Mother's Day is complicated, like a Bob Dylan concert or spending the night in the woods. The stretch and strength of wilderness. Of voice, and of nurturing, is the very earth itself. The expectations, explorations, and wonderings. The planting of seed that opens Breaks and cracks into the unwinding of the new life into light an amulet breathe and lantern for the future. Each life a seedling.
I sought out about 5 acres in the mountains between Idaho, Washington and Montana. When I had my brothers out to see the property, they said,
“God doesn't even know this road is here.”
But I had found a sanctuary, and it had found me. I had known because of the Ravens that came flying overhead when it was winter, and I made an offering in the deep snow. I heard a knowing that said this is it, this is the place. I was relieved after two years of searching with a loyal friend who was dedicated to the cause. Held my hand and carried me through the process like a mother, like a friend
It had been a part of a wilderness that swept to the center of the next state. But the trees had been harvested to build the structures on the land. I stood in the barn with the warm grain of tamarack and ponderosa pine, sheltered by the beings whose roots once filtered the rain here.
I wanted to regreen to offer this place, to steward back to the earth, however I could. This place, which had been solid forest.
A group of my students came up on Mother's Day weekend, we simply asked them to plant a tree for Mother. People brought little saplings fir, pine, and willow… bending and true to the area.
My beloved sister and friend Araceli Dominguez was visiting from Mexico. And as we drove from Seattle to the new place in Idaho to plant our trees, each of us thought of how we wanted to honor our mothers. Whether they were still with us or had crossed on. Whether they had two, like I do. Or one unknown and one known.
We arrived in Idaho, each of us with one or two or even three trees to plant on this land with its pond, frogs, pine, and Willow populations. It’s Meadow made by cutting the pre-existing trees to build the barn, the tool shed, a chicken coop, and a house linked to a small cabin, where the previous owners lived while building the octagonal house, which we now affectionately call the spirit house.
On Mother's Day, we told stories of our mothers as we each gathered around our small trees. We listened to the land we asked permission before digging into the earth. During the stories and the planting, we smiled, we wept, and we wrapped ourselves in one another's nurture.
In this place, on top of Tamarack Ridge in the slant of Paradise Valley, we prayed and planted, making a voice for our mothers. Each an honorarium to their lives, our ancestors’ lives, and to our greater mother, the Earth.
We placed stones beneath them with intentions and well-being for the journey. My friend had brought them from Mexico to connect us.
Over those days, Araceli painted a stone for the path with the eagle and the Condor, coming together. Over these years, I have cared for those relationships and nurtured the trees. I, who have had the privilege of having two mothers instead of one. Or, as my mentor Angeles Arrien used to say, those of us who are adopted are twice blessed. We have both sets of ancestors from both sets of parents behind us, supporting us.
Although I was given up—more than once in my life— these angels and ancestors returned to me somehow. Gathered me into the complex cultures places and prayers where I belong.
Nothing could have prepared me for the power and the pain of the life they gave me. The altar of experience offered me is all that I came here to learn. To heal what’s hurt. And now, as I have adopted a precious daughter of my own, and have stepchildren in my life. I see how healing comes mostly from cherishing. from being accountable. And paying attention. It also comes from loving… and the hard work of loving. There is always the power in loving to transform.
To nurture isn't always to love. But to nurture is always an encouragement to blossom. Who are the loves that heal what we've lost? It is guaranteed they are nourishing, regenerative even. This is who we are. Caretakers of the earth and soul friends of one another. We are here to care for one another as we do for the promise and purpose of a tree that goes on, that we planted with the future of our mother in mind.