Unable to fix all hurts

Recently, my son has encountered something - we don't know what - that has sent his sense of self, safety and security reeling. He feels helpless, alone and scared. And he is making every waking moment of our life as a family close to unbearable. As the queen of fixing, I have tried everything - speaking to teachers and after school staff, trying to find ways to talk to Max about what he is feeling, creating a more detailed schedule for him to follow in hopes that knowing "what comes next" will help him feel more secure. I have prayed. I have cried. And I have lost my patience with him more times than I can count.

I am spent.

In my journey as a mom, I continually bump up against my inability to "do" anything. The hardest thing for me is to just be present to his pain, without trying to change it. Any mother would much rather get sick so her child doesn't or take on the pain so that don't have to. It's the protective instinct that makes us charge full speed ahead, without always reflecting.

Compassionate detachment is what I am encouraged to embrace. Can I love him fully and be present to this opportunity for him to grow? In surrendering am I able to recognize that I am open to the mystery of what he is going through? The early years were so occupied by physical needs - it was about basic survival. But we are moving into a new land as a family as Max confronts new obstacles that are not physical but are emotional and spiritual. Everyday I become more and more aware that my son is his own person.

I am continually challenged: when do I hold on, and when do I let go?

The Devouring Mother

That night, after Mary's house, I dream:

There is a couple who have been trying really hard to have a baby. I am walking down a street. Intuitively I know that some tragedy befell the baby and it is dead. Darkness has descended and out of nowhere this baby's mother appears and startles me. She has turned into a fierce red and black cat-woman creature. She is screaming. Pure rage. She grabs me and begins to dig her claws into me. I scream, "No, No, No."

Bob wakes me up as I am still screaming out. I have finally scared him. He held me as I cried - overtaken by the disturbing images of the dream. And even though I was safe, the whole world seemed shot through with her energy. He falls back asleep. I lay in bed rigid, my eyes wide open terrified of falling asleep.

The night sounds of Kusadasi are right on top of me. The gravel crunches as people pass by sounding ominous and loud. I am afraid to remain awake for fear that she lurks beneath my window. Irrationally I convince myself that the slightest curiosity on my part to look out the window will result in my death. She will devour me as well. I know she ate that baby. The black and red on her face. The red is the blood of all those innocents that she has consumed. I fear my flesh is not safe here. I write in my journal. There is nowhere else to go. I can write by the light of the street lamps passing through the sheer curtains. I want to make sense of this intensity that is coursing through me.

It can't be a coincidence that all of this female mother imagery is emerging. And then tonight I dream of the devouring mother. Her form in India is Kali. She wears a ring of skulls around her neck and she is black...the darkest of the dark. In my dream she is a cat, feline, an animal form almost always associated with feminine energy. Her fierceness haunts me even as I write and tell myself this was only a dream. Hmmmm...only a dream. I promise to never tell my child such paltry words in the face of the evil of a nightmare. Is that supposed to comfort me? Knowing that she is still out there? Or rather even more frightening - she is within me and waiting to pounce.

I remember when a friend told me after church one Sunday morning that she would like to travel alone in Turkey. She wondered if traveling with Bob would dampen the spiritual aspects of this journey. But now huddled in bed, I know he is protecting me by keeping me grounded. Everything feels so heightened in this moment. My ears are so sensitive that I feel like I am able to hear every sound - every single solitary sound. Few of them are familiar.

Turkey is different from Greece. In Greece I spent my time lying nude on the beach relaxing, swimming, soaking up the sun. But this Turkey is another land.

The feminine energy oozes from the earth. The land is fertile. Everywhere we go there is fresh produce. Fields grow every crop imaginable. This land is a woman constantly giving birth. And yet the patriarchy of Islam is embedded as deep as the roots of the ancient trees. I am coming to believe that the men here are afraid of the power of woman...afraid of her mystery which is the power and mystery of creation itself. Perhaps the laws that control women's experience and daily lies are an attempt to compensate for such strong feminine energy. And maybe I have never experienced true feminine energy unmediated- rising up from the earth and holding you like a mother or devouring you like a monster.

I pray - Please God let me sleep without any more nightmares. I am aware that tonight I pray to God the Father. I want to be protected from the fierceness of the feminine - perhaps from the fierceness of myself.

At Mary's House a Franciscan Annoints Me as Mother

Wearing my blue sundress, I had felt that I was paying appropriate homage to Mary. We took a few pictures once we emerged from the darkness and into the bright sun. Looking back at the photographs (see previous entry) I look so exhausted. But in the moment I had experienced such intensity...the power ofknowing that in every part of me that I was standing on holy ground. And that ground could hold any feeling, thought or prayer that I brought to it.

