Blessed are the bruised, for they remember the shape of mercy.
In a world increasingly adrift from its ancient moorings, I find myself compelled to share a profound truth, whispered not through dogma, but through the very pulse of the Earth and the enduring wisdom of generations. It is a lament, yes, but more powerfully, it is an urgent invitation to return, to remember, and to reclaim what has been tragically cast aside.
My journey to this understanding was, like many awakenings, born from a crucible of pain. Not long ago, a relentless dental agony drove me into the arms of modern medicine. An extraction, swift and costly at $300, followed by the sterile trappings of anesthesia and antibiotics, left me physically depleted and spiritually disquieted for three days. My body ached, my spirit weary, searching for a deeper solace than the temporary cessation of pain.
It was in that post-operative haze that memory unfurled its gentle hand, guiding me back to the sun-drenched paths of my childhood in Ghana. I saw my mother, her hands etched with stories, her eyes luminous with knowing. When a toothache plagued me then, there was no clinic, no harsh intervention. She would simply place a sliver of fresh ginger between my aching gum and the offending tooth. It was an act devoid of fanfare, steeped only in faith and ancestral knowledge. I would sleep with its pungent warmth, and inevitably, within a day or two, the root would loosen, the rotten tooth falling away on its own, a silent testament to nature’s gentle efficacy.
A quiet fury, mingled with tears, rose within me. How had I come so perilously close to forgetting this sacred inheritance? How easily had I traded the intuitive wisdom of my matriarchs—my mother, her mothers, her fathers, a lineage of stewards of profound earth-knowledge—for the transient relief offered by a system that often alienates us from our own healing power?
This personal forgetting mirrors a grander, more tragic amnesia plaguing humanity. Our Earth, whom I call The Goddess Mama, is weeping. Her tears are not tempestuous floods of rage, but a slow, profound ache, a shuddering tremor beneath the surface of our collective consciousness. She grieves not with thunderous roars, but with the subtle, pervasive sorrow of a mother watching her children systematically erase her name, privatize her essence, and dismiss her ancient lore as mere folklore.
She is more than just soil and sky; she is the primal breath animating the wind, the rhythmic pulse in every river, the nascent whisper within every womb. She birthed mountains, midwifed stars, and infused the very fabric of existence with life. She is the ancient keeper of potent herbs, the weaver of sacred healing songs, the eternal guardian of ancestral fire. Her cries, though often unheard amidst our cacophony, resonate everywhere:
In the cracked and barren feet of farmers, dispossessed from lands that were once their birthright, now parceled and exploited.
In the struggling lungs of children, gasping for air that used to be a pristine blessing, now thick with the pollutants of industrial neglect.
In the deafening silence of once vibrant forests, where the joyous symphony of birdsong and the hallowed prayers of ancient trees have been brutally silenced by the chainsaw.
Goddess Mama mourns not solely for the tangible resources stripped away, but for the profound spiritual void left by what has been forgotten: the rituals of reverence, the sacred covenant of reciprocity, the delicate balance between giving and receiving that once sustained all life. She remembers a time when healing was a profound ceremony—when leaves were gathered with whispered gratitude, when roots were boiled with hallowed reverence, when the human body itself was honored as a sacred temple, not a mere transaction. And she weeps now, for her potent medicines are being patented and commodified, her life-giving waters privatized, her timeless wisdom relegated to the dusty shelves of “superstition.”
But the Goddess Mama is not vanquished; she is stirring. Her indomitable spirit rises in the prophetic dreams of the young, in the steadfast resistance of the marginalized, and in the resonant poems of those who dare to speak truth to power. She calls us back to a different kind of table—not the one built by insatiable greed and dispossession, but one forged from the enduring bedrock of memory, the boundless wellspring of mercy, and the sacred, unyielding hunger for justice.
She beckons us to remember a fundamental truth: genuine healing flourishes not in dominance, but in devotion. It blossoms not through relentless extraction, but through compassionate exchange. It thrives not in rigid control, but in profound communion.
The cries of the Goddess Mama are not merely laments of despair. They are powerful, insistent invitations: to return to our essence, to listen with awakened hearts, to kneel in the living soil and humbly seek forgiveness, to rebuild this sacred table with the tireless work of our hands, the open empathy of our hearts, and the profound humility of our spirits.
Today, this ancestral technique of healing, embodied by a simple root like ginger, is what I am honored to share with people across continents—the United States, Europe, and beyond. Regardless of color, creed, gender, or origin, I offer it freely, for the Goddess Mama’s wisdom was never intended to be hoarded or exclusive. It was meant to flow, to connect, to heal.
This is the table she calls us to—a table where healing is no longer a commodity to be bought and sold, but a sacred community to be nurtured. Where the broken are not pitied but honored for their resilience. Where the cries of the Goddess Mama are not ignored in the rush of progress, but answered—with deliberate action, with profound reverence, and with a heartfelt return to the wisdom that birthed us all.
The post The Cries of the Goddess Mama first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Sammy Attoh.