But it hurts here

BUT IT HURTS HERE ::: NAKED IN THE FOREST

“But mommy, it hurts in here.” She cried as she sat in her bed.

"I want to lay in your bed, mommy."

"Why?"

"It hurts in my bed.”

"We’re going to stay here together, baby.

I’m here with you. You’re not alone.

I know it hurts."

My three-year-old woke up around 1am, not feeling well.

“My tummy hurts” she said. The purging (puking) started a short while later.

I am reminded of a story one of my mentors told.

About co-sleeping and having a ‘family bed’ – essentially keeping kids in the bed with the parents at night until they are older and ready for more independence.

She said that many years later, after her children were all grown up, they lost a family member. And everyone gathered at her home in mourning. One of her sons disappeared and they found him, a grown-up man, curled up in his mom and dad’s bed.

The desire to be held by the energy of our mother, in her bed, this sacred safe space of love and nurturing. Where we can rest in love and vulnerability and safety. Where everything is okay and we can let go of what hurts. Even if just for a little while.

This mentor has since passed. In a meditation I had a vision of her children and their spouses, after her passing, all cuddled together, squeezed into her giant bed. Someone saying, we should take a picture, and one of the girls holding her hands over her face to hide her raw emotion. Then moving her hand, looking right into my eyes, and saying, “but it still hurts.”

And the deepest, sobbing tears filled my heart and dripped down my face.

The vulnerability.

The desire to be held away from the pain.

It hurts here, please, can we go to your bed.

But sometimes, we can’t.

And the Cosmic mother comes to us, where we are.

Right in the middle of the pain.

She says,

“I’m going to stay here with you, baby.

I won’t leave you.

You’re not alone.

I know it hurts.

I’m here with you. “

And she holds us, and caresses our forehead, wiping our hair back from our face.

“I’m here.”

And I cry in the realization that some small shared story circles back 5+ years later, bringing me to my knees.

And that is how the Cosmic Mother works.

That is how she nurtures us.

She never leaves us.

She is always here with us, even when it hurts.

She speaks to us through others.

Leaving healing salves and sacred Medicine in their words,

Activated by specific pains, undeterred by time or space.

That is how a mother’s Love works.

That is the Love that is always accessible to us.

Even when it hurts.

Especially when it hurts.

I see myself crying alone on the floor of a deeply wooded forest. Huge, tall trees all around me.

I’m sitting on the ground, knees to my chest, arms wrapped around my naked body.

With tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes I look up to the stars, and cry out,

“But, it still hurts.”

The night sky becomes her star-covered arms as the Cosmic Mother sweeps down and holds me in her blanket of stardust and loving compassion and whispers, “I know baby, I’m here”

I can’t take you from this place.

But I will be here with you while you move through it.

I won’t leave you. I’m right here."

And just like I wish I could take away my daughter’s pain, I know she feels the same.

But we must honor the pain, and the purging.

We cannot always insist on leaving where it hurts.

But staying with ourselves, and feeling it.

And had we left our space, and moved into our mother’s bed, we would still have to feel it all the same.

It’s not the bed, but the pain meeting love that is it’s own remedy.

Feeling it. Releasing it.

Being held in her love.

And suddenly the tears stop. I look up.

The stars are still the stars.

I am still me.

The pain is gone.

Purged by tears.

Held by the Great Mother.

Taken away, as soon as I was ready to feel it and surrender it to her.

Just like I held the puke bucket and washed it out for my daughter.

Over and over and over again.

So she tended my tears, my pain, my heartache.

Over and over and over again.

Every tear, released pain, surrendered burden:

Washed clean.

This is the love of the Mother.

This is the beauty of ‘purging’ what no longer serves us.

This is the beauty of Life.

To all my friend who are hurting, in ways you can name, and in ways you can't, I love you and I see you.

You, too, are being tended to: every pain, every fear, every tear.

You are not alone.

I invite you to explore your own sacred Medicine, to sit naked with your fear and your feelings, and to allow yourself the courage to FEEL IT, to open your heart, and to let the hurt meet Love. This journey is for all of us if we choose it.