he still calls me witch

I've dreamt a lot about walking through shaky, wobbly high buildings, baby in my arms; or of giving birth in odd places – alone, in the bank, out on the street, the supermarket; on the floor in front of everyone. Private parts exposed, infant at risk. Other nights I’m heavily pregnant, struggling with bags of groceries while my nappy-clad daughter runs out onto the road or off into a crowd. I'm helpless, powerless and words are stuck in my throat.

Where’s our protector? I want to shout. There’s something very wrong here – I’m supposed to have help with this. Then I remember why he’s not with us. Time is all skewed, events are muddled – my daughters are at school, the new baby is a year old, life is better, we’re OK. We’ve adjusted.

Waking from these dreams the feeling of vulnerability is hard to shake, so I live with it.

Days move along efficiently; four girls off to school, house tidied, baby and I go through our routine. We go for walks, sit in our favorite café while I write and she charms the regulars. She falls asleep to the sound of the coffee machine and I let myself drift a little.

“You’re so calm!” People say to me, stopping by.

“How do you do it?” they ask

“Its not fair” some complain, impressed by a cool demeanor, smooth hair and slim hips – as if I should be harried, overweight and upset that I have five children and no husband.

‘A defense mechanism’ is my carefully prepared response; ‘If I’m upset, baby’s upset, and I wouldn’t be able to cope’.

A calm mum makes calm babies is how the cliché goes – and so it satisfies most.

As for the rest, I smile and move on rather than say what’s really on my mind – a rant about choices and fairness and staying home eating vegetables, not drinking, not eating out and walking and walking and walking to stay sane. I shake off the resentment I sense, breathe deeply. I hold my gaze steady - stand by my convictions and the direction I've taken my life in.


Women have been doing this since we first looked up at the moon, I tell myself. We’ve been raising children alone – men leave, they go off to do ‘man things’; once they were hunters and warriors and often they didn’t come back. We call these things by different names now, but the nature of the beast hasn’t changed, and why should it?

So we get on with it and look elsewhere for understanding. Well, we hope for understanding. I do.

I know I'm not alone, not really. There are an alarming – and growing - number of children in this developed country being raised without fathers, with part-time fathers, by mothers who are under-valued, over worked and - I suspect - enraged.

One in five children goes through every day looking to a mother who, based on the cultural norm of ‘ the nuclear family’, is doing the job of two people [i]. There’s fear for the future, for the hearts of these children who will grow into men and women, but mostly for mothers who, right now, are also told that raising children isn’t enough, and they must do more. Be more. Be productive and legitimate members of the economic nation, within bounds.

Even women with partners, with legitimizing positions within community, careers, media profiles, and money – who do all of it willingly and joyfully - continue to do the lion’s share of parenting. It seems we had a feminist revolution but the boys, well, the boys are still taking the head off the Medusa and becoming heroes.

Heroes don’t change nappies do they?

And even though we are good brave patriarchal daughters we know that we face an issue that’s more than political – one that cuts to the deepest part of the collective psyche, to our very soul. It’s archetypal. It’s about a human relationship with the Anima Mundi – the essence of the world itself.

But its all too huge, too hard and scary and it feels like everyone else is satisfied with the way things are. Anyone who wants to change this Big Story is fighting against a powerful reality and losing. Its sensible to go with the flow, not to try and swim against the current.

Even so, there are the small things - taking care of what's in front of us, and that's what I do. I want let go of my fear and anger and my idea of the way things 'should be' and change my life bit by bit; strive to give others what I want for myself; become willing to see things differently; allow others to be right; to recognise the good stuff when I see it, when its in my hand.

If I can see that the problem of our relationship with the world - both the world as a concept and the planet Herself - and the worldview of mothers is tied up together, then I need to; it must be a calling. Writing it all down may be the answer to that calling, but mostly all I can do is nurture my own part of the world, my own piece of the Anima Mundi - my own soul, and those of my children.

Will it ever be enough? God only knows.

[i]
Over the last two decades, one-parent families increased substantially as a proportion of all families with children under 15 years. In 1986–1988, one-parent families accounted for 14% of such families on average. The proportion increased to an average of 20% in 1996–1998, reached 23% in 2002–2004 and then fell slightly to 22% in 2004–2006. (source; ABS, 4102.0 Australian Social Trends)

time flies

Flies are so annoying too.

