Motherhood

With mother’s day being this weekend in Australia (and in some other parts of the world), I write to celebrate mothers worldwide.

This photo represents a part of my own experience of motherhood. There is also my role as a mother myself now, to my beautiful young daughter, Elena. But this photo represents the generations who have taught me since my own birth about motherhood and the power of the feminine.

It is hard to believe that this occasion in the photo was almost 20 years ago. We were celebrating my mother’s 60th birthday at the time. Mum’s mum, my gran, was already into her nineties and was to pass less than a year later. Despite how fragile she appears, the inner strength that Gran taught by natural example has shaped me enormously my whole life.

When she was only 13, her mother died. Gran was the oldest of 11 children, so left school to raise all of her younger siblings. She then went on to raise seven of her own, including my dear mum. Gran was an incredibly stubborn, resilient woman, with amazing yet simply stated wisdom. Her philosophies helped her accept the many changes she witnessed in society throughout her lifetime. She was also built strong, despite being under five feet tall. I can still see her riding a horse on our farm when she was in her seventies. Gran’s fierce spirit taught me a level of inner strength that I’ve had to call on often during my own life’s lessons.

My mum, despite many long challenges in her lifetime, is the most positive, spirited woman I’ve ever known. She can make a whole room laugh, with her delightful wit and joyful attitude. Mum’s wisdom, also often given in compact form, is a healing, soothing balm, mending anything back to a place of making sense again. Although there were many times when she didn’t understand my choices, she always did her best to allow her love to shine brighter than her fears for me.

We continue to play the roles of mother and daughter with each other, but are now close friends too – two women who confide easily in each other on all aspects of life. I am forever grateful that she is my mum. There is no word in our language that actually encapsulates the love and respect I feel for her.

Being immensely blessed to conceive easily in my mid-forties and become a mother myself has now become my greatest experience of motherhood. Every single day far surpasses anything I could have imagined before becoming a mother. That includes the challenges, the exhaustion, the depth of love possible, and the tears of joy. I still find myself astounded at times that the dear little girl calling meMummy is actually talking to me, or giggling with me, or looking to my own embrace to soothe her. Never could I imagine that motherhood would teach and bless me with so much.

So I celebrate motherhood as I know it in this way, but also on a global level. I give thanks to women everywhere who have borne the pain of motherhood in its many forms, who have raised the consciousness of the feminine through their own individual expression of it, and who have bonded through the sisterhood of suffering and joy.

I also give thanks to those women whose soul’s journey has not included the role of bearing children. They too are a part of the feminine mother. The influence of such women on my own life and now my daughter’s only reinforces this. All women have a role to play in the unification and evolution of the feminine.

Included in this gratitude, respect, and soul love are all of the women of my ancestral family and from our global family too. If it were not for the courage and wisdom of the women before us, from ancient times to modern day, it would be easy to lose touch with our feminine essence in a society long out of touch with the values of wholesome love, the role of the mother, and of sisterhood as unification.

And of course, we cannot forget to thank the most incredible mother in our physical world: Mother Earth. She nurtures, provides, forgives, and continues to love us with all she has, despite our shockingly lost ways and behaviour. On a daily basis she continues to teach through her loving example. It is with immense reverence that tears of gratitude accompany my love for her.

So whether you are a woman, or man, or identify as something in between, let us give thanks for the women who have shaped us in the most positive ways. Even those who may have caused more hurt than happiness, due to their own suffering or our own, let us feel gratitude towards them. They have acted as a catalyst for potential growth and are a part of our soul family.

I give thanks for all women and men in my life. But on this occasion of Mother’s Day weekend, I especially celebrate all that is feminine within us.

Thank you to mothers everywhere (and to every woman). May we connect through the divine feminine essence within us all. And may we always be courageous enough to express our nurturing through the most natural way we feel, not as the world may try to dictate. It is through this love that the world will heal.