One of my Love Stories is a Myth

This episode is based on some profound myth work I did with Téo Montoya. It's about ritual, hummingbirds, trees, and flowers. 

"I'm certain that in a world with trees, hummingbirds, and flowers, the joy is in the being, not the doing. This is my dream."

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Transcript

I wrote this myth based on Myth Mending sessions I had with Téo Montoya, who engages in Indigenous Futurism, Archetypal Myth Work, and Human Design. This was a beautiful container where I found a significant shift in the way I relate to my mom, my mother wound, and the Earth. After this work, I believe it is undeniable that crafting myths can show us truth, reverence, and humility while we hold our broken parts with the same.

I’d love to hear what comes up in your mind and body and soul when you read or listen to this. Please let me know in the comments ♥

My myth begins with reflection of ritual, family, and the land through my story.

I’ve shifted from not having an altar to creating my own. From having no daily ritual to feeling “off” if I didn’t remember to revere my ancestors, and myself, in the morning. From disliking assigning physical objects as symbols to smiling at hummingbirds because I saw my mom in their quick flutters.

This comes from living a life that aligns with my flow instead of the flow of hegemony, colonialism, and meritocracy. This new rhythm allows me space for more imagination. It is also a gift of grief, grief from losing my dad 10 years ago, grief that the world is not invested in care, the grief of time. This grief made me see how special it all was.

I often say, “since I left my 9-5 job, all these great things have happened”. But it wasn’t that job or any career I had before as a consultant, recruiter, speech therapist, or librarian that was the “problem”. Being embedded within institutions, even as a student, primed me to wear a mask. After I left, I saw how mid-day breaks and naps helped me fill my cup. Getting more congruent and collaborating on projects that had everything to do with my values and nothing to do with gaining prestige helped me discover that I could diffuse the mask I was wearing away from my body.

I came to Los Angeles for a job in 2017, and this is where my true love of the land began. Coming from the flat midwest, the California elevations and colors and differences were a new world. My instantaneous love for the trees and succulents and flowers had me starry-eyed, like a five-year-old enraptured by blowing a dandelion. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I met the jacaranda, the dusty purple floating in the air and making a new home on the ground. Shortly later, succulents had me enraptured, especially when they were nestled next to the flowers, flowers, flowers everywhere. Then the trees got my heart. Big roots, some leaves tender, and some tough. The diversity of Southern California’s urban trees gave me the tree-hugging bug. All of this made me realize there is no difference between humans and nature. We are all the Earth.

Growing up, my father was the personification of ritual. He woke up at the same time, showered, did his morning puja at our family’s altar, kissed my mom goodbye, went to work, called me at 7:20 am to make sure I left for my elementary school bus on time, and he was back by 5:00 pm so he could watch the Nightly Business Report at 5:30 pm on PBS. His sturdiness, reliability, and habitual rhythms soothed me in ways I didn’t realize until after he died. While I yearn for his tedium today, he was rather boring to me while he was alive. 

When it came to having a personal altar, I struggled to find meaning in the Hindu Gods and ceremony. I didn’t see the deep connection between my father and this temple. It was just putting a flower here, saying this Sanskrit prayer, lighting this thing, without understanding WHY. Duty didn’t feel meaningful, it felt robotic and transactional. I was more interested in learning about Hindu stories and philosophical lessons instead of saying phrases that had no meaning.

And then he died, and my grief wasn’t too heavy…until it was. Until I realized my dad was the only person who didn’t need anything from me, not as my mom and brother did. He was happy with me as I was—a gift of acceptance I completely missed. I don’t like to consider regret and erase who I have been. It wasn’t as much about regret as it was about remembering. Because now I get to remember him in so many ways. At my altar. And when I look at trees.

My dad’s presence was steadfast. He went to every parent-teacher conference, he went with me to open my first bank account, he made sure I got a credit card when I was 18 so I could build credit, he advocated for me when I didn’t make an advanced math program, he was without fail always fucking there. Like the roots of a tree holding it all together, whispering to other roots to make sure they knew what was up, giving shade, and bearing fruit in ways we take for granted. My dad is a tree. Past, present, and future.

I thought my mom would be a flower in my myth. She found joy in the more frugal yet quite beautiful flowers. She adored little buds, carnations, bright daisies, and whatever you could get from the grocery store for $2.99 a bunch. It was a calculated choice to get the best bloom and arrangement. My mom didn’t do fillers like baby’s breath, and she wasn’t a fan of keeping excessive leaves on flower stems. She taught me to cut the stems at an angle, so they grow better and to save the packets of flower food for another day. She still has the same sweet vases she used years ago, mostly bought at thrift stores and garage sales. But you wouldn’t know because my mom is an artist. Her eye might be frugal, but it beams with design.

It made me see that my mom isn’t the flower. She is what feeds upon it. Once, while having a quiet breakfast, my mom, looking out the patio door, pronounced, “That bird is pregnant.”  My brother and I broke into laughter at the random, fleeting nature of my mom’s thoughts. It was a perfect example of her connection to nature and off-topic commentary, fleeting from one thing to another without context, wondering why none of us could keep up. It felt like a part of her constitution. I have fought it, and I have tried to escape it, but I have found that being with it and observing it helps me understand. Fight or flight became watch and love. 

My mom is a hummingbird, small and mighty, flitting quickly from one place to the next with her long beak in your business. You might not want the invasion, but it somehow finds a way to support the ecosystem by providing a great health tip, offering practical money-saving advice, or giving you a gift you didn’t ask for that is probably useful. It has made me mad and it has made me smile. While I have wished my anger didn’t exist, I see the lessons in this polarity. The hummingbird can beat its wings up to 80 times a second and can pack 40 percent of its body weight in fat for migration, nectar-filled and efficient. Something about that felt right for my mom. She gets the deals, moves to the next place, and packs it in so she can nurture the most.

That’s why I am the flower: a Leo rising, blooming for the world to see it, for the hummingbird to feed upon it, for the tree to be beside and around it. Existing is enough for its nectar to be worthy. I don’t know what kind of flower I am. I don’t know which fragrance or color or healing element I bring, so this myth is not complete. I like that. I have more to unfold, bloom, seed, and offer. My reciprocity is ongoing. I just know that the world is brighter with flowers, and the ecosystem wouldn't be complete without them. That is enough for me to hold as it unfolds.

I’m certain that in a world with trees, hummingbirds, and flowers, the joy is in the being, not the doing. This is my dream.

My mom felt so much joy with flowers because she appreciated them for what they were, and maybe that’s all I wanted from her...what she gave them. I always wanted her approval. I never realized I had it because it came in the flavor of critique. She wanted to slash my stems and take off my extra leaves too. She wanted to make me even more beautiful, she wanted me to grow the most, open up the most, and be fed the most. She saw what I could become through the mirror she had. Maybe I didn’t want it that way, but that’s her love story, not mine.

In my love story, I’ve gained a remembrance that I am enough. Enough isn’t only standing alone in your individual being-ness; it also knows that the collective is present to support you through its being, carrying the world with it. It does it in the best way it knows how before you come into your own Self. Before I came into my Self. Before I saw my Self as part of the cycle too.

The tree will persevere, standing tall, looking on with care, rooted in depth and breadth. And the hummingbird will come around to stick its beak in you, gathering resources for forever. When my being and my doing and my loving comes from that, a field full of flowers is the most abundant, the most giving, and always enough.