The week has been spent - wastefully - in arguments with the reality of my situation followed by defeat (rather than surrender). Reality always wins, no doubt about it. Things are the way they are, and to want them to be any other way right now is the path to insanity.

But I promised I'd write more about the witch archetype and here I am, on a Sunday afternoon, to make good on that (as an aside, today has been a good day - on a quest to change one little thing at a time I went to a different cafe to write my morning pages and had a chance encounter with a man who was my lover a few years back - Jim if you are reading this, seeing you today made me smile, so thanks. Yes, one small change does the trick.)

So - I'm picking up the broom again.

First of all, I want to make the distinction between my use of the word 'witch' and the practice of Wicca or any other earth-based (or hearth based - or even kitchen-based) spiritual discipline (yes I know I make jokes about brooms!). They are obviously related, but I make no value judgement on these.

Second, where I use the word shadow, likewise I am not making a value judgement - I'm using it as Jung and the alchemical psychologists do, to point towards some thing's counterpart. But its not necessarily its opposite - more like a flip side to a coin, part of the whole - but not necessarily comprised of 'half' or even 'equal'. But more about that later.

There are so many aspects to the Witch archetype, I can really only touch the surface of it. Marion Woodman has written a great deal about Her, mostly in relation to eating disorders, through the filter of her training and experience in Jungian analysis. From Woodman's books the Still Unravished Bride, The Pregnant Virgin, and Addiction to Perfection, I learned a great deal about where the world's fear and loathing of Mother stems from.

And, although Marion Woodman and I don't see eye to eye about attaching the word 'evil' to Witch, or the ideological argument that Witch is the angry, wronged-by-patriarchy Medusa and must be 'overcome' or 'slain' by a Hero, she is right about this: Witch energy is the energy of the primal, dark, unknowable annihilating Earth. She is the beginning - the Magna Mater at her scariest. She is scarcity, drought, flood, disaster, dream-crocodiles and spiders. She must be drowned, burned, chased out by Light.

More, Witch is our deepest connection to the Great Mother, the First Mother, the first cell to come into being, the first thing to crawl out of the primordial soup - she is the primordial soup. Mother, Mater, Matter, Mer - the things we can see and touch, the sea, the ground beneath our feet. Witch is the part of Mother that shows us the decay that matter (that is, our flesh and blood) is subject to.

That's why we are scared - inherent in 'Mother' is death. Implied by nurturing and abundance is abandonment and not enough.

In her guise as Medusa, Witch is said to turn us to stone. 'Immobilised by fear' is a term we are all familiar with. Unable to move, we small humans are vulnerable to time, nature and death.

Our inner Hero holds up a mirror to Medusa and she is stopped. We cheat time and death with our solar ways - our heroics and Resurrections. Christ is risen - we are immortal because of it. Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, we will all live, free from evil. The separation of Spirit and Matter, religious ideal of transcendence from the wicked flesh, Oedipal capitalism (there isn't enough! We must grab our share! We must do anything to get our share! We must get what we can from the Earth - now!) , Patriarchy and the Problem of Mother (what I call mother-rage) are not separate issues.

OK, its a bit much to take in, and I'm in danger of turning this into a rant. There is so much more to add - but this is what I'd condense it down to, for now; Its not Witch or Mother, its both, and until these split-apart aspects can be recognised as inherent in each other and to each other, we will remain divided as humans and as a planet. Heroically overcoming the Witch is the same as overcoming Mother. Slay her, put away Mama. Cheat death, beat the price rises, and Mother earth - and Mum in the kitchen - will suffer.

If there is still a Mother Earth left for us after our infantile tantrums about how there isn't enough of Her to go around.

some sun days

Today was warm and overcast - which is how I like it best. The sun and I don't really get along on account of my freckle-and-burn prone skin.

I don't enjoy Sundays, either. Perhaps because of some deep childhood scarring from endless hours in church and bible class, and the subsequent very bad lunch (my poor mum just couldn't get it right). Probably not though.

