NB: Mother Consciousness is available to men as well as women, but men would do well to learn about it from women.
The events and individuals portrayed in this post are true, but the individual stories are amalgams in order to protect confidentiality. Names have been changed. I have full permission to share these true experiences.
Bridget’s chromosomal abnormality was not evident in prenatal testing or during her first two years of life. As her mother’s first child, Bridget was everything a new mom desires in her child. Interactive, curious, responsive, loving, playful and dynamic, Bridget lit up the lives of her parents with her beauty and vibrancy. Then, not long after her second birthday, she changed. Her bright face would shift into a flat affect. She would suddenly become rigid, even in the midst of a hug. The periods of rigidity increased in frequency and duration. When Bridget’s mom and dad could no longer disregard these shifts, as these once unpredictable behaviors became part of every day, even every hour, they sought help that eventually led to genetic testing.
Bridget’s mother, Caitlin, had always been optimistic and cheery. When second and third opinions confirmed that Bridget would not improve, would not outgrow or be able to recover from a chromosomal deletion, Caitlin had to take some down time. She had been informed in one clinical setting after the other, that her daughter would become mute, would never be able to communicate her needs to others and would therefore always be at risk.
Bridget would have increased difficulty moving, and would eventually need a wheelchair. Caitlin and her husband were told that Bridget would not be able to have normal relationships or learn easily, if at all. The recommendation was to institutionalize Bridget because she would need 24/7 care to do everything from toileting to bathing, from eating to dressing. She would never be independent. She would not mature. She would be regressed for her entire life, which would likely be shortened due to the chromosomal deletion.
Alone, in the darkness of her room, without family members or friends to reassure her, Caitlin dropped into a place she did not think she would ever enter, a place of collapse and despair. She stayed there for hours, and then for days. Never religious, Caitlin had a strong sense of a life force that she celebrated in herself and in others, and that she still witnessed and adored in her daughter, as she had from the moment she felt her move inside of her.
Caitlin revisited what seemed to her to be every moment of her pregnancy. She returned to the joyous ecstasy when she conceived Bridget. She had known that conception instantaneously, without a shred of doubt. She returned to the moments after birth, the first sight of her daughter’s face, eyes, hands, feet; the feel of her skin; the smell of her hair. She recalled the joy of seeing Bridget play, of her father looking adoringly at the two of them, and of the family’s celebration of this first grandchild.
A spirit fire was ignited by these recollections; a primordial ember erupted in Caitlin’s awareness and it made her draw the curtains in her darkened room back to reveal the light that was shining outside. She knew the potential of her child, and that potential put into question everything that she had been told. Caitlin knew that she had brought forth a purposeful being who had come to fulfill her destiny and who had not lost that potential despite the chromosomal deletion and the clinical predications associated with it.
From that moment forward, Caitlin would advocate for the entelechy of her daughter ceaselessly, no matter what happened. Physicians, educators, school administrators, all of them would be confronted with Caitlin’s Mother Consciousness, her Agni Leadership, her knowledge of who her daughter really was inside, despite the exterior of regression, depletion, vulnerability, fragility, and helplessness.
When Sheryl’s son came back from military service, she sensed that something was wrong even though he insisted that he was fine, glad to be home, and ready to return to his own life. Before she knew it, Cody had married his high-school girlfriend and they were expecting. He bought a house he couldn’t afford and took on two jobs to pay for it. Sheryl’s young, generous son became pressured, agitated, rushed, on-edge. His eyes darted as if constantly vigilant and he could not sit still to talk to her or share a meal.
Before their son was a year old, Cody’s wife was expecting again. Sheryl didn’t hear from Cody very often, but she worried about him constantly, often calling his cell phone and leaving messages that he did not return, though he would send a text saying, “Sorry, mom. I am just busy all the time.” It would be much later that Sheryl would learn that Cody was gambling and using speed, trying to keep up with himself.
Six months after Sheryl learned that a second baby was on the way, Cody was found dead in his car, just a few miles past the rural home where he grew up. His brother found him, following an instinct to look for him there when he learned that Cody had not come home. Cody was curled up on the back seat, the car still running.
Sheryl was riveted with guilt and grief, as if these two emotions were twins fighting for space in her body. She did not leave her house for weeks. She was unable to speak to anyone. She was driven so far inward; it was as if she too had died. She knew that she would grieve the loss of her son for the rest of her life, and she stopped wanting to do anything else. Then a fury arose in her, and she declared out loud that her son would not just be a statistic. It was Cody who had cried with her when Sheryl divorced her husband. Cody was the one who reassured both his parents that he loved them. Cody was the athlete, the team player, the kid who volunteered to put up other people’s tents on camping trips. “What happened to that boy?,” Sheryl asked herself.
When Sheryl returned to the world of the living, it was as if Cody was resurrected within her. She inquired everywhere, actively, forcefully, asking those who should have known what happened to her boy. She asked his buddies, his wife, the VA, his doctor, his siblings, his pastor, his dad. Sheryl was relentless in uncovering the truth about her son. She went from being someone who hid in the back of the room, someone who suppressed her feelings, someone so afraid of ostracism that she kept silent most of the time, to being outspoken, a quality frowned upon in her family and community.
Sheryl was no longer afraid of being punished for anything. She was beyond that now. She became an advocate for veterans and their families, a counselor for suicide prevention, a speaker ready to tell the world about what happens when soldiers come home and why we have to look out for them, abide by them, and pay attention to what they are doing as they reveal the inevitable signs of unresolved combat shock and all the myriad ways in which war comes home.
Like Caitlin, Sheryl found her Mother Consciousness, her Agni Leadership. This is the consciousness that the world needs now. If legislators embodied Mother Consciousness, humanity would not now be facing extinction. If policy makers had Mother Consciousness, we would have long ago acted intelligently, never losing sight of the true human potential to be civilized, compassionate, innovative and respectful of our living earth. If those who claim the title of leader knew Agni Leadership, they would be motivated to protect that purposeful fire in all children, all youth, everywhere. I have seen Mother Consciousness defy the odds over and over. Mother Consciousness is the model for what the world needs right now. It is the Agni Leadership that burns through the barbaric degradation that afflicts and tortures us. It is the way forward.
This is not a fantasy. Crone Speak exists to arouse Mother Consciousness and Agni Leadership for the entire world. Follow the model depicted here of investing thoroughly and single-mindedly in human potential, no matter what. Step forward with the grace, courage and hope that comes with having nothing to lose.