Today’s poem is in honor of my birth mother, Caron McCloud, the mother of my heart, Sue Hoya Sellars, and Spirit Warrior Carmen Baraka, who mothered the women in our community and in the world. These beautiful women have walked on to their future and are forever present in my soul, my work, and the lineage of Intentional Creativity. And for all of you – women who are a part of our community for your mothering and remothering. Blessed be.
Sue, me and Mama: Photo by Gina Fong, 2011
A Blessing for All Kinds of Mamas
Your mother wove
the fabric of the universe
in which you came forth
This day we honor our mamas
for giving life to us
This is a blessing
for all different kinds of mothering!
For mamas to be,
cradling expectant bellies
we look forward to life with you
For those giving birth,
we send the strength
of the circle of women
that you and your child are held in love
For those tilling fertile soil with hope
may fruit be born of your womb
For the mamas being embraced
by your children today,
we celebrate with you
This is a blessing for women
who tried and yet
did not carry or birth,
Your body carries the codes of life
Every time you create,
your mother-life energy is shared
For mamas who miscarried,
carrying precious life in your womb
You are still a mother of life,
even if that life did not cross the veil
from your womb
May you experience grace
A blessing for mamas
whose child was lost,
by the hand of life
or her own
we send compassion from our hearts
This is for mamas
who died giving life and for the lives
who suffered the loss of her
May you be remembered
This is a blessing for mamas who grieve
the impossible loss of a child
May your hearts be comforted
in knowing you are not alone,
Let all of us embrace you today
For women who did not carry by choice
who have become the mothers of others
Many of you are mothering the future
with the life-force other mothers
gave to their children
May life be bountiful for you
May you be renewed in your offerings
This is a blessing for the mamas
who had to give up their babies to others
May you find peace in knowing
your child has another mother
to love them
Your choice to give life
will always be with your child
For the women who chose to mother
those children whose mothers
could not mother them
You are co-mothering
with another mother
providing the love
she was not able to give
May your chosen child be able
to receive all the love you have to give
and return it to you
May you be lifted up
in your chosen family!
This is for those mamas
who were mothered well!
Praises Be to Your Mother!
This is for those whose mamas
just didn’t know how
to raise you well enough
May healing come to you!
For those who had crazy mamas
who eventually taught you
one way or another
that you had to tend to your
own life on your own terms
Can we find forgiveness in the unknown?
Set her free, set yourself free
and set your own children free too
from too many of your stories
Any mama that did not love you well,
was not well enough
In so many of her family stories,
she didn’t know how
and wasn’t mothered herself
well enough to mother you well
This is for the mamas who struggle
to care for their babies
And for the mamas whose children,
have abandoned them
May support and healing
come to you!
This is for the women
whose mamas have gone on ahead,
dancing through the milky way
We see you Ancestral Mothers
and Grandmothers
You who are never gone from us!
For women who are in the change
of menopause and the pausing of the red moon
We welcome your moving toward Elderhood
and the remothering you need
when your physical mother is no longer in from
This is a blessing for women
who gave their mama love
to lovers, projects, dreams
May you rest into choosing yourself
to bless and nourish your own life
For those who are midwifing humanity
and tending to the needs of Mama Earth
Mama Earth, we bless you
as you bless us every day with life!
Forgive us and teach us
and show us
how to be your family!
For young and single mamas
who want a true mate,
who are working too hard, for too little
For married mamas
who feel so blessed
to be loved by another
to make life with them!
For double mamas,
how blessed your children are
to have two of you to love them!
For those who are coupled with partners
who do not see them in their fullness,
we feel this and send our seeing to you
For the mamas who, after giving birth
feel they lost their identity for a time
we pray you return to yourself
For those women who never
got to have a mama to hold them
May you find remothering
in the circle of women
For fairy godmamas, godmothers
and goddess-mothers and aunties!
Our children need your stories
thank you for your presence in our lives!
