All I Really Wanted for Mother’s Day
The moment I woke up this morning, I knew exactly what I wanted for Mother’s Day.
It wasn’t breakfast in bed (though who doesn’t love that) or flowers (which are always lovely)—I wanted to go be with the mother trees.
A few years ago, during the pandemic, I started a project of mapping the “mother trees” on our land. Mother trees, a term coined by ecologist Suzanne Simard, are the biggest, oldest trees in the forest. They are the ones that hold a whole landscape together, sending nutrients and care to the smaller trees around them as they wrap the entire hillside up in their arms.
All of Appalachia was logged (and logged and logged again) in the last hundred years—but a few of these old growth mother trees survive…if you know where to look.
Left to mark the borders between old property lines, hundred-year-old oaks, tulip poplars and white pines can be found, standing tall and wise above the tree-line.
I stumbled across the first mother by accident. Out hiking the land, I saw a tree, a big one, sticking out above the canopy. So I veered off path, crawling through a rhododendron hell and balancing on a thin animal trail. Then, I was beneath her—a giant, old oak with a trunk twice as wide as my shoulders.
I settled into a nook by her roots and let her rock me.
In a time of chaos, of endings, of uncertainty. In a world of clear cuts and felled trees and a thousand years of top soil washed away, here she stood.
It felt like such a profound gift.
So this Mother’s day, when asked what I wanted, I knew immediately that this was what I needed—to go be with a mother tree.
We all hold so much, especially mothers and those who are mothering new ways in this world. Sometimes it feels like we’re the only trees left in a society where all the support has been clearcut from underneath us. So we use our branches as havens, our roots to stabilize the soil, our crowns to shade the water in the earth.
But we weren’t meant to hold it all by ourselves.
Which is why we all need time to be with the living world. To be held.
To remember that you are a beloved part of everything, and that you don’t have to do any of it alone.
So next time you feel the overwhelm start to creep up, go to the mother tree that is the Earth and just let go.
Allow yourself to be held and know that the respite, the guidance, the shelter you need is always here.
And if you really want to feel the Earth’s support—accessing the healing, safe harbor, and homecoming that is waiting for you as you step bravely into the world—come join me in Intuitive Plant Medicine.
The course was specifically designed to help you open a doorway of profound communication and communion with the living world. To recognize how much you are held, so you can embrace the next era of your life with a deep understanding of the role you’re here to play in this world.
The course is on sale until May 16th (Sign up before then to get $100 off). I can’t wait to welcome you into the grove.
P.S. Every year we donate a portion of our proceeds during the Intuitive Plant Medicine Sale to places, people and movements in need. This year we’re donating 10% of every tuition to supporting Palestinian mothers and families in Rafah to get the aid they need as they work to keep their children safe. Learn more about the organizations you’re helping us to support here.
P.S.S. I couldn’t help but add some testimonials below from a few other mamas who have taken the course
