Happy Mothers Day: Influencers

Reproductive Rights in the 21st Century

Thank you Cardi B for the Images of the Goddess the Divine Feminine

I suppose when I think of our covenant to nurse our babies for the first 365 days, staying connected to nurture ourselves. I get the medieval initial virgin birth Mary Madonna and Child image of sanctity. 

My daughter reminded me that image might be due for an update in the land of tik tok and you tube and influencers and shared with me the powerful not so subliminal image of Cardi B nursing her baby on stage at work. Embracing every aspect of her whole self. Sexual, powerful, fierce, and so divinely raucous and feminine. 

 If she could make it so… then so could I. She deserved my Mother’s Day card of gratitude for the century. I should be so inclined of sending her a thank you card of power bringing her baby so close and so clearly visible if only the world could see. Grandmas living and dead would be so proud!

 She truly was my New York City home girl just like me and it was my daughter who sent me to higher ground. She showed me the video that Cardi B held court with her baby attached to her tittie inseparable from what she wanted to do.

Separations from our little ones are largely dependent on the kindness or idle comments of strangers opining on what should a good mother do. We rarely if ever ask what do women want and need. What does love and attachment look like.

What a good mother should look like and what does a good mother want and what choices can a woman make just fine on her own.  Many women had no choice on when they should or could leave their baby. Money and food and shelter and safety and what “Kulture” customs insist and define separation from mother and baby, letting go and who’s best interest it is. The things we say we do for the money.

We are not there at that moment! How could we possibly know their story?  I know I am so grateful to Cardi B.   I want to honor every choice a mother makes to share her body and her love with all Divine creation for whatever length of time and under whatever circumstances.

While this week, at the beginning of the month, the money from the check arriving predominates our thoughts. She calls it forth! She occupies her body and moves in ways that make me smile.  Thank you, my daughters, for your choices. Your visibility, your courage. I would not have seen you unless you lived large and sought to influence me.

 I honor this day my ancestors, mothers and daughters the matrilineal line. I look for them, I find their names. I say their names aloud. I see the babies they buried, the bodies they claimed and saved as their own when they could and when they couldn’t. I will never know what sacrifice was provided for me. I know I am standing here the only begotten daughter of our Savior the Divine Mother. Look closely she is in our midst. She looks just like you.

ROLL CALL

My granddaughter: Ava Violet      August,  2019   

My granddaughter: Taylor Marie  August,  2002  

My daughter: Amber Joy Meadows               September , 1980 

My mother: Violette Duckett                         April 1927-January 2009           b. 4/27/27- 1/ 2009

Her mother: Lois Laws.                                October, 1908 -February, 1985    10/24/1908-Feb 20, 

Her mother: Mary Ellen Thomas                  1884–Jan 1912

Her mother: Mary Ellen Thomas                   ???

My grandfather’s mother: Harriet Duckett    July, 1879- 1945

My grandfather’s mother: Ellen Eliza Miriam Samms    c..1862-

My father’s mother: Julia McDougall           July, 1892-September 1986

Her mother: Elmma McDougall.                   c. 1878- 

Thank you Cardi B, Influencer keeping it real… for nursing your baby …so much love and respect for you. Nursing your baby. Making Money. Showing up and showing out!