mothering – St GEORGIA & Boo

the god in everything

this part is new for me.

balancing within the holy, in times of chaos and the anticipation of knowing that nothing is what it seems, and discernment is fundamental in any forward facing moment.

_{“the holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplished, it represents the reversal of the unholy relationship. Be comforted in this; the only difficult phase is the beginning}.

_{For here the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was .}

^{A course in miracles}

I have asked for my relationships with everyone and within everything to be Blessed and Holy. I have asked and sometimes found myself pleading when it comes to the universal space of my youngest son. For the space of him has changed so dramatically that it is almost unrecognisable to who I have known him to be before this moment, to who he seems to be existing here as now. It’s a questioning space that we find ourselves in. Him and me. It seems we represent some opposites, some conflicting ideas and notions of things, actually of almost everything and a relationship at this point can at times seem unhealthy, and unholy in its essence.

It could seem that its not good for him or for me. It could seem that it shouldn’t be this way, this hard, this confronting in the details that can at times reach way outside the lines that we think are there, the ones that keep us both safe and comfortable and in a place of what we would consider to be acceptable and at times can raise hard questions, the kind that you could never have imagined having to ask yourself, its usually in the thick of something big and you wonder how this possibly could be for you? where is God in the thick of this seemingly unholy experience? but then you remember,

What he has, is for me. If it wasn’t, then it wouldn’t be here.
So you hand it over, you give it to God.

^The ^{invitation is accepted immediately. At once, His goal replaces yours. This is accomplished very rapidly, but it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive, and even quite distressing. The reason is quite clear. For the relationship as it is, is out of line with its own goal, and clearly unsuited to the purpose that has been accepted for it.}

_{In its unholy condition, your goal was all that seemed to give it meaning.}

_{Now it seems to make no sense. for once the unholy relationship has accepted the goal of holiness, it can never again be what it was.}

^{a course in miracles}

My son has always been more than a story of just a boy. He’s a reflection of wider things. It wasn’t always obvious, the noticing was a slow unfolding, a deliberate and gradual recognition not for him but for me. It was my awareness, my willingness to expand that was necessary before the seeing could come, not ordinary seeing but seeing from the wider spaces from which he was reflecting and then, well, everything became like puzzle pieces falling into place over time.

Right now, the puzzle pieces aren’t fitting anywhere not that I can see clearly anyway.

It seems that whatever is happening out there is always happening within him. He’s a continuum of energy of sorts, with no gaps, like the Möbius strip.

And right now the world, what’s out there, is seeming like madness.

He’s a mirror for the madness.

It reminds me of something Sophie Strand, poet and ecological storyteller considers when she speaks of fungi, in particular the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which is a type of fungi that takes over carpenter ants, infects them, and coordinates their behaviours so dramatically that they effectively become the fungus wearing the costume of an ant so that by the end of the experience you don’t know if its an ant or a fungus. And it has me wondering who is doing the thinking for this boy, I call my son, that has changed so dramatically from where it once innately was.

Sophie goes on to say what’s got her thinking here, she questions what if things can think us.. “What’s thinking me?” What if this boy, my son who has always been a reflection of wider spaces has allowed himself to be borrowed, to be used as an instrument, willingly given permission to be used as Sophie would say as “a mouth piece”.

That is our predicament. I wonder what my son is the reflection of now, what has he allowed himself to be borrowed by?

Right now, the worlds reflection seems to be so concentrated and focused on the more shadowy side of things or maybe its just that there’s so much light that what has been in the dark, hidden in the shadows is now visible for all to see. It seems we are in a time where the innate energy of everything is being obscured and what we are being led towards is so much in the unknown. It seems that the Truth of things is not obvious anymore, maybe it never really was, nevertheless we are being called forth in a time where discernment is imperative.

my son, is a reflection, a body containing all of these things and discernment for him is no longer easy, his Truth is seeming obscured by the misconception and I wonder has he let himself be borrowed or used in someway that is not for his highest good.

So I ask, for help, for guidance, and I hand it over. This seemingly unholiness of our relationship in this moment, this undesirable space we have found ourselves, as a mother and her son.

Whatever is going on in the world and sometimes wider spaces than even that, somehow can make its way through this being I get to call my son. It doesn’t really matter the layers and details of his experiences or how they are so expansive in phonomen. It’s there for seeing, for ones with eyes to see that is.

I realised some time ago that I have an agreement with my son. His struggles are my struggles to own and bare. We cannot undo the entanglement of him and I, there is no choice no other way, not for him or for me and I will not let him fall.

It easy for me to feel helpless in helping him. His troubles are heavy, not pretty, complicated in design. There’s few who would truly be able to comprehend and hold the depths of his reality, when it doesn’t fit the grand narrative.

But support doesn’t always come from the places we expect they should. We rarely get what we are needing from such places. The help we are needing is larger than that. There’s only one place it can be called forth from, so I pray. I pray in such a way that my call is heard, every word, every late night whisper, every deeply rooted, sometimes agonising plea for guidance, for his protection, for help, I know is heard. I know because it’s in my bones. This is a story of faith and lives within lives within times over lapping times and spaces. All interchangeable all seemingly seperate yet perfectly connected.

