Great Mother is Silent

This may not make sense to you, and it barely makes sense to me, but here it is.

I am invited to sit on the floor, at the feet of an ancient woman. She is quiet and motions to rest my head on her lap. She gently stokes my head. Warm hands. My head in her lap. A fire nearby. No one else. The grandmother is silent. She touches me with tenderness and no pity. She sits, resolute and trustworthy. I am waiting, She is silent.

I want - a word, a sign, a fix. She sits, inviting me to be with her. To be, with nothing accomplished. To be, with no project in mind. The training: to be.

Recently, when I lie with a hand on my heart and the other on my belly, the "downloads" come. Images, words, that guide and comfort. They feel like reassurance, integration, bread crumbs. This morning, warm in bed, lying with hand on heart and belly, body releasing to earth, still, allowing, undisturbed, safe. Waiting for the download. I'm ready. Any moment now.

Anticipation of the "download" is here. Those smart, piercing, pungent concepts and words, have been coming. I like them. They impress me. This silence, this waiting, this tenderness is less appealing. It is hard to sit. Hard to receive the call. Hard to receive the touch. Hard to stay in silence.

This morning, no download. The Grandmother has come to teach.

I sit with Great Mother. At her feet, receiving her touch, enduring the stillness, respecting the silence.

Recently, a teaching was given to me. "No more words. Feel your tailbone." repeated over and over, like an incantation. I startled and argued, 'if I stop talking, no one will see me. No one will pay attention to me. No one will love me." Was this fear of death? Yet I tell her, "yes, yes, yes." I assent. "I will feel this body, this energy pulsing." But I am not convinced.

No more words? How can I live? I rebel. How will anyone know me? Words are how I have made this life - good words, pretty words, vocabulary words, funny words, kind words, fact-filled words. This whole life, built of, around and through words. And now, no more words, feel your tailbone?

I get out of bed and hear my husband, a surgeon who's on-call, speaking on the phone about a patient, "if he can hold still." If he can hold still, then what? If I can hold still, then what? Can I BE still, wait,

hands empty, gaze intent, awareness in the body? What is on the other side of "hold still"?

Before too long, I recognize Great Mother. I am not totally happy about it. Oh, this teacher is hard to bear. This waiting, allowing tenderness to penetrate, learning a new language. Great Mother is soothing me. Soothing the restless body, soothing the busy mind, soothing the seeking soul. Stroking, smoothing, unruffling the waters.

Great Mother has something I have been seeking. I know it because I am willing to sit with her, despite the longing to flee.

Can it be that this teacher is within me? She has endured, guided, triumphed, struggled, birthed through millennia. She holds the thread. Her eyes are truth. She knows fear and is fearless. She knows death and is deathless. She is love. She comes to teach from my own heart. Offering what has been lacking. Attention, tenderness, stillness. I am still squirming.