Earth Mother

I met Cherie first, who was a young teen and hired her to babysit my one year old. She was the most attentive caring babysitter ever! I landed at the hippy commune in the woods where her bus was (Livewood?) I got on her bus packing my infant and cried OH Moonwater my poor Vagigi! I had been in the woods and the outhouse was out of tp so I ingeniously grabbed leaves to wipe myself. That was when I learned what poison oak is.Moonwater did that infectious laugh and loong mooan she does.We became sisters.How easy it was to love her the magestic queen she was. She drew people to her this gorgeous vibrant wise woman.She remembered me getting on that bus and crying out to her when I had forgotten all about it.We watched a Bob Maarley video out in a meadow under the stars.I kept telling her how good the rice and oatmeal was and couldnt get over how simple food tasted so great. She explained to me it was the happiness and energy of everyone that went into the meals and she was right.Eating a bowl of rice with friends happily beats eating a 10 coarse meal while miserable or sad.
Recently my lover left me saying he couldnt embrace my pain. I bring that up because I didnt know what it meant until Moonwater passed. Moonwater grew up in a time that maritial problems, rape, abuse, death, womens equality, none of those things were mentioned. As the book "Women who run with the wolves" points out, as we age and become old crones together we have battle scars and should wear them proud. Love embraces the joys and ecstacy as well as the challenges and pains. We have personal history, heartbreaks, trying times, addictions, bumps on our paths. We shared all our experiences and we got to laugh about our process of aging into old crones.Losing our youth, our teeth. our stamina,etc. We joked about it and yes we werent exactly aging gracefully, we bitched and moaned alot but could amuse ourselves.
She recently told me that a woman feels the pain of suffering happening anywhere on the planet, the suffering of the earth, and others. She was intuitive enough to embrace the pain of humanity and pray and work towards healing.
The last time she came over she gave me the longest hug ever. I wondered about that but I know now. On some level she knew. And we talked about dying.Fancy that! I told her I was going to have a kit and sit in the woods by atree and just look up into the sky. She said "Get me one of those kits!" She said her boy Adam would take it the hardest and I said yeah my son Noah would take it harder even tho my daughter and I are best friends.We talked about our mamas boys, our kids life, and she felt Bush is so evil and these times are like the eery times before the halocaust.Its true. We felt civil unrest is due and we should be on some land somewhere and how the hell are we gonna chop wood in these old bodies? We made a promise to go see a movie together. I am going to go see Across the universe in her honor and invite her to sit in the empty chair next to me.
Her photos are staggeringly beautiful and breathtaking.What an honor to know her then and know her now.People can look at her and Jerry Garcia, Martin Luther, John Lennon and other dead heros and just think there goes an old hippy who probly did too many drugs. But they dont realize that what we have lost is someone who embodied such wisdom and advocated for truth and freedom peace and healing, and gave us insight and avenues to atune to the universes highest aspirations and possibilities for us,and within the constricts of a human body created magic and beautiful moments of seredipity and mind conciousexpanding awe, synchronistic miracles. We need to keep that magic alive. They were the pioneers brought it to us. Well, good one grandfather, who am I gonna call now or sit around my kitchen table with and goof with. Ill ask her to come to my dreams. Peace