I've come to the conclusion lately that my discomfort on Sundays is because it occurs to me every weekend that the world is doing its Sunday thing, and I'm here alone as usual.

Oh, not alone alone, I'm here with all my children, like that old woman who lived in the shoe (hey! I'm kidding - do I look like an old lady??)

What is it with the idea that there is an entire universe out there partaking of wonderful Sunday activities that I'm forbidden to enjoy?

I guess its a family day and I feel less than a family, somehow.

I didn't suffer quite so much from my Sunday Syndrome so much before I had the baby - the older girls stay with their dad every other weekend so I had a taste of 'single life' all over again.

Well, I admit that for about the first two years of that fortnightly 'single life' I thrashed about in my house not really knowing what to do with myself - often with a splitting headache, worrying myself sick about just about everything.

Then I got a clue and started getting out in the world on my weekends off and found it to be just as I'd left it when I buried myself in mother-country. Quite amazing really.

Yes, I found that I could be a person again when I didn't have the kids with me. Don't get me wrong - I do love being their Mama, but as I recently told one of the Dads, there's nothing anyone can do 24/7 without it getting to them eventually. Well, OK we have to breathe.

So I loved going out and meeting new people and getting other perspectives on life. I tend toward introspection a lot, so unless I force myself to look outwards, there's only this as a means to be part of a community.

Now of course, having done it again (oops.), I'm back to mother country, serious introspection, and a limited perspective on the world.

I don't even read the newspaper or watch the news.

So on Sundays I drive myself and my children a little bats by grumping around the house, furiously doing housework (resenting all these extra bits and pieces left behind by various and sundry guests), imagining that there are happy people 'out there' living the life I want.

I refuse requests to go to the beach (because I don't have the money), I refuse requests to go to parties (because I also refuse to buy presents for children from families that have so much more than we do) and I generally refuse to do anything fun.

I'm a big Sunday Bummer. Silly isn't it?


Carrying on like this is just giving into a myth - a story - about 'normal'. Its a story about how we 'should' live. We 'should' do things in a particular order. We 'should' behave in certain ways and as such, be rewarded in specific ways too. And I feel so far outside the parameters of normal right now.

I know I'm being a terrible witch-brat when I behave like this. I'm watching myself and saying 'Dan - snap out of it!' and yet I cannot shake off the feeling that I've been duped out of something, alternating with the self-bashing about how I've brought this dissatisfaction upon myself.

On a good Sunday I'll meditate lots, go for a walk to the park with the children, cook something nice and we'll all watch something on the box in the evening. I'm still blocking out the world, but my inner sanctum is happy enough.

I tell myself that yes, its impossible to do anything but breathe for every minute of everyday - but for now I will just have to make parenting these children as effortless as breathing. And a lot of the time it is.

But I'm so grateful for Mondays.

and another thing

Ok, I've put down my broom for a moment (really! I was sweeping, not flying) to say this - just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I'm everybody's mother.

I've noticed lately that not only do lots of people relate to me as though I have nothing better to do than look after children - mine, theirs, them (whatever age they are) but my life is common property. What else could explain the sudden appearance of extra children, requests for unpaid taxi-drives to airports, shopping etc and the unsolicited running commentary on how I do everything from cleaning the skirting boards to running my finances?

Yes, I'm having a whinge, I do feel very much like a mummy-machine right now (why can't I have the blissful-pregnancy-and-breastfeeding hormones NOW, because I really need them since the novelty of helping out a new mother has worn of for most people)

November must have been 'Tell Dan What She's Doing Wrong Month' and no one told me.

Of course no one told me. But what they did tell me was that I doubt myself too much, I don't clean the house enough, I need to 'do something' with my life (and stop having babies), that every time I get close to success I 'get myself pregnant' (all by myself - imagine that!?) and that I'm not setting a very good example for my daughters with my disastrous relationship choices. Apparently I'm not strong enough (that's from the baby's father who tells me I need to get used to being alone), not driven enough, not flexible enough (oh that's from the father of my other four, who changes his access weekends without telling me, let alone asking), not using my brain enough and have low self esteem (from my Dad, who also commented on my skirting boards) and from one friend - not selfish enough. Three people told me I should have my tubes tied.

