It’s a surprisingly nice morning so I should be out working on an archaeological project, a project that involves identifying, clearing, delineating and mapping a complex of prehistoric Native American mounds.

These mounds have eroded over time so determining their exact edges is challenging.  Once the edges are identified, though, my family and I mark them with spray paint, measure them and photograph them with a small drone.  Since this is a slow process the grass tends to grow back before we get much accomplished – instead of writing this, I should be out there mowing.

As this work progresses a fascinating picture is emerging.  Whoever built these mounds knew a lot about geometry, surveying and planning a large project. These mound builders also knew how to motivate people to carry basket after basket of dirt in order to construct these mounds.  It must have been hard work so there had to have been a compelling reason to do it.

The more I learn about the mounds the more I suspect they had to do with fertility and renewal – a fundamental feature of Native religions.  And their gentle feminine curves recall how important motherhood – the ultimate symbol of the source of life – was in those religions.  Descent was reckoned through the mother’s line, and only women were allowed to work in the fields.  The hills of corn, beans and squash symbolized Mother Earth’s breasts, and the domed earth lodges the people lived in symbolized her womb, complete with a long narrow passageway that faced the rising sun and represented the birth canal – the Native Americans were symbolically reborn from the Mother every morning.

One large mound features two oval mounds on top of it with a sort of figure 8 path around them.  It’s hard not to see these ovals as symbolizing two worlds, presumably the worlds of the living and the dead. The never-ending path around them seems a reminder that while life inevitably leads to death, death leads to new life.

But I’m not out there mowing because 6 hours away my 96-year-old mother-in-law Doris is lying in a hospital, symbolically approaching that point where the two oval mounds meet, where life transitions to death.  While the rest of the family is in Kansas City at Doris’ side, with the week-long Missoula Children’s Theatre looming, I stayed home to deal with last-minute preparations. But while I’m not there physically, I am in spirit, and mowing the mounds will have to wait.

Doris has had a rough year – she’s been in and out of the hospital several times.  But she’s a fighter and the last time I saw her she told me what she’s fighting for.  Doris lives with her daughter Sheila and even though Sheila is a capable, responsible adult, Doris worries what Sheila will do when she’s no longer here to look after her.

Doris’ tenacity is an incredible testament to her devotion to her family, a devotion to motherhood I’ve witnessed for over three decades now. And maybe she’ll pull through this crisis, too.  But sooner or later we all pass on to that next world, travelers on a path that leads into the unknown.  It helps to remember that in the beliefs of those who lived here before us (as in the beliefs of many other religions) that path forms a continuous loop, leading always to new life to come.  A deep appreciation for the generative principle inspired people long ago to build these mounds, and the belief in birth and rebirth the mounds embody still has relevance today.