“Mother Culture” is a worldwide movement that has not received much publicity but is changing the consciousness of women who are meeting in living rooms, coffee shops and businesses around the world to discuss mothering, daughtering, and more. Mothercircle.com describes the movement in this way: “We are practicing wisdom around birth and sex and money and worth and living deeply from our values. And it’s touching every part of our lives, filtering into our work, our relationships, and our mothering.”
Meghan Dwyer, a lifelong Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy resident, is arguably the Philadelphia area’s most prominent champion of this practice. In an interview with the Local, she explained, “It’s a space where we delve into topics that the mainstream culture isn’t addressing and where one’s children are not always at the center of the conversation.”
A healing arts practitioner since 2009, yoga teacher, and more, Dwyer runs the “MotherCircle,” a once-a-week gathering of women in Chestnut Hill that stretches over eight weeks. These events hope “to support mothers and build a ‘Mother Culture’ that is an exploration into the unseen aspects of the motherhood journey.” It’s an interesting direction for someone who has no children of her own. However, as the oldest of seven siblings, she knows a thing or two about that responsibility.
Dwyer attended Our Mother of Consolation School, Bishop McDevitt High School and Villanova University, majoring in sociology and Spanish. She graduated in 2003. Fluent in Spanish, she volunteered at an orphanage in a small town in Mexico and traveled through Central America. “That was the best three months of my life,” she said. “I came home and worked for a corporate law firm for one-and-a-half years in 2005. It was the only 9-to-5 job I’ve had in my life.”
In 2007, Dwyer spent 11 months traveling with a friend throughout South America, including stays in Peru, on an Amazon River cargo boat, and in youth hostels. “In South America, we spent just $500 a month for all expenses,” she said. “It cost just $5 a night to stay in a youth hostel. I could do it all because I had saved up $8,000.”
She returned home broke, but she then worked on the Avenue at McNally’s Tavern and Mango while training to become a yoga teacher. She helped to organize the first trip to Guatemala for Teens Inc, a Chestnut Hill-based nonprofit that arranges global youth service projects. In 2009, she began teaching yoga at Blue Banyan in Mt. Airy and at other studios in Conshohocken, Fairmount, and South Philadelphia. She also taught dance to people with special needs and currently teaches yoga at Camaraderie in Ambler.
Samantha White, a mother of two from Upper Dublin, told us, “Meghan is magic. I’ve known her for eight years from yoga and workshops. Then I went to her MotherCircle, and I’m going to do it again. It is cross-generational and not just about being a mother. It’s also about trying to heal relationships with your own mothers. It was so beautiful and made me feel less alone as a mother. In the U.S., we are constantly being told we are not doing it [motherhood] well, but the MotherCircle gave me a depth of understanding. Meghan is so kind and gentle and understanding. She is the perfect person to run these.”
Another longtime participant, area resident Sonia Petruse, said, “I have been a student of Meghan’s for over 15 years, both for yoga and as a Shamanic guide. I practice both daily. Meghan is so compassionate and loving. Being in her presence is healing. I am so lucky to know her. I have had a ton of medical trauma, and Meghan has healed me. She has given me the tools to deal with all issues. I know so many people who could benefit from her practices; she has made me a better person.”
Dwyer also co-founded a “Community Grief Collective” in 2021 with, among others, Priscilla Tennant, an associate pastor at Chestnut Hill United Church. The group is called “Salt Trails.” Every third Friday of the month, Dwyer and others in the collective hold an event called “Singing Our Grief.” Participants not only have lost loved ones, but also are coping with “many other types of grief.” About 30 people participate, usually in a local park.
“I love it,” Dwyer said. “The name ‘Salt Trails’ comes from salty tears.”
Her work as a yogi, she said, “led me to Shamanism, but I would rather hang out in a bar than in an ashram. I’m a night owl. I like regular down-to-earth people. … and I have gone wherever there is live music: Silk City dance club, Trocadero, TLA, Khyber Pass, Ortlieb’s and Electric Factory. Yoga helped me get more comfortable with my body. When I was younger, I needed a couple drinks first. Not now. I love to incorporate movement into the workout.”
This comfort in her own skin allowed Dwyer to expand her work from the physical to the emotional. She said, “A great lady from Chile, Luz Clara, a medicine woman, said to me, ‘Stop complaining. Form a women’s circle. Heal yourselves. The men are not going to do it.’”
Dwyer’s next “MotherCircle” session will be every Tuesday from Sept. 9 to Oct. 28, usually lasting about 90 minutes per session. For more information, email Meghan.anne.dwyer@gmail.com. Len Lear can be reached at LenLear@chestnuthilllocal.com.