This Is A Sanctuary For Mothers
This week I danced as Mother Mother at the drum circle. I was wearing my homemade Fertility Abundance Garden t-shirt and my amazingly fly fluorescent pink see-through pants that I love. Anything with an elastic waist, I love! Expansion, fluctuation, stretching, bending, breathing…these are all the things my clothes need to do.
The pop-up sanctuary emerged as an idea when I was sitting in the middle of the grassy area at Malcolm X Park two Sundays ago. We were there because the co-creator had called together his capoeira folks to play together for the first time since the shutdown. It was my first time back at the drum circle in almost 4 years. It was a big day for the kids too. This was our first time leaving the house altogether in a car since February 2020.
I have always preferred the grass to the stone floor where the drums bang and boom. Most people dancing gather there with their sweat dripping and their glee glistening in the sun that filters through the trees overhead. I have always preferred my space! Also, managing 4 munchkins while the co-creator plays in the roda, I need room to spread out, serve food, change diapers, be where I can see the kids running around. These are labors I cannot do while pressed up against the throng of drum circle movers and shakers. Besides, the drums are plenty loud and lovely from the grass too.
So two Sundays ago when we’re there a series of magical moments brought me to the knowing that it was time for the Garden to experiment with in-person communions. I had this whole synthesis of memory and understanding about my growth as Mother Mother all these years. Five years ago when I’d just given my Yes to my initiation journey, I held ringshouts for mothers at the drum circle. At the time I had only just begun to glimpse the fullness of my calling. I had two children and couldn’t yet see so far ahead. Spirit told me two more children would be born during my initiation season, and the how/when/where was unclear. Those ringshouts in the park were where I could dance, vision, and live into what spirit was telling me, even if my material world didn’t seem to have space for such a reality.
Remembering all this, and then looking around at my life—especially Juju and Revvy, the ones born during my initiation— I saw how far I had journeyed in the five years of saying Yes to my path. I realized that once upon a time I needed to create sanctuary spaces to tune into my spiritual knowing. But now, I am the sanctuary. I can access the expanse of my power anywhere. It was then that I felt a strong pull to open up this sharing majesty for other creators who might be there and need a safe space for their sacred stories. What if, I thought as I often do, there had been a Garden for me all those years ago?
It’s time for me to create more access to this sacred story sharing, fertile majesty cultivating, abundance consciousness living that we do in the Garden with more people. I’ve learned how to be Mother Mother in the Garden. And now I am discovering how to be Mother Mother out in the world.
At some point two women sat next to us. They had a little boy with them and a cooler full of food. My kids were getting haaaaangry, and the family was happy to share their food with us. The little boy was thrilled to have so many new friends to play with. It was a good time for everyone. The sisters saw me dancing and one of them invited me to facilitate movement at her healing retreat. That led me to talking about the Garden and inviting them to join.
Then another sister recognized me from long ago, and started sharing her tender fertility dreams with me, and so I invited her to the Garden too. I explained, “The Garden is a sanctuary for mothers, a congregation for creators.” I told them all that in the Garden we witness you, we support you in speaking dreams aloud, and we love you as you navigate the long labors of bringing them to life.
As the sun went to sleep and we packed up to head home, I thought, what if I had a sign that said “FERTILITY ABUNDANCE GARDEN?” Who else might come and share her sacred stories, and dance with me, and commune about our fertile majesties? And then the whole pop-up sanctuary idea was born, and between that Sunday and the next I started thinking through more layers of it. There’s still a lot of pieces coming together. I welcome your participation in dreaming the pop-up Sanctuaries forward this summer. Here we grow, again!
moments from our inaugural pop-up sanctuary @ Malcolm X park, 13 june 2021
