Mama Mary: Nature and Nurture

Originally posted at The Way of the Rose 54-Day Novena Facebook group on February 9, 2021

Novena Day 13

The Joyful Mysteries

As I mentioned in my post about the Agony in the Garden, I love gardens. Flowers, particularly, mean a lot to me. A beautiful flower can almost always strike a joyful chord in my heart, even if I am in the depths of despair.
So when Perdita announced that this would be the “Flower Power” novena, intended to nourish the garden that is the Way of the Rose community, I was all in.

As usual I feel a synergy between what’s going on with me and what’s happening in the community around me. For various reasons, the last novena felt a bit sterile and cold. It contained Christmas, New Year’s Day, and my birthday, none of which felt particularly celebratory, and was marked by real concerns about whether the “smooth transition of power” that has been an American trademark may be a thing of the past.

Intellectually, I knew Mama Mary never left my side, but after a decade of feeling more “social” than I ever had in my life due to the rise of social media, I was feeling distanced. I could feel myself reverting to the alone, lost, and powerless feelings of my childhood and the days following my son’s death. Which in turn made me feel ungrateful, as I knew that no matter how alone I feel, I have been well cared for. I don’t live in Woodstock, but I live in an equally beautiful, less populated “garden” about an hour away.

When it came time to choose a new petition for this novena, I was at a loss. Then someone mentioned something about feeling nurtured that struck a chord. That’s what I’ve been missing—feeling nurtured. That truly is my heart’s desire. So, instead of judging myself for being ungrateful, I chose to make my novena petition this time around to feel nurtured.

But novena petitions don’t work like ATMS, do they? You don’t just dial in your request, and out it pops. Personally, I tend to immerse myself in it. Since Day 1 of this novena I’ve been mulling the concept of “nurture.” What does it mean to nurture, and what does it mean to feel nurtured?

When I look back over my life to the times I truly felt nurtured, there are surprisingly few, but the times that stand out in my mind all bear similar qualities: when my cousin Danny took me to the office to find out what classroom I was supposed to go to in my new school; when my brother Charlie gave me his songbook of The Greatest Hits of the Sixties because he could see that I loved it; when my brother Bill gave me a secondhand guitar for Christmas; when my dad posted my play reviews on the wall outside his office; when my mom paid for the caps I needed on my front teeth; when my ex-husband offered to support me so I could pursue acting full-time; when my sister put her arm around me after my newborn baby died and told the doctor in the NICU that I wasn’t “acting” strong, I was strong; when another ex agreed to spend a good chunk of our vacation chasing down a story I wanted to write about.

Each time I felt seen, loved, supported, and, when necessary, protected. And that’s exactly what Mama Mary offers us, isn’t it?

In fact, the word “mothering” feels like it should mean “nurturing,” doesn’t it?
We all feel the need to nurture and be nurtured. I was stunned as I watched my daughter, at the age of three, throw her beloved stuffed animals in the co-sleeper where her new baby brother would be sleeping. She couldn’t wait to nurture.

But no matter how benign or even helpful the action, it’s not nurture if it doesn’t come from love.

Love, unfortunately, is a word that’s applied to many things that are not love. (I hate to break it to any Twilight fans out there, but what Edward and Bella share is not love; it’s obsession.) I expect other things have always masqueraded as love, as 1st Corinthians, probably the most ubiquitous Bible verse at Christian weddings, lists eight different things love isn’t.

Most importantly when it comes to nurturing, love isn’t about pushing someone into our idea of who they are, like a gardener twisting and stunting the branches of a Bonsai tree; it’s about finding joy in supporting and enabling others to become their best version of themselves. It’s Elliott Weston from the 1980s drama thirtysomething saying of his wife, Nancy, “I can’t wait to see what she does next.”

In order for flowers to flourish in a garden, they need the right kind of support and nourishment. Each flower is different. Some need more sun, others more water. Some need acidic soil, others more alkaline. If you plant a flower in the wrong kind of soil, or water it too often or not often enough, try to rush it, or surround it with more aggressive plants, it will not do as well as it would if it received the sort of support it craves.

There’s a well-known saying my sister used to have on a wall-hanging in her room, “Bloom where you are planted.” She found it an inspiring message, but I’ve never been quite comfortable with it. Yes, flowers can grow through cracks in sidewalks, but rare is the flower that can achieve its full potential in those circumstances.
Flowers, like people, may be able to transcend adverse circumstances, but how much more gloriously would they bloom if they were nurtured with the right conditions?

It’s not nurturing to pay for medical school for someone who is a poet at heart. It’s not nurturing to push them into college if they would be much happier learning carpentry. It’s not nurturing to discourage them from taking math because you think they “won’t need it” later on in life. And it’s definitely not nurturing to indulge every whim before someone can even begin to discern their heart’s desire.
No matter how generous we are with our time or money, the recipient won’t feel nurtured unless we see their hearts and support what we see.

I’ve rarely enjoyed surprises much because so often they felt like they were intended to nurture someone other than me. For instance, my parents surprised me with a canopy bed with matching dresser and vanity when I was seven years old. As I was growing up surrounded by boys, six brothers and two male cousins, I could not have had less interest in fussy furniture, but I was expected to be happy and grateful for this wonderful surprise. It’s no wonder I’ve had trouble knowing what I want and asking for it, is it?

Which brings me to what may be the most critical aspect of being nurtured: We have to be able to receive nurturing when it comes to us, otherwise we stop the very flow of energy that we crave. We need to be able to say, “Yes, thank you! That’s for me!” with a joyful heart. And we can’t do that unless we believe we deserve to have our heart’s desire.
I don’t know about you, but that’s often the part I have the most trouble with. I can look back and see numerous times when I said, “No, thank you” out of fear to something that I know would have nurtured me. I know that Mama Mary sees me and is always standing by with love, support, and protection. But I won’t feel nurtured unless and until I invite her in, knowing that I deserve her nurturing.

So, my mantra for now:

“Holy Mary, Mother of All, I open my heart, my mind, my body, and my soul to the flow of your magical and miraculous healing mama energy, knowing that as I do I receive the nurturing that I crave and deserve.”
May we all receive the nurturing that we crave and deserve this novena.

(Image is my son carefully nurturing the impatiens that our next-door neighbor gave him when he noticed his interest. That plant flourished under his care.)