A thin Fransican priest walked by. He looked Indian. At least I assumed he was Franciscan because he wore the telling brown robes corded at the waist with white rope. I smiled and he returned the gesture. He walked by again this time Bob was the one to engage him, "Hello Father." He nodded "hello". I went to the souvenir shop to buy a few medals. A proper Catholic can't leave a holy site without holy water or some chachka. I bought three medals...one for Grandma, one for a nun friend of mine, and one for myself. I felt it would help to reconnect me back to this moment whenever I felt far away from the holy ground of life itself. Turning around to begin our descent back to the car, the old Franciscan walked by again and again I smiled. This time he stopped and hesitated.
"Where are you from?" he inquired.
"New York City" I said.
"I'm just so pleased to meet you. Are you on a tour?" His proper British/Indian accent gave everything he said an air of dignity and respect.
"No" we both responded in unison.
"If you have the time I would love to speak with you about this place," he said"I felt so drawn to you two. There was something about you...some special quality. It was as if I was being called to talk to you. That's why I came back a second time and then a third. I am so glad to talk with you." He actually clasped his hands in front of him rather gleefully...like a little kid so excited he can't quite contain it and it spills forth in the smacking of his hands.

So we commenced listening to the story of Mary's House and how it came to be discovered. He told us he was a Cappuchin priest from India and this was his new assignment - Mary's House. His transparency made his spiritual energy emanate so freely from him. He was so thin reminding me of the Buddha and St. Francis. It was as if his body received nourishment from the air itself. Perhaps he didn't need the peaches and tomatoes that the rest of us devoured in this fertile country. In him I saw the spiritual body that St. Paul writes about made manifest. I was in the presence of one who had already begun to take that form. Fr. Tarvey lived somewhere between the mundane mortal body and the glorified one. His other worldliness seemed perfect.

As he told the story of Mary's House, every few minutes he would repeat one refrain "But it is more than the historical evidence, the archeological findings, even the human story...At some point you have to come to a point where you must take a leap of trust and faith."

In his storytelling I was led back into the darkness of the hearth in Mary's house. The candle flames dancing and swaying to a spiritual movement I could not see, but which reverberated through every part of my being - body and soul. The flames themselves danced up and down my spine.

At this moment Fr. Tarvey looked deeply into my eyes and smiled, "She knows more about this" and laughed. I was drawn to him and my skepticism was gradually subsiding. His attention made me feel called into some special place.

"This is Mary's House where she lived and mothered the early church. But it is much bigger than Christianity. The holiness here transcends all religions. This place is really about the love of the mother. And that's why you Jennifer may understand more of this leap than Bob...precisely because you are a woman. There are things about women - mystery- that men will never understand. Are you a mother?"

Smiling, "No, not yet Father." This was the second time I had been asked this question. What was it about Turkey that was making me interact with mother on so many levels. Calling out in a dream...standing inside Mary's house and here speaking with Fr. Tarvey. What was happening to me?

We prepared to go back to Ali Baba's car. I wanted to hug Fr. Tarvey but restrained myself. We thanked him profusely for his time with us. He gave us a handwritten card with his address and name on a piece of bluelined notebook paper. "What I need most are your prayers. I am very poor, but you my friends are very rich."

Fr. Tarvey's words had connected with a deep inner urging of mine to be a mother and to experience the greater love of the Mother that is ground of our being. This time at Mary's House had not come to an end. It appeared to be an opening and far from finished.

Ephesus: A Trip to Mary's House

After showering the decision was made to hire Ali Baba and his son Murat for a tour to Mary's House high on a hill outside of Ephesus. In addition to Mary, Artmeis worship had been very strong in the same wooded hills and mountains. Murat refers to our destination as Mary's House...not the House of our Blessed Virgin Mary or anything else appropriately pious. I like that intimacy. It's simply the house where Mary lived after fleeing Jerusalem. Without the trappings of piety and worship, I almost feel like we will be greeted with fresh bread when we arrive.

The onslaught of tour buses in the parking lot greet me and I am a little disappointed to say the least. Ali Baba stays in the car and Murat walks with us. The building itself is quite small. A nun dressed in a light blue habit stands at the entrance welcoming visitors and pointing to the sign which lists the different times when mass is said and the various languages spoken. She seemed sweet, slight and frail - the way I have often assumed Mary to be.

Entering the first room, I am enveloped by the coolness and darkness of the space. The hushed quiet reverberates. In the center of the room is the hearth. Along the wall hangs a row of metal trays filled with sand for lighting candles. It's ablaze with flickering candles. Bob asks if I want to light a candle and I follow him to the tray.

