On Mothers and Beyond

Tags

celebration, healing, mothersday, not hers, spiritual practice

If you live in North America, you are most probably well aware of the significance of the Mother’s Day holiday, which falls on the second Sunday of May (May 8 2022). To be honest, despite living in the US since 1986, I wasn’t much aware of this holiday until about 2010. My awareness probably coincided with my becoming a parent myself!

Over the years of hosting Spiritchat on Mother’s Day, my awareness of the role of Mothers, and the range of emotions that this holiday evokes, has grown tremendously. I used to wear magenta-colored glasses (my birth Mom’s favorite color!) about the all-loving role of Mothers towards their children, and about children towards their mothers. The people of Spiritchat have taught me that there can be a lot more to the Mother-child relationship than the predominance of love and joy.

I am grateful for the education. The truth is that there are many who have never felt the love of a birth mother, and had to find the ‘Mother’ role in another female, or sometimes, male figure in their lives. I have learn that, yes, the ‘Mother’ and mothering role can extend to aunts, sisters, grandmothers, teachers, and sometimes even to neighbors, nannies and maids.

I have also learnt that all too often, there is very little education and training of ‘how to be a mother’, particularly in a society where the majority of households are a ‘nuclear family’. Where does a new birth-mother find good role-models, particularly if their own experiences with their birth-mothers have been filled with pain, anxiety, lack of warmth, and more? How do we break this cycle of ‘mother-child dysfunction’ if we want to have a good chance to raise thriving future generations?

We often jest that there is no ‘guidebook’ to parenting – you are supposed to learn as you go! While that may have some truth to it, we can do better. What if we were to raise the value of the role of the ‘Mothers’ significantly higher than what we currently assess it at? We can debate about the ‘how’ of doing this, but unless we know the ‘why’ to do it, we won’t get out of the starting gate, will we? One small thing we all can do, and it doesn’t incur much cost, is to educate ourselves about the current contributions of those in Mother roles in our societies.

Here are some numbers for the USA. There are an estimated 85 million mothers in the US. In 40% of households, Moms are the sole or primary income earners. 80% of single parents in the US are mothers. 56% of working mothers have children under the age of 18. Hopefully, these statistics give us an idea of the extent of the contribution of Mothers to US society. What do the numbers in your country look like?

I know that I am far out in left-field from what I had initially intended for this post to be about. But, as often happens, the heart’s current is driving my fingers as I type, and so, here it is. Mothers Day. A day for remembrance, for healing and forgiveness, for awareness, for empathy that will create compassion which will translate into action. What will we do and/or be as individuals, as societies, as the world, between this Mothers Day and the next one? That is the question I am considering. How about you?

Will we be inclusive and have loving understanding of those who aren’t Mothers, and may choose not to be one? Will we pause for a moment and send love to the Mothers of the disappeared and the ones who lost their Mother figures over the last year, so that they can heal and hope? Will we give thanks to the Universal Mother whose grace and abundance flows to us constantly, whose kind gaze soothes us like the coolness of the moon, and whose loving light warms us in every sunrise and sunset? What else can we celebrate about those without whom love and life itself would not be possible, in this, our temporary home of a physical body, as we walk our path towards our permanent abode?

Thank you, to all my Moms. I am fortunate to have had many who filled that role, and continue to do so. My gratitude for all of them knows no bounds. Namaste.

Kumud

P.S. This was supposed to be a short post. Oh well! Do join us for our weekly twitter chat with the #Spiritchat community, Sunday May 8 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India. If you would, bring a memory of your Mom (or your kids if you are a Mom :)) to share. I will bring some tea and cookies, and maybe a question or few 🙂 – @AjmaniK

Mother Nature… grateful for her omnipresence

On Mothers and Perspectives

Tags

caregiving, divine, fostering, mothers, mothersday, perspective, universality

How can I write about a Mother’s perspective when I am not one according to the world’s definition? One way to attempt it is to write from my viewpoint as a child of a mother. Another way to write about it is through listening, watching and observing the Mothers around me. Yet another way is to consider the varied qualities and roles that ‘Mothers’ play in the world. Let me dive in and try a blend of all of the above.

