Travelogue: Returning to the Four Corners – Redefining Motherloss

There was a natural human wanting in me to find the exact spot where I let my mom’s ashes go.

I understand the need to have a marker, somewhere to go to speak to our loved ones. To remember them, honor them, and remember our relationship with them. We mark these places with gravestones, flowers, or flags.

It is surprising and non-conventional that there is no marker for my mother’s release. And yet, her body is not captive to my human wanting to keep her. She is truly free. She is a part of God, and God is with and within me every day, and so is the maternal energy.

While I may have set out on a day trip to honor my mother, something much greater happened, an adventure.

I set off on the road and took a detour. Detour. If you know me, I don’t like detours much. I like to know where I’m going and get there. It was like being pulled off the road, no go this way, no go this way. And, so I had to follow, as disoriented as I was.

I drove down this little road in the middle of no where. Like, there was nothing but woods.

I started getting a bit freaked out, and I was going to turn around, but I didn’t. Off to the side, there was a turn into this campground and day park.

Yes, I ended up in the most amazing little oasis. A lake where guys were fishing at the other end. Evergreen trees on one end. Rock formations out in the distance on the other. A view of the snow-capped mountains on the other. I couldn’t believe I was surrounded by so many different types of seasons.

I ended up parking at the beginning of a hiking trail, that lead to the Colorado Trail. I didn’t make it that far. I didn’t make far at all, but I had a blast!

I took one trail, the Chicken Foot Trail that lead into the evergreen trees. And when I mean into, I mean into. It became a little dirt path barely big enough for one person that led out into the forest. A forest of evergreens. I was stunned at how many there were. I looked out at the evergreens and thought – you could just disappear into the trees. I could have disappeared and never have come back. Literally. When I got too spooked out by this, I turned around and made my way back to the Bear Trail.

The Bear Trail was a wider path, one that wound up a hill. I didn’t make it very far on the Bear Trail, either. They definitely had the right name for this trail. I turned around when I saw fresh bear scat. There is looking for trouble, and I knew if I kept going, I would find it, and I was alone.

I made my way back out of the woods and spent the afternoon by the lake. I walked down and sat on a rock to commune with the oasis that had found me.

I would love to say I had a divine spiritual experience communing with my mom. Where she spoke to me. And I heard her voice from heaven with a divine revelation.

At the time, though, I had no idea why I was there or what I was doing.

Clueless.

So I sat on the rock, with the water, with the snow-capped mountains, with the rock formations in the distance, with the evergreen trees, with the setting sun and starbursts between the leaves in the wind.

And I connected with the divine mother earth.

My mother is in each of these elements. Her ashes have nurtured the earth and fed evergreen seedlings. In that moment, I felt completely nurtured and loved.

And, in that same moment, I was nurturing, sending love to each of these elements. And, in that moment, I became a mother to all of these things.

This is the sacred feminine.

The divine mother earth.