A Blessing for All Kinds of Mamas
For happy mamas
whose children honor them
For sad mamas
whose children just don’t know
For those who still don’t feel like
a good enough mama
For the mamas
whose children struggle with
despair, depression and danger
Our prayers are mighty for you all today
For those who are mamas
of a lineage, legacy and body of work
who share your gifts
You share with those who are not blood
yet you are bonded together by love
and a red thread of connection
All women, we honor!
We unite in our love
to send a blessing to ALL Mamas!
May our quest for wholeness
connection, belonging and healing
bear the fruit of joy!
All life today, we celebrate!
Blessed Mother Life,
hear the prayers of your children this day
Open our hearts to hear
and our eyes to see
what you are speaking to us
and through us
Give us your sound wisdom!
For all beings who are in need of re-mothering
may you find home within yourself and the
circle of women loving you
This is for the circle of mamas
that surround us as teachers
passing on essential wisdom
For all kinds of mothering not spoken here,
for you…for you…for you…too
For our Cosmic Mother
Our Divine Mother
Our Water Mother
Our Earth Mother
May we remember
from whose milky way we are fed
on the milk of love and compassion
Mama wake us from our sleeping
Mama call us to awareness
Mama give our hearts your wisdom
Mother Life, We Love You!
~
For my birth mama
and my heart mama
and all those who have mothered me
For those women who have allowed
the good mothering I have received
to mother you in return
For Mama Mary for showing me
the need for a mother in the story
May this Blessing for All Kinds of Mamas
ring out as a song a praise for the feminine!
All Mamas we celebrate you today!
Shiloh Sophia
Revised every year since 2013
“I rejoiced in them all, because Wisdom is their leader, though I had not known that She is their mother.” ~ Wisdom 7
May Your Day Be Blessed!
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Creation Song, 2002 by Shiloh Sophia
A message from Shiloh Sophia
Walking the Puget Sound with Mama
Dear Intentional Creativity Community,
I love sharing this poem with you each year on Mother’s Day as an honoring of all the different kinds of mothering that exists on this planet. Mothering happens in so many forms.
This day is of course poignant for me, having just experienced my mother’s transition from physical form and her return to energy. She is now resting in the Herland Forest in Washington. One of the founding members, Walt Patrick, sent me this recently and said he had just checked the oak trees and they are starting to bud. This brought such peace in my heart that mama is resting here, and that the forest can continue to bloom such beautiful life.
I’ve been going through my mother’s poetry and happened across this poem in her book of poetry called Neon Cuniform. The title of the poem is called Epitaph, which is a phrase or form of words written in memory of a person who has died, especially as an inscription on a tombstone. It’s so interesting as mama had always planned to be cremated, but during our last visit she told me “I don’t want to be burned”. I said ‘How about being buried in a forest?’ and she said yes, which started our journey for discovering Herland. Now I find this which feels more than appropriate. Greenwood Ridge, in Anderson Valley, is one of my mother’s favorite places she ever lived and we continue to visit.
I recognize this day may be challenging for some who have lost their mother’s or have a relationship with their mother that may be painful or hard. I’m thinking of you and holding you in my heart.
Wherever this finds you today, I wish to express my love and tell you that I feel our connection along the Red Thread. No matter where you are in the world, this thread is real and I’m extending it from my heart to yours.
Blessings,
Mama and me dancing on my wedding night in July 2014. I just love the expressions on our faces. She walked on March 29th, 2021.
You can read her eulogy and life celebration here.
Me and Sue in Paris, France. We went for the Color of Woman gathering in August 2014. This was a dream of hers that I am so grateful we experienced together. She walked on just a month later, September 29, 2014.
Spirit Warrior Carmen Baraka, one of my most cherished friends, sister and teacher. A mother to her children, our community, and protector of the Indigenous peoples, her native land and the earth that she deeply cared for. She walked on February 23, 2021 and is deeply missed. Photo by her wife, Denise Wreden during Cosmic Cowgirls Gathering 2014.