The biological mother is the physical reason for our being, the conveyor of our existence. All of us have a connection to her through blood, tissue, genetics, and in most cases, nurture and nutrition. From a woman’s perspective, becoming a mother (or wanting to be one) requires a complex investment of physical, emotional, mental and financial energy. My own mother told me the stories of her challenges of getting married at nineteen, and then almost dying while giving birth to my older brother within a year. I often wonder – how would have her life been different if she hadn’t been handed the Mother role at that age? Yes, her three children were her great pride and joy, and yet the way she talked about her dreams, I sometimes wonder – what more could she have accomplished in life if she had had more ‘freedom’ in her role? Do you ever wonder the same about your biological mother?

There are many whose lives have had little influence of their biological mothers. For them, grandparents, fathers, foster parents and even teachers, may have taken over the traditional ‘mother’ role of nurturing, caring and loving. What is the perspective of those children and their ‘mothers’? I happened to stumble upon this perspective through my neighbor’s writing this week. It is titled “The Strength of Surrender” – I invite you to read her powerful story where she says that ‘Courage is a Mother’s first name’. Yes, the perspective of courage can often be overlooked by those who have lived through an ‘ideal’ upbringing – if there is even such a thing as ‘ideal’.

Yet another perspective on Mothers and children is that if the “Universal Mother”. I often refer to “Mother Earth” or “Gaia” as the one that provides unlimited and unconditional love and caring to humans, animals and plants alike. Mother Earth’s various energies manifest in diverse ways, recognizing and filling the needs of growth, development and healing for all her beings. The Universal Mother evokes a perspective of deep gratitude within me – what m’a your perspective on her?

The fourth perspective I would like to present for your consideration is that of the Divine Mother. For me, She represents the ultimate ‘safe harbor’, the ever available giver of warmth, understanding and forgiveness, the fountainhead showering constant love, and the firmament of grace and protection for her beloved children. Every instance of remembrance of such a Divine Mother has the tendency to fill me with light, lightness and joy. How about you? Do you have a similar perspective about her existence, her presence in your life?

I realize that I may not have covered all the perspectives of Mothers today. In fact, it isn’t possible to do so. There are those for whom the Mother perspective is that of pain, suffering, estrangement and more. There are those who have lost a Mother, and Mothers who may have lost children recently. There are those…

My hope and prayer is that whatever your perspective on Mothers may be, may it in some way eventually help you walk towards more love, more light, more healing and more living.

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly chat, Sunday May 9 at 9am ET / 630pm India with the #SpiritChat family on Twitter. I will bring some of my Mom’s favorite chai and snacks – @AjmaniK

On Mothers and Struggles

Tags

celebration, healing, mothers, mothersday, spirituality

Towards the end of my daughter’s middle-school’s performance of the Lion King, Simba (the heir apparent to his deceased father’s throne) is asked the question by his Mother: “Are you responsible for your father’s death? Did you murder him?”

Simba struggles to answer, as he was indeed present when his father was killed in an “accident” as a result of a plot hatched by his father’s brother. Simba, who was a young child at the time, has just returned from years in self-imposed exile, because he felt guilty about causing his father’s death.

I did not pay attention to Simba’s answer (because I already knew that he was innocent). However, what caught my awareness was the angst that his Mother must have felt when even asking that question of her son whom she hadn’t seen in many years. It is difficult to imagine the struggle of a mother grieving the loss of her husband (who was dead) and her son (who was presumed dead), now wondering if the son killed his father…

The very word “Mother” evokes strong emotions in many of us – whether we are in that role ourselves, or whether we have relationships with those in that role. No matter our response to that word, it can rarely be denied that the struggles of Mothers have always been, and continue to be real. As children, we often tend to be unaware of their struggles, the juggling acts of the many roles performed by our Mothers (or those who played those roles in our lives).

Over the past few years, I have often asked some questions about the potential challenges that my many Mothers may have faced in their lives. What were their dreams when they were in middle-school? What kind of encouragement (or lack of it) did they face when they shared their dreams with their parents? Were they treated fairly at home and at school and after their marriage? What became of their aspirations and what are the real stories of their lives? How has technology changed the struggles of today’s mothers and children? How do the dreams and struggles of our Mothers affect our (spiritual) identity?

