The Soil We Came From

Yesterday, while sitting quietly after Mother’s Day brunch, I found myself thinking about inheritance.

Not financial inheritance.
Not physical resemblance.

But the invisible things women pass hand to hand across generations.

The ways we care for others.
The ways we carry stress.
The ways we soften ourselves.
The ways we silence ourselves.
The ways we survive.

As mothers, daughters, sisters, and women, we spend so much of our lives trying to understand what belongs to us… and what simply belonged to the environments we grew up inside of.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the idea that honoring our parents does not require us to become exact replicas of them.

We can deeply love the people who raised us while still allowing ourselves to evolve beyond the patterns that exhausted them.

That realization feels especially sacred in motherhood.

The women before us planted seeds with the tools, awareness, and tenderness they had available to them at the time. Some gave softness freely. Some gave survival skills. Some gave resilience through sacrifice. Some carried burdens so heavy they forgot how to rest.

And still, we grew.

But seeds are not meant to remain buried in the original soil forever.

Some seeds travel.
Some root themselves elsewhere.
Some bloom differently under new light.

I think there is something beautiful about that.

This week, the Six of Pentacles tarot card has stayed close to my heart. Traditionally, it speaks of giving and receiving, of resources exchanged from one hand to another. But emotionally, I’ve been seeing it as a reminder that inheritance is not only material — it is energetic.

We inherit emotional languages.
Beauty rituals.
Nervous systems.
Ways of loving.
Ways of coping.
Ways of mothering.

And as we grow older, we begin deciding what we will lovingly carry forward… and what gently ends with us.

Yesterday, I wore a beautiful dress to brunch with my family. Later that evening, I folded laundry while still wearing it. My girls laughed barefoot through the house while tarot cards rested across an unmade bed upstairs.

Nothing about the day felt perfect.

But something about it felt deeply true.

I realized how often women are taught that beauty belongs only to finished moments. Curated moments. Extraordinary moments.

But maybe beauty has always lived inside ordinary life.

Inside caring for our homes.
Inside resting our bodies.
Inside romance after the children sleep.
Inside laughter at restaurant tables.
Inside folded laundry.
Inside the softness we create on purpose.

Maybe honoring the women before us means allowing ourselves to become softer women too.

Not because life is easy.
But because we are learning that exhaustion does not need to be our inheritance.

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This week’s ritual is simple.

Light a candle.
Sit quietly for a few moments.
Write down three things you are grateful to have received from the women before you.

Then write down one thing you are giving yourself permission to do differently.

Not from anger.
Not from rejection.

But from love.

The kind of love that allows seeds to bloom in new soil.