For well over 20 years now, the week after Mother’s Day is often filled with tears, upset, and hurts from mothers whom I work with (and friends of mine 😍) who feel disappointed, disregarded, or wholly ignored over this particular Sunday in May.
This year, I’m seeing that the gifts that many mothers really want are actually offerings (but we orient to them as gifts which makes it confusing).
This is why when a mother says to spouse or family:
“No, I’m fine, I don’t need anything.”
And then she gets exactly NOTHING, she is hurt, upset, and confused.
Although, she said that she didn’t want anything I think what so many women want is not so much the Hallmark gift or the box of chocolates — okay, maybe we DO want the chocolate — but we want the heart-filled witness that comes with BEING SEEN by another.
For the last three decades, I’ve participated in a variety of different spiritual schools, sacred circles, herbalism or animist learning experiences, and and they all have one thing in common:
You make offerings to that whom is giving.
Offerings of blessing herbs, sacred smoke, prayerful words, water, a slice of orange, a song, music…any number of things can be an offering for a healer, shaman, initiate, or human who wants to acknowledge the land, the plants, God, the Goddess, or any other sacred being that they are in relationship with.
In some traditions, practices such as taking off ones shoes upon entering a sacred space, wearing particular garb or head coverings, or otherwise ‘showing up in a good way’ are all signals of reverence or respect for the space which are an embodied way of making an offering.
An offering is filled with sincerity not obligation and can come through a bowed head or through gazing in someone’s eyes, sending the truest love from your heart. These are intimate offerings of the self that communicate, “I recognize the sacred in you. I see what you are giving me to sustain my spirit, my life, my comfort.”
🏜️When I make an offering to the land, I might put my hand on my heart and quietly speak words of gratitude for the gift of the soil under my feet, the shade from the trees, and the song from the birds.
It’s a way of RELATING to the animate world, being in RELATIONSHIP with that which surrounds us and sustains us and gives us life everyday.
In our largely secular and individualist culture, the practice of offerings is not common. A consumeristic culture is founded on taking and over-consuming resources of the Earth which wholly sustains us.
Perhaps this is unconsciously reflected in how we as humans relate to each other as well — with our own mothers, lovers, friends — taking with little regard for the consequences of over-harvesting.
Until I was taught by teachers and elders about making offerings, I’d never made an offering to the land that I’d hiked on, rocks that I’d climbed, or to the ocean water that I would swim in.
🌸 I would just pick a flower because it was there and I wanted it. Taking without reciprocity or acknowledgment of any kind.
In the taking without RELATING there is injury.
Can you feel that in your body?
Many humans, especially women, have wounds around being taken from…our bodies, our energy, our creativity, our existence. In some cases there’s a violation by another and in some cases we violate ourselves.
I believe that these tender being-taken-from parts get activated on Mother’s Day.
There’s a seismic wound for Mother Earth and mothers at large who’ve been over-harvested with little or no regard for the constant depletion and with little notice or renewal along the way.
Most of us take from natural spaces readily – land, air, sun, moonlight, birdsong – with zero connection to the spaces that, quite literally, keep us alive.
Some of us take from mothers, fathers, lovers, or friends with small acknowledgement of what the giver has provided to us over years or an entire lifetime.
What if we had a cultural norm of making offerings to the earth that we live on, the animals bodies that we eat, or the gardens that we harvest from? What if it was typical to tip our chins in quiet thanksgiving for the rising sun and give an acknowledging smile to the moon?
Might that map into our bodies the practice of TENDING TO RELATIONSHIPS with mothers and fathers, friends and beloveds through a practice of making intentional offerings that affirm our connection?
I’m no anthropologist but I certainly know that most (likely all) native and indigenous traditions were founded on traditions of mutuality, relating, making offers, and living with rather than taking from. Because if they didn’t consciously relate, they would die.
As these peoples have been colonized and these traditions have been exterminated, we’ve lost arguably the most vital aspects of being human — being in sacred relationship with another being.
If you are a mother who feels the burn after Mother’s Day or your birthday or any holiday. 👁️ I see you.👁️
I know that it’s not about the flowers or the cards or the jewelry. I know that there’s something deeper, a part of you that has been un-witnessed, un-met, un-tended.
This is what I do with women who work with me in private containers. We explore these un-tended parts because the reason why it comes up Every. Single. Year. is because there’s something that’s there for you to touch and be with in a new way.
The burn that you might feel post Mother’s Day or any holiday is 🎁 gifting you 🎁 an opportunity to be initiated into a fuller expression of yourself. Taking that initiatory path means turning TOWARD the discomfort rather than ignoring it for another year. ← But you can ignore it too of course. ;-)
If you are available to take that inner journey, I have two spots open for private work. Apply here.
Grateful for the sun, the moon, the wind, and for you,
xojg
Thanks for reading XO, Jenny Glick! This post is public so feel free to share it.
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