He’s young, but only from small perspectives. His life is larger than anything I could ever know, I’ve always known that. I’ve always recognised his layers of other worlds other times and ones he has been. His spaces have always been occupied by more than the singularity of just himself.

beings as wild alters

“I worry about fixing these bodies that are beginning to experiment ..when we have fixed the human race the human race can no longer evolve.

We think of ourselves as a climatic species but we are living in dynamic environments that are shifting that we will need to glitch out and become disabled in order to inhabit and so I worry about fixing these bodies that are beginning to experiment at the very edges of the eco tones of what is supposed to be materially appropriate. So somebody’s body that could be fixed I wonder if it should be fixed.” -Sophie Strand

this is the space I find myself occupying now. im sitting in wander. wandering lines, that are not set with a concrete direction or goal orientated destination, i already know that there will be no real answers to the questions that i am asking here. there will be no ending or certainanty, to be looked forward to. it will not be completed with yet another DSM5 diagnosis and a full stop. no, that is not the way of the wandering lines.

when I speak of wandering lines i am thinking away from what we think we know about autism, mental health, stability, what it means to be well. i cannot tentatively hold myself completely to notions of how the world interacts and responds to these things so much anymore. i have cautious steps now. i have learned to not trust the narrative. i have ventured in my thinking of things from wilder places.

It’s in the glitching out, its in the disability, its in the diaschronic. Its in the place that we loose eloquence that God comes in.
Bayo Aklomofe

instead i find myself trusting something that cannot be named, that is innately inherent, and who’s guidance has never wavered over the years. my faith in these unknowable spaces have always shown me the way, where to place my next step, or they have laid before my very feet the guidance i am seeking. these Gods have always traveled beside me, even in the times when i wasn’t able to hold space for them.

The void isn’t empty. The gods are everywhere. We are swimming in dynamic, animated, tentacular territories and there is no escaping that, there is no removing ourselves from that. We are always in conversation with these bio field signals.
Bayo Aklomofe

my son’s story is unfolding in wildish uncertain and sometimes uncomfortable ways. when he moves, it is through space time, through universes and galaxies and inconceivable notions of more than we can comprehend. i’m sure its not really new to him now, i think he has always occupied these wide places of existence. maybe what’s new is he is somewhat more aware now of this traveling self he inhibits and it is beginning to ruffle him. it has become obvious that he is not contained or limited in his thinking or do i dare assume knowing, to any preconceived ideas of how we exist in the here and now. he moves from spaces much wider than that.

i as a mother of this young human, and my ‘i’ in this is small i know, for i don’t think he has ever been a child, especially one for me to call my own, he belongs to something much greater than that. nevertheless, i wonder where i am to stand in the witnessing of this unfolding of self and other. i wonder where my place is, if it’s really relevant at all, from such expansive unknowable landscapes.

i have borrowed a notion, of’ beings as wild alters.’ Bayo Alomofe tells of a story of his beloved wife Ej and her philosophy towards caring for their son in the unknowable times of trouble. i have listened to this story many times over and it always brings me to tears, it reminds me of all the times i too have fallen to the ground to be beside my son in the face of the unknowable storm. Ej invites us to hold our children as alters, as a wild place where the subject is not to cure or to fix them into sanity, instead the object is to worship, to stay in the trouble of the yelps and screaming. this resonates in me, it makes sense to not move in these times, but rather lay down in the face of the fire. for, we can never be sure of where the fire has arrived from or where it is on its way to, we can never be certain of what it means to have such things move through and captivate the bodies of our children. there is no real language for these places, perhaps we are not meant to bring them out of the turmoil, or lead them away or quieten them down, we don’t know what they are moving in the heat of the storm.

thoughts on mothering

I have been mothering for most of my adult life, naturally and instinctually. And it is only now that i am older and where outside opinions only matter when i decide that they do, that i can say it’s the part that i like and respect the most about myself. It has taken some time getting to this place of contentment. Not because i didn’t feel the worthiness of my chosen path or understand the magnitude of just how important my role is, but more, its taken this long to feel secure enough in saying it is absolutely enough for me. There has been pressure over the years, to be more, do more than only be a mother. Whether this derives from outside perceptions or from within, my guess is, it’s most likely a little of both. I have defiantly had my fair share of condescending queries about ‘what it is i do,other than mother. And for a short time, i did question if it truly was enough. Was i able to say i have no regrets of any unfulfilled ideas i had for myself? Was there something else i needed to do to prove my worthiness and sense of value to the world, and possibly myself before i could say, Mothering is enough. Looking back now, the only times i have held any doubts in my life’s choices, has always been during times of great despondency, when doubt has pervaded all senses. Yet in times when i have remained true to myself, there has been no doubt, no regret, no other idea that could ever be more important than the path i am on. Now, the dread of such inquiries wouldn’t bother me at all, more rather they would be welcomed. What ever doubts i held in my earlier years of parenting being a sufficient enough path to take, have stayed there. I undeniably know now that it absolutely is enough. Enough for me.