Mother’s Day is here, the day we honour our mothers, who nurtured us all our lives with selfless love, care and inclusion. Yet this mother’s day, let us also contemplate the force beyond the mother we know, or attributing it to women alone, and celebrate the innate force of the feminine within each one of us that manifests as compassion, inclusion and nurturance.
Early cultures from around the world venerated the divine feminine, and honoured women as intrinsically entwined with the energy of life, including the cycle of birth, growth and death. Women by the gift of nature may be inclined to include another life as part of themselves much more effortlessly. But mothers are not just women who birth children alone, mothers are the hands that rock the cradles that can change the world. Irrespective of being a man or woman, a mother would then mean someone who can embrace another life (no matter what the form) as their own.
Irrespective of being a man or a woman a mother is someone who can embrace another life as his or her own.
In the Indian culture, the different forms of the divine feminine or Shakti have been addressed in a plethora of scriptures, poetry and hymns as, ‘The Mother’ or ‘Amman’ or ‘Matha’ or ‘Maa’. In this sense, She is more than just the mother earth or an archetype or ideal. She is the source of all energy, the Shakti that is alive within us. She is a force that is both life giving and is life. She is all the threads of our interconnection, like Grandmother Spider of the Native Americans who weaves her web of existence. And we are all a part of the Divine Feminine.
Shakti is that which unfolds as the feminine experience within us that manifests as love, care, gentleness and creative expression.
In this sense, it is also the supportive, nurturing side of us that shows up when someone feels heartbroken or sad, when a neighbor or even a stranger needs a helping hand or when with a firm hand but a gentle heart we do what is needed for someone or something we care about.
So being a mother for some means giving birth to a child and to some others it means nurturing and parenting a child. To some it is about nurturing, loving, caring for and guiding others who haven’t come through them, but who really need them.
The world requires all the ways we can mother others.
Celebrating Mother’s Day the way we do today might be a modern concept but it is a wonderful opportunity to also honour all women — and men — in venerating the feminine within us. Celebrate the woman or man who has offered those motherly traits over the years. Give her or him a phone call, express an appreciation for their presence in your life. If they have passed away, remember the beautiful memories of being together and see how you can make a positive difference to another life the same way. We must create a deeper awareness by reminding ourselves that everyday must be dedicated to honouring the mother in the life around us.
Everyday we can slowly unfold the beauty of this innate force of Adishakti that manifests as motherhood in our lives.
Painting by Sonali Chaudhari and Cover image by Andreas Wohlfahrt
