05/11/2026
“Mother” is my convergent identity. Becoming Mother was the mycelial connection to all the other parts of myself—Body, Woman, Wild, Holder, Feeler, all the long list (iykyk). Ruminating on these literary gifts in these days of more mothering.
“I have a secret. you are —
whether moss,
falcon,
mycelium,
or lonely dawn-watcher at the riverside,
a mother.
And you are mothered.
By the galactic complexity in your gut,
by seasons and pollen and footstep sucking mud,
by the twin wings of your lungs,
by the green wind that comes to
gently tuck a curl behind your ear.
Your body mothers you.
And child-like you nuzzle deep inside other bodies.
Forest bodies.
Spore bodies.
Weather bodies as blue and vast as fabric…”
From The Mother Secret By Sophie Strand
AND
“Mothering is sensual—endemic to the body and bringing both profound joy and fulfillment. It cultivates and nurtures a child’s life force and essence. It is labor that can bestow a primal sense of satisfaction to children and caregivers alike...
It is draining, tedious, and repetitive, but the work keeps us close to one another, returns us, again and again, to our own corporeal forms. Physical labor exhausts me, but it makes me more tender. More empathetic, more sensate, more porous. In touch with all the emotions…
We give the people we mother our bodies, and what they will recall is our presence and heat, the animal closeness. Before and after words come, this is what we need—this connectedness…”
From ‘On Taking Pleasure in the Sensual Side of Mothering’ By Angela Garbes
Stunning Me/Brigid before birth 📸 by my friend
