the beauty of backbone: nurturing for Haiti
Monday, February 1, 2010 by Kate Inglis 
It doesn't unfurl like silk, release a scent, flutter in breeze. A stem draws moisture, a channel of nourishment as well as fortitude. A stem feeds something beautiful. A stem is a backbone.
Nurturing isn't just about hope or prayer, as welcome as those gestures are. It's about resources and food and water and shelter. Literal, tangible, everyday caring -- the very same we do as mothers. Picking up and putting away. Wiping and lifting and stirring supper with one hand while tussling a scruffy, three-foot head with the other. This is the nurturing that keeps souls safe, keeps bellies from rumbling. It is plain and often unseen and unrecorded and yet it keeps whole families straight up and down, growing taller.
For a while, until we need not be, we can be Haiti's stem.
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Bright and early this morning, the virtual doors opened at To Haiti with Love, an auction and gathering of creative spirits and many of our own beloved shutter sisters.
René came up with the idea about a week ago -- literally. She emailed me, and responded by cannonballing into it, landing on top of her head. Within hours, emails were fast and furious and our community of artistic friends responded without hesitation.
With all proceeds going to the St. Joseph's family of homes for children in Port au Prince, Haiti, we're selling a Mondo Beyondo pass from the lovely Jen Lemen and Andrea Scher, a parade of beautiful (and many familiar, in these parts) photographic prints, original artwork, clothing, a coveted Shutter Sisters flash bulb necklace, my mother's unspeakably wonderful bird mobile, homemade maple marshmallows, and a weekend ski getaway in a historic cabin in Telluride, Colorado that comes complete with a small, blonde, Maritime female hobo-skier camped out on your front porch. And that's just to name just a few of the treasures up for bidding. More items will be added every day, so visit often throughout the week -- we've got such fabulous items waiting in the wings I can hardly keep my grinning mouth shut.
As photographers and authors and painters and toymakers and quilters, we offer what we know. Useful things, beautiful things. All tangible. Perhaps it's not the same as being able to pick up, dust off, offer embraces and warmth as motherhood would compel us. Perhaps it's much, much better. It's the means and the resources from which self-nurturing springs.
St. Joseph's nurtures Haiti's future innovators and artists and leaders. It creates family where there was none. Let's nurture them in the endeavour.
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At the heart of all things good, there is a stem of love and caring, support and nurturing. Whether it's over the miles, giving to perfect strangers or to our own children, we outstretch our arms and hold those who need to be held. We are women. It's what we do.
This month we're celebrating how we love with our One Word Project for the month: Nurture. If you're new to the One Word Project we invite you to read more about it on our OWP about page.
What does the act of nurturing look like in your everyday? What does nurturing look like when it's an extraordinary act?
