The Power of Story: Mother's Day
We Should Celebrate Mother's Day Every Day.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau %281825-1905%29 - Charity %281878%29.
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Mothers!
Is there a more complex figure in life and within our psyches then that of our mother? We come from her and yet we are pushed to distance ourselves from her to achieve our individuality. Sometimes it feels like a duty to love her; sometimes we look at what she's doing and our hearts swell with love. She wants our respect and often doesn't get it, perhaps because she can't control her need to help shape us up. If we're lucky, she shares the wisdom she's gleaned from living her life. Often we don't listen.
Moms carry the load of everyday, physical life, often without thanks or acknowledgment. Moms carry the load of psychological wounding - did she know how to handle our emotional life, especially if she didn't know how to handle her own? Really, do you know anyone here in the US (especially in the older generations) who doesn't have a negative mother complex? Mothers are the source of joy, of love, of pain, of embarrassment, of anger, of life and death. Mothers slay us and heal us. Mothers support us and destroy us. Mothers feed us and deny us nourishment. Mothers comfort us when we're upset or upset us when we just want calm.
Patriarchy celebrates mothers as pure and beloved but gives us little real respect. Just as our masculine, left brain rational culture makes use of the feminine, right brain imagination but doesn't respect it for its true purpose - to connect us to our souls - it also doesn't acknowledge and value our mother-wisdom in its decision-making. Without respect for our power to create life, patriarchy forces women to become mothers, whether they want to or not. Are women mothers or breeders? From what's happening in the US at the moment, breeding seems to be taking precedence over real motherhood, since a growing body (soulless yet) gets more protection than a living mother.
How can a woman be the image of God, seeing she
is subject to man and has no authority,
neither to teach, nor to bear witness, nor to judge,
much less to rule or bear empire!
St. Augustine (354-430)
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