The answers to many of these questions about my Mothers’ struggles are lost to time. Fragments of these questions were answered in my Mothers’ many past letters to me, and in the stories that my Mothers’ mothers told me about them. However, many of the answers are revealed in the very current struggles of those who are being Mothers to others, right in front of our eyes. The generations may be new, but, as it has been said – a Mother’s work (and struggle) is rarely finished.

Mother’s Day can be a call to raising awareness – to be empathetic to Mothers’ (and childrens’) struggles, to listen to their dreams and aspirations, to encourage them to tell their stories, and to give them time to celebrate their victories. Mother’s Day can also be a celebration to allow our Universal Mother to ask the toughest of questions of us, her beloved children – we can answer by sharing our struggles, our dreams, our aspirations, with her.

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join us Sunday May 12 at 9amET / 630pm India for our weekly twitter chat. I will bring fresh brewed tea and flowers… you can bring some stories and recipes to share – Namaste. Kumud

Spring – when the trees spread their flowers in welcome to every passer-by…

On Divine Mother(s)

Tags

divinity, energy, mothers, mothersday

Mother’s Day has often made for some very interesting chats in #SpiritChat on Twitter. I learnt while hosting my first such #MothersDay chat that, the very word, Mother, brings forth a range of very conflicting emotions in many – some of which can even evoke pain, fear and angst.

So, this year, I decided to adopt a different focus as related to the word, Mother. In Indian (spiritual) culture, particularly the Vedic (or Hindu) culture that I grew up in, there is a very powerful and prevalent concept of a “Divine Mother”. The three main manifestations of this concept are – the protector (Durga, or the fierce form), the benefactor (Lakshmi, or the prosperity form), and the educator (Saraswati, or the ‘easily flowing in speech’ form).

One would be hard pressed to walk into any Hindu home or place of worship without encountering one of these three forms of the Divine Mother – often referred to with the simple word, Devi. There are dozens of festivals dedicated to celebrate their various accomplishments and invoke their grace. There is scarcely any Vedic service that is complete without chanting and extolling that Devi whose energy flows through the Sun – she who is called Gayatri (another form of Saraswati).

 

I would not want you to infer that all of these forms of the Divine Mother imply a multiplicity of Mothers… for every child can only have One (birth) Mother, yes? And so it is with the Oneness of the core spiritual energy that flows through all the forms of Devi. For the nature of the water that is inherently pure, does not change based on the vessel within which it is contained, does it? We simply ascribe different qualities to the One, so that we can best relate to That form of the Divine Mother which best nourishes our heart and soul.

Let us pause and consider. If we were to choose one of the three – protector, benefactor or educator – which Divine Mother would we most relate to? Which form best nourishes our heart? What is our relationship with her like? How has that relationship changed over time and space? Are there any other qualities that distinguish our vision of a Divine Mother?

The Indian saint, Ramakrishna Parmahansa was said to have achieved enlightenment through his devotion to Kali (the really fierce form of Durga). He would often exclaim – “…why would I ever fear, when I have (Divine) Mother by my side all the time?”

Perhaps, some day, we can claim and exclaim the same, as our relationship with our (Divine) Mother, unfolds to that state. That, indeed, will be a Divine Mother’s Day to celebrate!

 

Kumud

P.S. Join the #SpiritChat community on Twitter, Sunday, May 13th at 9amET / 630pmIST. Share with us about your Divine #Mother(s). Namaste. (And for those interested in more on Devi, check out my ‘other’ blog at http://blog.eaglespace.com/tag/goddess 🙂 )

 

Keeper Of Our Stories

Tags

mothers, mothersday, spiritual practice, stories

Swami Tyagananda, the head monk of the Vedanta Society of Boston was our invited guest speaker for the third Foundation Day celebration of the Vedanta Society of Cleveland this weekend. His two lectures were titled “Do you remember?” (Friday) and “Keeper of our Stories” (Saturday). While I will share more about the ‘remembrance’ lecture at a later date, I will share a few thoughts on today’s talk.

