It turned out to be a beautiful day, even though it started out cloudy and sprinkled a bit at the end of the Memorial Day Parade. The sky is now ribbons of blue and pink.
It has been a day of memories for me, for sure, as May 25, 2003, we had my mom’s Celebration of Life ceremony. It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend that year.
Most of us have heard the story about the woman who cut the end off the ham, put both pieces in the pan, and put the pan into the oven. When asked why she did that, she realized she did not know why, but she would ask her mother (who had done that).
Three generations back, the truth comes forth—her grandmother’s pan was too small for the ham to go into without cutting the end off!
Socrates once stated: “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and that certainly applies in this situation. Perhaps it applies to much more in our lives as well.
Today I discovered an amazing woman. Her name is Meggan Watterson, and she has traveled the outer world of religions in search of the divine feminine before going within to find it. Here is a powerful excerpt from the Introduction of her book, REVEAL: A Sacred Manual For Getting Spiritually Naked (Hay House Inc., 2013):
What I want the spiritual process revealed in this book to give you is what it gave to me: a sense of empowerment that allows you to shed any feeling of being a victim and own everything that has happened to you; a feeling of embodiment that allows you to let go of every notion about the body except that it’s sacred; an awareness of true love as a limitless source within you, not something or someone outside you; a feeling of self-worth that lets you accept that love is your birthright, not something you must prove yourself worthy of; the audacity and authority to know that you don’t need to keep your power hidden, that we all have a direct connection to the Divine; a belief in service and meaningful work in the world that doesn’t deplete you but rather demands that you receive as much as you give; an experience of the love and support of spiritual community to remind you again and again that you’re not alone—that women do the work of saving each other’s lives.
The readers of this blog who know my birth story have supported and nurtured me as I faced the inner pain of learning my mom discovered she had syphilis at the same time she learned she was pregnant with me. My dad had had an indiscretion. She and I spent my first trimester with her being treated at a syphilis sanatorium. She was understandably embarrassed, afraid, and angry. While this was not known by me until I was forty-something, her thoughts and emotions and beliefs about all of that affected me.
I am so thankful she was able to share with me before she passed from this life. I remember telling her about the vague sense of womb trauma resulting in not feeling loved or wanted. The gift she gave me was worth more than fortunes: “I could not have not wanted you, I did not even know you. I have loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Louise Hay (sometimes called the Queen of Affirmations) said, “You’re the only thinker in your head.”
Yesterday, awash in many emotions, two wonderful women friends again held my tender heart and assured me I am loved and wanted.
Yes, women do the work of saving each other’s lives. Today, as I remember my mom’s passing from this life, I remember the gift of love she gave me and I vow to pass it on.
