Saturday, July 1, 2023

Crone Day. Rhea, Mothering

 


 

On this day, it was the day to honor Father Time and Old Mother Nature (symbolized by the goddess Rhea)

We are coming up to the Father's Moon/Buck Moon on Monday, the 3rd.  This is the fourth Supermoon in a row.  While we continue to experience the effects of frustrations from last moon, Strawberry Moon, and will do so for another 60 days, this moon will heighten those frustrations.  Sorry.  You will feel more chaotic, inside, and you are already tired of the last moon’s affects.  Anxiety will build and you will experience a tiredness because your sleep wild be erratic for a time.  Like a cranky child trying to get new teeth to break through, the bucks are having the horns on their heads begin to grow.  Your body, mind heart and soul needs to refresh.  Take care of you.  Making peace with the past is what I have been working on since my daughter died.  This is the month for that.  Rhea knew such problems in that she is known, in Greece, as the Mother of Gods. 

Rhea was born of Cronus who had swallowed all her children until she gave birth to Zeus.  She saved Zeus by hiding him and giving him a swaddled rock to swallow instead.  It is Zeus who would challenge his father and rescue his siblings.  When he did so, Rhea stepped back and allowed him to reign.  The largest role she played was in resurrecting, her grandson. 

Rhea teaches us about living detached lives from our children.  Detaching does not mean building a wall between mother and child, it means to step back and look sat all your expectations and dependencies we have on our children.  What made me think that out of all my children, if one rejected me, that I was not a worthy mother? I have had a few dark nights of the soul as I worked through remembering that I mothered as I mothered without a ‘how to’ handbook.  We learn how to be better mothers as we mature and learn more about life.  I read, somewhere, that every child carries one heartache from each of their parents.  I can only make sure that I love my children whether they love me or not.  I am a lucky mother in that the 6 other children love me and know that I love them. I forgive them their choices as they forgive me mine.     

We all have the mothering needs:  need to see some of ourselves in our children’s successes and failures and that they are strong and wise and that they too make parenting mistakes.  They continue, into adulthood, to fulfill our nurturing desires.  They still have us feel needed in their lives.  A parent’s desires and happiness is not all about the children.  Our joy is not totally focused on them.  Our happiness is in not trying to control their outcomes…but in controlling our own.  Our parenting role is to be one of respect… that we respect and honor our own past mothering and find ways to fit in as the grandmother, the aging mother, without being a burden but in complimenting their lives.  Rhea teaches us that.

So, as we move into July, and will most likely know the extremes and frustrations life can throw at us, it is best we control what we can... ourselves, and find a peaceful path through this next month. 

We leave in a couple of days, on our cruise.  I have that to focus on and already know how frustrating making the transition from being in my safe space into a new space can be, for me.  I am always angsty until the ship sails.    I need to keep present (and patient) and focus on keeping it all together in my own new circumstances.   It will be good to get some rest from the past month.  I need to stay preent and rmember the beautiful words from my sons and daughter as they held psace for their grieving mother.  Soemthign beautiful definitely came from the sorrow.  Their words of comfort and counsel saw me through.  I was able to help those who needed their mother’s counsel during this and received it lovingly as I lovingly received theirs.  This month will be a continuation of life as it IS and Can Be.  There is much comfort in that and support.

 

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