Motherhood


Is it coincidental this Mothers Day weekend that there are also babes in the woodlands and wetlands of northern Minnesota? Whether it is or not, my experiences living in the woods this time of the year, awakens the realization within me that the female has within her an instinctive urge that I may never fully realize. And although I may never fully realize it, it is nonetheless as much a part of our being here as any other instinctive drive within the human and animal psyche.

This realization never fails to be forthcoming when I come upon a birds nest and the efforts of the hen to shield, protect, and defend her eggs or young which result in an almost sacrificial act. In some cases it is this act of Motherhood which is manifested in innumerable acts for our being here.

I often use Anishinaubae Ojibwe names and stories to clarify my essays but a greater purpose for referencing Ojibwe stories is that I see some hope for mankind in embracing the traditional Anishinaubaek attitude towards Mother Earth. Their beliefs that all life forms share the earth equally seems a key element in living sustainably on the planet and showing respect towards those other life forms that we share the planet with.

There are good books available about the Ojibwe people but many are written by white men or mixed blood people. I have learned much from these books sincerely authored by people like William Whipple Warren, Frances Densmore, and Johann Kohl but a writer whom has enabled me to understand the world of the Ojibwe better than any is Basil Johnston, an Anishinaubae scholar from Cape Crocker Indian Reserve in Ontario and who has written about a dozen books about the Anishinaubaek creation stories, spirit world, and language.

In Johnston’s book, “The Manitous,” he tells a creation story where Kitchi-Manitou (the Great Mystery) had created all the plants and animals in the world in the fulfillment of a vision. This world had become flooded and apparently all life was coming to an end. Clinging to flotsam on the surface was a myriad of animals. While struggling to stay afloat, they witnessed new life beginning in the sky. Geeshigo Quae (Sky Woman) was “espoused” to a Manitou and was about to give birth.

The creatures afloat on the surface of earth, in an act of unselfishness, set aside their concerns and asked the great turtle to offer his back as a place of refuge for Geezhigo Quae and invited her down. When settling upon the shell of the turtle, she asked for some soil. Many animals attempted to dive into the depths for soil but none but the lowly muskrat was able to dive deep enough and retrieve a paw full of soil of which Sky Woman thinly spread around the outside edge of the turtle shell and then “breathed the breath of life, growth, and abundance into the soil and infused into the soil and earth the attributes of womanhood and motherhood, that of giving life, nourishment, shelter, instruction, and inspiration for the heart, mind, and spirit.” It was after she had done this that she gave birth to twins whose descendents took the name Anishinaubaek.

This island continued to grow and became Turtle Island. It was then that Kitchi Manitou and Sky Woman gave this land to the first born native peoples under the condition that they live respectfully in joint tenancy with all other life forms on Turtle Island.

I continue to be impressed by the unmitigated love and depths that nursing mothers will go to in order to insure the lives of their young. These singular acts of courage are witnessed on an almost daily event. I see it dozens of time by the broken wing acts by birds trying to lead me after them rather then their babes. I see and hear it in a doe deer fleeing a short distance and snorting to call my attention to it rather than its fawn. I see it in my own wife’s unrelenting acts of caring and nurturing of our own kids. I have seen it in my own mother and this does not only apply to acts of protection but also nurturing and inspiration. I remember so clearly the stories my mother told me of when she was very young and newly married to my Father, she had relocated temporarily outside an army base in Alabama. She was a naive country girl and not exposed to the vile racism that was manifested in ‘Jim Crow’ in the south, in fact she had maybe only seen two or three black people prior to this. Her tales of the blatant and shocking racism, brutality, and segregation in the south outraged her and she instilled in my sister and I the same rancor against bigots. Still today, her spirit and consciousness of right and wrong visits my soul across the grim frontiers of death. My Mother lives within me. She is as much a part of me as my father.

Many of the ways of the world are still a mystery to me and maybe that’s not all bad. But it is an inspiration to see a small sunfish aggressively defending its shallow nest in the lake, the hen mallard doing a broken wing act, the deer calling me away from its new born fawn, or my mother teaching me to respect all people. I was reminded lately of the Ojibwe Seven Values; humility, truth, bravery, honesty, respect, love, and wisdom and the importance of these to future generations. I also remind myself of the Ojibwe belief that we inhabitants of the earth – human, other animals, and plants – are all “joint tenants’ of this earth and that survival depends on respect!