TGIF
Many of us think of images like the one above for Mother’s Day, due moreso to Hallmark and talented photographers like my late husband than to personal experience. And as with fairy tales, that’s the projected image we aspire to per the media and societal conditioning. As the mother of two children and grandmother of six (combined families), I can attest it sometimes looks like this, but mostly not so much.
Yet something that is captured in the above photo is the essence of motherhood: Love.
And I like to think Mother’s Day is about celebrating love, creation, and oneness.
I know not everyone is blessed with idyllic memories of a natural birth-mother’s love. Some received love from a relative or adoptive mother, and some grew up without feeling maternal love at all.
But love IS all around us and its source is the Cosmic Mother, the Divine Feminine…the Mother of them all, the Divine Creatrix. She is not a religious figure; she is the birther of the Universe.
From Meggan Watterson’s The Divine Feminine Oracle:
“The cosmic egg is the core symbol of the divine feminine’s creative force. It is a spiritual motif found in the creation myths of countless cultures and civilizations. It represents a birth, a new beginning, or an expansion of life.”
According to Watterson, a feminist theologian who has a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, the symbolism of the womb and egg appears in texts as early as the Rig Veda and is prominent throughout Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, and Polynesian mythologies. In the Christian tradition, Mary Magdalene used the egg to describe how life begins again after death.
From a scientific view, Watterson notes:
“In modern cosmology, it is believed that 13 billion years ago the entire mass of the universe was compressed in a gravitational singularity, the so-called cosmic egg. And from that singularity, the universe has expanded ever since to its current state and continues in this manner to expand even further.”
And that is how we are all one big cosmic family. Whether we lived the Hallmark version of family life, or Mommy Dearest (or more likely, somewhere in-between), we are all children of the Divine Cosmic Mother and we have her to thank for not only our existence, but the existence of all.
How to celebrate and honor our mothers (or mother figures)? Honor Mother Earth and your mom with an activity outside, give eco-friendly gifts, and call midweek to say, “I love you,” throughout the year to show you mean it.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who nurture life in all its forms. I love you.
Until next time… My best, Shelley
P.S. While we’re on the topic of showing love, love-offering donations are accepted and appreciated by this mama.
Celebrating the Cosmic Egg
Happy Mother's Day to you dear Shelley.