Heroic is she who stays even when she wants to run away,
sits and watches as the sky darkens and falls all around,

who cries, can track the patterns of loss and find
the truth like a birthmark of her own making,

who speaks when to speak is to risk everything
and is silent when to be silent is to protest
all the noise that drowns out the quiet hum of the love.

Heroic is she who waits, wading through impatience, willing to sit with rage, irritability, fear, annoyance –
all the makeshift states of the restless mind,

feeds the raucous morning birds whose song refuses silence,
abandons the stories that speed by like traffic going nowhere fast.

Heroic is the one who stays, even as the sky darkens and falls,
and finds herself in a pool of apple blossoms
after a hard rain.

– Jena Strong

She is strong. She is soft. She is always.

She is Kuan Yin, Kanzeon, Tara born of tears, Mary mother of sorrows, Shakti, the great divine mother.

She is every mother.

She is the mother mountain, which is the very mountain of your heart.

See her for yourself when you come next month, or when you stay this week in honor of our mighty, heroic, eternal, compassionate mother selves.

I’m not afraid to keep company with tears and tissue. Just look who’s here with me.