Moon Mothers

On this last full moon of summer and the anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote;  We Moon Mothers gathered in the Enchanted Forest to dedicate our ceremony to the bold Norse Goddess of celebration, Frejya.  Unafraid of passersby opinion we boldly placed our altar at the edge of the trees with a view of the ocean. In celebration of the feminine rights and power that our Grandmothers won for us, we connected to our true braveness in a rhythmic drumming parade.

Our tribe consists of Maidens, Mothers and Crones.  Below is a story of one of our powerful Crones and the sacrifice of her ancestral Grandmother so we could now own the privileges of freedom.

Earth Medicine not Witchcraft

Elaine Blossom and her female cousins were all given the first or middle name of Blossom, a family tradition carried on for centuries. This name honors their fierce ancestral grandmother and gives voice to her story.  The horrific truth of her story is harbored in the DNA of so many American women, but only few were told of their direct decent. For more than three centuries, their story was whispered to each generation of women in Elaine’s family.

In 1630, Elaine’s ancestor, Susanna White-Winslow, was one of the brave women who sailed on the Mayflower to settle this new land of religious freedom. Living close to the land she learned to use wild herbs as medicine. That practice was handed down from mother to daughter and shared in circles of women. each generation becoming wiser in the ways of healing through native plants and herbs. Seems like it would have been a very good thing to be a healing herbalist or (medicine women). Well, it wasn’t a good thing in 1692. Elaine’s ancestral grandmother was accused of using witchcraft and then murdered. It’s an astonishing injustice that in less than three generations, the freedom seeking women of the Mayflower’s granddaughters were slaughtered in the craze of the Witch hunts.

During Elaine’s Crone ceremony in 2010, she held the posture of a queen, on a stage under a full moon and boldly shared her feminine history. As she spoke of the cruel witch hunt atrocity, tears dripped from the listeners. With twinkling eyes and the voice of a priestess, she fearlessly spoke, out loud, the story that had only been whispered in her family for generations. On that October night, in a large circle of women, fifteen generations removed, her time had come to give voice to her ancestral grandmother’s story.

In closing, Elaine thanked her ancestral grandmother for the wisdom of “Women’s Circles” in witch she gave her life.

The next two portraits are of Elaine Blossom, also know as Peaceful Warrior.

Until we meet again, be bold and celebrate your feminine power.

Sincerely,