A New Mothers' Day Metaphor

In this day and age the celebration of Jesus’s birth at Christmas is the most stressful time of year. That Christmas unleashes greed in the hearts of many, promotes a sense of less than in others, and undeniably taps into resources that could be left for the generations to come can no longer be denied; we celebrants are the walking talking evidence of our ignorance. After years of criticizing the season for all the above reasons and more, I did little to change the season. I slowly realized the energy I was feeding the Christmas parade was a critical polarizing energy that could only exacerbate the issue. Eventually I found ways (the Vessels of Peace were one way) and an attitude that allowed me to start making peace with the Christmas season.

This commitment to make peace and speak my truth brings me to this:
Mother’s Day hurts many people many ways. For me it used to hurt because I felt no sense of joy nor wish to celebrate my Mother or Grandmother. Eventually I refused to pay homage to my mother out of a sense of duty I didn’t feel. When I had children that shift of focus on Mothers Day went from my own mother to me making it easy to believe that the hurting part of Mothers Day was over.

I was wrong about that. Mother’s Day hurts again. As a young three times single mother there has rarely been a father around to say Happy Mothers Day. So it didn’t hurt as much while the boys were young and home, but using my sons as surrogates always smacked of incestuous energy that I was instinctively uncomfortable with.

My feeling that I deserved medals for every year of service as a young single mother is not reflected in the status quo version of Mothers Day. As I make that statement I can feel a part of me rising to the challenge and awarding those medals for service above and beyond the call of duty. As eldest sister to five siblings the mothering instinct in me was born, as single mother to three children that instinct was honed to a fine art. As a menopausal woman it is time to take my place with the wise ones, part of a cadre of women whose responsibility is Mothering in a larger societal sense. Aboriginal peoples long respected the Divine aspects of the feminine; it is my responsibility in those traditions to find ways of incorporating age old wisdom into practices that work for our day and time.

As a young mother I learned that what worked (within reason) to keep me happy is what would work to keep my little family happy. For me, a luxury like quiet in an ordinarily loud and boisterous household worked wonders for my happiness quotient. As a menopausal woman what works for me around Mother’s Day falls in line with the ideas and practices of a soul brother and internet found friend named Tim. Tim’s practice when referring to Deity is to say “Mother God” and when referring to nature She is “Mother Earth”. In fact, that habit was one of the many endearing characteristics about him that insured he would find a permanent spot in my heart. Now admittedly, many of the men I attracted into my young life did not respect feminine energy, much less the Divine Feminine. As I’ve matured and learned to love myself, so has my ability to recognize a man who respects and cherishes feminine energy. I met and married such a man four years ago, and yes, I’m bragging…after thirty years of bad choices, I’ve got bragging rights. I digress.

Through his everyday example of treating feminine energy reverently Tim has helped me identify a way to transform the single day a year called Mothers’ Day in a way that is simple, feels real, and has worked today as a healing balm. Our good Mother Earth will be my focus for future Mother’s Days, not I. I have a birthday every year that gets to be about celebrating me. Why should my Mother Earth be treated like a Johnny come lately on the declared holiday calendar? Mother Earth Day rolls off the tongue like a phrase waiting to morph unworkable concepts into a phrase that works for the good of the whole.

It was the Vessels of Peace teleconference this evening, which I joined late and feeling anything but peaceful that helped me finish this piece I’ve been writing all day. By the time I had finished my third out breathe of Peace, Om Shanti, Salom, Shalom the sense of dishevelment was replaced with that now familiar, I realized, powerful peace and quiet at the centre of my being. Twenty minutes later when the call was ending one woman spoke of Mother Earth asking to be held and rocked, another woman felt and saw an image of Mother Earth being hugged through the feet of the celebrants of this afternoons’ Grandmother gathering. An image of kissing the scars created by logging and development in the area another woman lived in was shared. I was reminded of the original vision I had of myself as a Doulas of Peace willing to serve for a nine month gestation period, taking the beautiful blue and green planet and putting Her underneath my shirt there to gestate. When, after the call I sat to finish this piece, these images coalesced with my make peace program around Mother’s Day issues and I found a workable focus…Mother Earth Day.


Eternal gratitude to all the people with whom I share this ever changing earth journey...as you can see...where would I be without you?