"My task, which I am trying to achieve, is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel -- it is, before all, to make you see. That -- and no more, and it is everything." -- Joseph Conrad |
|
|
Home > Blog > Mothering Energy
Mothering Energy
Posted: May 9th, 2010 @ 11:45pm
Last night I attended my 15th year high school reunion. Growing up I went to a small, private, Quaker school; my graduating class had 43 students total and many of us remained together for 12 years. Thus, the experience of communing with old classmates is flavored with a strange poignancy that perhaps surpasses the ordinary nostalgia associated with such events.
Recently I discovered that “Alma Mater” actually means “Nourishing Mother”; apparently the term was also an epithet of certain goddesses. Interestingly, I have always credited Moorestown Friends with “mothering” me in some integral way in my formative years. There was something about the close-knit, familial community that felt oddly womb-like. No doubt there is a different kind of bond that develops among peers when that is the shared experience.
Of course, it can be easy to wax romantic from the cozy vantage point of retrospect. Certainly reunions are often imbued with one-upsmanship and baser desires -- like, for example, the hope that the class bully will be bald, fat, and alone. We want to “live well” so that we can show them. We’re human, after all.
By some wondrous stroke of grace, though, my reunion was devoid of any such flavor. In its place was a gentle, embracing energy that held us all and melted away any lingering remnants of recrimination and resentment. I felt genuine love for the people in that room; I truly wanted good things for them. And I sensed that goodness returned in kind.
Perhaps we all simply grew up. Or perhaps there was something about the nature of our early experiences together that enabled us to transcend the usual trappings of ego. Regardless, though, what I took away was that it was easy -- almost effortless, in fact -- to be gracious in an atmosphere of such unconditional acceptance. All these years later, that spirit was still alive.
So today is Mother’s Day and I find myself meditating on the importance of nurturance and love, which are, arguably, a mother’s greatest gifts. Even if we were not lucky enough to get this kind of nourishment from an actual mother, we can find it in a myriad of ways -- through friends, through family, through community, through art, through spirituality, through creation, through the Earth.
This yin, or receptive, feminine energy is what is sorely needed to heal the planet in these volatile times. If my experience last night was emblematic (in a microcosmic sense, granted!) of what happens when we dare to disarm our defenses, then I do believe that a different way of being and relating is possible.
In the spirit of the such a vision, I invite you to take the time needed to really nurture yourself this month. Create. Cook. Attend a workshop. Get a massage. Reconnect with an old friend. Do whatever it is that will nourish you on a soul level so that you can radiate that luminous energy outward.
Go gently.
|
|
|
