Carol P. Christ has described spending meaningful time with her grandmother as a child and the unconditional love she received from her mother and grandmothers: ‘my relationships with my mother and grandmothers were full of love. This makes it easy for me to imagine the loving arms of Goddess embracing the world.’ She talks about this in her new book with Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.
I have always loved to hear these kinds of stories from Carol and other friends, since I lost my own grandmothers before I felt I really knew them. My mother’s mother passed away when I was a young child. My father’s mother lived until I was in my twenties, but Alzheimer’s stripped her of her ability to recognise her family many years before her physical death. How I wish I had known them as an adult and had been able to talk to them, even once, woman to woman. And how I wish I had received the advice, support and unconditional love which Carol describes, and which I have seen other grandmothers offer their grandchildren. This absence has left an aching heart, a raw wound, for my entire adult life.
Healing for this wound has come from the many women I have been blessed to know (many from Greece, the Balkans, and Armenia), who are grandmothers within their own families, and also elders within their particular cultural tradition. They are keepers of songs, dances, rituals, textile arts, and healing skills, which have been handed down for many generations. Even if their official education was limited, as was frequently the case, they have extraordinary wisdom and knowledge, which they have generously shared with me. In this post I wish to honour a few of the many grandmothers who have blessed me over the years with their kindness and care.
My Greek godmother, Niki Theoka-Hill
I met Niki nearly 20 years ago in Greece, when she and her seven children were running the Skandia taverna on the island of Kythira, next door to the house of herbalist Juliette de Bairacli Levy (another wise woman who inspired me deeply). We felt an instant bond and stayed in touch. Several years after that, when my first marriage came to an end, I decided to move to Greece for a new beginning, in part because Niki was there. She had been lead dancer with the Dora Stratou Dance Theater in Athens for many years, and taught me much about the art of dancing and its place in traditional culture. A deeply wise woman with profound faith and legendary beauty, Niki is infinitely creative, extraordinarily free-thinking, and generous to a fault. It is my great honour that she eventually became my godmother (both noná and koumbára), spiritual bonds which link us more closely than blood.
My mother-in-law, Evanthia (Voula) Kourmadia, with her son, Kostantis
Voula’s parents came from Smyrna to Athens as refugees in 1922. She and her siblings grew up in poverty, starving nearly to death during the Second World War in German-occupied Athens. She knew many hardships in her early years, but she survived and thrived. Her son Kostantis, now my second husband, describes how she was always laughing, always singing, always dancing, in the house which she kept (and still keeps) spotless and filled with delicious cooking and exquisite embroideries. A mathematical genius with a brilliant mind, Voula ‘should have been a scientist making important discoveries’, as her son says, but she had to leave school at age 10 to look after her baby brother so her mother could work. After that Voula worked all her life in the dairy industry, and despite her own lack of formal education, she helped generations of neighbourhood children with their homework. She and her husband Vangelis, in their 80s now, are still fountains of laughter and joy, no matter what troubles are to hand – and Voula is still always ready to dance. Among many other things, she has taught me the importance of giving thanks for what you have, and transforming tragedy through the way you choose to respond.
Neda Bisserova from Pirin, Bulgaria
Neda and her sisters Lyubimka and Mitra grew up in a traditional family, learning hundreds of songs from their aunts and parents. They formed the renowned singing trio the Bisserov Sisters, now the Bisserov Family, with their children and grandchildren. I met the sisters in Bulgaria in 1991 and since then they have helped me bring many groups of students on dance and cultural tours of Bulgaria. One time, as we stood together in front of a fast-flowing mountain spring, Neda told me, ‘This is how I want to be: with a heart clear and pure like water.’
My dearest friend, France Lejeune Milchberg
France was a dancer, a doctor, and a captain in the French army, and with her husband Jorge was among the first to bring Sacred Dance/Danses Sacrées to France from the Findhorn community. We had many adventures together in nearly thirty years of friendship. France passed to the other side last year on her 81st birthday.
I wish to express my deep love and admiration for all of these wise women. It has been one of the greatest pleasures in my life to be ‘adopted’ by them and by others, whose stories I hope to tell another time. My many grandmothers have lovingly welcomed me into their arms, homes and families, and have given me countless gifts in the form of songs and dances, recipes, stories and life advice. My life is much the richer for it. I thank you all.
