A Village
Jul 09, 2025
Over Shabbos, I played Mommy to my two year old niece, Talya. I was spending the weekend with some of my siblings and this little one kept finding her way to my skirts and calling me Mommy.
It’s true, I look a lot like her actual mother. But she’s big enough to know the difference.
She knew I wasn’t her mother. She looks me straight in the eye when she speaks. There was something seamless about it. Natural. No hesitation or confusion. Just this knowing:
“You’re taking care of me. You’re safe. You’re ‘Mommy.’”
I found it fascinating. I mentioned it in passing to a friend of mine who is a parenting coach. She said that at that age, little kids often don’t see “Mommy” as one person. Because Mommy isn’t just a name. It’s an idea. It’s the person who’s present. The one who feeds them, comforts them, plays with them, carries them.
To a toddler, Mommy is an active role. A verb.
It absolutely landed for me.
We often forget that mothering is not just biological. It’s energetic. It’s ancestral. It’s archetypal.
There are birth mothers. And there are mentor mothers.
There are the ones who raised you. And the ones who see you and choose to walk beside you anyway. Sometimes they’re the same person. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to have a handful of them.
Malidoma Patrice Some, in his book The Healing Wisdom of Africa, mentions this. He says that amongst the indigenous peoples of Africa, if you were to ask a young child to name their mother, they may not know how to answer. Because every woman in the village is considered “mother".
It is not strange to them. It’s not confusing. It’s simply true.
Mother is the one who noticed your gifts.
Mother is the one who chose to see you.
Mother is the one who welcomed you home.
When you look at it that way, there are those of us who grew up painfully motherless in the deepest sense.
And now, we’re trying to mother our children in a culture that isolates us, overwhelms us, pressures us to perform, and (also) makes us feel guilty for wanting or needing rest.
No wonder we’re tired. No wonder we sometimes forget how to hold ourselves. No wonder so many of us are collapsing in quiet ways.
We were never meant to do this alone.
That is what I desire to offer with Emerge.
Emerge is not just an event. It’s a reclamation.
It’s a space to remember that you’re not just the one who mothers.
You’re the one who is meant to be mothered too.
It’s hours of conscious facilitation, nervous system noticing, and emotional untangling. Followed by the most unique breathwork experience in the water, held in a circle of women who know what it is to carry too much.
It might be the first time you get to lay it all down.
The first time in a long time you let someone hold you, to nurture your most essential self.
And you will emerge different.
Not just rested. Not just more regulated.
But more you.
Come join us.
Come meet the village your body has been aching for.
Tuesday, in Toms River NJ.
This experience happens just once a year, and there are only a limited amount of tickets still available.
You don’t have to do it alone. (For real! You’ll get to meet some of my amazing Azamra facilitators!)
Let us be your village,
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Life happens in little bits. Learn to love the little bytes.