In most cases, if we want to truly learn about the childhood of a friend or family member, it is best to ask their mother(s), yes? The mother is one individual who is a natural ‘keeper of our stories’. Their memory bank is full of our stumbles, our successes, our natural preferences our aptitudes, and much more. And they have a plethora of stories connected with the many phases of our life.

It is not necessary that the mother, the ‘keeper of stories’, be the birth mother. Indeed, in many cases, this is not the case. In many cases, the ‘keeper’ may initially be the birth mother, but then transition to a different ‘mother’ or even a ‘father’ at some stage in our lives. If were are truly fortunate, there may even be multiple ‘story keepers’ of our lives.

What may be important for our mental and spiritual health is to ask the ‘keeper’, at some stage in our lives, to tell us our own stories. It can create many wonderful moments of awareness, growth and add depth to relationships. Story-telling and listening can begin with as simple a question as – tell me a story about when I was in middle school? Do it sooner than later, because once the keeper’s gone, the stories will go with them…

There comes a stage in our lives when we, the children, have an opportunity to become ‘keepers of our parents stories’. A decade ago, on a trip to India, I happened to ‘interview’ my mother’s mother about the stories of her childhood, and my mother’s childhood. Grandma was a wonderful story-teller! As a result, that forty-five minute video has become one of the most cherished records in the family vault.

When our parents enter their second childhood, we have yet another opportunity to become ‘story keepers’. It gives us an opportunity to wonder – what were our mothers (or fathers) really like as children? How much do we know about their dreams, fears, best friends, food and clothing preferences when they were in kindergarten? In middle school? In high school? And so on…

The Swami extended a dual invitation to us today – to learn about our stories from those who keep them for us, and to become the keeper of stories of those who once kept ours. I share that invitation with you. Share some stories. Be a keeper and a giver. It’s a great way to celebrate life.

Kumud @AjmaniK

Join our weekly twitter chat held Sunday May 14th, 2017 with the #SpiritChat community. Bring your stories to share about your childhood, and the ones who kept them. Namaste.

The Keeper of (my) Stories…

Mothers, Levity and Laughter

Tags

laughter, levity, motherhood, mothers, mothersday

For many adults, the connection of mothers and motherhood to levity and laughter is not easy to find. In the complexity and gravity of the mother-child relationships, the lighter side often gets obscured, if not lost. But, if we dig a bit deeper into our awareness, the flower-seeds of our mother’s laughter is indeed to be discovered. We may have to go back to our mother’s childhood, as is revealed in the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore:

“Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?“ the baby asked its mother.

She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast —

You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.

You were in the dolls of my childhood’s games;

In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived.

In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages.

When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it.

Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise.

Heaven’s first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world’s life, and at last you have stranded on my heart.

As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine.

– Rabindranath Tagore in The Crescent Moon

So, what if we were to go back to the moment when our mother was born. To imagine her as a young toddler, learning to walk, full of life and laughter and play. To think of her as a teenager trying to find her place in the world, with all the hopes and dreams that come with being ‘oh so young’ and naive. What if we were to think of her as she experienced her first ‘falling in and love’ and her ‘first heart-break’? Were her fears and hopes and prayers that much different than what we have for those that we ourselves hold dear to our heart? Surely, she laughed and cried and walked barefoot in the grass and smiled the same way at the first onset of spring’s flowers as we do today.

But then, something changed when the spirit of That girl started feeling the effects of the added responsibilities of life – and That spirit full of life and laughter, of defying gravity, of wearing flowers in her hair and singing like nobody was listening, of dancing in the first monsoon rain like nobody was watching – got buried somewhere deep under the weight of that single word. Mother. For not every girl is adequately equipped to treat that word with levity and unbridled joy.

