Today is Mother's Day.
It is always a day of mixed emotions for me. My mother is no longer living. She
died when I was 35, that would be 31 years ago. I was born when she was 35. I
am the mother of two children, a son who is 43 and a daughter who is 40.
We all have mothers and
grandmothers, known or unknown, some still in bodies, others not. They are
ever-present in our cells, and in our hearts, in one way or another, just as
our own children are, whether still alive or not.
These women brought us
from the Mystery, carried us in their bodies, went through what they went
through to bring us through. They were the portals for us to be here now, to
come from the nothingness to being human women. Some days we are grateful for
that, and some days we are not so happy about it. So it goes... Mothers are
important Teachers for us all through our lives, even long after they have
passed back into formlessness. We have soul agreements with them and
they brought us in just in time to participate in these most
extraordinary times now unfolding. We
are here for some reason in these crucial, incendiary times where consciousness
is rapidly shifting.
The Great Mother lives
through each of us in both similar as well as unique ways and She lives in
our Mothers as well. We are all Mothers in some way, whether we have borne
children, lost children, or not. We extend our mother-love to
kids, animals, plants, friends, beloveds of all kinds. We give birth to our creations and we tend
to what is newly born, helpless, tender, and vulnerable, as well
as to the preciousness in others and, hopefully, our own preciousness. We
can also mother the young ones within us who did not feel
mothered.
We all experience
spiritual pregnancy at some point, often more than once in our lifetimes.
Longing for something deep and truth-full that is not of this world,
something unknown that grows in the darkness of our heart-wombs is a sign of
this pregnancy. We come to realize that we are carrying some
precious manifestation of the Mystery, the Holy Child in some form,
and it takes time and tenderness, waiting and laboring for its birth.
We do our part and She does Hers in these co-created initiations into Her
mysteries, the mysteries of being spirit in a human body. We may feel very
alone with this at times, and I know through my own direct experience that She
is always with us, whether we can feel Her or not.
I feel a deep
gratitude to and for our physical mothers. We have been through the
initiation process that we experienced as our own gestation and birth, for
her and for us, so that template of initiation is woven into our cells, our
nervous systems, our bodies, not just for birthing babies but for birthing
life, art, creations of all kinds, particularly consciousness. We are here to
birth consciousness through all of our creations. The process of initiation now is to re-member
and learn the practices for how to go through that imprinted process again and
again as Life (aka The Mystery) offers us powerful initiations in order to
birth increasingly awakened consciousness. The Call is to awaken to our
Essential Nature as the Mystery incarnate as you and me, to realize and give
forth the unique Gifts each of us is here to contribute to the planetary
awakening.
I feel deeply that being
a mother is a very difficult Karma. For me, it may be the most difficult karma
of this lifetime, all things considered. Unlike many initiations, i don't know
if they ever stop in the Mother neighborhood.
We don’t stop being mothers when the kids go off to college or grow up
and get jobs and have families of their own. The mother initiations continue,
they come and go as life does. I feel my kids have been, and continue to be my
fiercest gurus.
We can never do mothering
perfectly and many of us hope that we can or wish that we did. The love we feel
for our children is beyond words, and yet so is the heartbreak at times. Some
losses and griefs are small and some overwhelming, beyond anything we think we
can survive. Who knew it would be this way when we first looked into
those precious little faces and those tiny fingers wrapped around ours?
The more awake I am the
more I can see where I was not present or made choices then that would be so
very different now with what I know now. I hear mothers say this all the time,
and we grieve what we didn’t know then. At the same time I know that I and other
mothers didn't know what we didn't know back then, even if 'then' was 40 years
or five minutes ago. I am feeling in this moment how much pain and grief
around motherhood so many women feel for so many reasons, as well as the sense
of loss in women who grieve not having had children, and women who have
lost children in one way or another. It is a huge, timeless, collective
grief that we all share in some way. Our own mothers and grandmothers most
likely felt it in some ways, too. It comes with the territory, I think. Any
time we love we are guaranteed that there will be heartbreak of one sort or
another. Loving deeply is risky business.
We have to learn to have
compassion for ourselves and support each other in that, in being kind to
ourselves. We could only do what we did in any given moment. We
also have to consider that these souls who are our children came to us for
exactly what we had to give or not give. We were and we are fulfilling
our soul agreements and these agreements may not be or look like what our
thinking minds and loving mother-hearts like or want or wish they would be.
Somehow the love we have for our children can bear far more than we can imagine.
Both of my children have been fierce gurus teaching me to open to what is, and
be with what is, and keep my heart wide open. What a challenge to what I think I
can do and what I think my heart can bear. Every day i am at the beginning with this. This
is my central practice, it is the fire I must keep burning no matter what. My
limitless love for my children keeps my feet to this fire of staying open and
willing to be with what is, whatever it is. This teaching has infiltrated all
of my life and for that I am deeply grateful.
Our kids have their own
karma and we are totally helpless in the face of that. The most difficult
thing for me has been facing and feeling my helplessness with respect to my
kids, witnessing their trials and tribulations, their broken hearts, and their suffering.
It’s built into the mother love to want to help, to make the pain go away, to
protect our children from harm or heartbreak—and we cannot do it. We are not
able do it, nor is it for us to do past a certain age. I have learned from
teacher Byron Katie that there is my business, my kids’ business, and god’s/goddess’s
business. Learning where those boundaries are makes a huge difference in having
healthy relationships. And it is not always easy as a mother.
As a mother, I can also
say that I feel the ineffable joy in seeing them flourish, come forth with
their own unique radiance and their gifts. I weep every time my son sings,
whether in my living room, or listening to a recording, or seeing him be his
brilliance in a film. My heart breaks open, I weep with love beyond measure. It is the same when I feel the fullness and
radiance of my daughter’s love and presence, my heart breaks open with joy for
her birth and the incomprehensible Mystery that she embodies.
So, may your
Mother's day be a precious reminder of who She is, who your Mother is
(embodied or not), who you are, and how much love your children have awakened
in you!
I bow to all Mothers,
and the Mother of All. Jai Jai MA!!
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