Added to that, just when I announced to everyone 'this is the month I'm finally writing that book' and kindly requested that all my loving people give me support to do so - life became more hectic, less supportive and 'opportunities' (aka distractions) to do all sorts of things popped up out of nowhere.

For example, my lovely sister and her daughter moved to town with her daughter and needed somewhere to stay until her house and furniture situation settled. OK, a couple of extras in the house should be easy enough to accommodate, right? Er, wrong. Writing my 1600 pages each day got a bit lost in the big production dinners every night (I planned on cheese toasties and fruit salad, and variations on the theme for the entire month) and extra housework. Lots of deep breathing, mediating arguments between daughters who'd swapped beds and vigilance around the morning bathroom routine. Days I had set aside to pound out my dazzling best seller became comedies of error involving flying sofas on freeways (don't ask). Exhausting.

I'm so glad they are here, but December would have been better for me.

Determined not to let life circumstances become excuses for failure, I pushed on with my novel, getting big chunks written and feeling exhilarated, working through the usual writerly challenges. That was a good week. My target of fifty thousand words started to look ambitious but I felt I could still turn a trickle into a steady stream and let the river flow.

Mid month the 'business opportunities' started, then my oldest daughters school teachers wanted to speak to me about problems she'd developed for the first time ever (why now? why why why???), while the other daughters of mine suddenly had awards ceremonies, class productions and the like that demanded my attention. Play dates that were owed were suddenly called in.

Friends from Uni who 'hadn't heard from me' for a while (duh - that would be because, guys, as I told you in October, I'm writing my book!) came over unannounced right when conditions seemed perfect for getting a chapter on the page, settling in for tea and sympathy and ignoring my subtle and often not-so-subtle hints that now really isn't a good time.

Oh, that's not all, but you get the gist.

So, here I am, on the last day of November - the month that should have been a triumph over my past crappy decisions and one in which all the good things I have accomplished acknowledged via cups of tea, supportive silence and the help of my family finally come home to roost.

Should have been, but wasn't - and I realise something - that asking for help and support and telling people what I need just isn't enough. People will assume that because I'm a mother I am also a martyr and will sacrifice my own needs for theirs.

And, I now realise, that if I have the nerve to try to break out of my little pumpkin shell and be something other than the victim-martyr-mother then I am open to criticism and I need to have a much thicker skin. In fact I need spikes, armour and a big fence around my house.

I really have had enough. Because its all true - all of the well-meaning advice, including some stern words about getting myself out of the deep hole I apparently have fallen into financially (all of the not-so-well-meaning advice too, but about whom, I ask you?).

I really have sacrificed my own needs for those of my children, for the needs of the fathers of those children. And I rescheduled my life-saving creative urges for the sake of relatives, friends and even strangers. Not to do so is to be called a witch, a bitch, a bully. Not to do so is to go against consensus and to cause stress, which is not conducive to creativity and success either. So my book is not written, my skirting boards are spotless, my children are all taken care of, I have no money, satisfied friends, and a whole lot of decisions to make.

So, for December I am declaring 'Dan is No Martyr, Keep Your Darn Opinions to Your Self Month'.

Now, where's that broom?

shadow mother

I'm not sure how I got so sidetracked but my original intentions for this blog seem to have gone to seed.

I was reminded this morning when I ran into a local woman pushing her two babies in a pram - sweet little blue-eyed cherubs covered head to toe in texta-coloured scribbles. We talked about how children love to draw on themselves and I mentioned a book I'd read that talked about adornment and the development of self esteem in girls.

Only five minutes before I'd been sitting with my coffee writing my morning pages and asking myself what my purpose is - why is my life where it is today and what direction is it taking?

It was good to talk about these things and it pulled me back into myself and my passion for archetype, ritual and culture - in particular about the mother archetype and its shadow 'the witch'.

It also reminded me that four years ago I wanted to write a book about motherhood, about raising girls in particular - and not just because I had four of them of my own at the time.

A series of events and circumstances had shown me something I'd previously pushed aside - something I refused to see. I'd found myself in a trap, caught in the complex seduction of ideas and illusions surrounding relationships, marriage and lifestyle.

