This has been a quiet week, one of interesting contemplation, internal conflagration, and insipid days of lost in a world of wondering.
Ever have those times when you just keep getting caught up in that god awful loop of what ifs?
My way out toward the end of the week came in writing a talk for Unity Church I will be giving on Sunday, Mother’s Day. It got me to thinking about mothers. The energy of mothers, The Mother, our mothers, mothering all that we are surrounded by and the mothers that I love and adore, that have challenged me to love, and the ones I see going unloved in our world.
I turned to gratitude for relief. I rewound the clock and began to write about the generations of mothers that have come before me and after me. I sat with each of them until I could easily write at least one (although there turned out to be many) things I was grateful for… for them, from them, or about them.
I started with the great-grandmother I was blessed to know, my Granny. She lived past 100 years, I don’t remember for sure how far past. Granny taught me to sweep sideways across the sidewalk from her porch to the street rather than pushing all that debris along the entire length of the walk. Swish, swish went the broom as the dust and leaves returned to the yard so easily.
She made the best pot roast (still today one of my absolute favorite meals, or maybe it’s the gravy). Gramps dug fresh potatoes and pulled fresh carrots out of their garden and Granny put all the good stuff into the pot and voila, there on the dinner table was a feast fit for kings set before us little kids.
I could climb the tree outside the back porch and hide while she pretended she didn’t know where I was when she called me to supper. Granny let my sister and I put colored sprinkles on our Malt-O-Meal.
Granny’s mother, my Grandmother Zimmer tried to teach me about organization, but alas, I may have failed that one. She painted on fabric making beautiful tablecloths and matching napkins. She studied words and I am grateful every day that words and reading were important in her world as they have become in mine.
Grandma Zimmer handmade a beautiful parchment book for me for Easter one year. In gold lettering rivaling calligraphy, but uniquely hers, she copied poems we had written to her, her favorite poems like from Edna St Vincent Millay, words from her friends and her own. She wrote inspirational pieces, maybe even haiku (I didn’t know what that was then), and she bound it all together with a rolled, gold lace tied in a bow on the outside of the fold. There were little green ferns and flowers adorning the corners.
Grandma Zimmer wrote the ten words published every week in Readers Digest and their definitions. I am grateful to her for my grammar, my love of words, and for a love of reading through all the books she gifted me for birthdays and holidays (yeah for the Happy Hollisters).
My dad’s mom, I used to affectionately call my “hippie Grandma. She was my Grandma Wolf. She was an artist with paint under and around her fingernails. Grandma was a seamstress; she made my Davy Crocket hat and my wedding gown. She taught me to see all the colors of green in a tree, not just a green tree.
Grandma Wolf let me get so dirty cleaning up the barn attic that the black ring around the bathtub must have taken her all evening to clean out. She gave my sister and I old shower curtains to put up in the attic windows. Grandma Wolf let me create sacred space in the black delta dirt that lived in the attic of an abandoned garage in Stockton.
And she showed me how to talk to birds. It was amazing how many words her “Junior” knew and understood. She showed me how to draw sitting on the grass in Mickey Grove between Navy ships on the Delta and a myriad of animals in the little zoo. And she taught me how to bake cookies and that it was ok to be loved by flour covered hands.
I will always be grateful to Grandma Wolf for pulling the artist out of me and showing me that art comes in more forms than we can ever imagine, it is all up to us and bound only by our imaginations.
My own mother taught me how to be of service in this world and the importance of good fiscal responsibility (one it took me decades of debt and heartache to understand). She was a responsible woman of the WWII era that could budget (not a gene I inherited), organize and delegate, work hard for a living when women didn’t work out in the world that much, and run the offices of major companies until she finally ran the office of her own family business.
She taught me to love roses. Like all mothers and daughters, it wasn’t always an easy ride and I, like so many, wish I knew then what I know now about life, love, mental stress, and unrelenting responsibilities often of our own making because perception of others was such an important part of her world.
I am forever grateful to my mother for sending me to summer art classes at the museum, to summer school where I learned to type and play chess, to Y-Camp where I found goosebumps in nature and a love of gospel songs sung lakeside on a Sunday morning.
My mother taught me to skyre the clouds and “see” all that was hidden in the natural world. She shared once that she soared over a ravine like a hawk when she was at summer camp herself. Now that is one comment I wish I had a longer conversation to go with, but it just popped out one day as we were watching a hawk circle above a hillside covered with daffodils.
My daughter inspires me with her ability to mother everything in her life. Her sons are the most wonderful young men, her animals loved and cared for in ways I would have never thought possible, she is a chicken chatterer and grows the most amazing vegetables in her summer and winter gardens.
She is a self-starter, successfully self-employed, and makes me proud to be her mother every day. And she doesn’t laugh at me when I show her boys faces in the rocks or paint rock with them.
I am filled with gratitude and more stories than I have time to share in this little Friday Tidbit, for all the “mothers” who have gifted me with their wisdom, love, and creativity.
Who are the mothers who have made a difference in your world or shared a secret you still hold as one of your core truths? The ones who gifted you love, inspiration, stories, or song, a craft, a journey, or an elephant in the clouds.
Not to exclude, I’ll bet we could all write about a man or men in our lives that we are grateful for. The ones who embody the divine feminine, the “mothering” energy of nurturing, caring, and unconditional love that we delegate to the energy of a “mother”.
Take a moment out of your day or over the weekend and write three things you are grateful for; things that you received from the “mothers” in your life, not just the biological ones, but any, and all, who gifted you with their unconditional love, wisdom, nurturing, and care.
May you all have a wonder-filled weekend and bless all you “mothers” out there, not just the ones who have borne children, but every single one of you, man or woman, who has gifted your love and wisdom, your compassion and caring to any living creature in your world. May it be returned to you ten-fold.
And one final word of deepest gratitude to our Mother Earth, for sustaining us and teaching us and putting up with the amount of time it is taking us to learn how to return the abundance she shares with us universally.
In Gratitude and Joy with Puppy Dog Kisses…
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Vicki Dobbs is a bold and adventurous warrior walking a path of heart to manifest spirituality in everyday lives. She opens existential gateways for individuals to face their challenges and embrace these tests as the great teachers that they are.
Her goal is to see everyone walk in beauty and balance every day of their lives empowered by the voice of their own authentic truth.
Through Wisdom Evolution and Sacred Wisdom Workshops, Vicki creates opportunities for others to make deep personal changes through experiential classes, ceremony, sacred art and story. She endeavors to inspire others to create their lives intentionally. Vicki is an Inspirator of everyday awareness, an Instigator of spontaneous stories and a Connoisseur of Creativity. Gratitude and grace sprinkled with humility and humor are the medicine she brings to the world.
As an Elder, Teacher and Entrepreneur, Spiritual Coach, Ordained Minister and Crafter of Sacred Art and Tools, Vicki perceives life’s journey as an ever-upward spiraling ascension of the human spirit leading her to wisdom, wholeness and authenticity.
Her experience includes being trained in the Harner Method of Shamanic Counseling and the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of Cross Cultural Shamanism. She is a Graduate Teacher and Mentor with the Lynn Andrews Center For Sacred Arts and Training and has been the Administrator and Writers Guide for Writing Spirit, the School.
Vicki is also an Artist of the Spirit Certified Spiritual and Energetic Life Coach, a Graduate Mentor in the AoS program and a founding member of HeatherAsh Amara’s Warrior Goddess Leadership Team and Facilitator of the Warrior Heart Practice.
Connect with Vicki here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vickildobbsauthor
