There are mornings I make coffee the way my Yiayia did—slow, strong, over the stove. And in those quiet minutes, she’s with me. I don’t need to reach for a memory; she’s there in the smell, the steam, the ritual. In the way she scraped every last bit of yolk from an eggshell. In the sparkle in her eye when something delighted her. In the way she always made space at the table, even when it looked too full.
Then there’s my Grandmother Bev—sharp, elegant, and always watching. Her wit could slice through tension in a single sentence. She taught me the art of presence—how to carry yourself with intention, how to dress like you respect your own body, how to arrive for others, fully.
They’ve both passed now, but they still move through me. Especially when the world outside feels frayed and too loud. I catch myself wondering how they’d respond to the chaos—political rifts, family divides, the noise of a culture that teaches us to separate: red from blue, mind from body, work from rest, self from community. Their memory brings me back to something intact. Something old and whole.
When I was little, I used to trail behind my Yiayia in her second kitchen—not the tidy one in front for guests, but the one in the back, where the real creative disaster happened. A chaotic mess of spices and songs. She cooked by instinct, not by recipe. A fistful of this. Some of that. Her hands always knew. And the food— Still the best I’ve ever tasted. She moved like a woman who knew she could feed a village—because she had.
Before she arrived in the U.S., she was living in war-torn Greece, raising daughters while her husband tried to make a way in America. During the civil war, she faced accusations that could’ve cost her life—but she stayed rooted. She protected fiercely, with a power that didn’t come from softness, but from deep, embodied knowing. That’s not a romanticized version of femininity. That’s strength that has survived generations.
This week, the Big Bill passed. And while I’d rather not speak in headlines, this one hit like a wedge. Another split. Another severing. A reminder that scarcity is being used as a weapon—whispering that there’s not enough, so we must hoard or be left behind.
And so I’ve been sitting with a question that keeps circling back:
In the face of a loud patriarchal world, what is healing about the matriarch?
The word has followed me this past year. It’s led me through memories of nurturing women in my family, and into the arms of women and femmes who mothered in their own ways. It’s made me look again at the word mother itself. Not just as a person, but as a source.
Because the truth is, many of us inherited stories we never wrote. Some of us were raised by mothers we didn’t feel connected to. Some mothers abandoned us. Some of us were taught that good girls are quiet girls. That love means disappearing for the sake of others. That our worth must be earned through exhaustion. These stories settle in the body. In the tight jaw, the held breath, the ache we ignore. In the way we push on, even when we’re done.
But what if we stopped pretending we don’t need the mother?
This year, I’ve sat in circle after circle with women and femmes. Different lives. Same ache: Why do I feel so split?
It’s not just personal. It’s ancestral. Structural.
This ache has been passed down—woman to woman—by a culture that taught us to compete to survive. Not because we failed, but because we were never taught to trust one another.
The matriarch isn’t here to flip the system. She’s not interested in power games dressed in new clothes. She moves differently. She leads with presence. She speaks less and listens more. She sets boundaries without turning them into performances. She creates space for others to show up raw, messy, real.
This isn’t just personal healing. This is cultural repair.
Last year, I came back from a women’s embodiment training that cracked me open in the most needed way. Since then, I’ve been living into what it means to move from the inside out. I’ve sat in rooms where no one needed to impress, but we all felt the old pull to try. And in that soft, sacred space—I saw what becomes possible when we’re witnessed not for what we do, but for who we are.
And what I’ve come to know is this:
We need each other.
We need space to be honest.
We need to remember what it feels like to be supported—without condition or performance.
So I’m gathering 15 women and femmes for a weekend that’s honest, grounded, and intentionally small.
The Matriarch Retreat is happening October 17–19 in Leavenworth, WA.
If you register before August 1, use the code MATRIARCH for $150 off.
(Payment plans are available.)
If this speaks to you, I’d love to have you with us.
For those who came before us.
For those who will come after.
For each other.
For ourselves.
With love,
Olivia