Healing the Mother Wound with Bobinsana
I didn’t expect to cry when I shared my intention to the group but as I felt the weight of words I finally had the courage to say out loud, hot air rose in my chest and my voice began to crack.
“I want to heal from the abuse that’s been inflicted on me and—most importantly—the abuse I inflict on myself.”
When I arrived in Peru for my first dieta in January 2022, I was somewhat apprehensive. While I had experienced profound healing with Ayahuasca, I had a sense that there was even deeper levels. I had heard that dietas were incredibly challenging and in my mind I had an idea that it was a type of shamanic training that would either break me down or strength my soul—and if I was lucky both!
I braced myself for the grueling work ahead, days of isolation and strict diet. I was ready to really get to the root of the abusive dynamics that seemed to keep playing out in my life on repeat. This pattern would pop up in the sneakiest ways and each time it felt like a self betrayal.
When my teachers presented Bobinsana, I had never heard of this beautiful pink flower from a tree that grows along Amazonian rivers. If you had told me then that drinking a flower would change my life in so many ways I would have never believed you. It’s important to remember that plants work differently with everyone but Bobinsana turned out to be exactly what I needed. Before Bobinsana, it felt like I had been taking a jackhammer to my healing and the more intensity I used, the more it seemed like my body would shutdown and resist.
Bobinsana, however, seemed to know exactly how to pry the clenched doors to my heart open. That’s because she is a heart medicine, a mermaid (or Sirenita) and feminine teacher who balances the emotions. I could go on and on about my process with her that week but I can only explain it as being shot out of a cannon of love. I discovered a love for myself that was so overflowing that her medicine opened up my voice and her songs came pouring out of me—and haven’t stopped!
Bobinsana showed me that I needed to learn to be a good mother to myself before I could mother anything else (partnership, family, a business or creative project). While I was gifted with an incredible biological mother, her own grief that had resulted from the sudden loss of her own mother at a young age had left a crater-sized mother wound that I inherited. I know a lot is said about learning how to reparent ourselves, but mothering ourselves is truly a special gift. That’s because learning to be a good mother in return is how we take care of the earth, our communities and plant seeds that sustain life all around us. When nourished and loved these seeds can sprout, grow and expand the love that is in our hearts. By becoming a good mother to ourselves, we become eternal mothers and can stay connected to the joy and beauty of life—a joy that is often lost in Western Culture that tries to make mothers be all things to everyone. Good mothering isn’t about perfection, it’s about wholeness.
While reading “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer I felt as if Bobinsana was speaking through me in the chapter titled “A Mother’s Work,” which is about the author’s efforts to make a pond clean enough for her daughter’s to swim in. The months and years of painstaking effort she spends in this endeavor becomes a way to also be in service to the plants and animals of the pond. By being a good mother, her duties extended far beyond herself and will oneday reach future generations.
“A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of life’s beings can flourish. There are grandchildren to nurture, and frog children, nestlings, goslings, seedlings, and spores, and I still want to be a good mother.”
Thank you Bobinsana for teaching me how to be a good mother first to myself so that my love may extend far beyond myself and become my legacy.
If you’re interested in working with Bobinsana, the online program Awakening: A Soft Dieta for Women on the Medicine Path begins July 25. Learn more here.