time means brings winter back to a time of kindness, love, rebirth, peace and unburdening instead of a time of dread, fear, depression and avoidance.
This modern culture teaches avoidance at a max at this time; alcohol, lights, shopping, overworking, over spending, bad food and consumerism. 

And yet the natural tug to go inwards as nearly all creatures are doing is strong and people are left feeling as if there is something wrong with them, that winter is cruel and leaves them feeling abandoned and afraid. Whereas in actual fact winter is so kind, yes she points us in her quiet soft way towards our inner self, towards the darkness and potential death of what we were, but this journey if held with care is essential.

She is like a strong teacher that asks you to awaken your inner loving elder or therapist, holding yourself with awareness of forgiveness and allowing yourself to grieve, to cry, rage, laugh, & face what we need to face in order to be freed from the jagged bonds we wrapped around our hearts, in order to reach a place of healing & light without going into overwhelm. 

Winter takes away the distractions, the noise and presents us with the perfect time to rest and withdraw into a womb like love, bringing fire & light to our hearth.

•illustration by Jessica Boehman•
•words Brigit Anna McNeill•

Words from the earth

reciprocity floats up to me from paper pages and down from the Sun

From the Polish East and the traditional territories of the Semiahmoo and Qayqayt 

Land-ing and sowing Seeds that grow in my Gifts

by touching the earth, I continue

Pre Fast - May 15 2018

“The earth is what I speak to when
I do not understand my life…

The earth answers me with the same song
That it sang for my fathers when
their tears covered up the sun.

The earth sings a song of gladness.
The earth sings a song of praise.

The earth rises up and laughs at me
Each time that I forget
How spring begins with winter
And death begins with birth.

When I look at ugliness, I see beauty.
When I am far from home,
I see my old friends.

When there is noise,
I hear a robin’s song instead.

When I am in a crowd,
it is the mountain’s peace that I feel.

In the winter of my sorrow,
I remember the summer of my joy.

In the nighttime of my loneliness,
I breathe the day of my thanksgiving.
But when sadness spreads its blanket
and that is what I see,
I take my eyes to some high place
until I find a reflection of
what lies deep inside me.”

~Nancy Wood from Many Winters