Mother Day. (Patreon)

Hallo loves.

I interrupt this fizzy-fuzzy Town Hall moment about Thinging a Pop-up (and believe me there is a lot to respond to and I am still reading every incoming comment) to pen a little Mother’s day post.

Hi: Happy Mother’s Day to all those who celebrate.

Here above is a photo me and my mama on Ash’s 7th birthday in Woodstock last year.

Thanks for making me, Mom! Because you made me, I get to make everything I make.

…..

Also? This day has always been a complicated one for me. and for many.

I have received a few dozen text messages from people acknowledging that I got pregnant and have managed to keep the kid alive (and I assume I would be getting even more heart-felt and sorrowful messages if I had somehow lost the kid along the way). My friend who just buried her mom - and who has no kids wrote to tell me she’s been getting “thinking of you” texts from her friends - I am not sure she wants them. I feel like Mother’s day, while a day of unadulterated joy for some, is a day of difficulty and grief for many. I am thinking about the hundreds - thousands - of abortion, late-term abortion, miscarriage and stillbirth stories I listened to in 2019. I am thinking about my friend who buried two babies and did not conceive again. I am always thinking about those darks when I see the triggering happy-memes and the kid pictures and the mom pictures. It goes in many directions, this feeling.

I want to remind you that your complicated feelings about Mother’s Day are valid.

Meanwhile - a mother-y throwback.

If you didn’t see the patron-funded cover of “Mother” I made with Jherek Bischoff and the blazingly emotional accompanying video we made - all with patron funds - todays a good day to watch it.

https://youtu.be/iisI8bCOcSc

This video was made during the nadir of The Early Trump Times, and was meant to be a sort of … response. A riposte. A different narrative, a different ending, which features the mothers winning.

Which, of course, when you’re a mother, means nobody loses, because that’s the way we think. Only in a Trump-style world are there winners and losers.

Nobody loses, everybody heals. And when everybody heals, everybody wins.

Anyway.

Here’s a good Mother’s Day Art Story for you.

I got the idea for the video first, and made the cover song to fit the film. I was in Australia, it was 2017, and the thought struck me. I wanted to film it in the desert.

Trump was building his wall.

The kids were in the cages.

The border.

The mothers I knew were all feeling powerless.

I grew up with Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” - the film more than the soundtrack itself - as a guiding star. Here were a bunch of British male rock stars, trying to untangle the ingredients that go into creating the run-of-the-mill modern, isolated, terrified, abusive, toxic, traumatized male. I was IN. I loved that there were actually men out there making art like this. I watched the film dozens of times. Every frame is etched.

This song is so key, and I wanted to apply the story to Trump.

The mothers:

Coco’s strength held me.

And many.

Chris Wells as Trump.

What HAPPENED to this man? Why so afraid of women? Why so hungry for power? Why so small-hearted? Why so damaged that he had to spit his hatred back into the next generation of children, keeping the sad cycle turning?

It was too late to shoot the video in the desert of Australia. I had to head home to New York. Upstate New York doesn’t have many deserts, and I wanted to evoke the border.

So I chose OPUS 40, a vast, creative wonderland of stone weirdness right in my neighborhood.

I asked two of my most powerful mother role models, melissa auf der maur and cellist Zoe Keating to star in the video, my newly-minted mama friend Rachel Jayson strapped little Asa to her back and played viola, and my beautiful friend Coco Karol choreographed the dancers and mother-chorus and brought in the director, powerhouse mother Jordan Rathus.

That’s me, feeding little Ash on the set. He was 1.

photos: Krys Fox

A lot of other friends, friends’ kids, locals and relatives (my little brother Alex is in there, leaning) stepped in to fill out the cast.

Jherek Bischoff came and conducted like the shining sun.

Then I asked Chris Wells if he wouldn’t mind breastfeeding for the key shot and he was like “Darling it’s fine”.

I just love my friends.

The video wouldn’t have happened without patronage, of course. This shoot and recording was expensive as hell and stuff like this makes absolutely no money on youtube or streaming channels. The patrons of 2017 paid for it all. Everybody loved it and felt the deep pride of making something this weird that just didn’t “have” to exist. You can see the whole post about it here: https://amandapalmer.net/mother/

To all the mothers of all kinds and all genders, to all the nurturers of kids and animals and wounded past selves who are fighting for healing and truth and reconciliation, instead of for retaliation and retribution, I bow to you.

May we tear down the walls. To all mothers, to the Big Idea of Mother, to Earth, to Gaia, to All That.

Happy Mother Day.

X

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