Paraph Studio Missives

It was Anna Jarvis who championed Mother's Day into being a national holiday in the United States. Mother's Day is celebrated all over the world at different times of the year; it's connected with fertility and goddesses, with the notion of going back to one's 'mother church'. After the Civil War in the U.S., 'mother's day work clubs' were created to help teach mothering skills and from that a project to get Union and Confederate soldiers together arose. Before Jarvis, abolitionists and suffragettes called for all mothers to come together to promote peace. Jarvis,...

Like waiting too long to call an old friend, this year the prospect of writing my newsletter became a daunting energetic lift. Where to begin? How much to leave out? How to reflect on what has come to pass while it is still in progress?
     I sent the last newsletter in January of this year, a few hours before my paternal grandmother, Dode, unexpectedly passed away. It is my intention to write and share a more reflective year end review this coming January, to explore the way that death and curation of inherited...