And how do I know that all of this levity and laughter was within Her all along? I know it from the sparkle in her tone when she would ask me about her granddaughter during our weekly phone calls. I know it from the friends that she used to ‘card-shark’ during her weekly games of gin-rummy (yes, they told me all about it – your secret is out, Mom :)). I know it from her delight in eating fresh strawberries and chikki on our day trips into the local mountain resorts of Mahableshwar and Khandala. I know it from the stories they – my birth mother and her sister who raised me – shared about their childhood days in Lahore and Chandni Chowk…

The gravity and responsibility that surrounds ‘motherhood’ often forms many an opaque layer that hides the levity and laughter of the girls and boys (their surely are many fathers in ‘mother’ roles). Maybe it is up to us to poke some holes in these layers and shine a different, lighter light through them. If we still have the opportunity, we can invite our mothers to tell us some of their ‘young girl’ stories… and tell them some of ours.

For, in every new story told, like every new spring rain, lies the potential for new seeds of love and laughter to grow.

Thank you Mom, for telling me some of your stories. I can pass on your childhood pranks to your granddaughter 🙂

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join us Sunday, May 8th 2016 at 9amET(USA)/1pmUTC for our weekly twitter chat in #SpiritChat – bring some light-hearted stories about your mother. If you are a ‘mother’, bring some light-hearted stories about your motherhood. Thank you, and enjoy the flowers 🙂

A beautiful, related post, full of light and levity – by @LisaLKahn – My Mother’s Sanctuary

Spirituality and Mothers

Tags

motherhood, mothers, mothersday, spiritchat, spirituality

For those of us who have had the good fortune of experiencing positive, loving relationships with our mothers (including those who played maternal roles for us), the word “mother” brings up warm, loving, nourishing feelings. As one who has had many such maternal influences in my life, I am one of those fortunate ones. The spiritual influence of mothers in my life is unmistakable – my birth mother, the mother who raised me for fourteen years, all the way through past high school and in my undergraduate years, and the various other aunts and grandmothers who were (and remain) an integral part of my life.

In addition to the “mothers of relation”, I have had meetings with “spiritual mothers”. My recent meeting with Mother Meera had a deep impact on me, and the positive energy and vibrations transmitted during that meeting still lingers within. Multiple meetings and meditation retreats with Mother Karunamayi, have had a wonderful positive impact in furthering me on the spiritual path. The various festivals in Hinduism that honor, celebrate and venerate the “Mother Godess(es)”, some of them lasting for a week or more at a time, serve to nourish and grow the faith seeds of the “divine Mother” planted early on in childhood.

So, in this background and context, one may say that I mostly wear “rose-colored glasses” when it comes to viewing Mothers in general. However, as has been made abundantly and painfully clear to me in #SpiritChat conversations in previous #MothersDay chats, there are many who associate this single word, Mother, with fear, anger, hurt, trepidation and disappointment. Their heart and spirit bears the scars of hurt and pain from inappropriate and/or inadequate experiences with their maternal influencers. Some of them have had the courage to overcome, but some of them continue to struggle to forgive and/or overcome the hurt and pain. In addition, there are many mothers who have borne the pain of bereeavement – the loss of a child.

One aspect that was pointed out to me during previous #SpiritChats on #MothersDay (May 2014, May 2013, May 2012) – the notion of maternal influence is not based to a particular gender, or even age. Very often, fathers end up playing the roles of mothers, and young children may play mothering roles to their younger siblings. For those of us who are taking care of older parents, some of us find ourselves “mothering our mothers”! So, it is apparent that in our fast changing and fast paced world, the notion of “being a mother” is indeed fluid, and rapidly changing.

Why does the word ‘mother’ invoke such strong emotions in many of us? What role(s) come to your mind, when you think of the word “Mother”? On balance, what has been the (spiritual) impact of your maternal influencers on your life so far? How may mothers and children help each other in the healing process? If you were to “write a letter” to future mothers from the perspective of a child, what would you say?

In closing, I invite you, to reflect on the idea, the notion, the spirit of Mothers and Motherhood – how has it affected you, how does the effect transmit through you to others, and more. Please share your thoughts in a blog post, in the comments here, or in our live twitter chat in #SpiritChat on Sunday, May 10th at 9amET/1pmUTC (#MothersDay in the USA).

Namaste,

Kumud