It wasn't just that I woke up one day and discovered that I was a woman in my thirties with four young children with a man (at the risk of sounding spiteful I do use that term very loosely) who appeared to refuse to take any of the responsibility for the work of our relationship.

It wasn't just that I just couldn't stand pretending to be a 'happy family' anymore - that I felt like nothing more than an unpaid babysitter for a man who would take all the credit for the beautiful home, the beautiful children and the beautiful life we supposedly made together.

It wasn't just that when I left - packing the children up in the car my mother had bought me for the purpose of having some independence from my 'beautiful husband', leaving behind all the 'beautiful things' that I was now told didn't belong to me - I found that none of my 'couple friends' wanted to know me.

And it wasn't just that I didn't have a better excuse, a solid sense of my own self-worth or any idea of how important the work that I do raising my daughters is. I wasn't depressed, although my doctor would have me believe so (I later found out I'd had glandular fever). My sense of alienation was never from my girls, or from my own strength, or from men and fathers.

I just knew - and still do believe - that without a doubt there is an undercurrent of anger surrounding motherhood, mothering and mothers in general. And its not just overworked, unappreciated and undervalued mothers who are perpetuating it.

I set out to find out why it is that the world hates mothers.

You may now ask me 'what do you mean the world hates mothers?' What a load of rubbish! The world loves mothers, we idealise them if anything. Mothers are essential - without them the human race would be extinct. Raising children is the most important job there is, right?

Er, yes. That's all true too - on the surface.

Maybe I only feel it - this undercurrent of anger and hatred - because I'm a single mother - and even though there are a damned lot of us women raising children alone, we aren't exactly part of the ideal.

Being without a partner or husband means not being 'legitimate' and it means that you find out in no uncertain terms just how much value the work of a mother has in this world. You find out, not just in dollars and cents, but also how much of what you do as a mother is tied up with the currency of being a wife - and how much you 'contribute' to the macro and micro economies of society,community and household.

The first man I dated after leaving my husband was a social worker for the department of family services - he's the guy who extracts kids from homes where there's domestic violence and abuse of all kinds. He told me he found my approach to parenting unique;

him; wow, you're great at this - you should work with children.
me; I do work with children, I have four of them
him; no, I mean you should do it as a career
me; I do - this is a career
him; No, I mean you should get paid for it
me; I do get paid for it, its not all that much, but I get paid.
him; no, I mean it should be a proper job.
me; (withering glare) right.

Even a social worker, a professional in the 'caring' field doesn't see that mother-work is actual work that warrants status as a 'career'. He gave daily witness to the direct manifestation of the anger of and against women and children and couldn't be educated to my point of view. We didn't date for very long.

So, anyway, four years ago I set out to answer The Question and then write a book about it. Along the way I found my answers, and a whole lot of other questions - the subject is HUGE. I began to feel like it was all too much, and that I was too small, not qualified enough, not opinionated enough, just not enough - to even begin to write a book about it.

I went to some of the most highly qualified people I knew - my professors at university, all women, all mothers, and they didn't know where to begin either (and they had no time as they were winding up the Gender Studies department and heading to Canberra to lobby for better pay and conditions for childcare and aged care workers, ironically).

I read books and articles and scoured the internet. I talked to other women. I got my big Answer and I felt defeated.

I still do. I have five daughters now, and two men telling me I don't deserve any child support. The children are my choice, I'm told. Suck it up.

I'm getting fired up again.

Speaking with my father yesterday, he tells me that forty percent of Australia's children are being raised by single mothers. Forty percent! Alarm bells are ringing but the fire brigade aren't coming.

So, I have something to say to the world about the work of being a mother - and a renewed sense of purpose beyond blogging fiction and treading water until my children grow up and I can be a woman again (yes, there is a difference between being a woman and being a mother).

Its time to start placing a great deal more value on what we do, raising children. Its time to let go of the victim-martyr and 'not enough' mentality that takes over when it gets rough. What's not enough is to say 'the world hates mothers' and 'I'm angry about it' and leave it at that - its time to do something about it.

Starting with me, here and now.