Healer Mother Thyself
The Crone is a symbol of inherent wisdom. Although the Crone is the harbinger death, she is also responsible for birth and new life. She is our archetypal midwife.
OCTOBER 2020 . HALIFAX . TRANSMUTING THE PAIN
Dear Journal,
This morning I awoke with a very heavy heart. My inner child was present. Memories of childhood experiences not yet healed were surfacing and the pain being expressed was excruciating — both emotionally and physically. My inner child needed to feel safe and her safe place is the forest.
The forest floor was still wet from the rain yesterday. The air was damp and cool as I made my way deep into the forest. The tears fell silently at first and then wailing sounds started rising from my throat. Sounds that were never safe to make when I was a child. I lost all sense of time as I embraced what was transpiring in my body. When my body was spent, I laid on the forest floor and I could feel Gaia’s energy soothing my trembling body. As I continued to lay there, I felt the trees reach down their branches and hold me just as they had done when I was a child. It was comforting and I was safe, but the pain expressing through my body felt like it was more than I could bear. Mother Pine, she would help me. I stood between her massive roots and I wrapped my arms around her, leaning into her for strength as my legs felt weak. I could feel her welcoming embrace, and as I relaxed into her, the tears became sobs.
I could hear my child voice, “Mother Pine, I need you to take this pain from my body. It is too much for me to bear.”
Mother Pine responded, “I feel your pain, Child. You no longer need me to transmute your pain. You have grown up now and you can do this for yourself.
My child in an anxious voice: “I can’t. I can’t. I don’t know how. I won’t get it right. I need you to do it for me.”
Mother Pine softly crooning: “Remember, long ago you were taught a heart-centered practice to dissolve emotional pain. You have been preparing since that time and you are now ready to deepen that practice. I will hold you. Now take a deep breath into your heart and remember.”
A foggy memory surfaced but then it became clear. An oceanside healing retreat with a healer from abroad. An afternoon of surrendering emotions into the heart space to be transmuted. I could hear the healer’s voice guiding me. I could feel Mother Pine holding me and my body relaxed even more deeply into her. I took a deep breath and surrendered all that I was feeling in my body into my heart space. As the healing energy flowed through my body I could feel the pain being transmuted. I was in awe. With guidance and support, I trusted myself to surrender fully. I had done it.
Mother Pine, thank you for helping me remember that I know how to help myself even when I think I can’t.
Love and light,
Katharina
OCTOBER 2022 . HALIFAX . A GIVER AND A RECIEVER
Dear Journal,
At the oceanside retreat, all those years ago, I wasn’t ready to fully surrender into the process. I didn’t trust myself to get it right. However, I did learn that day that in order to fully surrender, my inner child needed to trust me, her adult self, to meet her emotional needs, and I needed to trust my adult self to meet my child’s emotional needs — my own emotional needs. I needed to focus on mothering myself and that is what I did.
In October 2020, I had arrived at Mother Pine with my inner child expressing, wanting to be mothered. I believed the pain felt too great for me to transmute on my own. Mother Pine mothered me but in an unexpected way. She knew I was ready to be with and transmute the deepest of pain, and she supported me to take that step. I left Mother Pine that day empowered. My child pattern now redundant.
I look back over the years and I can see that in mothering myself, I deepened my relationship with trust, trust in myself and trust in the process of life. Everything I had done had prepared me to take that final step of believing in myself to meet my own emotional needs. With those needs met, the healing simply unfolded.
From this place of trust in my ability to help myself, the trees and I now share a new relationship, a reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving. My inner child no longer shows up in the forest wanting her emotional needs to be met or her pain to be taken away. She shows up knowing her needs are met. I now go to the forest with the intention of sharing joy, gratitude and love. The trees and I are both givers and receivers of life and it is in the giving that one receives.
Love and light
Katharina
SELF-AWARENESS QUESTIONS
Many women’s emotional needs were not met when they were children. As a result, patterns were formed to serve having those needs met and they can express in many ways. For example, blaming another, feeling like a victim, binge eating, or abusing self mentally or physically.
1) What pattern has your inner child developed to get its emotional needs met?
2) How can you mother yourself? What is required of you, to meet your inner child’s emotional needs?