#TheMonthOfBlueWater — My grandmother / My mother / ME. Today is publication day for THE YEAR OF BLUE WATER! On this day, I am reading a book on tarot and Jung by Sallie Nichols. The beginning of the chapter on LA POPESSE, known in our modern decks as the High Priestess, describes a myth about a woman who passed as a man until she was ordained Pope John, only to have his secret revealed during a long papal procession, during which she gives birth. Nichols says it's a misogynistic mistake to see that act as an interruption to that ceremony; that while men's mental illumination is most admired as divinity, childbirth is the original creative act. My mother is my grandmother's creative act, and one of many that will go on unrecognized or unseen simply because we forget, so easily, their originality. Their works are not written down, and if they were, who goes in and does the work to make them known or more familiar? And does it serve their power to relegate their lives to other kinds of frames that may summarize or truncate their value? Today, I honor my mother and my grandmother by holding their secrets: I am their daughter, their son, the memory of their futures. Like all creations, I have transformed many times beyond their intentions. And I too cannot summon them; I can only dream of the past. It is their private beauty that I find on the way to silence. In silence, I begin again in the world. . . . . . #theyearofbluewater #poetry #womenshistorymonth