Mother's Day Reflections: Jeanette Mayo
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“DOE and dear” (Jeanette Mayo - fotojeanettic on instagram)
Hot on the heels of Earth Day, it's that time of year for a nod to mothers. Whether we became one or not, we ALL had mothers, regardless of our experiences with them or because of them. It's a hard, complex and layered day for many of us. It's a day I like to be out with Mother Earth, from whom I have felt the most "mothering" over my life, and where I love to observe the seasonal rituals of creatures caring for their offspring. Sometimes, sadly, that care involves loss.
Mothering always involves loss of some sort, right? Maybe that's why it's so vulnerable. And fleshy. And why that vulnerability can feel like a meeting place with God.
“cozy honklinGs” (Jeanette Mayo - fotojeanettic on instagram)
This new book caught my eye recently. I love it for the wider perspective of a "mothering orientation," which anyone can have/show/act from. Inclusivity. It takes a village of mothers to save our planet. The author is writing about mothering children during a rapidly changing world, which is an unfortunate but very real part of the equation nowadays. Creature mothers face the same alarming changes.
I love the prompt at the end of the excerpt below as something we can all consider, no matter the day: What is a mothering orientation and practice during a time of uncertainty?
“I don’t believe there is any cure for our anguish that will stop our present downfall; but I do believe there is a cure.
The cure, the healing, is that which will bring us back into a deep, loving, entwined relationship with the living world. And this, I believe, is the work of mothering.
By “mother” I do not mean the noun that refers to females with a uterus and children. I mean everyone—of any gender, any age, any species. I mean people, trees, robins, and rivers. As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass, “A good mother … [knows] that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of life’s beings can flourish.” I mean “mother” as a verb, and “mothering” as the good work of being in service to “all of life’s beings.”
I don’t pretend to know what the future will look like. But I believe that, more than anything, the apocalypse will need mothers.
What is a mothering orientation and practice in a time of great uncertainty? There is no one answer of course. There are spaces of stillness and silence. There is the annual flood of nutrients that washes over the riverbank and into thirsty wetlands. There is ritual and ceremony. There is the spider who carries her hatchlings on her back. There is listening… ”
