I’m blessed with a gift of being deeply attuned to the Earth, but it doesn’t make my life easier to live. It means that I’m highly sensitive to the environment I’m in. It means that when I see dead birds washed up by the dozens on the beach, my heart skips a beat and that I tear up when I think about our more-than-human kin without any refuge from the wildfire smoke in Oregon and beyond. The tiny lungs on those birds!
Birds have been talking to me a lot lately. There was a gorgeous bird sitting on the fence in our garden in Ashland on a smoky day. He was some kind of hawk, probably. He almost looked like an owl or a penguin. We starred at each other for a while, him on the fence and me by the kitchen sink. Eventually something else, probably Hadassah, tore my attention away.
“That bird was trying to tell me something,” I told Isaak.
“What was he telling you?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Think about it,” said Isaak.
I have been thinking about his message. It’s aptly timed with Elul, the current month on the Jewish calendar. Elul is a month of transition. Summer gives way to fall. It’s a time to re-align with ourselves and the Great Mystery.
The hawk looking directly into my eyes, piercing into my soul, was urging me to bring forth the creative projects I have been envisioning over the last nine months.
Birthing a human is the closest I’ve ever felt to Creator. Birthing creative projects is the next closest thing.
One of those creative projects is what you’re reading right now. Welcome to The Earth Has A Mother, the new name for my weekly newsletter that started as The Vilde Chaya. I believe in changing names and evolving identities. When I started The Vilde Chaya I was Julia Plevin. Now I’m Julia Oliansky and I’ve been a mother for over a year. My identity has changed.
The content will stay mostly the same. What I feel most called to write about each week is my experience of being a wild-hearted mother wanting to raise a an earth-loving child during a climate crisis. My hope is that my own witnessing of the Earth and her rhythms along with my daughter and her growth will inspire you to pay loving attention to the human and more-than-human world and will eventually lead to some greater healing actions, for me and for you. I’ll explain more about that some time soon.
The name The Earth Has A Mother is something that came to me during a walk in the forest. Mother Earth, the great mother, is also a daughter. Who is the mother of the mother? After repeating that phrase to myself, I found a book by Carl Jung called The Earth Has A Soul so I figure I’m on the right track.
When I told my own mother that I was going to debut a new name for my newsletter today, she asked me to tell her ahead of time in case she hated it. So I told her and she said she wasn’t sure she liked it.
Of course Isaak and I didn’t tell anyone the name we had planned for our daughter before she was born because I absolutely didn’t wan’t anyone’s opinions. And maybe my mom would have said, “I’m not sure I like it,” if I had told her we planned to name our daughter Hadassah. But everyone knows not to say anything once the baby is born and named and of course the name grows on everyone to the point where you can’t imagine calling her anything else (except maybe Dassie or Haddie). And may it be so with this newsletter. It’s not like I’m suddenly calling it X (formerly Twitter).
Something else you will start to see is a paywall. I’ve kept this content free for as long as I could, but it’s not serving me anymore. After taking 6 months of unpaid maternity leave (my company didn’t pay for my leave because I had recently joined) to bond with my baby and returning to work part time while also paying for childcare, I’m feeling strapped.
Mothers do a lot of unpaid labor. These days even your hobbies have to be a hustle and writers have to be marketers.
So if you find this newsletter valuable, consider paying for it for less than the price of one matcha latte per month. If you’re also a mama to a small child or otherwise can’t afford to pay, but would like to still read these posts, send me an email and I’ll comp you, no questions asked.
I’m offering a discount through the High Holy Days. If I make it to 50 paid subscribers, I will be able to continue this newsletter another year. If not, I will need to focus my precious *free* time on other projects. As we enter the High Holy Day portal, we consider what we’ve been up to. Who shall live and who shall be composted into something else? Will this newsletter make it another year? I hope so!
You can help by becoming a paid subscriber and by forwarding it along to someone who might enjoy it.
And ooo a new section! I don’t want to reinforce capitalism, but truth is that we all buy things and I strive to find the best quality, most earth-friendly options, always. I do a lot of research and want to hype up my favorite finds. So here goes:
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