In the months leading up to our move to California I found myself vacillating back and forth in the air around me, completely out of my body, as ungrounded as Ive ever been. I hadn’t been back in California in 7 years and hadn’t lived there in 11. I was a different person, 11 years older, married, working in a different career, and a new mom to a 5 month old baby boy.I turned the page from maiden to mother, I had answered my souls calling and became a doula and then a mother. I had become a woman.
My father had died exactly 2 years earlier when we decided to move home. In the month after he died I had this compulsion, almost daily to return home. There were moments it was so strong, I felt like I need to just take off, run back to Northern California on foot from Las Vegas. In mourning his death I spent a lot of time in my memories. A LOT. I would constantly astral travel to my beloved places that shaped the 24 years of my life when I lived in California. This was important work for me. I needed to unravel my childhood to cope with the sudden and rapid loss of my Dad. My childhood suddenly became my point of reference of how to raise my own child and left me feeling like the floor was pulled out from under me. I can't ask my Dad questions or seek his support and guidance. He wouldn't be around to tell any of his famous stories around the Christmas tree. A Virgo Leo cusp, my Dad was a natural performer and storyteller. My parents situation was very different than my present one, it became very confusing to navigate my new role of mom with just about zero similarities to how I grew up aside from living back in California. The death birth portal has been open in my life for the last two and a half years. The moment I got news of my fathers passing my first thought was he will never meet his grandchild, a year later our son was conceived. I put immense pressure on myself to "be ok for my son" as if I needed to hide my grief, something that would be nearly impossible seeing that my son reminds us so much of my beloved father. Since being home I see how important it was to work through this heaviness, that I will never be ok and I don't need to be. Mourning tears can flow at a moments notice and Im ok with my son seeing how deeply his Grandfather is loved. One of the reasons for living back in the place I grew up is to feel my fathers closeness, relive my childhood memories in real time, see the same cypress trees he saw growing up, and be held by the same foggy ocean air he was held by for 50 years. Completely by accident, we currently live very close to my fathers childhood home, may be not so accidental at all.
When we first moved here we found a beach that was at the bottom of a relatively steep sandy hill. I strapped Coyote in his baby carrier and hiked down the hill with my husband about an hour before the sunset. We noticed that the beach was covered with pelican feathers, different sizes and colors, some sticking out of the sand like obelisks. It’s important to us to get to know our new surroundings, begin nurturing a relationship with the land. To do that we spend lots of time learning about native plants, animals and birds and the medicine they bring. As a family we started collecting feathers, it felt like an important mission gathering the feathers, comparing the sizes, was it part of the wing or tail, what part of the wing did the feathers belong to. We continued to collect feathers until the sun set by then we had probably close to 30 feathers. I thanked the beach and the pelican for the gifts we collected. When I came home I started thinking more about the pelican and I found in my research that the pelican is a very important symbol of Christianity. The story of the pelican parallels story of the sacrifice of Jesus. I learned in one folktale a mother pelican would pierce her breast with her beak to draw blood to nourish her young.
"The long beak of the white pelican is furnished with a sack which serves as a container for the small fish that it feeds its young. In the process of feeding them, the bird presses the sack against its neck in such a way that it seems to open its breast with its bill. The reddish tinge of its breast plumage and the redness of the tip of its beak fostered the folkloristic notion that it actually drew blood from its own breast."
I realized how beautifully that paralleled the unfolding spiral of motherhood. Eternal sacrifice of nurturing your young losing of oneself sometimes by your own hand to nurture the baby at your breast. She very much reminds me of the comforting energy of Mother Mary, I guide I frequently call upon when I need to channel loving mothering energy. Motherhood is a daily walking meditation of realizations of the weight of your responsibility navigation of those new feelings the desire for community the harsh reality of the world we live in today is an anything like the world we grew up in. The modern mother becomes a mother to many things in her life her babies her partner family her commitments her job. The mother herself often gets pushed to the wayside because of the energy it takes to nurture everything around her. The modern mother puts pressure on herself maybe experiences shame or guilt or both perhaps the outside world tells her that she’s not enough she’s not doing enough she didn’t love hard enough today. She loses her cool or makes mistakes the harshest critic is always herself. But a mother pelican is never lost at sea, she is an expert swimmer. Mother pelican taught me that my instinct is stronger than any outside force and will remain with me when the rest of the world falls away. Pelican medicine helped me navigate the shift of moving back home and the ever evolving symbiotic journey of death and motherhood. Dads death too brings pelican medicine, through his transition from the earth plane, my son was born. I am so grateful that I met Mother Pelican.
One of the most important practices I’ve employed in my self care arsenal is calling my energy back at the end of every day. Every thought or feeling, positive or negative that we send out into the world toward a person, thing, idea etc has a cord attachment to it. Think of this practice as energetic hygiene. Finding and dedicating time to meditate while raising little ones can be challenging so this easy practice can be done at the end of every day while lying in bed.
First envision yourself bubbled in rainbow light for protection. Sit with that visual for just a minute are you center in ground yourself letting go of any thoughts from the day that may be playing in the background. Gently bring yourself back to center if your mind drifts. Now see all of the energy cords that are connected to your body. They may be attached to your abdomen or another part of your body. You may be able to visualize what or who the cords are attached to, it’s ok if you don’t see the other end too. Begin to slowly pull them back toward you like winding up a rope. Keep seeing them wind up toward you until they reach the end of the line. Cap the end of the ropes with unconditional love so that nothing will attach to the cords that isn’t meant to be attached. Feel the feeling of all of your energy returned to you to be recycled for the next day. Sit with that feeling for as long as you like, you are now done with calling your energy back.