Grandmother Silvie

Call me Grandma or Gramma. I am Silvie and I am the one who nourishes so many. Much like your mother who has been your mother in many lifetimes – I give with my heart. Perhaps imperfectly but with a good heart and I love you and so many others. You are ALL my favorites! That is the tremendous thing about love, isn’t it? You can love and love and love and still love some more. It is a never-ending stream of love that pours out of life and into life.

I am probably most like how you imagine White Tara – Mother Tara – some call her. Sarasvati or Saraswati. But I show up in a lot of places with many different names. For you, I am the one who is creative in your kitchen and helps you decide on healthy food. Healthy for this body that holds your precious, precious soul who I love so much. You are the apple of my eye, child. I give you a big, big Grandma Silvie hug.

You know of this love especially as a child and you had aunts and some uncles, but mostly aunts, who loved you so much. When you realized you were different, that you were labeled (or you accepted the label of) lesbian, lover of women, you broke ties with almost everyone in your family. The shame of being different you felt made you separate and you didn’t want to feel the rejection that the culture might put upon you, especially not from your family.

But I am here to remind you of how much love there was and is in your family for you. I give you another big hug because you feel like a little kid right now, a kid who needed more love, wanted more love than she got. You survived that feeling but you have not gotten over it. You prefer to back away so your feelings don’t get hurt. You don’t always give yourself completely over to love although you could and you will get it back a thousand-fold. Listen to your Grandma Silvie!

You want to call me Aunt Silvie for that’s what I feel like to you. That’s ok, sure, I will be here when you call upon me no matter what name you give me. But I am of the Council of Grandmothers. I do have responsibilities to so many and I delight in doing them. Nourishing all who come to me, whom I look after and over. I am the one who finds the food to nourish the body and soul. I am the one who puts a whisper in your ear and in the ears of many, to share the plenty that you have, the riches of your life, with those who need that plenty. Not only the “human” food but the food of the soul.

I’m here to remind you of how plentiful your imagination of us – the Grandmothers – is and how much you have to offer, to give away. The Horn of Plenty sits in your lap! Give from it, for it never empties.

But what if you give too much? You ask this about the spirit of giving in which you get back energies from others as you open yourself to them to give. True, you must learn and practice how to let go of any feelings given to you that are not your own. If someone gives you their energies and emotions that you feel yourself taking on, bundle them all up and drop the bundle at the doorstep of Mother Earth. She’ll take all that and transform it. I’ll help her do it for I am the Grandmother of Nourishment, of the kitchen.

The kitchen where energies are transformed from one state to another. Flour, water and yeast become bread. Eggs become breakfast. And love fills the cups of all souls to overflowing. I am a transformer of things to other things. I offer you love unending and unbinding. I offer it freely to show you how you can too.

Making bread, making a meal – it is all a sacred act of love. Ritual imbued with love. Caring for others in this way is a sacred act. Every time you step into the kitchen, you are stepping into the sanctum, the sanctuary, the church, mosque, synagogue, hut, blessed place of healing, love, and food. Remember that as you seek nourishment for yourself and your family and all your family, all your relatives, all souls who come to your home and all souls with whom you share food, it is a sacred act and must be, should be, blessed as you work.

Fill each cup, each plate with joy and love. Not just for this time of year as all think of Thanksgiving and christmas, but all times. Nourishment is not limited to a season!

Listen to your Grandma Silvie, I know. I’ve been here for a long time. As the first human-bodied souls walked the Earth, I was there. I helped the women – your ancestors! – find food on the vast plains and in the forests. I was there to help the women plant seed and harvest food. And in their minds, they saw the miracle of life as those plants nourished them and this awe they passed on and down to all your ancestors, all THE ancestors. I was there for it all.

They called me Ceres when they needed a human-like figure to thank and worship, though I didn’t need to be worshipped, I only needed to be listened to! Some have listened, knowing that when the body is nourished, the mind functions and the heart opens and love is passed from one soul to another, passing the loving cup – that name came from me, Grandma Silvie. That’s my latest name. I sit with the Grandmothers and I counsel along with them for I am the link between the human body and the soul.

I am nourishment of Mother Earth and the energy of Love. She transmits with every fruit, every vegetable, every drink of water, every taste of salt. I am the spice of life. I am the one who stops the stomach from rumbling. I am the one who keeps the Wendigo from howling at the door. There is so much, such plenty of Mother Earth, and yet so many who are hungry. They who have much, they who hoard, however they came to believe that withholding meant they would never go hungry missed the point. The point is to give away in order to gain.

Give away to gain. I speak from Truth. Give away in order to gain.

I come to you as Grandmother of the Kitchen, the Hearth, of Plenty, but you know that I”m also here to remind you that giving away that which you are learning of Spirit and spirit, is another source of nourishment. Another way of feeding those in need. You bake bread, using ingredients of Mother Earth. You bake the ideas, the feelings, for souls to walk their path by using our words here, that which you wrote, to feed souls. You use the ingredients given to your by Mother Earth, by your friends in the cosmos, and right now by us, the Council of Grandmothers, to bake the Bread of Love.

Give it away, dear heart, dear child. Give away these words, these passages we give you. You already know what you receive in return – endless, joyous love. Another big hug from your Aunt Silvie, from the One Who Feeds the Soul, from Grandmother Silvie who holds the knowledge since time began about this body in which you and all souls reside. I can feed you. You can feed you. Open your heart to receive my gifts to you. Pass them on. It is never taken away from you what you give to others.

It is never taken away from you what you give to others!

Give to receive. To be nourished by Love itself. Those who practice the Seder, the Communal Meal, know full-heartedly the passing of nourishment from person to person, from soul to soul. While some have lost the love built into these rituals, others have found it. They have found it and share it. Share the bounty, share the wealth of life because life is love.

Dear heart, you are so special to me, to us. You have the ability because of your talents, to share with so many what we have to say. And this is soul nourishment. This is how you are Grandma Silvie too! Nourish those around you, those close to you, give them love. Don’t be embarrassed to say that you love them. Say it to them. They need that nourishment. I am here to help you.

I have nourished many in my time or times I should say for I return from time to time as I am needed and to learn myself. We never stop learning! Sort of like always finding new recipes, new ways of combining ingredients to make something new that nourishes the body and the soul. We all do, here – the Grandmothers – just in different ways.

I am Mother Love too. That’s why I am called White Tara by some. I also have some of the attributes of the merciful ones like Quan Yin, or Mother Mary the Madonna, as they have some of my attributes. It is Mother Love, you see. It shows up in so many ways, so many guises. We are all the same and yet different because in the many dimensions in which we all exist, you must see things from different angles (that’s a little play on words for you, dear one!).

Just as adding or subtracting an ingredient is the difference between bread and cake. Between soup and stew. I could go on and on with the analogies, don’t you know. But my point is that we are all givers – all souls – and if each soul could remember that to give away is to receive, then the bounty would be made visible, tangible.

The sorrows are not ended yet for the world but someday they will be. As more souls give to others, give to those souls awake and yet to awaken, bounty is there. Love is the bounty. Love is endless and everywhere. Bake love into everything. Stir love into every meal. Share it, give it away. It will come back to you to nourish you, to feed you. Do this for me, do it for yourself, do it for all souls. Do it for Love. For Love is the nourishment I know you seek.

I am your Grandma Silvie and I can tell you how to cook love into all nourishment. That is who I am! I love you so much and I send waves of love to you from all the Grandmothers. Go now with a joyous heart and nourish others with your bounty.

Go now with love from us all!