My Mother Was A Sleepwalker

My Mother was a sleepwalker

Dancing between dimensions…

This Spring, a friend asked me how I was feeling about my mother. You never speak about her. I was prepared to give my automated response of “I feel fine”, but instead, sat with the question. In the next moment, I became a flood. The pain was visceral. Everyday I awaken in a world in which my mother does not. This fact became too heavy to hold, and eventually, I placed it in a dark closet corner, close enough to touch, obscured enough to dull.

Thus began the erasure of my mother. To avoid the pain, I avoided her. As a child, I would communicate with her through prayer. By adulthood, her name was nearly bleached from my tongue.

Elena.

In college, she began communicating with me through dreams. We have a connection beyond the physical. A language beyond words. And still, it is important to let those in this realm know who my mother was.

• My mother was a sleepwalker. My grandmother once told me she found her in the middle of the night, roaming the street- asleep. The first indicator that Elena always had one foot in another world.

• My mother was a lover of all. A few years ago, my father broke his silence on Elena. Told me I remind him of her because we could be in any room and make every person feel comfortable, loved. (If you have felt love from me, you have met my mother.)

• My mother had a backbone. When my father broke his vow, she told him to leave. She knew her value. She knew her power. And she wouldn’t bend to accommodate a man who didn’t honor both.  

• My mother was humorous. There is a photo of Elena on my altar, laughing. Her body covered in bows. She knew she was the gift.

• My mother was an artist. When she was in highschool, Elena drew a photo of a panther with moons as the third eye. I wonder, did she see this creature while sleepwalking? Is it a self-portrait? Elena is Power. Elena is celestial.

Elena is.

Her name means shining light/the bright one. The more I unearth, the more I understand: I Am my Mother’s daughter. I Am my Mother’s Sun. I cannot escape her light. I cannot bury it in closets or under bushels. In theology it is said that God appeared as a burning bush because His glory is too magnificent; it would blind the beholder. I surrender to the blinding glory of The Bright One. I surrender to the power of her unfailing love, her shining light.

So it is. So it is. So it is.

Happy Birthday, Elena.

A panther with a lunar eye

Her footprints on a moonlit sky…