I found something sacred the other day.
Hidden inside a small pretty purse
made by mother’s sister.
Adorned with flowery fabric and
stitched together with golden thread.
It was accompanied by 2 well-worn coins,
a single earring of my sister’s,
a small stone from the rivers edge,
the faded flower of a red clover,
and crushings from an unknowable leaf.
The purse was shoved way in the back of the dresser,
the one I inherited from my grandmother
with the marble top and the ornate carvings of wood.
It was caught at the top back ledge of the drawer
scraping away whenever the drawer was opened,
which was not often.
Until one day, that stubborn drawer would move no more and I,
frustrated with this old thing
decided to inspect further the source of the problem.
What I found was this flowery purse
and buried within was what looked to be an
ancient papery seed.
It was a miracle that it had not been ground to death
amidst the myriad of items in the little coin purse,
but it had survived!
I must have placed it there when I was just a child,
daydreaming amongst the garden of my mother,
I must have picked it up idly curious as to who this seed belonged to.
Was it plum or apple?
Was it Sunflower or Moonflower?
What a beautiful garden it belonged to,
full of all things both beautiful and edible.
But it was unlike any seed I had ever seen before.
I brought it to my mother and she did not know the likes of this seed.
She said this seed might be evil
And must never be planted in the garden.
She promptly snatched it from my tiny fingers and threw it away.
As a child, I was so curious I could not help myself.
When night fell,
I tip toed my tiny feet down the stairs
and into the kitchen to search for it.
It felt like a rescue mission.
Successfully salvaging the seed from certain death,
I held it up in the moonlight
that came streaming through the kitchen window.
I knew in my heart that it was special,
But fearing mother and retribution,
I hid the seed
deep in depths of the purse
shoving it far into the dusty darkness of my dresser drawer.
I have found something sacred.
It has belonged to me since my birth.
It belongs to my sister and my mother
and my grandmothers and their mothers.
It belongs to all women.
We have buried this sacred thing
until we have forgotten all about it.
Lost for thousands of years,
We have carried on as if it never existed.
Until we have no longer believed it existed.
Until we no longer have had words for it.
And so generations of daughters have heard only but silence.
Whispers would have been better,
something to coax the senses.
Instead we have grappled with our own self-doubt,
where once we knew the wellspring of our power.
We have grappled with an overwhelming fear
of not being good enough,
Where once we stood sovereign believing in our own strength and wisdom.
We have believed many things since the time of our forgetting,
none of which are true.
It's as though Gaia herself could take no more of this binding,
and began to kick and bite at the rope that held her.
Tearing at the fabric of the sleepy spell that held us all,
beginning to awaken
all women
all over the world
all at once.
And each of us in our own little corner of existence
are finding and opening
our own little purse.
Once lost and forgotten.
Now remembered.
We spend our days and nights
searching and finding the frayed and forgotten ends,
and are beginning to stitch back the golden threads
that tell the stories of our grandmothers
from long ago.
And these precious seeds that once had been scattered
by a whirlwind of deception,
We now hold tight
against the bosom of our beating hearts.
Speaking our prayers into them,
we kiss them upon their heads
like children returned to us after catastrophe.
We press them once again to the warm, soft and beautiful below,
bringing them home to the garden
to which they belong.
Back amongst the fragrant flowers
and honeybees and wild nectars,
and back to
The opening of our
ever-flowing temple doors.
It is time now to plant these seeds.
Water them,
tend to them,
and sing to them the
songs that carry the dreams of our
mothers and our daughters.
And let us behold,
as the moonflower lotus
rises in the earthly waters of belonging and truth.
And in her shining glory,
full of knowing and trust,
she will flower,
once more.
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