As I lit my candle I prayed for MaMere, my maternal grandmother who passed away a few months prior. The flame crackled reminding me of dancing with Fourth of July sparklers in my backyard as a kid. I bend forward to place my candle in the sand. As I rest the candle in the sand, I sense of presence and chills run up and down my spine. A powerful energy moves through my body and tears come to my eyes.

The power of standiing on holy feminine ground coursed through me that day. I was held in Her embrace.

Meeting the Great Mother: Notes from Summer 1999

The overnight ferry from Naxos to Samos was packed when we boarded around 11:30pm. I didn't know how we would find a space to sleep. People were sprawled everywhere. Bob carved out four seats for us and I tried to sleep on the floor in front of the seats, building up mountains of backpacks and towels into a makeshift mattress. The air was stale with the smoke of hundreds of cigarettes. The hardest thing for me to handle while traveling in Greece was the smell of putrid smoke.


I must have drifted off at some point because I awoke from a deep sleep with Bob shaking me, "Stop it Jen...stop."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"You're dreaming...You keep yelling 'Mommy! Mommy!' "
"Nuh huh."
"Yes you are."

Usually when you are awoken from a dream you remember some fragment - but I had no recollection of any of it. There was no way I could have screamed out for Mommy. It just didn't fit. I was 30 years old traveling with my partner to Turkey from the Greek Islands. Bob was adamant about my screams. As I sat up and climbed into the chair I wondered what was bubbling forth from such a deep dark place that I wasn't conscious enough to recognize the cries as my own. I'd been in enough Jungian analysis to know this was a big one....

From the moment of that dream, I felt different. I had entered another space and realized time unfolded differently in this new place I inhabited. North was no longer North and South was no longer South. Feeling a little disoriented and lost, I was getting ready to journey in a mysterious land.

After dreaming for ten years about traveling to Turkey, I had always hoped my experiences would be memorable. My dream on the ferry announced some greater mystery that was waiting to be revealed. The voice that I cried out with for mother came from a deep place. I was pretty certain that it wasn't my mom back in Kansas I was yelling for with such intensity. Even at this early moment in the journey I knew it was the Great Mother I needed: the one who holds the whole world in her pelvic floor. What I didn't know was why I was calling for her.

Still Thinking About Maiden to Mother

As a society we do not hold the mother as she finds her way through the place in between maiden and mother. This is far too grand a transformation to do it alone. And yet, for so many of us we are left to feebly grope in the darkness.

We are unindated by society and its messages that make it harder to find our way home to ourselves. As a friend said - "We are expected to go back to work, look the same - be thin and all together."

It is as if nothing happened and yet our entire beings have changed. No one wants to know our story now that the baby is here. It is a vessel experience. I am the container for Max but who is containing me? That is where a community of women can hold the sacred space for each other -honoring our moments of despair, hopelessness, joy, and euphoria.

I too was born when Max entered the world. I was not a mother until I pushed him through the walls of my being and he emerged wet, slippery and screaming. In that moment I knew it was just the beginning.

My quiet moments with him were precious when he was a baby and continue to be now that he is a boy. I love to read to him and nestle in the bed together singing songs off key. I have always played with him differently than his father. It is not a rowdy and rough type of play. It is quieter and more solitary. I was never a rowdy physical kid - how could I be expected to give that to my son? I can only give him what I have.

A hero in birth

Everyone is a hero in birth, Campbell states in The Power of Myth, displaying the wonderful complexity and instructive ambiguity that so often blesses both his writing and his speech. The act of birth, he goes on, represents a tremendous psychological as well as physical transformation, both for the child being born and the mother giving birth. The child moves from the condition of a little water creature in a realm of amniotic fluid into an air-breathing mammal which ultimately will be standing.

For the mother’s part, she is not only undergoing physical hardship, but she is also giving herself over to the life of another. Both are key components of any hero’s quest. Motherhood is a sacrifice, Campbell writes, and she is embarking on what will comprise, at least for some extended period of time, an important facet of her life’s work. But Campbell says that birth is not just a physical act. The mother is also undergoing a metaphorical transformation from a maiden to a mother…a big change, involving many dangers. The ways in which she confronts and maneuvers through those dangers, the paths she chooses to travel across that threshold, are part of her own spiritual birth, and represent her own individual hero’s quest.

Jospeh Campbell
The Power of Myth
painting: The Great Mother by Durga Bernhard

Breath and Birth

Breath can bridge the space between contracting and relaxing. It’s no coincidence that we are asked to use our breath to help us in birth. The breath – prana, chi, spirit – can help us to stay grounded as it also lifts us to meet our next challenge in the birthing process.


Inhale.
My body has held and formed Life.
Exhale.
And given Life back to itself.