I was soaking in a hot~hot Jacuzzi bath one morning just before dawn when my husband came into the bathroom, groggy and without hearing aides. As often happens, I began chattering at him. When he motioned that he couldn’t hear, I raised my voice and said “I love you! Did you hear that?” He smiled and nodded. I then said, “Good! That’s the most important thing. Everything else is gravy.”
I don’t know if he heard that last part, but I heard that last part. And though I know you know it already, I want to remind you, too. Love IS the most important thing. All else is embellishment.
And what better time to celebrate love than on Mother’s Day. If you were fortunate, you have known love since before you knew anything else. Curled up safe in a womb, you had a mother who eagerly awaited your arrival, wanting nothing more than to delight in your presence. And when you finally erupted into the world, you would have been held in safe arms. As that embrace adjusted to your changing needs, you would also learn that love could be trusted as the secure, steady ground beneath life’s ups and downs.
But what if you weren’t so fortunate? What if your mother was absent or burdened with a wounded heart, and nothing you did in all your radiant infant, toddler and childhood glory could bring her back or heal her heavy heart? If that was your experience, love likely became confused, something to be mistrusted, perhaps even feared. And for you, dear one, Mother’s Day is a strange celebration.
Whether your experience fell on one side of the continuum or somewhere in the middle, there is another type of mothering that is available to us all, always. Sacred texts refer to God in the language and dominant metaphors of the time in which they were written. God is often described as a He or Him. A Lord, but never a Lady. But there is a feminine face of God as well. The fact that we may have to search for that face beneath the images, stories and themes piled atop it does not make it any less true.
We all know that God lies beyond our comprehension and cannot easily be crammed into human notions. God is neither male nor female, mother or father. And yet many of the attributes we ascribe to God lean toward our conception of the feminine. God as comforter. God as merciful. God as refuge. God as gracious. And yes, God as Love.
No matter our experience of earthly mothering, we can consciously open to these qualities. In fact, let’s do so now. And this short meditation can work for those who understand God primarily as Energy or, with a bit of finagling, for those who find the idea of any sort of God foreign to their natures.
Begin by positioning your body so it feels relaxed and supported. Become aware of life~giving breath as it enters and leaves your body. Pause in your reading of these words to follow this cycle of respiration for a few rounds.
Now imagine your breath moving directly into and out of your heart, that place most often associated with love. Feel or pretend you feel your heart filling… softening…opening.
And as this happens, imagine yourself connecting to a boundless Love, one that exists beyond the limits of your body or any sense of a separate self. Let that Love fill you. Let that Love expand you. Let that Love open you.
And let that Love heal whatever needs healing, comfort whatever needs comforting, and be a refuge when a refuge is needed. Continue breathing in this way for as long as you’d like.
On this Mother’s Day weekend, we honor those women who have given birth, raised children, and done their very best for their families during difficult times. And since channeling Love is not the exclusive purview of either sex and doesn’t require giving birth, we also honor all who nurture in other ways, especially those caring for others at their own risk during this pandemic.
Yet we can also honor the feminine aspect of God, that force which fills us with Love when we most need it...and thus sweeps us into a luminous stream, one that pours out freely and unceasingly into this crazy world of ours.
Love!
Leia
