In the wide vast universe of being, someone Mothering is crying, grieving for a child missing from their imagined idea of home. By Mothering I mean anyone who has given birth, trying to conceive, adopted, miscarriage, is a teacher, a spiritual counselor, a father, an auntie, an environmentalist, anyone who tends to the soul of the world.
Yes, someone Mothering is missing a child from the imagined home, during this time of battle as we fight for autonomy of self and sovereignty of body against the backlash of the faltering colonial white dominant patriarchal hetero-normative ablest social paradigm crumbling into the depths of the rising waters of climate change.
Today, I hold those Mothering with loss in my heart, as I also learn to surrender to the primordial presence of Mother Earth, holding all those loss/lost in the roots of her soil, connecting us all to the soul of the world and the bloodstreams of our ancestors.
As we gather today to celebrate Women’s History Month and honor the essence of the Divine Feminine embodied in us all, I too hold the darkness of our times, for remembering makes us whole and inclusive, and belonging as we gather in our beingness together.
My name is Alisa. I identify as an aging Black mixed ancestry- a stamp of our history, wombmyn (womb of my own). I graduated from Pacifica in 2021 with a doctorate in depth-psychology with a concentration in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and eco-psychologies. I am a feminine soul supported by the Divine masculine, who is committed to fostering cultures of belonging in the advancement of bell hooks ideal of beloved communities, where we don’t have to be perfect, we don’t have to be white, we don’t have to have a name for ourselves, we simply have to be.
I work in homelessness services and policy through a platform called Florence Aliese Advancement Network, LLC, named after my Grandmothers, where I work with members of the public sector to raise consciousness to alternative perspectives on homelessness, and am determined for all, especially Black and Indigenous people to safely live in earth as our home.
The recent visualization of the kidnapping and murder of Black youth just across the border in Mexico is heavy on my heart as the daily news of missing and murdered Black and Indigenous women and children continues to rise across urban and rural neighborhoods around this country and as we travel the world. What right does anyone have to take a sovereign being? A child of God? Who said humans were for sale? We have a long history, although in these times many are trying to suppress it, of forced family separation and receipt of horrific forms of violence that we must reconcile to end these tragedies.
So, while I am honored to be wherever Dianne Travis Teague asks me to go, and any opportunity to be in the same space as Dr. Lee, while also reconnecting to my Pacifica guiding angels –Dr. Nuria Ciofalo and Dr. Susan James, and fellow colleagues, while holding the presence of the unknown that connects us together – today I am also tuning into the connection to Pacifica’s campus, a portal to the world soul – to take an opportunity to ask what archetypal force is at play that continues the separation of Black and Indigenous families and turns our children into “missing”? Why are you here? Is it greed that continues to feed you? And what other archetypal forces must emerge to push you back into balance?
In the wide vast universe of being, someone Mothering is crying, grieving for a child missing from the imagined home. We give thanks for protection from Mother Earth who hears her cries, absorbs her tears, and connects to the loss/lost child, no matter where they are.
Thank you!
a.d.orduna
International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023
Pacifica Graduate Institute and Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni Association, Carpinteria, CA
“Embodying Equity” Celebration.
Alisa's thoughts on Beloved Communities 