May you know the warmth of sunshine and of smiles
May you celebrate friendship and solitude
May you open your arms to someone’s first step
May you cry well, laugh often, and feel much
May you feel the deep connection between past and future
And may you dwell in all the fullness of your days.
Most of my posts for the 30 Days of May have centered around nature. Today, I’m centering on the “wonder” in the prompt. Two things have given me cause for wonder today. The first was my feelings of sheer joy after our Red Tent Circle last night. I listened to the recording I made of the Dance in a Circle of Women song we sang and I am just so very grateful to have women to share experiences like this with. I am so fortunate that I can hardly believe it. The second is that my mom brought over some old home movies that were recently digitized by my aunt. These are not just any home movies, but are silent movies taken over 60 years ago of my own mother as a baby crawling and then toddling around with her parents holding her hands. All four of my maternal great-grandparents are in the footage, my great-great uncle, my uncle taking his first steps into my grandpa’s arms, my grandma smiling and eating watermelon, my aunt and my mom playing at the beach. There was a terribly beautiful poignancy to watching them and thinking about how much is lost to memory and to time.
My own little girl set up a “tiny tent” today in the bedroom. She wanted very badly to go to the Red Tent with me last night and was disappointed not to be included. She said we could have a “Goddess Day” today and she got things all set up in a little Cars-movie red tent that we have. Along with the goddess sculptures she collected to set up with candles in the tent, she also dragged in a family of robots. We sat in the tent together and I was watching the baby practicing standing up and looking at my daughter’s smiling face and I could feel the link—the watermelon, the smile, the beach, the tiny tent, all the babies. It is all so real. It was all so real. I appreciate the movies, I don’t know very many people who have seen videos of their own moms crawling around the floor as babies, but it really struck me painfully that none of those moments matter as much as they do when they’re actually happening. No one will ever care about my little baby practicing his standing as much as I do right now (whether recorded or not). No one cared as much about my uncle’s first steps as his parents there in that moment over fifty years ago. I can’t even really explain what I mean without sounding trite. There is a so much to pay attention to, all the time. Right now, I’m nursing somebody’s grandpa, someone else’s history. Right now, I’m nursing my baby…
WoodsPriestess 