Mama Mermaid

Mama Mermaid

My dreams of breathing underwater, she tells me

Are actually ancestral memories

She has arrived in my life to remind me

Of more wisdom from the brine

It turns out that ache in my mid back

Right around my kidneys

That sometimes erupts in itchy bumps

Is a reminder of my dorsal fin

She assures me that my compulsion to live near water

Is wise

For my legs will shrivel

And my bones will become brittle

If I don’t submerge myself regularly

In the sacred waters

And absorb their wisdom

She tells me of her ancestors

Who heard the call of the waters

And were given the gift of fins

And gills

As they gradually remained longer and longer

In the sea

She tells me of the constant draw to return to land

Much to their detriment

As land dwellers always seemed to want to own or destroy

What they could not understand

She reminds me of my dream

More vivid than waking reality

Of falling in love with a land dweller

And the lifetime of suffering I endured

Never able to leave the crossroads of that choice

Between my lover and the sea

She reminds me that I face similar crossroads now

And have done so many times before

At times choosing the lover

At other times choosing the sea

Always experiencing one love blossom

While the other fades

She reminds me I can hold the grief of loss

And the joy of new growth

In two hands

At the same time

I can breath underwater

And in the air

I can sink roots into the earth

And grow fins

I can love everything and everyone

And choose a path that weaves

Closer to some and farther away from others

I can listen to my ancestors stories

And discover that I did choose that other thread

The one I had difficulty setting down

To choose the one I followed

I chose it before

Walking in one of my ancestors feet

Or swimming in her fins

And this is why that thread felt so familiar

So much like home

That it was hard to set it aside

I can grieve today

For that path I did not take

But when I remember my ancestors

The grief changes to celebration

For all of the stories I hold in my bones

I can celebrate the impossibility of repeating anything

Exactly

This imperative to find the new thread

Holding me to my unique path now

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Sama Morningstar hosts weekly Writing from the Womb Workshops where this and other writings published in this blog are birthed. Join us here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/writing-from-the-womb-tickets-128038954961