owl & crow

stephanie anderson ladd

Corn Mother

Corn Mother is a Native American goddess from the Seminole tradition. In this time of bountiful plenty, abundance and fertility, the Corn Mother reminds us to be grateful for all the gifts Grandmother Earth has to share with us.

My garden is healthy and happy and it gives me pleasure to go out and water the tomato plants, squash, cucumbers, basil, peppers, and herbs that are  growing there in the hot July sun.

Corn Mother is a grounding influence and right now after a two and a half week whirlwind with my sister, Lynn, visiting for the first time in North Carolina, I’m ready to enjoy being back down to earth.

We went to Asheville in the mountains of North Carolina one weekend and Williamsburg, Virginia the next. That’s us at the Indian village in Jamestown, imagining what life would have been like if we were Powhatan. They gave the Colonists a lot of help when they got to the new land and prevented many from starving, although the first winter in Jamestown is known as the Starving Time.

It’s something to imagine what life would have been like stepping foot on land that had never been tamed with no amenities except what little you brought with you on the ship from England. It really does give you pause to look around and see all that we now enjoy as a result of these courageous men and women who came here with next to nothing and made lives for themselves and a legacy for all of us to enjoy.

Speaking of bounty, I went to the Farmer’s Market today, my Saturday morning ritual, and found such wonderful goodies as pecan peanut butter and Blue Ridge Mountain sour cherry preserves. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches never tasted so good.

Fresh corn, green bean and tomato salad, Southern squash casserole, and fresh pesto potatoes made a lavish summer feast for dinner tonight.

I haven’t talked about our new girls in the family, but they deserve mention here, because we enjoy them so much. We have 6 pet chickens, who will be laying eggs in about another month. You can see some of the girls here: Kali, Chipmonk, Ginalolabrigida, Charlotte, Thelma and Louise are as cute as can be and come out clucking to greet me when I let them out into the yard to eat up the bugs, especially those ticks. These girls will always be egg layers and will never end up on anyone’s dinner plate.

While my sister was here, we were able to join a powerful circle of women in Hillsborough (like last year, a coven of 13 magically convened) and make dolls with Outsider artist and Cherokee storyteller Cher Shaffer. This year we made dolls out of clay, healing dolls or soul dolls to remind us of our own feminine power, divinity, and healing abilities. It’s always a rich experience hearing Cher’s stories and sharing food and comraderie with interesting, creative, and soulful women.

May we all enjoy the fruits of summer and bask in the providence and nurture of the Corn Mother.

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This entry was posted by Stephanie on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Myth, goddess, personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Stephanie
I am in a stage of new beginnings, of starting over on the other side of the continent from California, where I spent 38 years of my life. Moving to North Carolina was a bit of a shock to my system. Not so much culture shock but the shock of transplanting myself and starting over as a therapist, artist, and wild woman. I had to figure out how I was going to do it differently than I had been doing it. Because I knew I needed to change the way I worked outwardly to match the way I was feeling and moving inwardly and make it more playful, and at the same time, deep and meaningful. I knew I wanted to work with women primarily, to help them find their way on the heroine's journey to wholeness. I knew I wanted to bring more creative expression to my work because that was what was working for me--a way to bypass all the analytical thinking, perfectionism, and psychological paradigms largely created by men, and find more more intuitive ways of Being, Creating and Flowing with Life, in keeping with the Divine Feminine. I like working with the triple goddess: maiden, mother and crone, which describes the three stages of life as well as inner states of being--the innocent/adventurer; the nurturer and active doer; and the wise being who has the advantage of overview and doesn't care as much what others think of her as long as she is being true to herself. The triple goddess is found in most all cultures and traditions and helps us move out of dualistic thinking patterns and find our way to a more integrated and balanced way of life. As I forge a new path, I want to connect with women all over the world, to help women own their power, and to both explore and offer tools for self-discovery and self-care. Creating my interactive e-book, "In the Lap of the Goddess: Connecting With the Divine Feminine," and my Goddess Temple e-courses based on the workbook are my offerings, a way to share with women the knowledge and wisdom we all hold within us, reflected in the goddess throughout history, across time, and in every corner of the world.

Comments

One Response to “Corn Mother”

  1. pixie says:
    July 4, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    I love this and I didn’t know you got six chickens! They are the luckiest girls in the world. Exploring Jamestown looks really fascinating-I want to hear more! xo

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