Corn Mother Goes to School

Setting up at the preschool.

Every November and December, our daughter’s preschool invites students’ families to visit the classroom and share a bit about their different traditions celebrated this time of year. 
 
Each year I’ve been a bit daunted by the invitation.  Our little family is still trying to figure out traditions—trying to listen for what is ours in a tidal wave of holiday frenzy.
 
I thought maybe this year we could make it simple:  take the grinding stones and talk about the nourishment of maíz.  I floated the idea by my daughter and she instantly agreed.
 
“I will be the teacher,” she said.  It was decided.
 
We packed up our stones and a bag of roasted kernels of corn for the classmates to try their hands at grinding.  We harvested one of our ears of Chapalote corn from the garden.  We also planned some sweet enticements in the form of buttery thumbprint cookies made with masa harina and corn meal.  All ready to go to school.
 
The night before the event, I realized with a start that I hadn’t thought to bring Corn Mother.  Her basket was tucked away on my altar.  I was surprised at myself.  Corn Mother had gone so many places with us.  How could I have left her out of this little trip to the preschool?
 
Then I felt it—an old, knotted fear.  It bore the familiar imprint of susto.  Fear that is so intimate that it can slip in and do its work practically incognito.  The words surfaced, crisp and clear, now accessible.
 
“What if they think we’re crazy?”  I whispered to Corn Mother.
 
This is a susto that’s been rearing itself more and more as I talk about Corn Mother.  Six weeks ago, I took Corn Mother to Chicago and presented to a conference of Latinx mental health professionals about my journeys with her.  I spoke about how Corn Mother was the gift our ancestors received from an ancient call and response rhythm with Mother Earth.  Corn Mother is a living conduit to a state of embodiment in which humans knew how to listen to the myriad intelligences of Earth’s web of creation.  I said as much as I could in 15 minutes.  Among a room of hundreds, two people came up to me after my presentation and said they knew what I was talking about.  When I returned to Tucson and told my mom about my talk at the conference, her response came from that place of the familiar susto.
 
“Aren’t you worried that they thought you were crazy?” 
 
From mother to daughter flow the artifacts of protection that have meant survival to many who came before us.  It is an odd, convoluted inheritance.  We carry the sensibilities of the mothers who hid the Corn Mothers under the robes of the saints and virgins in the churches.  They taught us how to be present while simultaneously staying hidden.  We carry the restraint of the mothers who stopped teaching their daughters how to sing to the corn and the stones when grinding, yet made sure that the stones were passed down and the recipes cherished, even if seemingly just for sentimentality.  We carry my own grandmother’s protective determination, refusing to teach my mom how to make tortillas by hand, lest “your husband always expect it of you.”  Yet it was my mom who’d realized that my dad’s grandmother’s grinding stones had stayed behind when we’d moved from my childhood home.  It was my mom who’d insisted on retrieving them even though, on both sides of the family, it’d been generations since we’d been taught what to do with them.  These very stones now waited patiently for a visit to my own daughter’s preschool.  Ready to be greeted by young hands.
 
I realized that my daughter and I were woven right into this braid of forgetting and remembering, a story that was at once knotted, unraveling, and being rewoven.  I recognized all of it in me.  I was good at hiding among the parents and teachers at the preschool.  I never breathed a word about Corn Mother on the playground.  I let all of my conventional identities take the lead with smooth and predictable edges.  Maybe that was perfectly reasonable.  But I also knew what was present by omission, and I realized, so did my daughter.
 
I looked at Corn Mother on my altar.
 
“I guess it’s time to take you to school, Corn Mother.”
 
“I know,” she said, like she’d always known I’d figure it out.
 
Last week, on the heels of the full moon, Corn Mother went to school. 
 
At first everything went by the book.  We talked about the ancient grasses that gave rise to maíz.  The children shared all their favorite foods made possible by corn.  We showed them our Chapalote ear of maíz and removed the husks in front of them, revealing kernels with a lovely brown glow. 
 
Then we spoke about how, among the many peoples of the so-called Americas, maize is known as Mother—Corn Mother, Madre Maíz. 
 
“This is our Corn Mother,” we said and retrieved her from her basket. 
 
“She might look like just a doll, but she is Corn Mother.  Her very body is made from the corn husks.”
 
Immediately a student in the back row raised his hand.
 
“But she’s not real, right?  Is she real?”
 
I was holding Corn Mother in my hands.  My tongue felt heavy.  The susto was alert and poised.
 
“What do you mean by real?” I said because I am not quick on my feet, and the susto was palpable, especially in the face of a 5-year-old who can see right through me.
 
Another classmate in the front row chimed in to help.
 
“What he means is that she’s not really alive.”
 
This was the kind of discussion the susto dreaded.
 
Another student added, “Well she can’t talk, so she’s not alive.”
 
I started rambling in a downward spiral about how not all communication happens like the talking we’re used to, and how something can have the spirit of something and not look alive the way we do.  I struggled to find footing in the quicksand of my explanations.
 
Then my daughter put a stop to all of it.  She stood up, and without saying a word, grabbed Corn Mother out of my hands.  She proceeded to take Corn Mother to each of her 19 classmates and motioned for them to touch her.  One by one, they took turns patting Corn Mother's feet, her face, her hair, her hands.  They greeted each other in a call and response, Corn Mother and child.  My longwinded words failed to explain what hands could know.  There were no more questions about what was real or alive.
 
We went on to grind the corn.  Two children whispered to me when it was their turn with the stones.  They asked whether they could take a corn kernel to keep.  Of course, I told them, and they each deposited a kernel in a pocket.
 
We passed out the cookies, and then our 15-minute slot was over.  We packed up Corn Mother and the stones.  My daughter stayed behind to finish out her school day.  On my way home, I chuckled to myself remembering that, early on, my daughter had declared that she would be the teacher when we presented to her class about corn.  How true that had been. 
 
I thanked the Corn Mothers of the past for returning to us as our daughters, just as they’d been doing for generations.  In spite of all the sustos, the Corn Mothers had never gone away.