And how would you define a mother? Is she a woman who has given birth to a child, someone who looks after someone else with great care and affection or a woman who is a role model? Perhaps a mother is a woman who is the creator, instigator, or founder of a business or organization.
In any case, it's true that a mother's work is never done. David Brin explains it best. "A living planet is a much more complex metaphor for deity than just a bigger father with a bigger fist. If an omniscient, all-powerful Dad ignores your prayers, it's taken personally. When you hear only silence long enough, you start wondering about His power, His fairness, His very existence. But if a world mother doesn't reply, Her excuse is simple. She never claimed conceited omnipotence. She has countless others clinging to her apron strings, including myriad species unable to speak for themselves. To Her elder offspring She says - go raid the fridge. Go play outside. Go get a job. Or, better yet, lend me a hand. I have no time for idle whining."
So hail the Mothers! Bless them one and all for giving birth to us.
Celebrating the Mothers is an ancient tradition. Recorded history gives us spring festivals to honour the great goddesses, Rhea, daughter of Uranus and Gaia and mother of many central deities in the Greek mythological pantheon. In classical Greek mythology, Gaia was the Earth Goddess. She was the first to create form out of chaos. She then gave birth to the sky, mountains, rivers, oceans, and all living things on the planet. The words matter, matrix, and material come from 'mater' - Latin for 'mother'. For millennia we have referred to our planet as 'Mother Earth' and 'Mother Nature'.
Early Christians celebrated Mother's Day in honour of the Virgin Mary and the Mother Church. In Europe the holiday eventually expanded to include all mothers and came to be known as "Mothering Sunday." The first memorial in the U.S. for Mother's Day was celebrated in West Virginia in 1907. And from there the custom caught on -- spreading eventually to 45 states. The tradition was officially declared by the U.S. beginning in 1912, and in 1914 the President, Woodrow Wilson, declared the first national Mother's Day
Canada and many other countries adopted the U.S. tradition and though Mother's Day is not celebrated on the same day all over the world, Mother's world wide are still paid their due.
Coming back to today, how do you feel about being a mother? Whether you have given birth to a child, raised a child, cared for yourself or an elderly parent, you know the role of mother. The true power of being a mother has a profound influence in the home, with the family and in the community. Yet in recent history, society limited this power to the just the home and the hearth. And in more recent history women nearly abandoned the power of the hearth altogether as they searched for material power in the workplace. Have you ever felt that your work in the sphere of the hearth is undervalued?
As we become less and less defined by traditional roles as mothers and caregivers, what evolutionary archetype of motherhood do you believe will emerge? Perhaps that this new archetype will honour the power of the hearth while respecting individual creative passions so instead of simply being procreators we can also become co-creators. As part of this evolutionary change we can choose to follow our passions; whether that is our art, our desire to heal and nurture Mother Earth, or make a difference in our communities.
In traditional societies mothers have been the keepers of culture through oral histories and the making of crafts. On Mother's Day we celebrate the women who add to our cultural evolution through giving birth to their art, their voices, and their words. Let's embrace the day to include all ways women are mothers.
Mother's Day, the one day out of each year Mothers are celebrated. We hail ALL the Mothers and celebrate ALL women who dare to take on any part of the role of being a mother.
This week's exercise has two parts. The first is to determine how you are mothering yourself, through your art, through your voice, through your passion to nurture and heal the earth? The second is to write about how you feel about this mothering process today. Can you honour your process and welcome the growing pains, along with the joys of accomplishment? Are you evolving with your process, while you are birthing your work? How are you approaching your evolution as a Mother? For, as the founders of Women on the Edge of Evolution, Claire Zammit and Katherine Woodward Thomas say, "We are awakening a new planetary motherhood."
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