Laura Shannon has been researching and teaching traditional women’s ritual dances since 1987. She is considered one of the ‘grandmothers’ of the worldwide Sacred / Circle Dance movement and gives workshops regularly in over twenty countries worldwide. Laura holds an honours degree in Intercultural Studies (1986) and a diploma in Dance Movement Therapy (1990). She has also dedicated much time to primary research in Balkan and Greek villages, learning songs, dances, rituals and textile patterns which have been passed down for many generations, and which embody an age-old worldview of sustainability, community, and reverence for the earth. Laura’s essay ‘Women’s Ritual Dances: An Ancient Source of Healing in Our Times’, was published in Dancing on the Earth. Laura lives partly in Greece and partly in the Findhorn ecological community in Scotland.
feminismandreligion.com 
I am so happy you found loving support from your adopted mothers and grandmothers.
LikeLike
I am too! It has made all the difference to me. It’s as Carolyn Myss says, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. And now I even think, if I had had my own grandmothers close to me for longer, perhaps I would not have been so motivated to seek out the many other wise women whose presence in my life has blessed me so deeply.
LikeLike
Isn’t it wonderful that you had so many grandmothers to lead you…I had few though I had a beloved grandmother who I lost in my early twenties. It wasn’t until after she died that I understood that I was orphaned though my mother was very much alive. Why? Because my grandmother created a space for me in this world where I was accepted for myself. A great gift, that.
LikeLike
Yes, I can understand that. I don’t know why it is that grandmothers can often give a space of unconditional love and acceptance to their grandchildren which they perhaps could not give to their own children when they were young mothers, and which their children, becoming mothers themselves, are also not always able to give to their own kids. Maybe we have a different perspective on, and capacity for, giving love as we age.
LikeLike
Thanks for writing about these beloved people. To this day, I believe that I reincarnated through Dorothy and Harold Rohne to get back to my maternal grandparents, Cora and George Rathke. I started taking the bus–alone–from Ferguson to St. Louis at age 5 to stay with my grandparents for a few days at a time. After my grandfather died, my grandmother moved into what I kept calling a “singles apartment,” which was part of a senior citizens’ community. When I was in graduate school, she took the bus from St. Louis to Carbondale, Illinois, to stay with me for several days at a time and meet my friends. I think our grandmothers (especially) are blessings in our lives. Thanks again for reminding me.
LikeLike
That sounds wonderful, Barbara, what a special relationship. It reminds me of how Carol describes spending the summer with her grandparents in her post about The Blue Organdy Dress. I also had some summer visits with my paternal grandparents when I was the only grandchild staying, i.e. without my sister and cousins, and will always remember the connections I made with my mother’s father at that time. I wish I had had time and courage to stay in closer touch.
LikeLike
if we come from adam n eve we are all cousins , if we come from apes we are all cousins , so treat all ok do not leave any in poverty do not let any be greedy = share what is available in the world
LikeLike
I love your photos and stories, Laura. They do indeed look like wise and loving women who have helped form you into the same. My mother’s mother died just before I was born so I never met her, but I hear stories and I have her name. My father’s family is, sadly, largely unknown to me. He died when I was six yrs old and alcoholism created barriers. But other mature and wise women have taken up the slack, as it were! And maybe it’s my turn now, to do for others.
LikeLike
That’s really an inspiring perspective, Barbara, to think that our own experience, first of not being ‘grandmothered’, and then of receiving grandmotherly love and support from other women, might be a kind of training or preparation for us to be able to ‘mother’ and ‘grandmother’ younger women who come to us. In this way I think the love of the Great Mother can get passed down through generations, even among those who are not actually related.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes it is healing to know these grandmothers-as- kindred spirits as we could not, or perhaps cannot, know our own. It fosters a belief in the good, as profound connections unite us in the web. ❤
LikeLike
It is great you had the support of grandmothers or grandmother figures. My maternal grandmother was not very nice-emotionally abusive to her daughter and grand daughters while favoring sons and grandsons. My paternal grandmother was sweet, but I didn’t get to see her often as a child, and she died when I was a teenager. Her life was hard as she was the only breadwinner at a time most women stayed home, and my grandfather didn’t hold women high esteem although he relied on her to pay the bills while he couldn’t work due to a back injury (maybe laziness). Unfortunately, my dad and his brothers learned their father’s attitude toward women. All I know is patriarchy really messed up my family as my poor mother was put down by her own mother and treated like dirt by my father. My mother didn’t identify as a feminist, but she taught me well when she left my father and raised by herself not to put up with a man’s crap. My mother still struggled in figuring things out as she had no guidance from her own mother. It makes me think how women are brought up to nurture each other in a matriarchy. Psychology has something called the maternal wound which is generational trauma women inherit in a patriarchy. I know it exists because I’ve seen it first hand in my family. I hope I can heal it within myself.
LikeLike