- Louise Erdrich, Native American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings.

At the foundation of how we mother are many personal, environmental, and cultural factors including, but not limited to: 

 

- How womanhood was modeled to us by our own mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and other elder women around us.

- What we learned from the adults in our childhood years about what was good and bad behavior, what would be accepted, celebrated, and not tolerated. 

 

If we seek to mother our children - daughters especially! - in any way different to how we were mothered, a heavy dose of consciousness is required. And because we cannot always bring these habitual, well practiced ways of being to light on our own, we can seek reflections and mindful modeling from our communities to support us. 

 

 

 

 

First, we must notice. When we find ourselves mothering our own children in ways that replicate what was modeled for us, when we can recognize it playing out, we can invite a more conscious way of being - and then we get to ask ourselves, What do we want it to look like? Why? What do we believe are the positive outcomes that will be derived from making the shifts we seek to make? Then we get to choose.

 

But also we must slow down. In order to see the essence of the journey of a woman and to recognize the stages, the seasons, and its cyclicity. By slowing down, we can track the patterns and the cycles over time of our energy, our mood, our mental landscape, our emotional resiliency, our spiritual flexibility. We can get intimate in our relationships with others and with ourselves in a way that serves the bigger picture of our lives and we can better understand:

 

- Our health. The symptoms and the causes. We can discover how our general wellness goes far beyond chasing and managing the symptoms.

- Our relationships. We can discover, modify, and express boundaries, hold adequate standards, and recognize ourselves as worthy!)

- Our growing up. As women, let’s explore how we want to mature into elderhood and as mothers, how do we both nurture and yield to nature as our daughters embrace the upcoming stages of maidenhood through adolescence and into wellness and fullness of their own womanhood.

 

There are some milestones on this journey that we don’t want to miss. We will only get them once.

 

And there are some aspects of girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, (our lives!) that we get to experience time and again, and we can fine tune our approach over time.

 

 

We believe that a circle of other women, also committed to practicing bringing what’s unconscious into the light can make this more palatable, even delightful!

 

 

We get to talk about perimenopause and menopause among others who know it’s a part of life, and not something to be fixed, wrangled to submission, or suffered through. We discover how many options we truly have and how much choice we can have in this area!

 

They get to speak openly about the ebbs and flows of motherhood, from the trials of their matrescence period to their hard earned triumphs of today. 

 

By tending to the root cause and aspects influencing our holistic wellness we do more than manage the symptoms and circumstances (because seriously, do we need more practice controlling and managing stuff?!) 

 

We are surrounded by people who are in the practice of being generous and kind, but also boundaried, and at times fiercely so!

 

Mothers can talk about the emergent sexuality and powerful femininity of their daughters without receiving an eye roll and a “just wait,” or “watch out” response, but rather, can one of awe, marvel, and enthusiasm. 

 

“When a girl arrives at menarche (the first bleed) she feels a real dignity and a strong 'yes' to her being. Once her cycle has established itself, she learns how to chart it (record the physical,

mental and emotional pattern), so she can literally read her own body. Awareness of the menstrual cycle becomes second nature to her - as natural as eating and sleeping." -Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power.

 

 

In this community the answer to how is yes. 

We practice, and through practice, we grow. 

-Martha Graham